■III. 


PAINTED    BY   SIR  J.RErNOUJS.    ENGRAVED  HI"  W.E.TD'CKKR. 
Pub"  by  T  Wardle.  fluladelplia  1831. 


IMIU.A  I)  KI.IMIIA  PUBLISHED  BT  I  W'AKIH.K 


THE 

HISTORY 

OF 

THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 

OF  THE 

ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


F.Y 

ADAM  FERGUSON,  LL.  D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  EDINBURGH 


Complete  in  one  TJoiume. 


PHILADELPHIA  : 
THOMAS  WARDLE;  No.  15  MINOR  STREET. 

STEREOTYPED  BY  L.  JOHNSON. 

184  1. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/historyofprogresOOferg 


TO  THE  KING. 


SIR, 

The  history  of  the  Romans,  collected  from  the  remains  of  ancient  authors, 
has  been  often  written  in  the  different  languages  of  Europe.  But  a  rela- 
tion worthy  of  the  subject,  simple  and  unambitious  of  ornament,  containing 
in  the  parts  a  useful  detail,  and  in  the  whole  a  just  representation,  of  the 
military  conduct  and  political  experience  of  that  people,  appeared  to  me 
to  be  still  wanting. 

Having  earnestly  endeavoured  to  supply  this  defect,  at  least  in  what 
relates  to  the  later  times  of  the  Republic,  the  intention,  I  hope,  joined  to 
the  importance  of  the  matter,  will  justify  my  humble  desire  to  inscribe  this 
performance  to  your  Majesty. 

I  am,  with  the  most  profound  respect, 

Sir,  Your  Majesty's  most  faithful  Subject,  and 
Most  obedient  humble  Servant, 

ADAM  FERGUSON. 

Edinburgh,  ) 
February  1,  1783.    \  3 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  reader  will  be  pleased  to  observe,  with  respect  to  the  geographical 
names  used  in  the  following  history,  that  the  author  has  endeavoured  to 
conform  himself  to  common  practice.  This  is  so  various  as  not  to  admit  of 
any  general  rule.  Rome,  Athens,  Italy,  and  Greece,  are  used  for  Roma, 
Athena,  Italia,  et  Grecia ;  but  France,  Hungary,  and  Savoy,  are  not  used  for 
Gaul,  Panonia,  or  the  Allobroges.  Cities  and  races  of  men  have  changed 
so  much,  that  we  cannot  employ  modern  names  in  speaking  of  the  ancients, 
except  where  custom  absolutely  requires  it.  But  the  natural  features  of 
the  earth,  as  rivers,  seas,  and  mountains,  being  unchanged,  are  expressed 
by  the  modern  name,  except  where  they  are  better  known  by  their  ancient 
appellations,  as  in  the  Geography  of  Greece,  Asia,  and  Africa.  This  mix- 
ture of  ancient  and  modern  language  may  appear  exceptionable,  especially 
in  the  Maps ;  but  it  is  hoped  that  the  general  intention,  to  render  the  sub- 
ject as  clear  as  possible,  will  be  an  excuse  for  any  particular  difference  of 
opinion  in  the  choice  of  names. 
4 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

CHAP.  I. 

The  Subject — Supposed  origin  of  the  Roman  State 
—Its  Government— The  King— Senate— People 
—  Curias— Centuries— Tribes— Religion— The 
Triumph — Originial  Maxims — Progress  of  the 
State  under  its  Kings — Change  to  a  Republic 
  .      .      Page  9 

CHAP.  II. 

Form  of  the  Republic — Dissension  of  Parties — First 
Dictator — Secession  of  the  Plebeians — Tribunes 
of  the  People — Their  Objects — Distribution  of 
Corn — Division  of  Lands — Prelensious  of  the 
Plebeians — Commission  to  compile  Laws — De- 
cemvirs—  Twelve  Tables  —  Intermarriage  of 
Ranks — Claim  of  the  Plebeians  to  the  Consulate 
— Military  or  Consular  Tribunes — Censors — 
^Ediles — Pmefectus  Annonae — Fortune  of  the  Re- 
public— Reduction  of  Veiue — Destruction  cfRome 
by  the  Gauls — Rebuilding  of  the  City        .  14 

CHAP.  III. 

Scene  of  foreign  War  and  domestic  Dispute  opened 
with  reviving  Rome — Faction  or  Conspiracy  of 
Manlius — Condemnation — Plebeians  elected  in- 
to the  office  of  Consular  Tribunes — Aspire  to  the 
Consulate — The  first  Plebeian  Consul — Esta- 
blishment of  the  Pnctor — Patrician  vEdiles — 
The  Plebeians  qualified  to  hold  all  the  offices  of 
State — The  measure  of  Roman  Magistracy  com- 
plete— Review  of  the  Constitution — Its  seeming 
Defects — But  great  Successes — Policy  of  the  Slate 
respecting  foreign  or  vanquished  Nations — For- 
mation of  the  Legion — Series  of  Wars — With  the 
Samnites — Campanians — The  Tarentines — Pyr- 
rhus — Sovereignty  of  Italy — Different  Footing  on 
which  the  inhabitants  stood       .  .  26 

CHAP.  IV. 

Limits  of  Italy — Contiguous  Nations — Ligurians — 
Gauls — Greek  and  Phoenician  Colonies  of  ( iaul 
and  Spain — Nations  of  Illyricum — Of  Greece — 
Achaean  League — Thebans — Athenians — Asiat- 
ic Nat  ions — Pergamus — Syria — Egypt— Carthage 
— The  Mamertines  of  Messina — Occasion  of  the 
first  War  with  Carthage — Losses  of  the  Parties — 
Peace — State  of  the  Romans — Political  or  civil 
Institutions — Colonics — Musters — Operation  on 
the  Coin — Increase  of  the  Slaves — Gladiators— 
Different  results  of  the  War  at  Rome  and  Car- 
thage— Mutiny  and  invasion  of  the  Mercenaries 
at  Carthage — End  of  this  War — Cession  of  Sar- 
dinia— War  with  the  lllyrians — First  Corres- 
pondence of  Rome  with  Greece  .  .  34 

CHAP.  V. 

Progress  of  the  Romans  within  the  Alps — Origin  of 
the  second  Punic  War — March  of  Hannibal  into 
Italy — Progress — Action  on  the  Teoinus — On  the 
TreDia — On  the  Lake  Thrasymenes — Battle  of 


Cannae — Hannibal  not  supported  from  Carthage 
— Sequel  of  the  War — In  Italy — And  Africa— 
Scipio's  operations — Battle  of  Zama — End  of  the 
War  41 

CHAP.  VI. 

State  of  Rome  at  the  Peace  with  Carthage — Wars 
with  the  Gauls — With  the  Macedonians — Bat  tin 
of  Cynocoephalae — Peace — Freedom  to  Greece — 
Preludes  to  the  War  with  Anliochus — Flight  of 
Hannibal  to  that  Prince — Anliochus  passes  into 
Europe — Dispositions  made  by  the  Romans — 
Flight  of  Anliochus  to  Asia — His  defeat  at  the 
Mountains  of  Sipulus — Peace  and  settlement  of 
Asia — Course  of  Roman  Affairs  at  Home,  &.c.  00 

CHAP.  VII. 

State  of  Italy — Character  of  the  Roman  policy — 
Death  ofScipio  and  of  Hanni!  al — Indulgence  of 
the  Romans  to  the  Kin?  of  Macedonia — Com- 
plaints against  Philip — Succession  of  Perseus, 
and  Origin  of  the  War — Action  on  the  Peneus — 
Overtures  of  Peac  e — Progress  of  the  War — De- 
feat of  Perseus  at  Pidna,  by  Paulus  if  milius — 
His  Flight  and  Captivity — Settlement  of  Macedo- 
nia and  Illyricum — Manners  of  the  Romans  70 


BOOK  II 

CHAP.  I. 

State,  Manners,  and  Policy  of  the  Times — Repeated 
Complaints  from  Carthage — Hostile  Disposition 
of  the  Romans — Resolution  to  remove  Carthage 
from  the  Coast — Measures  taken  for  this  purpose 
— Carthage  besieged — Taken  and  destroyed — 
Revolt  of  the  Macedonians — Their  Kingdom  re- 
duced to  the  Form  of  a  Roman  Province — Fate 
of  the  Achfean  League — Operations  in  Spain — 
Conduct  of  Viriathus — State  of  Numantia — 
Blockade  of  Numantia — Its  Reduction — Revolt 
of  the  Slaves  in  Sicily — Legal  Establishments 
and  Manners  of  the  City      .       .       .       .  7H 

CHAP.  It, 

Extent  of  the  Roman  Empire — Political  Character 
of  its  Head — Facility  with  whic  h  it  continued  to 
advance — Change  of  Charac  ter,  political  as  well 
as  moral — Character  of  the  People  or  Commons — 
Dangerous  Humours  likely  to  break  out — Ap- 
pearance of  Tiberius  Gracchus— His  Project  to 
revive  the  Law  of  Licinius — Intercession  of  the 
Tribune  Octavius—  The  Republic  divided — Dis- 
putes in  the  Comitia — Deposition  of  the  Tribune 
Octavius — Commissioners  appointed  for  the  Di- 
vision of  Lands — Tiberius  Gracchus  sues  to  be 
re-elected  Tribune — His  Death — Immediate  Con- 
sequences— Proceedings  of  Carho — Embassy  of 
Scipio — Foreign  Affairs— Violence  of  the  Com- 
missioners— Domestic  Affairs    .       .       .  90 

5 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  III. 

State  of  the  Italian  Allies,  and  the  Views  which 
now  began  to  be  conceived  by  them — Appear- 
ance of  Caius  Gracchus — Resolution  to  purge  the 
City  of  Aliens — Consulate  and  factious  Motions 
of  Fulvius  Flaccus — Conspiracy  of  Frigellae  sup- 
pressed— Caius  Gracchus  returns  to  Rome — Of- 
fers himself  Candidate  for  the  Tribunate — Ad- 
dress of  Cornelia — Tribunate  and  Acts  of  Caius 
Gracchus — Re-election — Proposal  to  admit  the 
Inhabitants  of  Italy  on  the  Rolls  of  Roman  Citi- 
zens— Popular  Acts  of  Gracchus  and  Livius — 
The  Senate  begin  to  prevail — Death  of  Caius 
Gracchus  and  Fulvius     ....  100 

CHAP.  IV. 

State  of  Order  and  Tranquillity  which  followed  the 
Suppression  of  the  late  Tumults — Appearance 
of  Caius  Marius — Foreign  Wars — Complaints 
against  Jugurtha — Appearance  of  the  Cimbri — 
War  with  Jugurtha — Campaign  and  treaty  of 
Piso — Jugurtha  comes  to  Rome  with  a  Safe-con- 
duct— Obliged  to  retire  from  thence — Campaign 
of  Metellus — Of  Marius — Jugurtha  betrayed  by 
Bocchus — His  Death,  after  the  Triumph  of  Ma- 
rius— This  General  re-elected,  in  order  to  com- 
mand against  the  Cimbri       .      .      .  106 

CHAP.  V. 

Review  of  the  Circumstances  which  revived  the 

Sopular  Party — Farther  Account  of  Laws  and 
Regulations  under  their  Administration — State 
of  the  Empire — Fourth  Consulate  of  Marius — 
Continued  Migrations  of  the  barbarous  Nations — 
Defeated  by  Marius  at  Aquae  Sextiae — By  Marius 
and  Catulus  in  Italy      .      .      .      .  117 

CHAP.  VI. 

Character  and  immoderate  ambition  of  Marius — 
Death  of  Nonius — Re-election  of  the  Tribune 
Saturninus — His  Sedition  and  seizing  the  Capi- 
tol— Death  of  Saturninus — Reverse  in  the  State 
of  Parties — Recal  of  Metellus — Violent  Death  of 
the  Tribune  Furius — Birth  of  Caius  Julius  Caesar 
— Lex  Cecilia  Didia — Blank  in  the  Roman  His- 
tory— Sylla  offers  himself  Candidate  for  the  Of- 
fice of  Praetor — Edict  of  the  Censors  against  the 
Latin  Rhetoricians — Bullion  in  the  Roman  Trea- 
sury— Present  of  a  Group  in  Golden  Figures 
from  the  King  of  Mauritania — Acts  of  Livius 
Drusus — Revolt  of  the  Italian  Allies — Policy  of 
the  Romans  in  yielding  to  the  Necessity  of  their 
Affairs— The  Laws  of  Plautius      .      .  120 

CHAP.  VII. 

Triumph  of  Pompeius  Strabo — Progress  of  Sylla — 
War  with  the  King  of  Pontus — Rise  of  that  King- 
dom— Appointment  of  Sylla  to  Command — Poli- 
cy of  the  Tribune  Sulpicius — Sylla's  Commission 
recalled  in  Favour  of  Marius — His  March  from 
Campania  to  Rome — Expels  Marius  and  his  Fac- 
tion from  the  City — His  operations  in  Greece — 
Siege  of  At  hens — Battle  ofChaeronea — Of  Orcho- 
menos — Transactions  at  Rome — Policy  of  China 
— Marius  recalled — Cinna  flies,  and  is  deprived 
— Recovers  the  Possession  of  Rome — Treaty  of 
Sylla  with  Milhridates — He  passes  into  Italy — 
Is  opposed  by  numerous  Armies — Various  Events 
of  the  War  in  Italy — Sylla  prevails — His  Pro- 
scription, or  Massacre — Named  Dictator — His 
Policy — Resignation — And  Death     .  .129 


BOOK  III. 

CHAP.  I. 

State  of  the  Commonwealth  and  Numbers  of  the 
People — Character  of  Persons  who  began  to  ap- 


pear in  the  Times  of  Sylla— Faction  of  Lepidus 
— Sertorius  harbours  the  Marian  Party  in  Spain 
—Is  attacked  by  Metellus  and  Pompey— His 

Death,  and  final  Suppression  of  the  Party  First 

Appearance  of  C.  Julius  Caesar— Tribunes  begin 
to  trespass  on  the  Laws  of  Sylla— Progress  of  the 
Empire— Preparations  of  Milhridates— War  with 
the  Romans — Irruption  into  Bithvnia— Siege  of 
Cyzicus— Raised— Flight  of  Mithridates— Lucul 
lus  carries  the  War  into  Pontus— Rout  and  Dis- 
persion of  the  Army  of  Milhridates— His  Flight 
into  Armenia— Conduct  of  Lucullus  in  the  Pro- 
vince of  Asia  146 

CHAP.  II. 

Escape  and  Revolt  of  the  Gladiators  at  Capua— 
Spartacus— Action  and  Defeat  of  Lentulus  the 
Roman  Consul — And  of  Cassius  the  Praetor  of 
Gaul— Appointment  of  M.  Crassus  for  this  Ser- 
vice—Destruction of  the  Gladiators— Triumph 
of  Metellus  and  Pompey— Consulship  of  Pompey 
and  Crassus — Tribunes  restored  to  their  former 
Powers— Consulate  of  Metellus  and  Hortensius 
— War  in  Crete — Renewal  of  the  War  in  Pontus 
and  Armenia— Defeat  of  Tigranes— Negotiation 
with  the  King  of  Parthia— Mutiny  of  the  Roman 
Army — Complaints  of  Piracies  committed  in 
the  Roman  Seas — Commission  proposed  to  Pom- 
pey—His  Conduct  against  the  Pirates— His  Com- 
mission extended  to  Pontus — Operations  against 

Mithridates — Defeat  and  Flight  of  that  Prince  

Operations  of  Pompey  in  Syria— Siege  and  Re- 
d  uction  of  Jerusalem — Death  of  Milhridates  154 

CHAP.  III. 

Growing  Corruption  of  the  Roman  Officers  of  State 
— The  Love  of  Consideration  changed  for  A  va- 
rice, Rapacity,  and  Prodigality — Laws  against 
Extortion — Catiline,  a  Candidate  for  the  Consul- 
ship— Conspiracy  with  A utronius— Competition 
for  the  Consulate — Election  of  Cicero  and  Anro- 
nius — Condition  of  the  Times — Agrarian  Law  of 
Rullus— Trial  of  Rabiri us— Cabals  of  the  Tri- 
bunes— Of  Catiline — His  Flight  from  the  City — 
Discovery  of  his  Accomplices — Their  Execu- 
tion  169 

CHAP.  IV. 

Character  of  the  Times — Philosophy — Opposite  Te- 
nets and  Votaries — Proceedings  of  the  Senate — 
Tribunate  of  Metellus,  Nepos,  and  of  Cato — Pro- 
posal to  recal  Pompey,  at  the  Head  of  his  Army, 
frustrated — His  Arrival  in  Italy — And  Tri- 
umph  178 

CHAP.  V. 

Transactions  at  Rome,  and  in  the  Provinces — Julius 
Caesar  appointed  in  the  Quality  of  Propraetor 
to  his  first  Province  in  Lusitania — Trial  of  Clo- 
dius — Proposed  Adoption  into  a  Plebeian  Fami- 
ly, to  qualify  Him  for  the  Office  of  Tribune — 
Caesar  a  Candidate  for  the  Consulship — The  Tri- 
umvirate of  Caesar,  Pompey,  and  Crassus — Con- 
sulship of  Caesar — Motion  of  Vatinius,  to  confer 
on  Caesar,  for  five  Years,  the  Command  in  Gaul 
Marriage  of  Pompey  to  Julia — Of  Caesar  to  Cal- 
purnia — Plot  of  Vettius — Consulate  of  Lucius 
Calpurnius  and  A.  Gibinius — Attack  made  upon 
Cicero — His  exile   185 

CHAP.  VI. 

Caesar  takes  Possession  of  his  Province — Migration 
of  the  Helvetii — Their  Defeat — War  with  Ario- 
vistus — Return  of  Caesar,  for  the  Winter,  into  Ilaly 
— Great  Concourse  of  Citizens  to  his  Quarters — 
Motion  to  recal  Cicero — Disorders  that  followed 
upon  it — Consultations  of  Pompey  and  Ca?sar — 
Augmentation  of  the  Army  in  Gaul — Second 


CONTENTS. 


vtt 


Campaign  of  Caesar — Operations  on  the  Aisne — 
On  the  Meuse  and  Sambre — Battle  with  the 
Nervii — Successful  Attempt  for  the  restoration 
of  Cicero — Controversy  relating  to  his  House — 
Repeated  Riots  of  Clodius— Trial  of  Milo  198 

CHAP.  VII. 

Return  of  Cato  from  Cyprus — His  Repulse  at  the 
Election  of  Praetors — Arriv  al  of  Ptolemy  Auletes 
at  Rome — Visit  of  Pompey  and  Crassus  to  Cae- 
sar's Quarters  at  Lucca — Renewal  of  their  As- 
sociation— Military  Operations  in  Caesar's  Pro- 
vince— Violent  Election  of  Crassus  and  Pompey 
— Provinces — Of  Crassus  in  Syria — Of  Pompey 
in  Spain  for  five  years — Crassus  departs  for  Sy- 
ria  209 


BOOK  IV. 
CHAP.  r. 

State  of  the  Commonwealth — Administration  of  the 
Provinces — Operations  of  Caesar  in  Gaul,  Ger- 
many, and  Britain — Slate  of  Pompey  at  Rome — 
Progress  of  Crassus  into  Syria — Kingdom  of  Par- 
thia — Invasion  of  Crassus  beyond  the  Euphrates 
— Second  invasion  of  Caesar  in  Britain     .  216 

chap.  n. 

Death  of  Julia,  the  Daughter  of  Caesar,  and  Wife 
of  Pompey — Trial  of  Gabinius — Detection  of  an 
infamous  Transaction  of  Memmius  and  Aheno- 
barbus — Revolt  of  the  low  countries — Military 
Execution  against  the  Inhabitants  of  the  Country 
between  'ne  Rhine  and  the  Meuse — Operations 
of  Crassus  in  Mesopotamia — His  Death — Com- 

Setilion  for  the  Consulate — Death  of  Clodius — 
[lot  in  the  City — Pompey  sole  Consul — Trial  of 
Milo       .   224 

CHAP.  m. 

Character  of  Pompey  in  Capacity  of  sole  Consul — 
Privilege  of  Caesar  to  be  admitted  as  Candidate 
for  the  Office  of  Consul,  without  resigning  his 
Province — General  Revolt  of  the  Gauls — Opera- 
tions in  that  Country — Blockade  and  Reduction 
of  Alesia — Distribution  of  Caesar's  Army  in  Gaul 

KSlMifT  Jitr'ni'Vijl"  ■•■  .:-  •  235 
CHAP.  IV. 

Caesar  remains  in  Gaul — Pompey  assumes  Piso  into 
the  Office  of  Consul — Succession  of  Servius  Sul- 
picius  and  M.  Claudius  Marcellus — Arrange- 
ment for  the  Provinces — Motion  to  recal  Ca*sar 
— Continued  Debates  in  the  Senate — Operations 
of  Ca;sar  in  Gaul — Intrigues  in  the  City — Affairs 
in  the  other  Provinces — Campaign  of  Cicero — 
Succession  of  Consuls — State  of  Parties  in  the 
City  and  in  the  Senate — Arrival  of  Caesar  in  Italy 
in  the  Spring — Return  to  Gaul — Parts  with  two 
Legions  to  Pompey  and  the  Senate — Alarm  of 
Caesar's  March — The  Consul  Marcellus  commits 
his  sword  to  Pompey      .      .      .  244 

CHAP.  V. 

Return  of  different  Officers  from  their  Provinces — 
Decree  of  the  Senate  to  supersede  Caesar — for- 
bidden by  the  Tribunes — Commission  to  the 
Consuls  and  to  Pompey— Their  Resolutions — 
Flight  of  the  Tribunes  Antony  and  Quintus  Cas- 
sius — Speech  of  Caesar  to  the  Legion  at  Ravenna 
— Surprise  of  Arminum — March  of  Caesar— Flight 

of  Pompey  and  the  Senate,  &c  Approach  of 

Caesar — Embarkation  and  Departure  of  Pompey 
from  Brundusium— Return  of  Caesar  to  Rome — 
Passes  by  Marseilles  into  Spain— Campaign  on 
the  Segra — Legions  of  Pompey  in  Spain  con- 
ducted to  the  Var  255 


CHAP.  VI. 

The  Siege  of  Marseilles  continued — Its  surrender 
— Caesar  named  Dictator— Return  to  Rome — Mu- 
tiny at  Placentia — Caesar,  with  Servilius  Isauri- 
cus,  Consuls — Forces  and  Disposition  of  Pompey 
— Departure  of  Caesar  to  Brundusium— Transports 
the  first  Division  of  his  Army  to  Acroceraunus — 
Message  to  Pompey,  and  their  several  Operations 
— The  Lines  of  Dyrraehium — Caesar  baffled  in 
his  attempt  to  invest  Pompey — Action  and  De- 
feat of  Caesar— His  retreat— March  of  both  Ar- 
mies in  Thessaly — Battle  of  Pharsalia     .  273 

chap.  vn. 

Comparative  Loss  on  the  different  Sides  in  the  late 
Action— Pompey's  Flight— His  Death— Arrival 
of  Caesar  at  Alexandria — Cato,  with  the  Fleet 
and  Remains  of  the  Army  from  Pharsalia.  steers 
for  Africa — Slate  of  Italy,  and  of  the  Republican 
Party — Adventures  of  Caesar  in  Egypt — Victory 
over  Pharnaces — Arrival  in  Italy — Mutiny  of 
the  Legions — Caesar  passed  into  Africa — Hia 
Operations,  and  Action  with  the  Horse  and  Ir- 
regulars of  the  Enemv — Post  at  Ruspina — Siege 
of  Uzita— Battle  of  Thapsus— Death  of  Cato  289 


BOOK  V. 

CHAP.  I. 

Arrival  of  Caesar  at  I'tica — Wreck  of  the  Repub- 
lican Party — Servility  of  the  Roman  People — 
Magnificence  and  Administration  of  Ca?sar — Hi9 
last  Campaign  in  Spain — Death  of  the  elder  of 
Pompey's  Sons — Caesar's  Return,  Triumphs,  Ho- 
nour, and  Policy  in  the  State — Spirit  of  the 
Times — Source  of  the  Conspiracy  against  Co?sar 
— Its  Progress — Death  of  Caesar  -  309 

CHAP.  IT. 

General  Consternation  on  the  Death  of  Caesar — 
Tumultuary  Assembly  of  the  People — Declara- 
tions of  Cinna  and  Dolahella — Appearance  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  Forum — Their  Return 
to  the  Capitol — Meeting  and  Debate  in  the  Se- 
nate— Act  of  Oblivion — Speech  of  Brutus  to  the 
People — Funeral  of  Ca?sar — Insurrection  of  the 
People — Policy  of  Antony — Appearance  of  Oc- 
tavius — His  Difference  with  Antony — Both  have 
Recourse  to  Arms — Aspect  of  Things — Antony 
proceeds  to  expel  Decimus  Brutus  from  the  Cis- 
alpine Gaul  324 

CHAP.  III. 

Situation  and  Address  of  Octavius — Meeting  of  the 
Senate — Progress  of  Antony — His  March  into 
Gaul — Message  of  Octavius  to  Decimus  Brutus — 
New  Consuls  Hirtiusand  Pansa — Meeting  of  the 
Senate — Deputation  to  Antony — His  Answer — 
Declared  an  Enemy — Advance  of  Hirlius  and 
Octavius  to  raise  the  siege  of  Mutina — Brutus 
and  Cassius  confirmed  in  the  Command  of  all 
the  Eastern  Provinces — Progress  of  the  War  in 
Gaul — Siege  of  Mutina  raised — Junction  of  Anto- 
ny and  Lepid us — Consulate  of  Octavius    -  340 

CHAP.  IV. 

Proceedings  of  the  new  Consul — State  of  the  East- 
ern Provinces — Interview  of  Octavius,  Antony, 
and  Lepidus,  with  their  Coalition — The  Proscrip- 
tion or  Massacre — Death  of  Cicero — Sequel  of 
the  Massacre — Succession  of  Consuls — Severe 
Exaction  of  Taxes — State  of  Sextus  Pompeius — 
Movements  of  Antony  and  Octavius — Both  bend 
their  Course  to  the  East — Posture  and  Operations 
of  Brutus  and  Cassius — Their  arrival  and  Pro- 
gress in  Europe — Campaign  at  Philippj — Firsl 


viii 


CONTENTS. 


Action  and  Death  of  Cassius — Second  Action 
and  Death  of  Brutus      ....  353 

CHAP.  V. 

Immediate  Consequences  of  the  Event  at  Philippi 
— New  Partition  of  the  Empire  made  by  Octavius 

'  and  Antony — Their  Separation — Progress  of  Oc- 
tavius at  Rome — His  friends  Maecenas  and  Agrip- 
pa — Alarm  and  Distress  in  Italy  on  the  Dispos- 
session of  the  Inhabitants  to  make  way  for  the 
Troops — Jealousy  of  Fulvia  and  Lucius  Antonius 
— Blockade  and  Reduction  of  Perusia — Progress 
of  Antony  in  Asia — His  stay  at  Alexandria — Re- 
turn to  Italy — Accommodation  with  Sextus  Pom- 
peius — Return  of  Octavius  and  Antony  to  Rome 
—Their  policy  369 

CHAP.  VI. 

Alarm  of  the  Parthian  Invasion  of  Syria — Arrange- 
ments of  Octavius  and  Antony — Departure  of  the 
latter,  and  Residence  at  Athens — State  of  the 
Commonwealth — Marriage  of  Octavius  with  Li- 
via — War  with  Sextus  Pompeius — Actions  near 
the  straits  of  Messina — Agrippa  succeeds  to  the 
Command  of  Octavius's  Fleet — His  victory  at 
Sea — Flight  of  Sextus  Pompeius — Breach  be- 
tween Octavius  and  Lepidus        .      .  379 

CHAP.  VII. 
»r<:o.-  i»l  Octavius  after  the  Acquisition  of  Sicily, 
m\<\  iht!  Junction  of  the  Armies  of  Sextus  Pom- 
peii ic-  and  Lepidus — Mutiny  and  Separation  of 
those  Forces — Arrival  of  Octavius  at  Rome — 
His  l{»  form  of  the  Army — Expedition  of  Antony 
ag'iinsl  the  Parthians — His  Retreat — The  Death 
■  >f  Sexlus  Pompeius — Open  Breach  between  Oc- 
tavius and  Antony— -Progress  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  towards  Greece — Operations  of  Antony 
and  Octavius  on  the  Gulph  of  Ambracia — Battle 
of  Actium— Flight  of  Antony — Immediate  Ar- 
rangements of  Octavius  after  his  Victory — Death 
of  Antony — And  of  Cleopatra       .      .  387 


BOOK  VI. 

CHAP.  I. 

The  Merit  or  Demerit  of  Parties  in  the  later  Period 
of  the  Roman  Republic — Return  of  Octavius  to 
Rome — His  Triumphs  and  public  Entertainments 
— Reform  of  the  Army — Proposition  to  resign  his 
Power — Consultation  of  Agrippa  and  Maecenas — 
Preludes  to  the  pretended  Resignation  of  Octa- 
vius— His  Speech  in  the  Senate — His  Consent  to 


retain  a  Part  in  the  Government  of  the  Empire- 
Distribution  of  the  Provinces — Title  of  Augustus 
— The  Establishment  of  Augustus        .  401 

chap.  n. 

State  of  the  Emperor — Condition  of  the  Empire- 
Amount  of  the  Revenue  unknown — Military 
Establishments,  &c.       ....  417 

CHAP.  III. 

The  Family  and  Court  of  Augustus — His  pretended 
Resignation  of  the  Empire  renewed— The  Exer- 
cise of  his  Power  becomes  less  disguised — Death 
of  Agrippa      .      .  .      .  .422 

CHAP.  IV. 

Marriage  of  Julia  with  Tiberius — Death  of  Drusus 
— Death  of  Maecenas — Disgrace  of  Julia — War 
in  Panonia — Roman  Legions  cut  off"  in  Germany 
— Tiberius  associated  in  the  Empire — Death  of 
Augustus  434 

CHAP.  V. 

The  Will  of  Augustus — Re  view  of  his  Reign — And 
of  his  Character — Tiberius  returns  to  Nola — 
Without  Delay,  issues  his  Orders  throughout  the 
Empire — But  in  the  Senate  affects  Reluctance 
to  charge  himself  with  the  Government — Mutiny 
in  Panonia — On  the  Rhine — Second  Mutiny  on 
the  Arrival  of  Deputies  from  the  Senate — Impos- 
ture of  Clemens — Plot  of  Libo — Description  of 
Tiberius — Death  of  Germanicus,  and  Trial  of 
Piso  449 

CHAP.  VI. 

Review  of  the  first  Period  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius 
— Applications  of  Penal  Law — Disposition  of  Ti 
benus  to  a  recluse  Life — Place  and  Character  of 
Sejanus — Death  of  Drusus,  Son  of  the  Emperor — 
Retirement  of  Tiberius  to  the  Island  of  Capreae — 
Jealousy  of  the  Emperor  against  Agrippina  and 
her  Children— Death  of  Livia  Augusta — Design 
formed  against  Sejanus— His  Death — Prosecution 
of  his  supposed  Accomplices — Artifices,  old  Age, 
and  Death  of  Tiberius     ....  460 

CHAP.  VII. 
Succession  of  Caius  to  the  Empire— The  first  Ap 
pearances  of  his  Reign — Conclusion  of  the  His- 
tory— Observations  on  the  Sequel — Accession  of 
the  Flavian  Family — Vicissitudes  of  Character 
in  the  Emperors — Sources  of  Degradation  in  the 
Imperial  Establishment — Preservatives  of  the 
Empire — Its  real  and  continual  though  almost 
insensible  Decline   ....  475 


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THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


OF  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK  X. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Subject — Supposed  Origin  of  the  Roman  State — Its  Government —  The  King — Senate — 
The  People — Curia? — Centuries — Tribes — Religion — The  Triumph — Original  Maxims — 
Progress  of  the  State  under  its  Kings — Change  to  a  Republic. 


THE  Roman  State  was  originally  a  small  prin- 
cipality, and  one  of  the  many  little  cantons,  which, 
under  the  denomination  of  Latins,  occupied  the 
left  of  the  Tiber,  from  its  confluence  with  the  Anio 
to  the  sea,  and  from  Ostia  to  Circe ii  on  the  coast. 
Within  this  narrow  tract,  reaching  in  breadth  in- 
land no  more  than  sixteen  miles,  and  extending 
on  the  coast  about  fifty  miles,  the  Latins  are  said 
to  have  formed  no  less  than  forty-seven  indepen- 
dent states each  of  whom  had  a  separate  capital 
or  strong  hold,  to  which  they  occasionally  retired 
for  safety,  with  their  cattle  and  other  effects,  and 
from  which  they  made  frequent  wars  on  each 
other.2  The  country,  divided  into  so  many  sepa- 
rate territories,  we  may  consider  as  resembling 
some  of  the  lately  discovered  islands  in  the  South- 
ern or  Pacific  Ocean,3  where  every  height  is  re- 
presented as  a  fortress,  and  every  little  township, 
that  can  maintain  its  possessions,  as  a  separate 
state.  Among  settlements  of  this  description, 
the  Romans,  though  they  were  originally  no  way 
distinguished  in  point  of  possessions  or  numbers, 
yet,  in  consequence  of  some  superiority  of  insti- 
tution or  character,  came  to  have  a  decided  ascen- 
dant. 

Beyond  the  Tiber  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Li- 
ris  on  the  other,  the  contiguous  parts  of  Italy  were 
possessed,  in  the  same  manner  with  Latium,  by 
different  races  of  men,  who,  under  various  deno- 


1  Dionys.  Halicar.  lib.  iv.  2  Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  5.  &c. 
3  See  Cook's  Voyage  to  New  Zealand. 

B 


minations  of  Etrurians,  Samnites,  Campanians, 
and  others,  formed  a  multiplicity  of  little  nations, 
united  by  leagues  for  common  safety,  and  ranged 
under  opposite  interests,  with  a  view  to  some  ba- 
lance of  power  which  they  endeavoured  to  main- 
tain. The  peninsula  towards  one  extremity,4  was 
from  time  immemorial  peopled  with  Grecian  co- 
lonies. Towards  the  other,  it  was,  in  the  first 
ages  of  the  Roman  state,  overrun  by  nations  of 
Gaulish  extraction.5 

The  land  throughout,  in  respect  to  situation, 
climate,  and  soil,  was  highly  favoured,  diversified 
with  mountain  and  plain,  well  wooded  and  wa- 
tered, replenished  with  useful  materials,  fit  to  yield 
pasture  ibr  numerous  herds,  and  to  produce  abun- 
dance of  corn,  wine,  and  oil.  And,  what  is  still 
of  more  importance,  was  already  become  the  flou- 
rishing nursery  of  ingenious  men,  ardent  and 
vigorous  in  their  pursuits,  though,  in  respect  to 
man;  arts  and  inventions,  yet  in  a  state  of  great 
simplicitv  or  ignorance. 

The  Romans,  who  made  their  first  step  to  do 
minion  by  becoming  heads  of  the  Latin  confede- 
racy, continued  their  progress  to  the  sovereignty 
of  Italy;  or,  after  many  struggles  with  nations 
possessed  of  resources  similar  to  their  own,  united 
the  forces  of  that  country  under  their  own  direc- 
tion, became  the  conquerors  of  many  kingdoms 
in  Asia  and  Africa,  as  well  as  in  Europe ;  and 
formed  an  empire,  if  not  the  most  extensive,  at 


I  Magna  Grircia  5  Gallia  Ciratpina 

9 


10 


THE  FROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  t 


least  the  most  splendid  of  any  that  is  known  in 
the  history  of  mankind.  In  possession  of  this 
seeming  advantage,  however,  they  were  unable  to 
preserve  their  own  institutions ;  they  became,  to- 
gether with  the  conquests  they  had  made,  a  prey 
to  military  government,  and  a  signal  example  of 
the  vicissitudes  to  which  prosperous  nations  are 
exposed. 

This  mighty  state,  remarkable  for  the  smallness 
of  its  origin,  as  well  as  for  the  greatness  to  which 
it  attained,  has,  by  the  splendour  of  its  national 
exertions,  by  the  extent  of  its  dominion,  by  the 
wisdom  of  its  councils,  or  by  its  internal  revolu- 
tions and  reverses  of  fortune,  ever  been  a  princi- 
pal object  of  history  to  all  the  more  enlightened 
nations  of  the  western  world.  To  know  it  well, 
is  to  know  mankind ;  and  to  have  seen  our  species 
under  the  fairest  aspect  of  great  ability,  integrity, 
and  courage.  There  is  a  merit  in  attempting  to 
promote  the  study  of  this  subject,  even  if  the  ef- 
fect should  not  correspond  with  the  design. 

Under  this  impression  the  following  narrative 
was  undertaken,  and  chiefly  with  a  view  to  the 
great  revolution  by  which  the  republican  form  of 
government  was  exchanged  for  despotism ;  and  by 
which  the  Roman  people,  from  being  joint  sove- 
reigns of  a  great  empire,  became,  together  with 
their  own  provinces,  the  subjects,  and  often  the 
prey,  of  a  tyranny  which  was  equally  cruel  to 
both. 

As  in  this  revolution  men  of  the  greatest  abili- 
ties, possessed  of  every  art,  and  furnished  with  the 
most  ample  resources,  were  acting  in  concert  to- 
gether, or  in  opposition  to  each  other,  the  scene  is 
likely  to  exhibit  what  may  be  thought  the  utmost 
range  or  extent  of  the  human  powers ;  and  to 
furnish  those  who  are  engaged  in  transactions 
any  way  similar,  with  models  by  which  they  may 
profit,  and  from  which  they  may  form  sound 
principles  of  conduct,  derived  from  experience, 
and  confirmed  by  examples  of  the  highest  au- 
thority. 

The  event  which  makes  the  principal  object  of 
this  history,  has  been  sometimes  considered  as  a 

Koint  of  separation  between  two  periods,  which 
ave  been  accordingly  treated  apart — the  period 
of  the  republic,  and  that  of  the  monarchy.  During 
a  considerable  part  of  the  first  period,  the  Romans 
were  highly  distinguished  by  their  genius,  mag- 
nanimity, and  national  spirit,  and  made  suitable 
attainments  in  what  are  the  ordinary  objects  of 
pursuit — wealth  an<l  dominion.  In  the  second 
period,  they  continued  for  some  time  to  profit  by 
the  attainments  which  were  made  in  the  former, 
and  while  they  walked  in  the  tract  of  the  com- 
monwealth, or  practised  the  arts  and  retained  the 
less.ons  which  former  ages  had  taught,  still  kept 
their  possessions.  But  after  the  springs  of  poli- 
tical life,  which  were  wound  up  in  the  republic, 
had  some  time  ceased  to  act ;  when  the  state  was 
become  the  concern  of  a  single  person,  and  the 
vestige  of  former  movements  were  effaced,  the 
national  character  declined,  and  the  power  of  a 
great  empire  became  unable  to  preserve  what  a 
small  republic  had  acquired.  The  example, 
whether  to  be  shunned  or  imitated,  is  certainly 
instructive  in  either  period ;  but  most  so  in  the 
transition  that  was  made  from  one  to  the  other ; 
and  in  the  forfeiture  of  those  public  advantages, 
of  which  the  Roman  peonle,  in  some  part  of  their 
course,  availed  themselves  with  so  much  distinc- 
tion, and  which,  in  the  sequel,  they  abused  with 


so  much  disorder  at  home,  and  oppression  of  their 
subjects  abroad. 

With  this  object  before  me,  I  hasten  to  enter  on 
the  scenes  in  which  it  begins  to  appear;  and  shall 
not  dwell  upon  the  history  of  the  first  ages  of 
Rome ;  nor  stop  to  collect  particulars  relating  to 
the  origin  and  progress  of  the  commonwealth, 
longer  than  is  necessary  to  aid  the  reader  in  re- 
collecting the  circumstances  which  formed  the 
conjuncture  in  which  this  interesting  change  be- 
gan to  take  place. 

For  this  purpose,  indeed,  a  general  description 
of  the  state  and  its  territory,  such  as  they  were  in 
the  beginning  of  this  transaction,  might  have  been 
sufficient ;  but  as  it  is  difficult  to  fix  the  precise 
point  at  which  causes  begin  to  operate,  or  at  which 
effects  are  complete,  I  have  indulged  myself  in 
looking  back  to  the  origin  of  this  famous  repub- 
lic, whether  real  or  fabulous,  and  shall  leave  the 
reader  to  determine,  at  what  time  he  will  suppose 
the  period  of  authentic  history  to  begin,  or  at 
what  time  he  will  suppose  the  causes  of  this  re- 
volution to  operate,  and  to  produce  their  effects. 

As  it  is  impossible  to  give,  in  mere  description, 
a  satisfactory  account  of  a  subject  which  is  in  its 
nature  progressive  and  fluctuating,  or  to  explain 
political  establishments  without  some  reference  to 
the  occasions  whence  they  arose,  I  have,  upon 
these  accounts,  endeavoured  to  give,  even  to  the 
first  part  of  my  labours,  the  form  of  narration ; 
and,  together  with  the  progress  of  political  insti- 
tutions in  the  state,  remarked  its  territorial  acqui- 
sitions and  conquests,  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  made.  In  proportion  as  the  principal  object 
of  the  history  presents  itself,  I  shall  wish,  as  far 
as  my  talents  and  the  materials  before  me  allow, 
to  fill  up  the  narration,  and  give  to  every  scene  ol 
the  transaction  its  complete  detail.  When  this  is 
done,  and  the  catastrophe  is  passed,  I  shall  wish 
again  to  contract  my  narration ;  and  as  I  open 
with  a  summary  account  of  what  preceded  my 
period,  close  with  a  similar  view  of  its  sequel. 

The  Romans  are  said  to  have  made  their  settle- 
ment in  the  end  of  the  sixth,  or  beginning  of  the 
seventh  Olympiad,1  about  two  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  accession  of  Cyrus  to  the  throne  of  Per- 
sia, seven  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  aera, 
and  long  before  the  date  of  any  authentic  profane 
history  whatever.  The  detail  of  their  story  is  mi- 
nute and  circumstantial ;  but  on  this  account  is 
the  more  to  be  suspected  of  fiction :  and  in  many 
parts,  besides  that  of  the  fable,  with  which  it  is 
confessedly  mixed,  may,  without  any  blameable 
scepticism,  be  rejected  as  the  conjecture  of  inge- 
nious men,  or  the  embellishments  of  a  mere  tradi- 
tion, which  partakes  in  the  uncertainty  of  all 
other  profane  history  of  the  same  times,  and  la- 
bours under  the  obscurity  which  hangs  over  the 
origin  of  all  other  nations.2 

That  the  Roman  state  was  originally  a  small 
one,  and  came  by  degrees  to  its  greatness,  cannot 
be  doubted.  So  much  we  may  safely  admit  on  the 
faith  of  tradition,  or  in  this  instance  infer,  from 
the  continuation  and  recent  marks  of  a  progress 
which  the  people  were  still  making,  after  they  be- 
came an  object  of  observation  to  other  nations,3 
and  after  they  began  to  keep  records  of  their 
own :  that  they  had  been  an  assemblage  of  herds- 
men and  warriors,  ignorant  of  letters,  of  money, 
and  of  commercial  arts,  inured  to  depredation 

1  Hionys.  Hal.  lib.  i.  2  Liv.  lib.  vi 

l\  Diojiys.  Hal.  lib.  i. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROM 


AN  REPUBLIC. 


11 


and  violence,  and  subsisting  chiefly  by  the  produce 
of  their  herds,  and  the  spoils  of  their  enemies,  may 
be  safely  admitted ;  because  we  find  them,  in  the 
most  authentic  parts  of  their  history,  supplying 
these  defects,  and  coming  forward  in  the  same 
direction,  and  consequently  proceeding  from  the 
same  origin,  with  other  rude  nations ;  being,  in 
reality,  a  horde  of  ignorant  barbarians,  though 
likely  to  become  an  accomplished  nation. 

In  the  first  accounts  of  their  settlement,  it  is 
said  that  they  mustered  three  thousand  men  on 
foot  and  three  hundred  on  horseback.4  Their  es- 
tablishment being  effected  by  surprise  or  by  force, 
and  their  people  consisting  of  armed  men  who 
had  every  acquisition  to  make  at  the  expense  of 
their  neighbours,  they  were  naturally  in  a  state 
of  war  with  the  country  around  them.  They 
took  post  on  the  Palatium,  a  small  height  on  the 
Tiber,  which,  according  to  former  traditions,  had 
been  previously  occupied  by  five  different  races  of 
men,  who,  in  a  country  so  precariously  settled, 
were  frequently  changing  their  places.5  Their 
city  was  first  the  model  of  a,  Roman  camp,  fortified 
with  a  square  breast-work  and  ditch,  to  serve  as 
an  occasional  retreat  to  themselves  and  their  cat- ' 
tie.  Their  leader,  or  chief,  was  the  sole  magis- 
trate or  officer,  either  civil  or  military.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  commonwealth  were  distinguished  into 
different  classes  or  ranks,  under  the  names  of  pa- 
trician and  plebeian,  patron  and  client.  "  The 
patron,"  says  Dionysius,  "  was  to  protect,  to  give 
counsel ;  and,  whether  present  or  absent,  was  to 
his  clients  what  the  father  is  to  his  family.  The 
clients,  in  return,  were  to  cont  ribute  to  the  support 
of  their  patron,  to  aid  him  in  placing  his  chil- 
dren in  marriage ;  and,  in  the  case  of  his  being 
taken  by  an  enemy,  were  to  pay  his  ransom  ;  or  of 
his  being  condemned  in  a  fine,  were  to  discharge 
it  for  him."6 

The  limits  of  prerogative  and  privilege,  as  in 
other  rude  societies,  were  yet  imperfectly  marked. 
It  was  the  prerogative  of  the  king  to  lead  in  war, 
and  to  rule  in  peace ;  but  it  is  probable  that  he  no 
more  wished  to  deliberate,  than  to  fight  alone ; 
and,  though  he  may  have  done  either  occasion- 
ally, yet  numbers  of  his  followers  were  ever  ready 
to  attend  him  in  both.  The  people  acknowledged 
him  as  their  leader,  or  prince ;  but  they  them- 
selves, as  in  other  instances  of  the  same  kind, 
were  accustomed,  on  remarkable  occasions,  to  as- 
semble ;  and,  without  any  concerted  form  of  de- 
mocracy, became  the  sovereign  power,  as  often  as 
their  passions  engaged  them  to  act  in  a  body. 
The  superior  class  of  the  people  as  naturally 
came  to  have  their  meetings  apart,  and  may  have 
assembled  frequently,  when  the  oceasion  was  not 
sufficient  to  require  the  attention  of  the  whole.? 
Hence  probably  the  establishments  of  the  senate 
and  of  the  popular  assemblies,  which  were  called 
the  Comitia,  and  were  both  of  so  early  a  date  as 
to  be  ascribed  to  the  first  of  their  kings.8 

Even  this  founder  of  the  state,  we  are  told, 
was  distinguished  by  his  ushers  or  lictors  carrying 
before  him  the  axe  and  the  rods,  as  the  emblems 
of  his  power,  and  the  instruments  of  his  justice. 
The  names  of  the  senators  were  entered  in  a  list, 
and  they  were  separately  called  to  their  meetings. 


7  De  minnribus  rebus  Prineipes,  de  majoribus  omnes 
coi>3ultint.  Tacit,  de  MoribusGerm.      8Dionys.  lib.  i. 


Assemblies  of  the  people  were  intimated  by  the 
sound  of  a  horn.  The  citizens  were  distinguish- 
ed into  curise,  centuries,  and  tribes — divisions  un- 
der which  they  formed  their  several  compartment*, 
for  military  array,  religious  ceremonies,  or  politieal 
delibeiations.  When  met  to  decide  on  any  public 
question,  each  division  apart  collected  the  votes  of 
its  members,  from  thence  formed  a  vote  for  the  cu- 
ria or  century;  and,  by  the  majority  of  thes",  de- 
termined the  whole.  The  curia?  were  fraternities, 
or  divisions  of  the  people,  which  met  for  the  per- 
formance of  religious  rites:  each  had  its  separate 
priest,  and  place  of  assembly.  When  the  curiv 
were  called  on  matters  of  state,  they  retainH  part 
of  their  religious  forms ;  opened  their  meeting 
with  observing  the  auspices,  or  signs  of  futurity ; 
and  if  these  were  unfavourable,  could  not  proceed 
on  business.  The  augurs,  therefore,  in  this  mode 
of  assembly,  had  a  negative  on  the  proceedings 
of  the  people. 

The  centuries  were  formed  on  a  more  artful 
idea,  to  make  power  accompany  wealth.  The 
people  were  divided  into  classes,  according  to  the 
rate  of  their  fortunes  :  each  class  was  divided  into 
centuries;  but  the  number  of  centuries  in  the  dif- 
ferent classes  was  so  unequal,  that  those  of  the 
first  or  richest  class  made  a  majority  of  the  whole ; 
and  when  the  centuries  of  this  class  were  unani- 
mous, they  decided  the  question.  By  this  institu- 
tion, the  rich  were  masters  of  the  legislature, 
though  not  without  some  compensation  to  the 
poor,  as  the  several  classes  were  charged  with 
taxes  and  public  services,  in  the  same  proportion 
in  which  they  were  vested  with  power. 

The  people,  when  thus  assembled,  were  distin- 
guished in  their  classes  by  their  ensigns  and  arms, 
and,  though  called  together  on  political  affairs, 
were  termed  the  army.9 

In  the  first  ages  of  this  principality  or  common- 
wealth, the  meetings  of  the  people  were  held  first 
by  curiae,  and  afterwards  by  centuries.  The  prac- 
tice of  voting  by  tribes  was  of  a  later  date  than 
either,  and  was  the  device  of  a  popular  party  to 
exclude  the  auspices,  to  level  the  condition  of 
ranks,  and  by  these  means  to  turn  the  channels 
of  power  in  their  own  favour.  The  people  were 
formed  into  their  classes  and  centuries,  to  elect 
their  officers,  to  enact  laws,  or  to  deliberate  on 
other  affairs  of  state;  but  they  did  not  without 
struggle  or  contest  always  acquiesce  in  this  mode 
of  assembly.  The  poorer  citizens  often  insisted 
to  be  called  in  the  curia^,  and  afterwards  in  the 
tribes,  to  decade  on  affairs  which  the  rich  would 
have  referred  to  the  centuries  alone.  The  ques- 
tion on  these  occasions  went  to  the  foundation  of 
the  constitution,  and  implied  a  doubt  whether  the 
state  was  to  be  governed  by  the  balance  of  num- 
bers, or  the  balance  of  property.10 

9  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  iv.  c.  16,  17, 18.    Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  43. 

10  State  of  the  classes  and  centuries  at  the  establish- 
ment of  the  census : 

VALUATION. 


Class. 

Romans. 

Sterling. 

JVo.  of  Cevt. 

1. 

100,000 

£.322  18.N-. 

98 

o. 

75,000 

242  3 

21 

3. 

50,000 

101  9 

21 

4. 

2.5,000 

80  14 

21 

5. 
6. 

11,000 

35  10 

31 
1 

Total  193  From 

First  class  98  Sub. 


95 

Majority  of  the  first  class,    ....  3 


J  2 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


To  these  original  springs  of  the  political  frame 
may  be  joined  those  of  religion,  which  in  all  go- 
vernments must  have  a  considerable  force;  and  in 
this  have  always  been  supposed  a  principal  power 
to  regulate  its  movements.  Here  indeed,  there 
being  no  distinction  of  clergy  and  laity,  the  autho- 
rity of  the  statesman,  augur,  and  priest,  was  united 
in  the  same  persons,  or  in  the  same  orders  of  men : 
and  as,  in  the  mind  of  every  citizen,  notwithstand- 
ing the  high  measure  01  his  superstition,  the 
sword  of  state  was  preferred  to  the  altar,  the  poli- 
tician and  warrior  availed  himself  of  the  respect 
which  was  paid  to  the  priest,  and  made  supersti- 
tion itself  subservient  to  the  purposes  of  state. 
With  presages  and  prodigies  he  encouraged  or 
restrained  the  people  in  their  desires  and  pursuits ; 
he  bound  them  with  vows  and  with  oaths,  to  a 
degree  that  has  not  been  equalled  by  mankind  in 
any  other  instance ;  and,  with  reference  to  this  cir- 
cumstance in  particular,  it  has  been  observed,  that 
the  seeds  of  Roman  greatness  were  laid  in  the 
implicit  respect  with  which  every  citizen  revered 
the  first  institutions  of  his  country.1 

The  wants  by  which  the  Romans  were  impel- 
led in  the  first  state  of  their  settlement,  made  it 
necessary  for  them  to  vanquish  some  of  their 
neighbours,  or  to  perish  in  the  attempt.  Valour, 
accordingly,  in  their  estimation,  was  the  principal 
quality  of  human  nature,  and  the  defeat  of  an 
enemy  the  chief  of  its  fruits.  Every  leader  who 
obtained  a  victory  made  his  entry  at  Rome  in  pro- 
cession ;  and  this  gave  rise  to  the  triumph,  which 
.continued,  from  the  first  to  the  last  age  of  the 
commonwealth,  to  be  the  highest  object  of  am- 
bition. 

Historians,  admiring  the  effect  of  this  and  of 
other  practices  of  an  early  date  among  the  Romans, 
have  represented  their  founder,  and  his  immediate 
successors,  as  philosophers,  statesmen,  and  able 
tutors,  who,  with  a  perfect  foresight  of  the  conse- 
quences, suggested  the  maxims  which  gave  so 
nappy  a  turn  to  the  minds  of  men  in  this  infant 
republic.  They  are  said  to  have  taught,  that  by 
frugality  and  valour  the  Romans  were  to  conquer 
the  world  :  that  they  ought  not  to  lay  waste  the 
lands  which  they  conquered,  but  to  possess  them 
with  colonies  of  their  own  people :  that  they  ought 
not  to  slay  the  vanquished,  but  transport  their 
captives  to  Rome,  as  an  accession  to  the  number 
of  their  own  citizens :  that  they  ought  not  to  make 
war  without  provocation,  nor  to  commence  hosti- 
lities until  they  had  demanded  and  had  been  re- 
fused reparation  of  wrongs.  In  whatever  begree 
we  suppose  these  maxims  to  have  been  expressed 
or  understood  in  the  councils  of  Rome,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  successful  conduct  of  the  state  in 
these  particulars  was  sufficient  to  have  suggested 
the  idea  that  they  were  known. 

To  the  other  fortunate  customs  which  may  be 
traced  up  to  those  early  times  of  the  state,  we  may 
join  that  of  the  census,  by  which  the  people,  at 


[Book  I. 


A  property  of  100,000  asses  or  pounds  of  copper  entitled 
the  owner  to  a  place  in  the  first  class,  75,000  to  a  place  in 
the  second,  50,000  to  a  place  in  the  third,  25,000  to  a  place 
in  the  fourth,  1 1,000  to  a  place  in  the  fifth,  and  the  remain- 
der of  the  people,  having  no  valuation,  or  having  less  than 
that  of  the  fifth  class,  were  thrown  into  the  sixth  or  last 
class.  The  whole  were  divided  into  193  centuries,  of 
w  hich  the  first  class  contained  80  centuries  of  foot,  and  18 
of  horsemen,  in  all  98 ;  being  a  majority  of  the  whole. 
The  sixth  class  formed  no  more  than  one  century,  as  ap- 
pears from  the  inspection  of  the  precf  ding  tsh'/j. 

1  S.-e  Machiavel's  Discourses  on  JUvv 


every  period  of  five  years,  took  a  regular  account 
of  the  numbers  and  estates  of  their  citizens,  as  the 
best  measure  they  could  have  of  their  own  pro- 
gress or  decline,  and  the  surest  test  of  their  poli- 
cy and  conduct  as  a  nation. 

The  Romans  reckoned  in  the  first  period  of 
their  history,  a  succession  of  seven  kings,2  to  each 
of  whom  they  ascribed  the  invention  of  their  se- 
veral institutions.  To  Romulus,  the  mixed  form 
of  their  government,  the  establishment  of  the  se- 
nate and  assemblies  of  the  people,  the  ranks  of 
patrician  and  plebeian,  the  relations  of  patron  and 
client.  To  Numa,  the  religion  of  the  people,  and 
their  regard  to  oaths.  To  Servius  Tullius,  the 
census,  or  periodical  muster;  and  so  on. — But 
whether  we  suppose  these  institutions  to  have 
been  the  suggestion  of  particular  occasions,  or 
the  invention  of  ingenious  men,  directed  by  a 
deep  premeditation  of  all  their  effects,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  such  institutions  existed  in  very  early 
times,  and  served  as  the  foundation  of  that  policy 
which  distinguished  the  Roman  state. 

The  monarchy  of  Rome  is  said  to  have  lasted 
two  hundred  and  forty-four  years,  a  period  in 
which  the  numbers  of  the  people,  and  the  extent 
of  their  settlement,  had  greatly  increased.  During 
this  period,  they  had  drawn  many  of  their  neigh- 
bours to  Rome,  and  sent  many  of  their  own  peo- 
ple to  occupy  settlements  abroad.  By  the  inrol- 
ment  of  aliens,  they  procured  a  certain  increase 
of  people ;  and  by  spreading  their  colonies  around, 
they  made  acquisitions  of  territory,  and  extended 
the  nursery  of  Roman  citizens.  We  find,  never- 
theless, that,  by  the  last  part  of  this  policy,  they 
incurred  a  danger  of  losing  the  people  whom  they 
thus  established  or  bred  up  in  new  settlements, 
however  little  removed  from  the  metropolis.  Men 
had  not  yet  learned  to  consider  themselves  as  the 
citizens  of  one  place,  and  inhabitants  of  another. 
In  departing  from  Rome,  the  colonies  ceased  to 
be  inrolled  m  any  tribe  or  ward  of  that  city,  or 
of  its  district ;  or  to  be  ranked  in  any  class  of  the 
people.  They  ceased,  of  course,  to  be  called  up- 
on to  vote  in  any  of  the  assemblies,  which  they 
no  longer  attended.  They  formed  notions  of  an 
interest  separate  from  that  of  their  original  coun- 
try, so  much,  that  the  colonies  which  had  been 
planted  by  one  prince,  resisted  the  power  of  his 
successors;  and  conquests,  where  the  Roman 
citizens  were  mixed  with  the  natives,  in  order  to 
keep  them  in  subjection,  were  sometimes  in  dan- 
ger of  being  lost.  The  colony  itself  took  a  part 
in  the  discontents  of  the  people  they  were  sent  to 
restrain,  and  became  parties  with  the  vanquisher! 
in  their  quarrel  with  the  victors.3  But,  notwith- 
standing frequent  instances  of  this  sort  among 
the  Roman  colonies,  the  memory  of  their  descent 
and  the  ties  of  consanguinity,  the  pride  of  their 
distinction  as  Romans,  the  capacity  which  every 
colonist  retained  of  returning  to  Rome,  and  of 
being  reinstated  in  the  rolls  of  the  people,  for  the 
most  part  preserved  their  attachment  to  R.ome, 
and  made  them  still  a  part  of  her  strength,  and  a 
principal  source  of  her  greatness. 

During  this  period  of  the  kingly  government, 
the  numbers  that  were  inrolled  in  the  city  and 
its  territory,  increased  from  three  thousand  and 
two  hundred  to  eighty  thousand  men  of  an  age 


2  Romulus,  Numa,  Tullus  Hostilius,  Anctis  Martius. 
TarquiniusPiiscus,  Servius  Tullius,  Tarquimus  Superbus 

3  Liv.  lib.  iii.  c,  4. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


13 


fit  to  carry  arms.4  The  number  of  Roman  tribes 
or  wards  of  the  city  was  augmented  from  three 
to  twenty-one.  The  kingdom  itself  extended 
over  the  greater  part  of  Latium,  and  had  an  in- 
timate alliance  with  the  whole  of  it.  The  city 
of  Rome  was  become  the  principal  resort  of  all 
the  Latin  confederates,  the  place  of  their  meet- 
ings for  devotion  or  pleasure,  and  the  seat  of 
their  political  consultations.5 

To  accommodate  and  secure  this  populous  and 
growing  community,  several  of  the  heights  con- 
tiguous to  their  original  settlement  were,  during 
the  same  period,  successively  occupied,  the  mar- 
shes between  them  were  drained  by  excavations 
and  works  of  great  magnificence,  of  which  a 
considerable  part  is  still  entire.  The  city  itself, 
instead  of  an  earthen  rampart,  was  surrounded 
with  towers  and  battlements  of  hewn  stone.6 

So  far  it  appears,  that  while 
Change  to  every  successive  prince  gratified  his 
republic.  own  ambition  by  subduing  some 
neighbouring  district  or  village,  and 
brought  an  accession  of  riches  or  territory  to  his 
country,  the  genius  of  monarchy  was  favourable 
to  the  growth  of  this  rising  empire.  But  when 
princes  became  satiated  with  conquests  abroad, 
or  began  to  meditate  schemes  to  increase  their  own 
importance  at  home,  their  ambition  took  a  dif- 
ferent direction,  and  led  them  to  aim  at  making 
the  kingdom  hereditary,  and  the  people  more  sub- 
servient to  their  pleasure.  Under  this  direction 
of  the  monarch's  ambition,  the  state,  as  Montes- 
quieu observes,  was  likely  to  become  stationary, 
or  even  to  decline.  A  revolution  became  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  preserve  it  in  its  former  progres- 
sive state. 

Such  a  revolution,  we  are  told, 
U.  C.  244.  took  its  rise  from  the  resentments 
of  the  people,  excited  by  abuses  of 
power,  and  was  hastened  by  a  momentary  indig- 
nation, roused  by  an  insult  offered  by  a  son  of 
the  king  to  a  Roman  matron.  As  the  political 
evils  which  this  revolution  was  intended  to  re- 
medy were,  the  state  of  degradation  and  weak- 
7iess  to  which  the  senate  had  been  reduced,  the 
usurpation  of  hereditary  succession  to  the  crown, 
and  the  general  abuses  of  government,  suitable 
remedies  were  sought  for  to  these  evils,  by  re- 
storing the  numbers  and  power  of  the  senate,  by 


4  Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  44. 

5  Dinnys.  Hal.  lib.  iv.  p.  250. 

6  The  stones  employed  in  building  the  walls  of  Rome, 
were  said  each  to  have  been  sufficient  to  load  a  cart. 

The  common  sewers  were  executed  at  a  groat  expense 
It  was  proposed  that  they  should  be  of  sufficient  dimen- 
sions to  admit  a  wagon  loaded  with  hay,  (Plin.  lib.  xxxvi. 
c.  15.)  When  these  common  sewers  came  to  be  obstruct- 
ed, or  out  of  repair,  under  the  republic,  the  censors  con- 
tracted to  pay  a  thousand  talents,  or  about  193,000/.  for 
clearing  and  repairing  them,  (Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  iii.  c.  67.) 
They  were  again  in  disrepair  at  the  accession  of  Augustus 
<'resar,  and  the  reinstating  them  is  mentioned  among  the 
great  works  of  Agrippa.  He  is  said  to  have  turned  the 
course  of  seven  rivers  into  these  subterraneous  passages, 
to  have  made  them  navigable,  and  to  have  actually  pass- 
ed in  barges  under  the  streets  and  buildings  of  Rome. 
These  works  are  still  supposed  to  remain ;  but,  as  they 
exceed  the  power  and  resources  of  the  present  city  to 
keep  them  in  repair,  they  are  quite  concealed,  except  at 
one  or  two  places.  They  were,  in  the  midst  of  the  Roman 
greatness,  and  still  are,  reckoned  among  the  wonders  of 
the  world,  (Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  38 ;)  and  yet  they  are  said  to  have 
fipen  works  of  the  elder  Turquin,  a  prince  whose  territory 
did  not  extend,  in  any  direction,  above  sixteen  miles  ;  and, 
on  this  supposition,  they  must  have  been  made  to  accom- 
modate a  city  that  was  calculated  chiefly  for  the  reception 


abolishing  the  royalty,  and  by  substituting  in  its 
place  an  elective  and  temporary  magistracy. 

The  principal  part  of  the  revolution  consisted 
in  substituting  the  consuls,  two  annual  magis- 
trates, in  place  of  the  king.  These  officers  were 
chosen  in  the  assembly  of  the  centuries.  The 
officer  who  was  to  preside  at  the  election  erected 
his  standard,  and  pitched  his  tent  in  the  field  of 
Mars,7  a  meadow  which  lay  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tiber,  above  the  city.  The  people  repaired  to 
him  in  arms,  and,  distinguished  by  the  ensigns 
and  armour  of  their  different  classes,  proceeded 
to  make  their  election. 

That  the  city  might  not  be  surprised  while  its 
defenders  were  thus  abroad  in  the  fields,  a  guard 
was  posted,  with  its  colours  displayed,  on  the  Ja- 
niculum,  a  hill  on  the  right  of  the  Tiber,  which 
overlooked  the  river  and  contiguous  plain.  If  an 
enemy  appeared  during  the  election,  the  guard 
had  orders  to  strike  their  ensigns ;  and  on  this 
signal  every  century  repaired  to  its  post  of  alarm, 
and  questions  of  state  were  suspended  until  the 
danger  was  removed.  As  it  became  an  article  of 
superstition,  that  the  centuries  could  not  proceed 
in  any  business  without  having  an  ensign  dis- 
played on.  the  Janiculum,  it  was  in  the  power  of 
any  person,  by  striking  the  ensign,  to  break  up 
an  assembly  of  the  people :  and  this  expedient 
for  stopping  the  progress  of  any  business  was 
accordingly  made  use  of  at  different  times  to  the 
end  of  the  republic.8 

It  was  meant  that  the  consuls  should  succeed 
to  all  the  powers  of  the  king ;  and  in  order  to 
enforce  their  authority,  a  penalty  of  five  oxen  and 
two  sheep  was  denounced  against  every  person 
who  refused  to  obey  them.9  Their  joint  and  di- 
vided command,  with  the  limited  term  of  one 
year,  which  was  to  be  the  duration  of  their  power, 
were  thought  sufficient  securities  against  the 
abuse  of  it. 

The  government,  by  this  revolution,  devolved 
on  the  senate  and  nobles.  The  plebeians,  in  the 
first  formation  of  it,  were  favoured  by  the  ad- 
mission of  a  certain  number  of  their  order  to  fill 
up  the  senate,  which  had  been  reduced  in  its 
numbers  by  the  tyranny  of  the  late  king ;  and 
they  were  declared,  in  case  of  any  oppression,  to 


of  cattle,  herdsmen,  and  banditti.  Rude  nations  some- 
times execute  works  of  great  magnificence,  as  fortresses 
and  temples,  for  the  purposes  ot  war  and  superstition; 
but  seldom  palaces,  and  still  more  seldom  works  of  mere 
convenience  and  cleanliness,  in  which,  for  the  most  part, 
they  are  long  defective.  It  is  not  unreasonable,  therefore, 
to  question  the  authority  of  tradition  in  respect  to  this 
singular  monument  of  antiquity,  which  so  greatly  exceeds 
what  the  best  accommodated  city  of  modern  Europe  could 
undertake  for  its  own  conveniency.  And  as  those  works 
are  still  entire,  and  may  continue  so  for  thousands  of 
years,  it  may  be  suspected  that  they  were  even  prior  to 
the  settlement  of  Romulus,  and  may  have  been  the  re- 
mains of  a  more  ancieot  city,  on  the  ruins  of  which  the 
followers  of  Romulus  settled,  as  the  Arabs  now  hut  or 
encamp  on  the  ruins  of  Palmyra  and  Balbeck.  Livy 
owns,  that  the  common  sewers  were  not  accommodated 
to  the  plan  of  Rome,  as  it  was  laid  out  in  his  time;  they 
were  carried  in  directions  across  the  streets,  and  passed 
under  buildings  of  the  greatest,  antiquity.  This  derange- 
ment indeed  he  imputes  to  the  hasty  rebuilding  of  the  city 
after  its  destruction  by  the  Gauls;  but  haste,  it  is  pro- 
bable, would  have  determined  the  people  to  build  on  th«ir 
old  foundations,  or  at  least  not  to  change  them  so  much 
as  to  cross  the  direction  of  former  streets. 

7  Campus  Martius. 

8  See  Book  Til.  Chapter  HI. 

9  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Poplicola. 


11 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


have  a  right  of  appeal  from  any  sentence  or  com- 
mand of  the  magistrate  to  an  assembly  of  the 
people  at  large.  This  was  understood  to  be  the 
great  charter  of  every  citizen.  But  the  patricians 
alone  could  be  chosen  into  the  newly  established 
offices  of  state.  They  alone  were  to  furnish  the 
ordinary  succession  of  members  to  the  senate, 
and,  by  their  inrolment  in  the  first  and  second 
classes,  to  have  a  decided  majority  in  all  the 


meetings  or  comitia  of  the  centuries  ;*  that  is,  in 
all  assemblies  of  the  people  that  were  called  to 
elect  officers  of  state,  to  enact  laws,  or  to  judge 
of  appeals.  By  these  several  provisions  in  their 
favour,  they  were  in  possession  of  a  complete 
aristocracy,  which  they  claimed  as  hereditary  in 
their  families,  but  which  they  were  not  likely  to 
retain,  without  much  discontent  and  animosity 
on  the  part  of  their  subjects. 


CHAPTER  II. 


Form  of  the  Republic — Dissension  of  Parties — First  Dictator — Secession  of  Plebeians —  Tri- 
bunes of  the  People —  Their  Objects — Distribution  of  Corn — Division  of  Lands — Pretensions 
of  the  Plebeians — Commission  to  compile  Laws — Decemvirs — Twelve  Tables — Intermarriage 
of  Ranks — Claim  of  the  Plebeians  to  the  Consulate — Military  or  Consular  Tribunes — Cen- 
sors— JEdiles — Proefectus  Annonae — Fortune  of  the  Republic — Reduction  of  Veice —  Destruc- 
tion of  Rome  by  the  Gauls — Rebuilding  oj  the  City. 


THE  government  of  Rome,  as  it 
U.  C.  244.  is  represented  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  king,  was  become  entirely  aris- 
tocratical.  The  nobles  had  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  office,  without  any  third  party  to  hold  the 
balance  between  themselves  and  the  people.  The 
consuls  were  the  sole  executive  magistrates,  and 
the  only  ministers  of  the  senate ;  they  were  un- 
derstood to  come  in  place  of  the  king ;  performed 
all  the  functions  of  royalty;  and,  in  the  manner 
of  the  kings,  to  whom  they  succeeded,  united  in 
their  own  persons  all  the  dignities  of  the  state, 
those  of  judge,  magistrate,  and  military  leader. 

Such,  at  the  first  institution  of  the  common- 
wealth, was,  both  in  respect  of  government  and 
manners,  the  simplicity  or  rudeness  of  this  com- 
munity. The  people,  however,  in  their  new  situ- 
ation, were  gradually  and  speedily  led,  by  the  ac- 
cumulation of  their  affairs,  by  the  contest  of  their 
parties,  and  by  the  wants  of  the  public,  to  a  va- 
riety of  establishments,  in  which  they  separated 
the  departments  of  state,  more  equally  distributed 
its  powers,  filled  up  the  lists  of  office,  and  put 
themselves  in  a  posture  to  wield  with  advantage 
their  strength  as  it  increased,  and  to  avail  them- 
selves of  every  circumstance  that  occurred  in 
their  fiivour. 

While  the  exiled  king  was  endeavouring,  by 
continual  invasions,  to  recover  his  power,  dis- 
putes arose  between  the  parties  who  had  joined 
to  expel  him;2  creditors,  supported  by  the  aris- 


1  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  v. 

2  Tn  these  original  disputes  between  the  patricians  and 
plebeians  at  Rome,  it  is  implied  that  they  frequently  or 
commonly  stood  in  the  relation  of  creditor  and  debtor,  as 
well  as  of  patron  and  client.  And  we  may  account  for 
this  circumstance  in  either  of  two  ways:  first,  by  suppos- 
ing that  the  client  was,  in  some  degree,  tributary  to  his 
patron,  as  the  vassal  was  tributary  to  his  lord  in  the  origi- 
nal state  of  modern  nations.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus 
has  laid  some  foundation  for  this  supposition,  in  the  pas- 
sage above  cited.  Or  we  may  suppose,  in  the  second 
place,  that  the  debts  in  question  were  money  or  effects 
actually  borrowed  by  the  client  and  lent  by  the  patron. 
The  first  supposition  is  most  agreeable  to  the  manners  of 


tocracy,  of  which  the  nobles  were  now  in  full 
possession,  became  severe  in  the  exaction  of 
debts,  or  the  patrons  laid  claim  to  more  than  the 
clients  were  willing  to  pay.3  The  state  was  dis- 
tracted at  once  by  its  enemies  from  abroad,  and 
by  the  dissension  of  parties  at  home.  The  au- 
thority of  the  new  government  not  being  suffi- 
cient to  contend  with  these  difficulties,  the  senate 
resolved  to  place  themselves  and  the  common- 
wealth, for  a  limited  time,  under  the 
U.  C.  452  power  of  a  single  person,  who,  with 
or  455.*  the  title  of  Dictator,  or  Master  of 
the  people,4  should  at  his  pleasure 
dispose  of  the  state,  and  of  all  its  resources. 


modern  times ;  but  the  last  is  more  likely  to  have  been 
the  fact  in  the  original  state  of  the  Romans,  and  of  an- 
cient republics  in  general.  Among  them  the  great  dis 
tinction  of  persons  was  that  between  freemen  and  slaves. 
The  rich  freeman  was  supplied  with  every  thing  he 
wanted  by  the  labour  of  his  slaves.  The  necessitous 
freeman  toiled  with  his  own  hands  in  labouring  a  small 
piece  of  ground,  or  in  tending  a  few  beasts.  He  had  no 
trade  by  which  to  supply  the  luxuries  of  the  rich,  or  by 
which,  as  in  modern  times,  to  make  them  his  debtors. 
When  he  wanted  their  aid  he  was  obliged  to  borrow  ;  and 
there  was,  perhaps,  but  one  occasion  on  which  he  had 
credit  for  this  purpose;  when  he  was  going  to  war,  and 
when  he  both  had  a  reasonable  excuse  for  borrowing,  and 
a  probable  prospect  of  being  able  to  pay,  perhaps  with 
interest,  from  the  spoils  of  an  enemy.  But  when  his 
hopes  failed,  he  might  become  insolvent,  and  exposed  to 
all  the  severities  of  which  we  read  such  complaints  in  the 
early  part  of  the  Roman  history. 

There  is,  throughout  this  history,  sufficient  evidence 
that  the  popular  party  were  on  the  side  of  the  debtor. 
The  prejudices  of  this  party  operated  against  the  exaction 
or  debts.  Their  influence  was  employed  in  reducing  the 
interest  of  money;  in  having  it  abolished,  and  in  having 
it  detested,  under  the  invidious  appellation  of  usury. 
They  even  strove,  on  occasion,  to  abolish  debts:  the  re- 
sult was  far  from  being  favourable  to  the  necessitous  bor- 
rower; he  was  obliged  1o  pay  for  the  risk,  the  penalties, 
and  the  obloquy  to  which  the  lender  was  exposed  in 
transgressing  the  laws. 

3  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  5. 

4  Magister  Populi. 

*  The  date  of  the  nomination  of  the  first  dictator  is 
uncertain.  Liv.  lib.  ii.  Some  place  it  nine  years  after 
the  expulsion  of  the  kings;  Dionys.  twelve  years. 


ClIAP.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


15 


This  officer  was  invested  with  power  to  punish 
the  disorderly  without  trial  and  without  appeal ; 
to  arm  the  people,  and  to  employ  their  forces  on 
any  service;  to  name  his  own  substitute,  or  se- 
cond in  command;  and  to  act  without  being, 
even  at  the  expiration  of  his  office,  accountable 
either  to  the  senate  or  to  the  people.  The  cir- 
cumstances that  were  probably  accidental  in  the 
first  nomination  of  this  extraordinary  officer, 
were  afterwards  repeated  as  unalterable  forms  in 
every  successive  appointment  of  the  same  kind. 
It  became  the  prerogative  of  the  senate  to  resolve 
that  a  dictator  should  be  named,  and  of  the  con- 
sul to  name  him.  The  ceremony  was  performed 
in  the  dead  of  night  ;s  and  as  soon  as  the  nomina- 
tion was  known,  the  lictors,  or  ministers  of  jus- 
tice, armed  with  their  axes  and  rods,  withdrew 
from  the  ordinary  magistrate,  to  attend  this 
temporary  lord  of  the  commonwealth. 

This  was  the  first  political  expedient  to  which 
the  state  was  directed  by  the  exigency  of  its  new 
government.  The  precedent  came  to  be  repeat- 
edly followed  in  times  of  calamity  or  public 
alarm,  and  the  whole  powers  of  the  state  were 
occasionally  entrusted  to  single  men,  on  the  sole 
security  of  their  personal  characters,  or  on  that 
of  the  short  duration  of  their  trust,  which  was 
limited  to  six  months.  This  institution  was  de- 
vised by  the  senate,  to  repress  the  disorders  which 
broke  out  among  the  people,  and  to  unite  the 
forces  of  the  commonwealth  against  its  enemies. 
The  next  was  of  a  different  nature,  and  was 
meant  to  protect  the  plebeians  against  the  op- 
pression of  their  lords. 

The  inferior  class  of  the  people,  almost  ex- 
cluded from  any  share  in  the  new  government, 
soon  found  that  under  its  influence  they  had 
more  oppression  to  fear  from  their  patrons,  than 
they  had  ever  experienced  from  the  prince  they 
had  banished.  So  long  as  the  king  and  the  se- 
nate shared  in  the  powers  of  the  state,  the  one 
took  part  with  the  people,  when  the  other  at- 
tempted to  oppress  them;  and  it  was  the  ordinary 
interest  and  policy  of  the  prince  to  weaken  the 
nobles,  by  supporting  the  plebeians  against  thorn. 
This  effect  of  the  monarchy  still,  in  some  mea- 
sure, remained,  so  long  as  the  exiled  king  was 
alive,  maintained  his  pretensions,  and  made  the 
united  services  of  the  people  necessary  to  the 
senate.  During  this  period  the  patricians  were 
still  on  their  guard,  and  were  cautious  not  to  of- 
fend the  people;  but  upon  the  death  of  the  king, 
and  the  security  which  the  new  government  de- 
rived from  this  event,  the  nobles  availed  them- 
selves of  their  power,  and  enforced  their  claims 
on  the  people  with  extreme  severity.  In  the  ca- 
pacity of  creditors,  they  imprisoned,  whipped,  and 
enslaved  those  who  were  indebted  to  them,  and 
held  the  liberties  and  the  lives  of  their  fellow- 
citizens  at  their  mercy.  The  whole  body  of  ple- 
beians was  alarmed ;  they  saw  more  formidable 
enemies  in  the  persons  of  their  own  nobility, 
than  in  the  armies  of  any  nation  whatever. 
When  the  republic  was  attacked,  they  accord- 
ingly refused  to  arm  in  its  defence.  Many  who 
had  already  suffered  under  the  rod  of  their  cre- 
ditors, when  called  upon  to  enlist,  showed  their 
limbs  galled  with  fetters,  or  torn  with  the  stripes 
which  they  had  received  by  command  of  their 
merciless  patrons. 


These  distractions,  Joined  to  the  actual  pre- 
sence of  a  foreign  enenv,  obliged  the  senate  to 
have  recourse  to  their  former  expedient,  and  to 
entrust  the  republic  again  in  the  hands  of  a  dic- 
tator. Having  succeeded  in  their  first  nomina- 
tion, and  having  driven  the  enemy  from  their 
territories,  they  recurred  to  the  same  expedient 
again,  on  the  return  of  a  like  occasion ;  but,  in 
order  to  mix  insinuation  with  the  terrors  of  this 
measure,  they  made  choice  of  Valerius,  a  person 
whose  name  was  already  known  to  the  sufferers 
by  some  popular  laws  which  they  owed  to  his 
family.  This  officer  had  credit  enough  with  the 
people  to  prevail  on  them  to  take  arms,  and  had 
the  good  fortune  to  repel  the  enemy,  by  whom 
the  state  was  invaded :  but,  upon  his  return,  not 
being  able  to  prevail  on  the  senate  to  fulfil  the 
hopes  which  he  had  given  to  the  people,  he  made 
a  speech  to  exculpate  himself,  and  laid  down  his 
power.  The  citizens  who  had  fought  under  his 
banner  being  still  in  the  field,  and,  without  any 
orders  to  disband,  suspecting  that  the  senate,  un- 
der pretence  of  some  war  on  the  frontier,  meant 
to  remove  them  from  the  city,  ran  to  their  arms ; 
and,  if  they  had  not  been  restrained  by  their  mi- 
litary oath,  and  the  respect  they  paid  to  the  go- 
vernment of  their  country,  must  have  entered  the 
gates  by  force.  But,  under  the  impression  of 
these  motives,  they  fled  from  the  walls  instead 
of  invading  them,  retired  beyond  the  Anio,  and 
took  possession  of  a  height  about  three  miles 
from  Rome,6  afterwards  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Sacred  Hill.  Their  officers  followed,  and 
endeavoured  to  persuade  them  to  return  to  their 
duty ;  but  were  told,  that  no  duty  was  owing  to 
a  government  which  had  withdrawn  its  protec- 
tion, and  encouraged  oppression ;  that  free  citi- 
zens own  no  country  in  which  they  are  not  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  their  freedom. — "  To  what 
purpose,"  said  Sicinius  Bellutus,  who  was  then 
at  the  head  of  this  mutiny,  "  recall  us  to  a  city 
from  which  you  have  already  forced  us  to  fly  by 
your  extortion?  By  what  new  assurance  can 
you  persuade  us  to  rely  on  a  faith  which  you 
have  repeatedly  broken '?  By  what  charm  can 
you  engage  us  in  support  of  a  commonwealth, 
of  which  you  will  not  allow  us  to  be  members'? 
You  mean  to  engross  all  the  fruits  which  are  to 
be  reaped  in  your  country,  and  it  is  well.  We 
shall  leave  you  to  do  so,  and  do  not  mean  to  in- 
terrupt your  enjoyments." 

This  secession  of  a  great  body  of  the  people 
having  continued  for  several  months,  and  in  this 
time  received  a  constant  accession  of  numbers 
from  the  city  and  from  the  contiguous  fields, 
threw  the  republic  into  the  greatest  disorder ;  ex- 
posed its  lands  to  be  neglected  or  pillaged  by  its 
own  inhabitants,  and  ravaged  by  numerous  ene- 
mies, who  took  this  opportunity  to  invade  it  with- 
out opposition. 

The  patricians  had  sufficient  force  in  their  own 
body,  and  in  that  of  their  faithful  retainers,  to 
guard  the  avenues  of  the  city,  and  to  secure  it 
from  surprise :  but  being  reduced  to  great  diffi- 
culties for  want  of  their  usual  supplies  of  provi- 
sions, and  apprehending  still  greater  from  the 
interruption  of  labour  and  the  suspension  of  go- 
vernment, they  came  to  a  resolution  to  negotiate 
with  the  leaders  of  the  mutiny;  and,  for  this 
purpose,  raised  Sp.  Cassius,  a  person  who,  though 


5  Liv.  lib.  viii.  c.  20.  &  lib.  ix.  c  28. 


G  Cicero  dc  Claris  Orutoribus,  c.  14. 


16 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  L 


of  a  patrician  family,  was  in  high  favour  with 
the  people,  to  the  office  of  consul.  They  agreed 
to  mitigate  the  severities  which  they  had  hither- 
to practised  against  insolvent  debtors,  and  to  re- 
lease such  of  them  as  were  actually  in  bonds,  or 
had  been  destined  to  slavery. 

With  these  concessions,  a  deputation  was  sent 
to  the  camp,  and  a  negotiation  was  opened,  in 
which  the  plebeians  obtained,  not  only  a  full  ac- 
knowledgment of  their  privileges,  but,  what  was 
of  more  consequence,  a  power  of  forming  assem- 
blies apart  from  the  nobles,1  and  of  electing  an- 
nual magistrates,  to  guard  and  watch  over  their 
own  separate  rights.  "  Your  consuls,"  they  said, 
"are  not  so  much  the  officers  of  the  common- 
wealth as  the  heads  of  a  faction ;  and,  in  all 
questions  that  relate  to  the  people,  are  parties 
rather  than  judges.  It  is  reasonable  that  we 
too  have  a  head  or  representation  in  the  common- 
wealth, under  which  we  may  act,  at  least  in  our 
own  defence." 

In  return  to  this  well-advised  and 
U.  C.  260.  specious  requisition,  the  tribunitian 
power  was  established,  and  with  it 
the  foundations  of  some  good,  and  of  much  harm 
laid  in  the  commonwealth.  Great  part  of  the 
last  might  have  been  prevented,  if  the  plebeians, 
now  in  possession  of  a  right  to  nominate  tribunes 
for  the  care  of  their  interests,  had  from  thence- 
forward been  content  with  the  power  of  election 
merely,  had  discontinued  their  own  collective  as- 
semblies for  any  other  purpose,  and  increased  the 
number  of  their  tribunes,  to  a  just  representa- 
tive of  their  whole  body.  The  return,  however, 
was  more  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  the  times. 
The  people  were  allowed  to  assemble;  and,  in- 
stead of  a  representation  to  support  and  preserve 
their  rights  with  steadiness  and  with  moderation, 
they  proceeded  to  elect  a  few  leaders,  who  from 
thenceforward,  were  to  head  every  popular  tu- 
mult, and  to  raise  up  every  wind  of  contention 
into  a  storm. 

The  tribunes  were  authorised,  at  their  first  in- 
stitution, to  forbid,  or  to  restrain,  any  measures 
which  they  thought  hazardous,  or  injurious  to 
the  rights  of  their  constituents,  but  not  to  pro- 
pose any  law,  nor  to  move  any  positive  resolu- 
tion. They  were  not  entitled  to  exercise  their 
powers  beyond  the  walls  of  the  city,  or  to  absent 
themselves  from  it  for  a  whole  day,  except  in 
their  attendance  on  the  festival  of  the  Latin  al- 
lies, where  the  presence  of  all  the  Roman  magis- 
trates was  required.  A  single  tribune  might  stop 
the  proceedings  of  his  own  body,  and  of  the 
people  themselves,  as  well  as  the  proceedings  of 
the  senate  and  patrician  magistrates.  In  the  ex- 
ercise of  this  last  part  of  their  trust,  though  not 
permitted  in  this  age  of  aristocracy  to  mix  with 
the  senators,  they  had  places  assigned  them  at 
the  doors  of  the  senate-house,  from  which,  as 
from  a  watch-tower,  they  were  to  observe,  and  on 
occasion  to  stop,  the  proceedings  of  the  lords. 

As  the  tribunes  were  destined  to  withstand  the 
exertions  of  power,  and  were  supposed,  on  the 
most  dangerous  occasions,  to  expose  themselves 
to  the  axe  and  the  sword  of  their  adversaries,  it 
was  thought  necessary  to  guard  their  persons 
with  the  most  sacred  fences  of  religion  and  law. 
For  this  purpose  an  inviolable  rule  was  prescribed 
in  the  following  terms :  "  Let  no  one  offer  vio- 
lence to  the  person  of  a  tribune;  neither  kill 

1  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  vii 


him,  nor  procure  him  to  be  killed ;  neither  strike 
him,  nor  procure  him  to  be  struck.  Let  the  per- 
son who  offends  against  this  law  be  accursed; 
let  his  effects  be  made  sacred  to  pious  uses,  and 
let  every  one  pursue  him  to  death." 

To  render  this  act  irrevocable,  a  solemn  oath 
for  the  perpetual  observance  of  it  was  imposed, 
and  dreadful  imprecations  were  denounced  against 
any  person  who  should  propose  to  repeal  it  ;2  and 
such  was  the  effect  of  these  precautions,  taken  for 
the  safety  of  the  tribunes,  that,  under  the  republic, 
persons  obnoxious  to  public  justice  could  not  be 
punished,  while  they  continued  to  bear  this  sacred 
character.  And  the  emperors  themselves,  after 
they  had  abolished  all  the  other  rights  of  the  re 
public,  found,  under  this  sacred  title  of  tribune, 
a  refuge  to  their  crimes  and  oppressions,  and  a 
protection  against  the  designs  of  assassins,  or  the 
resentment  of  those  they  had  offended  by  their 
tyranny. 

The  college  of  tribunes,  at  its  institution,  was 
not  limited  to  any  precise  number  of  members ; 
it  consisted  at  first  of  such  persons  as  had  been 
most  active  in  procuring  the  establishment,  and 
continued  to  be  filled  with  the  most  zealous  par- 
tizans  of  the  people,  the  number  being  three  or 
more,  according  as  persons  appeared  to  merit 
this  honour.  But  in  process  of  time  both  the 
plebeians  who  aspired  to  this  distinction,  and  the 
patricians  who  were  jealous  of  it,  conspired  to 
augment  the  numbers. — The  first,  in  order  to 
make  way  for  their  own  preferment;  and  the 
second,  to  the  end  that  they  might  be  the  better 
enabled,  on  occasion,  to  disunite  their  enemies, 
and  to  procure  the  negative  of  a  part,  to  arrest  the 
proceedings  of  the  whole.  The  college  of  tri- 
bunes was  accordingly  augmented  by  degrees  to 
ten ;  and  a  law  was  made  to  provide  that  the  elec- 
tions should  not  stop  short  of  this  number.3 

Patricians  could  neither  elect  nor  be  elected 
into  this  office,4  although,  in  the  midst  of  irregu- 
larities incident  to  all  unformed,  especially  to  all 
popular  governments,  some  exceptions  are  men- 
tioned, even  to  the  last  part  of  this  rule.  The 
tribunes  were  at  first  elected  in  the  assembly  of 
the  curia?,  where  the  vote  of  the  poorest  citizen 
was  equal  to  that  of  the  most  wealthy.  But 
even  here  the  patricians,  although  not  absolute 
masters,  as  they  were  in  the  assembly  of  the  cen- 
turies, having  great  influence,  and,  by  holding  the 
auspices,  having  even  a  negative  on  all  proceed- 
ings, it  was  thought  necessary  to  alter  the  form 
of  the  assembly  in  which  the  tribunes  were  elected 
to  that  of  the  tribes ;  and  by  this  means  to  enable 
the  people  to  make  their  election,  without  any 
control  from  the  nobles,  either  in  virtue  of  the 
authority  of  the  senate,  or  the  interposition  of 
the  augurs.5 

Such  was  the  institution  of  the  plebeian  tri- 
bunes, while  the  state  yet  knew  of  no  other  ma- 
gistrate besides  the  consuls  and  the  quaestors,  of 
whom  the  last,  even  under  the  kings,  had  been 
employed  as  a  species  of  commissaries,  or  pro- 
viders for  the  army.  The  expedient  was  adopted 
by  the  senate,  to  quiet  the  animosity  of  parties ; 
but  tended,  in  fact,  only  to  render  the  contest  be- 
tween them  more  equal,  and  to  multiply  the  sub- 
jects of  dispute.  The  tribunes  being  vested  with 
power  to  assemble  the  people,  could  not  long  be 


2  Dionys.  Halicar.  lib.  iv.  p.  410. 

3  Lex  Trebonia.    Liv.  lib.  iii.  c.  65. 

1  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  vii.       5  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  ix.  p.  65 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  17 


Chap.  II.] 

confined  to  the  mere  negative  with  which  they 
were  at  first  entrusted;  nor  was  it  easy,  on  every 
occasion,  to  distinguish  the  measures  of  attack 
from  those  of  defence;  and  the  party  of  the  ple- 
beians, with  these  officers  at  their  head,  were  then 
in  a  posture,  not  only  to  preserve  their  rights,  but 
likewise  to  gain  to  their  order  continual  accessions 
of  privilege  and  power.  Happily  for  the  state, 
there  was  yet  much  ground  of  this  sort  to  be 
gained,  without  transgressing  the  bounds  of  good 
order,  or  encroaching  on  the  authority  of  equit- 
able government. 

The  popular  leaders  in  this  career  had  to  break 
through  the  bar  of  hereditary  distinction,  which, 
it  was  pretended,  contrary  to  the  genius  of  the 
republic,  that  no  personal  merit  and  no  measure 
of  ability  could  remove.  One  of  the  first  steps 
they  made  in  pursuit  of  this  object,  was  to  pre- 
clude every  other  power  in  the  state  from  a  nega- 
tive on  their  own  proceedings.  For  this  purpose 
it  was  enacted,  by  the  authority  of  the  tribes,  that 
no  one,  under  pain  of  death,  or  of  an  arbitrary 
fine,  should  interrupt  a  tribune  while  he  was 
speaking  to  the  people.6  Being  thus  provided 
against  interruption,  as  they  were  by  a  former 
law  against  violence  to  their  persons,  they  not 
only  took  up  the  complaints  of  their  constituents, 
they  suggested  new  claims  to  be  made  by  them, 
and  at  every  succession  to  office,  endeavoured  to 
signalize  their  term  by  some  additional  establish- 
ment for  the  benefit  of  the  people  :  they  even  in- 
terrupted the  state  in  its  councils  and  military 
operations,  and  almost  in  every  instance  hung 
upon  the  wheels  of  government,  until  the  griev- 
ances they  complained  of  were  redressed,  or  the 
demands  they  made  were  complied  with. 

In  order  to  increase  the  number  of  plebeian 
officers,  whose  aid  the  tribunes  alleged  were 
necessary  to  themselves,  they  soon  alter  their 
own  institution,  procured  that  of 
U.  C.  260.  the  iEdiles,  who  were  to  inspect 
the  markets,  and  have  charge  of 
the  public  buildings  and  public  shows.  Being 
subordinate  to  the  tribunes,  as  well  as  to  the  con- 
suls, they  acted,  upon  occasion,  in  what  related 
to  the  policy  of  the  town,  as  assistants  to  both.7 

As  Rome  was  a  place  of  arms,  and  subsisted 
in  some  measure  by  public  magazines;  as  settle- 
ments Avon  from  the  enemy  were  often  to  be 
disposed  of  to  citizens ;  as  its  institutions  were 
yet  new  and  incomplete ;  and  as  the  patricians 
still  claimed  an  exclusive  right  to  all  the  offices 
of  state,  there  was  much  to  occupy  the  cares  of 
the  public — the  distribution  of  corn  from  the 
granaries,  the  division  of  conquered  lands,  the 
defects  of  the  laws,  and  the  arbitrary  proceedings 
of  the  magistrates.  The  qualifications  of  candi- 
dates for  the  office  of  consul  furnished,  during 
some  ages,  the  subject  of  continual  debates,  and 
frequently  exposed  the  parties  concerned  in 
them,  if  they  escaped  the  swords  of  their  ene- 
mies, to  perish  by  their  own  dissensions.  Their 
civil  and  military  transactions  were  constantly 
blended  together.  The  senate  frequently  in- 
volved the  state  in  war,  in  order  to  suspend  its 
intestine  divisions,  and  the  people  as  often  took 
occasion,  from  the  difficulties  in  which  the  com- 
munity was  involved  by  its  enemies,  to  extort  a 
compliance  with  their  own  demands. 

The  first  subject  of  contention  that  arose  after 


the  institution  of  the  tribunes  was  a  sequel  of 
the  troubles  which  had  preceded  that  establish- 
ment The  secession  of  the  people  took  place  in 
Autumn,  the  usual  seed-time  in  Italy ;  and  the 
labours  of  that  season  having  been  accordingly 
interrupted,  the  city  was  threatened  with  fa- 
mine i  and  the  senate  exerted  all  its  industry  in 
guarding  against  this  evil.8  After  the  public 
granaries  were  filled  for  this  purpose,  it  became 
a  question,  upon  what  terms,  and  at  what  price, 
the  poorer  citizens  should  be  supplied  from 
thence.  Their  insolence  in  the  late  mutiny, 
and  the  part  which  they  themselves,  by  sus- 
pending the  labours  of  the  field,  had  taken,  in 
bringing  on  the  distress  with  winch  they  were 
now  threatened,  were  fully  stated  against  them 
in  this  deliberation.  The  opportunity  was 
thought  to  be  fair,  to  recal  the  several  conces- 
sions which  had  been  extorted  from  the  senate, 
and,  in  particular,  to  oblige  the  people  to  part 
with  their  tribunes,  and  to  return  within  the  for- 
mer bounds  of  their  duty. 

Such  was  the  substance  of  a  contumelious 
speech,  delivered  in  the  senate  by  the  celebrated 
Caius  Marcius  Coriolanus.  The  younger  no- 
bility applauded  his  sentiments ;  but  the  greater 
part  of  tlie  senate,  having  recently  escaped  from 
a  popular  storm,  were  unwilling  to  engage  them- 
selves anew  in  the  same  dangerous  situation.  In 
order,  therefore,  to  appease  tlie  people,  who  were 
greatly  incensed  at  the  proposal  which  had  been 
made  to  subdue  thein,  they  agreed  to  deliver  corn 
from  the  public  granaries,  at  a  price  below  that 
of  the  most  plentiful  season.  And,  by  this  pro- 
ceeding, for  the  present  pacified  the  tribunes,  but 
flattered  their  presumption,  and  encouraged  them 
to  meditate  still  further  demands.  The  distress 
with  which  their  constituents  had  been  threat- 
ened was  prevented,  but  the  insult  they  had  re- 
ceived from  Caius  Marcius  was  not  avenged ; 
and  they  cited  him  to  appear  before  the  tribunal 
of  the  people,  to  answer  for  his  conduct  to  the 
party  he  had  offended.  The  senate  and  patri- 
cians were  disposed  to  protect  him ;  but,  trusting 
that  by  the  majority  of  their  votes  they  might  be 
able  to  acquit  him  in  the  comitia  of  the  centuries, 
the  only  assembly  before  which,  from  the  time 
of  its  first  institution,  any  capital  charge  had 
been  hitherto  laid  against  a  citizen,  they  su  fie  red 
the  trial  to  proceed.  In  this,  however,  they  were 
disappointed.  The  tribunes  insisted,  that  the 
people  should  assemble  in  their  tribes ;  and  hav- 
ing prevailed  in  this  previous  question,  the  accu- 
se,!, as  being  already  condemned  by  this  determi- 
nation relating  to  the  form  of  his  trial,  withdrew 
from  his  sentence.9 

Coriolanus,  in  resentment  of  this 
U.  C.  2G2.  prosecution,  which  forced  him  into 
exile,  joined  the  enemies  of  his 
country,  and  by  increasing  the  alarm  of  war 
from  abroad,  helped  to  suspend  for  a  while  the 
animosities  of  which  he  himself  had  furnished 
the  occasion  at  home.  The  contest  in  which  he 
had  engaged  the  parties  ended  with  his  own 
exile,  and  was  not  attended  with  any  other  poli- 
tical effects ;  but  it  merits  a  place  in  these  obser- 
vations, as  a  proof  of  the  great  influence  which 
the  plebeian  party,  under  its  new  leaders,  had  ac- 
quired, and  as  an  evidence  of  the  singular  state 
of  the  Roman  policy,  by  which,  in  the  uncertain 


6  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  vii.  7  Ibid.  lib.  vi. 

C 


8  Dionys.  Hal.  Ii1>.  vii. 


9  tbid.  lib.  i.  AGO. 


18 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION. 


[Boi/k  t 


choice  of  different  modes  of  assembly,  the  very 
form  of  the  government  was  left  undetermined, 
until  the  occasion  occurred  on  which  this  go- 
vernment was  to  act. 

The  assembly  of  the  centuries  formed  an  aris- 
tocracy, that  of  the  tribes  a  democracy.  They 
did  not  partake  in  the  sovereignty  by  any  deter- 
minate rule,  but  each  of  them  occasionally  seized 
upon  the  whole  of  it ;  and,  instead  of  balancing 
each  other  by  regular  checks  and  interruptions, 
threatened  to  render  the  administration  of  the 
Republic  a  continual  scene  of  contradictions  and 
inconsistencies.  Such  at  least  is  the  judgment 
which  we  are  tempted,  in  speculation,  to  pass  on 
this  singular  constitution,  although,  in  the  sequel 
of  its  history,  it  will  appear  to  possess  at  least 
one  of  the  highest  political  advantages,  in  being 
the  most  excellent  nursery  of  statesmen  and  war- 
riors, and  in  forming  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample of  national  ability  and  success. 

The  calm  which  the  approach  of  Coriolanus, 
at  the  head  of  an  army  of  Volsci,  produced  with- 
in the  city,  was  of  no  longer  duration  than  the 
alarm  which  produced  it.  As  soon  as  the  ex- 
ternal enemy  withdrew,  the  parties  within  resu- 
med their  disputes ;  but  on  a  subject  which  was 
still  more  important  than  that  which  had  recently 
employed  them;  and  which,  continuing  to  be 
moved  at  intervals,  served  to  the  last  hour  of 
the  Republic  as  an  object  of  popular  zeal,  or  fur- 
nished a  specious  pretence,  which  ambitious  and 
designing  men  continually  employed,  to  captivate 
the  ears  of  the  populace.  This  was  the  most 
popular  of  all  propositions — an  equal  division  of 
land  property,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Agra- 
rian law. 

While  the  Romans  were  making  their  first 
acquisitions  of  territory,  their  conquests  were 
understood  to  be  made  for  the  people,  and  were 
accordingly  divided  among  them,  or  given  to 
those  who  had  not  a  sufficient  provision  for  the 
subsistence  of  their  families.*  But  of  late,  during 
a  considerable  period,  while  the  Republic  barely 
withstood  the  attacks  of  the  exiled  king,  or  re- 
covered the  losses  sustained  in  the  wars  with  the 
numerous  enemies  that  supported  him,  she  had 
either  made  few  acquisitions  of  this  sort,  or,  suit- 
ably to  the  growing  disparity  of  ranks,  which, 
though  not  necessary  in  very  small  republics,  be- 
comes so  in  proportion  as  nations  extend,  suffered 
the  conquered  lands  to  pass  by  connivance,  occu- 
pancy or  purchase,  into  the  hands  of  powerful 
citizens,  who  made  use  of  these  opportunities  to 
appropriate  estates  to  themselves. 

The  tribunes  had  not  yet  begun 
TJ.  C.  267.  to  make  their  complaints  on  this  sub- 
ject, when  they  were  anticipated 
by  the  consul  Sp.  Cassius,  who,  being  already  in 
high  favour  with  the  popular  party,  continued 
to  flatter  the  passions  of  the  inferior  class,  and  is 
said  to  have  aimed  at  an  improper  and  danger- 
ous influence  in  the  state.  He  affected  great 
zeal  for  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  proportional 
indignation  against  their  oppressors.  He  com- 
plained, in  particular,  of  the  improper  use  which 
had  been  recently  made  of  the  conquered  lands, 
by  suffering  them  to  become  the  property  of  per- 
sons who  were  already  too  rich.  Having  him- 
self made  some  conquests,  he  showed  how  the 
lands  of  the  Republic  ought  to  have  been  disposed 


of,  by  making  an  equal  division  of  his  own  ac- 
quisitions among  the  more  indigent  citizens.2 
He  obtained  an  act  of  the  people  to  appoint  three 
commissioners  to  inquire  into  the  abuses  which 
had  been  committed  in  the  disposal  of  lands  ac- 
quired from  the  enemy,  and  to  consider  of  the 
proper  corrections. 

The  senate,  and  the  patricians  in  general,  were 
greatly  alarmed;  most  of  them  had  possessions 
that  seemed  to  fall  within  the  object  of  this  in- 
quiry. The  popular  party  alleged,  that  con- 
quered lands  being  acquired  by  the  joint  labours, 
and  at  the  common  hazard,  of  all  the  people, 
should  be  equally  divided  among  them.  The 
patricians  contended,  that  these  levelling  prin 
ciples  led  to  confusion  and  anarchy ;  that,  in  a 
state  of  which  all  the  territory  was  actually,  and 
within  a  few  centuries,  acquired  by  conquest, 
these  maxims  could  not  be  applied  without  the 
subversion  of  government,  as  well  as  of  property. 

In  this  contest  Cassius  appeared  to  have  the 
advantage  of  numbers  on  his  side  ^  and  if  he  had 
confined  his  views  to  the  division  of  lands,  under 
which  he  was  said  to  disguise  a  more  dangerous 
intention,  the  senate  and  nobles  must  have  at 
least  devised  considerable  settlements  for  the 
people,  in  order  to  elude  his  demands.  But 
while  Cassius  alarmed  the  rich  with  danger  to 
their  property,  he  at  the  same  time  alarmed 
every  citizen  with  danger  to  his  personal  conse- 
quence, by  offering  the  freedom  of  the  city  to 
every  alien,  who,  at  his  summons,  crowded  from 
all  the  cantons  of  Latium  to  vote  in  the  assem- 
blies of  the  Roman  people.  His  colleague  op- 
posed this  measure,,  and  the  city,,  for  the  present, 
was  saved  from  the  intrusion  of  strangers.  The 
attempt,  however,  gave  offence  to  the  people,  as 
well  as  to  the  senate ;  and  the  unhappy  author 
of  it,  in  order  to  regain  the  favour  of  his  party, 
proposed  a  resolution,  not  only  to  make  a  gratuit- 
ous distribution  of  corn,  but  even  to  refund  what 
had  been  formerly  paid  by  any  citizen  at  the  pub- 
lic granaries.  This  proposal"  too  was  interpreted 
to  his  prejudice,  and  raised  a  suspicion  that  he 
meant,  with  the  aid  of  aliens  and  of  indigent 
citizens,  to  usurp  the  government.  On  this  sup- 
position all  parties  in  the  state  combined  against 
him,  and  he  was  condemned  to  suffer  the  punish- 
ment of  treason. 

This  appears  to  have  been  the  first  project  af- 
ter the  state  began  to  have  its  demesne  lands,  and 
after  private  estates  began  to  be  accumulated,  that 
was  made  to  divide  all  territorial  acquisitions  in 
equal  shares  to  the  people.  And  though  the  au- 
thor of  it  perished  in  the  attempt,  the  project  it- 
self was  entailed  on  the  commonwealth,  as  a  sub- 
ject of  dissension,  and  became  the  source  of  re- 
peated demands  on  the  part  of  the  people. 

The  tribunes  had  no  sooner  accomplished  the 
ruin  of  Cassius,  in  which  they  concurred  with 
the  senate,  than  they  insisted  for  the  execution 
of  the  law  he  had  framed,  and  for  the  nomination 
of  three  commissioners  already  resolved  on,  for 
the  division  of  conquered  lands.  They  protected 
the  people  in  refusing  to  serve  the  state  in  its 
wars,  until  this  demand  should  be  granted.  And 
having  absolute  and  irresistible  power  to  stop  all 
proceedings  in  the  city,  they  prevented  all  mili- 
tary levies  within  the  walls,  obliged  the  consuls, 
during  a  certain  period,  to  erect  their  standard 


1  Dionys.  Hal.  hb.  ii. 


2  Liv.  lib.  ii.  c.  41. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


19 


m  the  country,  and  there  to  force  the  herdsman 
and  labourer  to  enlist,  by  driving  away  the  cattle, 
and  distraining  the  effects  of  those  who  were  un- 
willing to  obey  them.3 

In  these  exertions  of  political  strength,  the 
parties  at  Rome  learned  by  degrees  to  form  their 
different  plans,  whether  of  administration  or  of 
opposition. 

The  senate  endeavoured  to  furnish  the  people 
with  employment  abroad,  to  amuse  them  with 
triumphal  processions,  to  gratify  them  with  par- 
tial settlements  and  allotments  of  lands ;  and,  in 
order  to  stop  the  violence  of  their  leaders,  by  the 
negative  of  some  one  of  their  own  order,  conti- 
nually endeavoured  to  divide  the  college  of  tri- 
bunes. 

The  tribunes,  in  their  turn,  endeavoured,  by 
oaths  and  private  engagements,  to  secure  the 
unanimity  of  their  own  body,  or  to  bind  the  mi- 
nority to  follow  the  decision  of  the  greater  num- 
ber. They  taught  the  people  to  despise  the  par- 
tial settlements,  which,  to  pacify  or  to  suspend 
their  importunities,  were  offered  to  them  at  a 
distance  from  Rome.  They  taught  them  to  aim 
at  a  higher  object — the  political  consequence  of 
their  order,  and  an  equal  share  in  the  government 
of  their  country-  The  tribunes  were  honoured 
in  proportion  to  the  part  which  they  took  in  sup- 
port of  this  popular  cause ;  and  plebeians  were  suc- 
cessively raised  to  this  office,  in  reward  of  the  ani- 
mosity they  had  occasionally  shown  to  the  senate, 
and  from  respect  to  the  courage  with  which  they 
had,  in  any  case,  withstood  the  authority  of  the 
magistrate. 

At  every  succession,  accordingly,  the  new  tri- 
bunes endeavoured  to  signalize  their  year  by  sug- 
gesting some  advantage  to  the  people;  and,  in 
the  course  of  their  struggles,  obtained  many  re- 
gulations favourable  to  their  interest  as  an  order 
in  the  state. 

One  law  which  has  been  already  mentioned, 
and  which  is  of  uncertain  date,  they  obtained — to 
substitute  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  for  that  of  the 
curiae  in  the  election  of  tribunes.4 

Another,  to  exclude  the  patricians 
U.  C.  282.  entirely  from  the  assembly  of  the 
tribes.5 

The  Agrarian  law  itself  they  frequently  moved, 
in  the  interval  of  other  claims  and  pretensions, 
or  brought  it  forward  along  with  such  claims,  in 
order  to  alarm  the  patricians,  and  to  force  them, 
under  apprehension  of  this  principal  object  of 
their  fears,  to  a  compromise,  or  to  a  compliance 
in  some  other  demand. 

To  the  other  circumstances,  which  tended  fre- 
quently to  revive  these  political  flames,  may  be 
joined  the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  magis- 
trate, and  the  defect  ot  judicial  forms  in  the  com- 
monwealth. The  consuls  had  succeeded  to  the 
kings  as  sole  officers  of  state,  both  civil  and  mili- 
tary ;  they  had  not  sufficient  forms  or  limitations 
prescribed  to  them  in  the  exercise  of  their  power.6 
This  defect,  which  is  common  in  the  administration 
of  rude  governments,  is  for  the  most  part  supplied 
by  degrees.  Evils  are  corrected  in  proportion  as 
they  are  felt,  and  the  rational  proceedings  of  one 
age  are  adopted  as  precedents  to  regulate  the 
next.    But,  in  the  present  instance,  at  Rome, 


3  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  viii.    Ibid.  No.  273  and  No.  278. 

4  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  ix.    Liv.  lib.  ii.  c.  56. 

5  Liv.  lib.  ii.  c.  60. 

C  Liv.  lib.  iii.  o,  9.    Dionys.  Halicar.  lib.  x. 


the  popular  party,  it  is  said,  demanded  at  once  a 
system  of  jurisprudence  and  a  complete  body  of 
laws.  Being  opposed  by  the  patricians,  they 
came  to  consider  the  measure  as  an  object  of  par- 
ty ;  and  they  pressed  the  acceptance  of  it,  as  much 
from  animosity  to  the  magistrates,  as  from  a  de- 
sire to  secure  public  justice,  or  to  regulate  the 
forms  of  judicial  procedure.  The  patricians  con- 
sidered the  project  ss  an  attack  en  their  power  ; 
and  however  innocent  or  reasonable  it  may  have 
been,  endeavoured  to  elude  the  execution  of  it 
with  all  the  arts  of  evasion  and  delay,  which  they 
had  employed  to  prevent  the  division  of  the  con- 
quered lands,  or  to  frustrate  any  other  the  most 
factious  purpose  of  their  adversaries. 

In  this  contest  the  powers  and  artifices  of  both 
parties  were  fully  exerted.  To  the  great  authority 
and  address  of  the  nobles,  the  people  opposed  an 
ardour  that  was  not  to  be  cooled  by  delays,  to  be 
discouraged  by  partial  defeats,  or  restrained  by  scru- 
ples in  the  choice  of  means  for  the  attainment  of 
their  end.  From  this,  as  from  many  other  instan- 
ces, it  may  be  inferred,  that  the  popular  party,  in  the 
contest  with  their  superiors,  are  apt  to  think,  that 
the  rules  of  veracity  and  candour  may  be  dispen- 
sed with,  and  that  the  means  of  deceit  and  vio- 
lence may,  without  any  scruple,  be  employed  in 
their  own  favour.  With  less  honour  and  dig- 
nity to  maintain  than  their  adversaries,  they  are 
less  afraid  of  imputations  that  detract  from  either ; 
and  their  leaders,  supported  by  the  voice  of  the 
more  numerous  party,  are  less  apprehensive  of 
evil  fame.  In  this  contest,  accordingly,  fictitious 
plots  and  conspiracies  were  fabricated  by  the  po- 
pular side,  and  fictitious  designs  against  the  liber- 
ties of  the  people  were  imputed  to  the  patricians, 
in  order  to  render  them  odious,  and  to  deter  them 
from  appearing  in  supjwrt  of  their  real  preten- 
sions.7 

In  the  issue  of  these  contests,  the  senate  de- 
spairing of  being  able  to  divert  the  people  from 
their  purpose,  agreed  to  the  nomination  of  three 
commissioners,  who  should  be  sent  into  Greece 
to  make  a  collection  of  such  laws  as,  being  found 
salutary  in  that  country,  might  be  transferred 
to  Rome.  Soon  after  the  return  of  the  commis- 
sioners, the  senate  approved  their  report,  and 
concurred  in  the  nomination  of  the  famous  de- 
cemvirs to  compile  a  body  of  laws  for  the  com- 
monwealth. 

The  decemvirs  were  appointed 
U.  C.  302.  merely  to  make  the  draft  of  a  new 
code,  and  to  propose  matter  for  the 
Consideration  of  t  he  senate  and  people,  from  whom 
alone  the  propositions  could  receive  the  authority 
of  laws;  yet  the  persons  named  for  this  purpose, 
as  the  history  bears,  had  credit  enough  with  the 
people  to  be  vested  with  a  temporary  sovereignty, 
in  which  they  superseded  the  authority  ol  the 
senate,  as  well  as  that  of  the  consuls,  and  had  un- 
limited power  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  their 
fellow  citizens.8  Before  their  commission  expi- 
red, they  presented  a  number  of  laws,  engraven 
•on  ten '  tables  or  plates,  and  containing  a  sum- 
mary of  the  privileges  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  people, 
of  the  crimes  to  be  punished  by  the  magistrate, 
and  of  the  forms  to  be  observed  in  all  judicial 
proceedings.  They  at  the  same  time  informed 
the  people,  that  their  plan  was  still  incomplete, 
that  many  useful  additions  were  yet  to  be  made ; 


7  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  x.  8  Ibid.  No.  303. 


20 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


(Book  I 


and,  upon  the  faitli  of  these  declarations,  obtained 
for  another  year  the  renewal  of  their  powers,  with 
a  change  of  some  of  the  persons  who  were  named 
in  the  commission. 

In  this  second  year  of  the  decemvirs'  appoint- 
ment, two  more  tables  or  plates  were  added  to 
the  former  ten  ;  a  circumstance  from  which  this 
part  of  the  Roman  law  has  derived  its  name. 
This  supplement,  as  well  as  the  former,  body  of 
laws,  was  received  with  great  avidity,  and  the 
twelve  tables  continued  to  be  respected  at  Rome, 
as  the  ancient  titles  by  which  men  are  supposed 
to  hold  any  valuable  rights  are  revered  in  all  na- 
tions.1 No  complete  copy  of  them  being  trans- 
mitted to  modern  times,  we  cannot  fully  judge  of 
their  value ;  but,  from  the  fragments  remaining 
in  authors  that  occasionally  cite  them,2  this  code 
appears,  in  some  clauses,  to  have  been  a  first  draft 
of  the  regulations  which  are  necessary  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  property,  and  in  making  private 
parties  answerable  to  public  judicatures  in  all  their 
disputes. — The  property  of  land  was  established 
by  a  fair  prescription  of  two  years,  and  that  of 
other  effects  by  a  prescription  of  one  year. — Any 
controversy  concerning  the  boundaries  of  land 
property  was  to  be  determined  by  arbiters  or  jury- 
men appointed  by  the  magistrate. — Parties  cited 
to  a  court  of  justice  were  not  at  liberty  to  decline 
attendance. — Judgment  in  capital  cases  was  com- 
petent only  to  the  assembly  of  the  people  in  their 
centuries ;  but  this  supreme  tribunal  might  dele- 
gate its  powers  by  a  special  commission. 

In  considering  this  code  as  a  record  of  ancient 
manners,  the  following  particulars  are  worthy  of 
notice : 

The  distinction  of  patrician  and  plebeian  was 
so  great,  that  persons  in  these  different  orders 
were  not  permitted  to  intermarry. 

The  father  being  considered  as  the  absolute 
master  of  his  child,  had  a  right  even  to  kill,  or 
expose  him  to  sale.3 


1  Livy  calls  the  twelve  tables  Fons  omnis  pvblir.i  yri- 
vatique  juris.  Tacitus  calls  them  Finis  equi juris.  And 
Crassus,  in  the  Dialogue  of  Cic.  de  Orat.  is  made  to  say, 
Bibliothecas  omnium  philosophorum,  unus  mihi  videtur 
tabularum  libellus  superare.    De  Orat.  lib.  i.  c.  44. 

2  Vid.  Gravini  de  Origine  Juris  Civilis.    Pighii  Anal. 

3  The  clause  in  the  twelve  tables  relating  to  the  father's 
power  of  sale,  contains  a  singular  limitation.  Vendendi 
riTmm  patri  potestas  esto.  Si  pater  filium  ter  venundavit 
filius  a  patre  liber  esto.  The  father  may  sell  his  child,  but 
if  he  has  sold  him  three  times  the  child  shall  be  free.  (Dio- 
nys.  lib.  ii.  c.  27.  p.  97.)  This  law,  in  its  first  appearance 
carries  an  implication  that,  until  this  restriction  was  applied, 
fathers  practised  selling  their  children  times  without  limit. 
No  law,  it  may  be  said,  is  made  against  crimes  altogether  un- 
known ;  and,  in  general,  what  people  do,  may  be  inferred 
from  what  they  are  forbid  to  do  ;  and  yet  the  clause,  con- 
sidered in  this  light,  is  full  of  absurdity.  The  child,  to  be 
repeatedly  sold,  must  have  repeatedly  disengaged  himself 
from  slavery.  After  being  twice  sold,  he  must  have  put 
himself  a  third  time  in  the  father's  power;  and  to  render 
audi  cases  the  object  of  law  in  any  age  or  country  what- 
ever, the  great  law  of  parental  affection  must  have  been 
strangely  suspended.  The  question  therefore  may  be  sub- 
mitted to  civilians  and  antiquaries,  whether  itbe  noteasier 
to  suppose  a  mistake  in  the  tradition  or  in  the  record,  or 
an  unnecessary  precaution  in  the  compilers  of  this  code; 
than  such  a  frequency  of  the  circumstances  presumed  in 
this  clause,  as  would  make  the  offence  a  proper  object  of 
legislation  in  any  age  or  nation  whatever;  and  whether 
this  law  may  not  have  been,  in  its  original  intention,  what 
it  became  in  the  subsequent  applications  of  it,  a  mere  pre- 
caution in  favour  of  the  parent,  that  he  should  not  be  de- 
prived of  his  child  by  surprise,  and  that  unless  he  had  sold 
him  three  times,  he  was  not  supposed  to  have  sold  him  at 
all.  The  form  by  which  a  Roman  father  emancipated  his 
son,  consisted  of  a  sals  three  times  repeated.    The  father 


The  interest  of  money  was  In  „ied  to  one  per 
cent  ;4  but  bankruptcy  was  treated  as  a  crime,  and, 
without  any  distinction  of  fraud  or  misfortune,  ex- 
posed the  insolvent  debtor  to  the  mercy  of  his 
creditors,  who  might  put  him  to  devtth,  dissect  or 
quarter  him,  and  distribute  his  members  among 
them.5 

Mixed  with  laws  that  arose  from  superstition, 
there  were  others  containing  proofs  of  great  na- 
tional wisdom.  In  private  every  family  were  free 
to  worship  the  gods  in  their  own  way.  And  in 
public,  though  certain  forms  were  required,  yet 
there  was  not  any  penalty  annexed  to  the  omission 
of  them,  as  the  punishment  of  offences  in  this 
matter  was  left  to  the  offended  god. 

The  people  were  required  to  build  their  houses 
two  feet  asunder,  to  leave  eight  feet  for  the  ordi- 
nary breadth  of  streets  and  highways,  and  double 
this  breadth  at  the  turnings. 

They  were  forbid  to  dress  or  to  polish  the  wood 
employed  in  funeral  piles,  or  to  express  their  sor- 
row for  the  dead  by  wounding  their  flesh,  tearing 
their  hair,  or  by  uttering  indecent  or  lamentable 
cries. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  more  singular  and  charac- 
ter! stical  clauses  which  are  mentioned  among  the 
fragments  of  the  twelve  tables.  The  ardour  of 
the  people  to  obtain  this  code,  and  the  unlimited 
powers  which  they  entrusted  to  the  commission- 
ers appointed  to  frame  it,  had  nearly  cost  them 
their  liberty ;  and  thus  ended  the  progress  of  their 
commonwealth.  The  two  additional  tables,  a& 
well  as  the  first  ten,  having  been  posted  up  for 
public  inspection,  and  having  been  formally  enact- 
ed by  the  senate  and  people,  the  object  of  the  de- 
cemvirs' commission  was  obtained,  and  it  was  ex- 
pected that  they  were  to  abdicate  their  power ; 

sold  him  and  received  his  price.  The  buyer  once  and 
again  re-delivered  the  child,  and  had  his  price  returned- 
After  the  third  purchase,  the  buyer  manumitted  him  by  a 
singular  ceremony  prescribed  in  the  laws. 

4  Nam  primo  duodecim  tabulis  sancitum,  ne  quis  unct- 
ario  (1-12  per  mon.  or  1  per  cent,  per  aim.)  foenore  ampliua 
exerceret,  cum  antea  ex  libidine  locupletium  agitaretur  ■ 
dein  rogatione  tribunitia  ad  semuncias  redacta;  postremo 
vetitee  usuroe ;  muliisque  plebiscites  obviam  itum  fraudibus, 
qua?  toties  repressae  miras  per  artes  rursus  oriebantur. 
Tacit.  Ann.  lib.  vi. 

Montesquieu  ventures  to  reject  the  authority  of  Tacitua 
in  this  instance,  and  supposes  that  the  law  which  he  as- 
cribes to  the  decemvirs  had  no  existence  until  the  year 
TJ.  C.  398  ;  when  according  to  Livy,  lib.  vi.  it  was  obtained 
by  the  tribunes  M.  Duellius  and  L.  Meuenius,  in  favour  or 
the  people.  Haud  a?que  patnbus  la>ta,  insequente  anno 
C.  Martio  el  Cn.  Manlio  Coss.  de  unciario  fcenore,  a  M. 
Duellio,  L.  Menenio,  tribunis  plebis,  rogat.io  peilata.  It 
is  indeed  probable  that  many  antiquated  laws  were  refer- 
red to  this  legendary  code  of  the  twelve  tables  on  no  bet- 
ter authority  than  that  of  their  antiquity.  And  so  great  a 
reduction  of  interest  was  more  likely  to  come  from  tribunes 
acting  in  favour  of  the  people,  who  were  generally  the 
debtors,  and  who  soon  after  procured  the  entire  abolition 
of  the  interest  of  money,  than  from  the  decemvirs,  who,  be- 
ing of  the  aristocratical  fact  ion,  took  part  with  the  creditors 

5  The  clause  in  this  code  respecting  insolvent  debtors, 
is  equally  strange  with  that  which  respects  the  power  of" 
the  father,  and  shows  no  less  upon  what  atrocious  ideas 
of  what  they  were  to  permit,  as  well  as  of  what  they  were 
to  prohibit,  "the  compilers  of  this  code  proceeded.  Their 
ideas  in  either,  it  is  probable,  were  never  realized.  Livy 
says,  that  debtors  were  next  et  traditi  creditoribus.  (Liv. 
lib.  ii.  c.  23  &  27.)  But  it  is  affirmed  with  great  probabi- 
lity of  truth,  that  no  creditor  ever  took  the  full  benefit  of 
this  law  against  his  insolvent  debtor,  (Aul.  Gel.  lib.  20.  c. 
1.)  Laws  that  result  from  custom,  and  are  suggested  by 
real  occasions,  are  genuine  proofs  of  the  reigning  man- 
ners ;  but  laws  enacted  by  special  lawgivers  or  commis- 
sioners, only  indicate  what  occurs  to  the  fancy  of  the 
compiler,  and  what  are  the  prohibitions  he  is  pleased  to 
suppose  may  b«  necessary. 


OttAP.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


21 


but  the  principal  persons  vested  with  this  trust, 
having  procured  it  with  a  view  to  usurp  the  go- 
vernment, or  being  debauched  by  two  years  un- 
controlled dominion  in  the  possession  of  it,  refu- 
sed to  withdraw  from  their  station,  and  boldly 
ventured  to  persist  in  the  exercise  of  their  power 
after  the  time  for  which  it  was  given  had  elapsed. 
At  Rome  the  power  of  the  magistrate  was  sup- 
posed to  determine  by  his  own  resignation,  and 
the  republic  might  suffer  a  peculiar  inconveniency 
from  the  obstinacy  of  particular  persons,  who  con- 
tinued to  exercise  the  functions  of  office  after  the 
period  assigned  them  by  law  was  expired. 

The  decemvirs  took  advantage  of  this  defect  in 
the  constitution,  continued  the  exercise  of  their 
power  beyond  the  period  for  which  it  was  given, 
took  measures  to  prevent  the  restoration  of  the 
senate  and  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  or  the 
election  of  ordinary  magistrates,  and,  even  with- 
out employing  much  artifice,  got  the  people  to  ac- 
quiesce in  their  usurpation,  as  an  evil  which  could 
not  be  remedied;  and  the  usurpers,  in  this  as  in 
other  instances,  seemed  to  meet  with  a  submission 
that  was  proportioned  to  the  confidence  with  which 
they  assumed  their  power.  The  wrongs  of  the 
state  appeared  to  make  little  impression  on  parties 
who  had  an  equal  concern  to  prevent  them ;  but 
a  barbarous  insult  offered  to  a  private  family  re- 
kindled or  gave  occasion  to  the  breaking  out  of  a 
flame,  which  injuries  of  a  more  public  nature  only 
seemed  to  have  smothered. 

Appius  Claudius,  one  of  the  usurpers,  being 
captivated  with  the  beauty  of  Virginia,  the  child 
of  an  honourable  family,  and  already  betrothed 
to  a  person  of  her  own  condition,  endeavoured  to 
make  himself  master  of  her  person,  by  depriving 
her  at  once  of  her  parentage  and  of  her  liberty. 
For  this  purpose,  under  pretence  that  she  had 
been  born  in  servitude,  and  that  she  had  been 
stolen  away  in  her  infancy,  he  suborned  a  person 
to  claim  her  as  his  slave.  The  decemvir  himself 
being  judge  in  this  iniquitous  suit,  gave  judgment 
against  the  helpless  party,  and  ordered  her  to  be 
removed  to  the  house  of  the  person  by  whom  she 
was  claimed.  In  this  affecting  scene,  the  father, 
under  pretence  of  bidding  a  last  farewell  to  his 
child,  came  forward  to  embrace  her;  and,  in  the 
presence  of  the  multitude,  having  then  no  other 
means  to  preserve  her  honour,  he  availed  himself 
of  the  prerogative  of  a  Roman  father,  and  stabbed 
her  to  the  heart  with  a  knife.  A  general  indig- 
nation instantly  arose  from  this  piteous  sight,  and 
all  parties  concurred,  as  at  the  expul- 
U.  C.  304.  sion  of  the  Tarquins,  to  deliver  the 
Republic  from  so  hateful  a  tyranny .6 

The  senate  and  patrician  administration  being 
re-established  by  the  cheerful  concurrence  of  the 
plebeians,  and  the  former  government  restored 
with  the  consent  of  all  parties,  a  tide  of  mutual 
confidence  ensued,  which  led  to  the  choice  of  the 
most  popular  persons  into  the  office  of  consul,  and 
procured  a  ready  assent  from  the  nobles  to  every 
measure  which  tended  to  gratify  the  people. 

The  danger  which  had  been  recently  experi- 
enced from  the  exercise  of  uncommon  discre- 
tionary powers,  produced  a  resolution  to  forbid, 
under  the  severest  penalties  of  confiscation  and 
death,  any  person  ever  to  propose  the  granting  of 
any  such  powers.    The  consecration  of  the  per- 


6  Liv.  lib.  iii.  c.  37.    Dionyt.  Hal.  fins. 


sons  of  the  tribunes,  which,  under  the  late 
usurpation,  had  almost  lost  its  effect,  was  now 
renewed,  and  extended,  though  in  a  meaner  de- 
gree, to  the  ediles  and  inferior  officers,  who  were 
supposed  to  act  under  the  tribunes  in  preserving 
the  rights  of  the  people. 

The  patricians  likewise  consented  to  have  the 
acts  of  tlie  senate  formally  recorded,  placed  in  the 
temple  of  Ceres,  and  committed  to  the  care  of  the 
ediles.7  This  was  in  fact  a  considerable  diminu- 
tion of  the  power  of  the  consuls,  who  had  been 
hitherto  considered  as  the  keepers  and  interpre- 
ters of  the  senate's  decrees,  and  who  had  often 
suppressed  or  carried  into  execution  the  acts  of 
this  body  at  pleasure. 

But  the  most  striking  effect,  as- 
U.  C.  304.  cribed  to  the  present  unanimity  of 
the  citizens,  was  the  ease  with  which 
the  plebeian  assemblies  were  permitted  to  extend 
the  authority  of  their  acts  to  all  the  different  or- 
ders of  the  commonwealth. 

The  comitia,  or  assemblies  of  the  Roman 
people,  as  may  be  collected  from  the  past  obser- 
vations, were  now  of  three  denominations ;  that 
of  the  curia?,  the  centuries,  and  the  tribes.  In 
assemblies  of  the  first  and  second  denomination, 
all  citizens  were  supposed  to  be  present ;  and  laws 
were  enacted  relating  to  the  policy  of  the  state  in 
general,  as  well  as  to  particular  departments,  and 
separate  bodies  of  men.  The  centuries  disposed 
of  civil  offices,  and  the  curia;  of  military  com- 
mands.8  In  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  comjKised 
of  plebeians  alone,  the  tribunes  were  elected;  and 
acts  were  passed  to  regulate  the  proceedings  of 
their  own  order,  beyond  which,  in  the  ancient 
times  of  the  Republic,  their  authority  did  not  ex- 
tend. But  as  the  senate  denied  the  right  of  the 
tribes  to  enact  laws  that  should  bind  the  commu- 
nity, the  plebeians,  in  their  turn,  disputed  the 
legislative  authority  of  the  senate.  The  centu- 
ries alone  were  supposed  to  enjoy  the  right  of 
enacting  laws  for  the  commonwealth.9 

This  distribution,  however,  was  partial,  and 
tended  to  lodge  the  sovereignty  of  the  state  in  the 
hands  of  the  patricians,  who,  though  no  more 
than  a  part  of  the  people,  were  enabled,  by  their 
undoubted  majority  in  the  assemblies  of  the  centu- 
turies  as  well  as  in  the  senate,  to  give  law  to  the 
whole. 

Equity  and  sound  policy  required  that  the  ple- 
beians should  have  a  voice  in  the  legislature  of  a 
commonwealth  of  which  they  made  so  consider- 
able a  part.  This  privilege  appeared  to  be  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  secure  them  against  the  partial 
influence  of  a  separate  order  of  men.  They  ac- 
cordingly obtained  it ;  but  in  a  manner  that  tend- 
ed to  disjoin,  rather  than  to  unite  into  one  body, 
the  collateral  members  of  the  state.  Instead  of 
a  deliberative  voice,  by  which  they  might  concur 
with  the  senate  and  comitia  of  the  centuries,  or 
by  which  they  might  control  and  amend  their 
decrees,,  they  obtained  for  themselves  a  separate 
and  independent  power  of  legislation,  by  which, 
as  a  counterpoise  to  the  patrician  acts,  which 
might  pass  in  the  centuries  without  their  concur 
rence,  they  could,  on  their  part,  and  without  the 


7  Liv.  lib.  iii. 

8  Liv.  lib.  v.  c.  53.  Lib.  ix.  c.  38.  Cic.  ad  Famil.  lib.  i. 
ep.  9.    Lib.  vi.  c.  21. 

9  These  were  termed  Leges;  the  resolutions  of  the 
senate  wer«  termed  Sevutus  Consulta,  and  those  of  the 
tribes,  Plebiscite 


22 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  J. 


presence  or  consent  of  the  nobles, 
U.  C.  304.  make  plebeian  acts  that  could  equal- 
ly bind  the  whole  community.1 
This  rude  and  artless  manner  of  communicating 
a  share  of  the  legislature  to  the  inferior  order  of 
the  people,  tended  greatly  to  increase  the  intricacy 
of  this  singular  constitution,  which  now  opened, 
in  fact,  three  distinct  sources  of  legislation,  and 
produced  laws  of  three  different  denominations ; 
decrees  of  the  senate,2  which  had  a  temporary 
authority ;  acts  of  the  centuries  ;3  and  resolutions 
of  the  tribes  ;4  and  by  these  means  undoubtedly 
made  way  for  much  intestine  division,  distraction, 
and  tumult. 

So  far  animosity  to  the  late  usurpation  had 
united  all  orders  of  men  in  the  measures  that 
followed  the  expulsion  of  the  decemvirs;  but  the 
spirit  of  cordiality  did  not  long  survive  the  sense 
of  those  injuries,  and  that  resentment  to  a  com- 
mon enemy  from  which  this  transient  unanimity 
arose.  The  plebeians  had  removed  some  part  of 
the  establishment,  in  which  the  patricians  were 
unequally  favoured ;  but  they  bore  witk  the 
greater  impatience  the  inequalities  which  remain- 
ed, and  by  which  they  were  still  condemned  to 
act  a  subordinate  part  in  the  commonwealth. 
They  were  still  excluded  from  the  office  of  con- 
sul, and  from  that  of  the  priesthood.  They  were 
debarred  from  intermarriage  with  the  nobles  by  an 
express  law,  which  had  been  enacted,  lest  the 
sexes  from  passion,  forgetting  distinctions,  should 
in  this  manner  unite  their  different  ranks ;  but 
being  now,  in  some  measure,  by  the  late  act  in 
favour  of  the  comitia  of  the  tribes,  become  joint 
or  rival  sovereigns  of  the  state,  they  could  not 
long  acquiesce  in  these  unequal  conditions. 

A  few  years  after  the  restoration 
U.  C.  308.  of  the  commonwealth,  Canuleius,  a 
plebeian,  being  one  of  the  tribunes, 
moved  the  celebrated  act  which  bears  his  name,5 
to  repeal  the  clause  of  the  twelve  tables  which 
prohibited  the  intermarriage  of  patricians  and 
plebeians.  The  other  nine  tribunes  joined  at  the 
same  time  in  a  claim  of  more  importance — that 
the  office  of  consul  should  be  laid  open  to  all  the 
different  orders  of  the  commonwealth,  and  might 
be  held  by  plebeians,  as  well  as  patricians.6  The 
senate,  and  the  whole  order  of  nobles,  having  for 
some  time,  by  delays,  and  by  involving  the  state, 
as  usual,  in  foreign  wars,  endeavoured  to  suspend 
the  determination  of  these  questions,  were  at 
length  obliged  to  gratify  the  people  in  the  less 
material  part  of  their  pretensions,  respecting  the 
intermarriage  of  different  ranks,  in  order,  if  pos- 
sible, to  pacify  them  on  the  refusal  of  the  more 
important  claim,  which  related  to  their  capacity 
of  being  elected  into  the  office  of  consul. 

To  elude  their  demands  on  this  material  point, 
it  was  observed,  that  of  the  sacrifices  and  other 
duties  belonging  to  the  priesthood,  which,  by  the 
sacred  laws  of  religion,  could  be  performed  only 
by  persons  of  noble  birth,  many  were  to  be  per- 
formed by  the  consul,  and  could  not,  without 
profanation,  be  committed  to  any  person  of  ple- 
beian extraction;  and  that,  by  this  consideration 
alone,  the  plebeians  must  be  for  ever  excluded 


1  Dionys.  Hal.  p.  306.  Liv.  lib.  iii.  c.  55. 

2  Senatua  Consulta. 

3  Leges.  4  Plebiscita. 

5  Lex  Canuleia.    Liv.  lib.  iv.  c.  1. 

6  Dionys  Hal. 


from  the  dignity  of  consul.  Superstition,  for  tho 
most  part,  being  founded  on  custom  alone,  no 
change  can  be  made  in  the  custom,  without  appear- 
ing to  destroy  the  religion  that  is  founded  upon  it. 
This  difficulty  accordingly  put  a  stop,  for  a  while, 
to  the  hasty  pace  with  which  the  plebeians  ad- 
vanced to  the  consulate  :  but  this  obstruction  was 
at  length  removed,  as  many  difficulties  are  re- 
moved in  human  affairs,  by  a  slight  evasion,  and 
by  the  mere  change  of  a  name.  The 
U.  C.  309.  title  of  consul  being  changed  for  that 
of  military  tribune,  and  no  sacerdotal 
function  being  included  in  the  duties  of  this  office, 
plebeians,  though  not  qualified  to  be  consuls, 
were  allowed  to  offer  themselves  as  candidates, 
and  to  be  elected  military  tribunes  with  consular 
power.  In  this  manner  the  supposed  profanation 
was  avoided,  and  plebeians  were  allowed  to  be 
qualified  for  the  highest  office  of  the  state.  The 
mere  privilege,  however,  did  not,  for  a  consider- 
able time,  enable  any  individual  of  that  order  to 
attain  to  the  honour  of  first  magistrate  of  the 
commonwealth.  The  plebeians  in  a  body  had 
prevailed  against  the  law  which  excluded  them ; 
but  as  separate  candidates  for  office,  still  yielded 
the  preference  to  the  patrician  competitor ;  or,  if 
a  plebeian  were  likely  to  prevail  at  any  particular 
election  of  military  tribunes,  the  patricians  had 
credit  enough  to  have  the  nomination  of  consuls 
revived  in  that  instance,  in  order  to  disappoint 
their  antagonists. 

Together  with  the  separation  of  the  military 
and  sacerdotal  functions,  which  took  place  on  this 
occasion,  another  change,  more  permanent  and  of 
greater  moment,  was  effected.  Ever  since  the  in- 
stitution of  the  census,  or  muster,  the  enrolment 
of  the  people  was  become  a  principal  object  of 
the  executive  power.  In  the  first  ages  it  belonged 
to  the  king,  together  with  all  the  other  functions 
of  state.  In  the  sequel,  it  devolved  on  the  con- 
suls ;  and  they  accordingly,  at  every  period  of  five 
years,  by  the  rules  of  this  office,  could  dispose  of 
every  citizen's  rank,  assign  him  his  class,  place 
•him  in  the  rolls  of  the  senate,  or  on  that  of  the 
knights,  or  strike  him  off  from  either ;  and,  by 
charging  him  with  all  the  burdens  of  a  subject, 
while  they  stripped  him  of  the  privileges  of  a 
citizen,  deprive  him  at  once  of  his  political  con- 
sequence,7 and  of  his  state  as  a  Roman.8 

These  regulations  were  accordingly  enforced, 
not  held  up  into  public  view  merely  to  awe  the 
people.  The  magistrate  actually  took  an  account 
of  the  citizen's  estate,  inquired  into  his  character, 
and  assigned  him  his  place ;  promoted  him  to  the 
senate  or  to  the  knighthood ;  degraded  or  disfran- 
chised, according  as  he  judged  the  party  worthy 
or  unworthy  of  his  freedom,  of  the  rank  which 
he  held,  or  of  that  to  which  he  aspired  in  the 
commonwealth.9 

So  important  a  trust  committed  to  the  discre- 
tion of  an  officer  elected  for  a  different  purpose, 
took  its  rise  in  the  simplicity  of  a  rude  age ;  but 
continued  for  a  considerable  period  without  any 
flagrant  examples  of  abuse.  It  was,  nevertheless, 
that  branch  of  the  consular  magistracy  which  the 
patricians  were  least  willing  to  communicate  or 
to  share  with  the  plebeians.    While  they  admit- 


7  Liv.  lib.  iv.  c.  24. 

8  The  citizens  who  came  under  this  predicament  were 
termpd  JF.x&x\\. 

9  Liv.  Lib.  iv.  c.  24. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


23 


ted  them,  therefore,  to  be  elected  tribunes  with 
consular  power,  they  stipulated,  that  the  charge 
of  presiding  in  the  census,  or  musters,  should  be 
disjoined  from  it;  and  that,  under  the  title  of 
censors,  this  charge  should  remain  with  persons 

of  patrician  birth.10  They  contend- 
U.  C.  310.    ed  for  this  separation,  not  with  a 

professed  intention  to  reserve  the 
office  of  censor  to  their  own  order,  but  under  pre- 
sence that  persons  invested  with  the  consular 
power,  being  so  frequently  employed  in  the  field 
against  the  enemies  of  the  commonwealth,  could 
not  attend  to  the  affairs  of  the  city,  or  perform  all 
the  duties  of  censor  at  their  regular  periods. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  real  motive 
for  separating  the  department  of  censor  from  that 
of  consul,  the  change  appears  to  have  been  sea- 
sonably made ;  and  may  be  considered  as  a  striking 
example  of  that  singular  felicity  with  which  the 
Romans,  for  some  time,  advanced  in  their  policy, 
as  well  as  in  their  fortunes.  Hitherto  the  Roman 
consul,  being  a  warrior,  was  chiefly  intent  on  the 
glory  he  was  to  reap  in  the  field,  and  to  gain  at 
the  expense  of  the  enemies  of  the  state.  He  dis- 
dained to  seize  the  advantages  which  he  had  in 
his  power,  in  the  capacity  of  a  clerk  or  accountant 
entrusted  with  the  census,  or  enrolment  of  his 
fellow-citizens ;  nor  does  it  appear  that  any  pecu- 
liar attention  was  given  to  the  choice  of  consuls 
on  the  year  of  the  census,  as  being  then  vested 
with  any  dangerous  measures  of  power.  But 
considering  the  height  at  which  party  disputes 
were  then  arrived,  and  the  great  consequence  of 
a  citizen's  rank  and  place  on  the  rolls,  it  was  no 
longer  safe  to  entrust  in  the  same  hands  the  civil 
rights  of  the  people,  and  the  executive  powers  of 
the  state.  The  consul,  being  frequently  raised 
to  his  station  by  party  intrigues,  and  coming  into 
power  with  the  ardour  of  private  ambition  and  of 
party  zeal,  might  have  easily,  in  the  manner  of 
making  up  the  rolls  of  the  people,  gratified  his 
own  resentments,  or  that  of  his  faction.  The 
office  of  consul,  in  his  capacity  of  military  leader, 
was  naturally  the  province  of  youth,  or  of  vigour- 
ous  manhood ;  but  that  of  tensor,  when  disjoined 
from  it,  fell  as  naturally  into  the  hands  of  persons 
of  great  authority  and  experienced  age  ;  to  whom, 
in  the  satiety  of  brighter  honours,  the  people 
might  safely  entrust  the  estimate  of  their  fortunes, 
and  the  assignment  of  their  rank.  In  such  hands 
it  continued,  for  a  considerable  period,  to  be  very 
faithfully  discharged ;  and  by  connecting  the  dig- 
nities of  citizen,  and  the  honours  of  tin  slate, 
with  private  as  well  as  public  virtue,  had  the 
happiest  effects  on  the  manners  of  the  people. 

The  number  of  censors,  like  that  of  the  con- 
suls, was  limited  to  two ;  but  that  of  the  consular 
tribunes  was  left  undetermined,  and  at  successive 
elections  was  augmented  from  three  to  eight. 
This  has  given  occasion  to  some  historians,  who 
are  quoted  by  Livy,  to  ascribe  the  institution  of 
this  office,  not  to  the  importunity  of  the  plebeian 
party,  but  to  the  exigencies  of  the  state ;  which 
being  assailed  by  numerous  enemies,  and  not 
having  as  yet  devised  the  method  of  multiplying 
commanders,  under  the  titles  of  proconsul,  were 
led  to  substitute  officers  of  a  different  denomina- 
tion, whose  numbers  might  be  increased  at  dis- 
cretion. It  is  indeed  probable,  that,  in  the  progress 
of  this  government,  new  institutions,  and  the  se- 


10  Liv.  lib.  iv.  c.  8. 


paration  of  departments,  were  suggested  no  less 
by  the  multiplicity  of  growing  affairs,  than  by  the 
pretensions  of  party,  or  by  the  ambition  of  sepa- 
rate pretenders  to  power.  In  the  first  of  those 
ways,  we  are  led  to  account  for  the  institution  of 
the  plebeian  ediles,  already  mentioned ;  for  that 
of  the  prsefectus  annonae,  or  inspector  of  the 
markets,  together  with  the  additions  that  were, 
in  the  course  of  these  changes,  continually  made 
to  the  number  of  quaestors. 

The  quaestors  had  been  long  established  at 
Rome ;  they  had  charge  of  the  public  funds,  and 
followed  the  kings  and  the  consuls  as  commissa- 
ries or  provisors  in  the  field.  During  the  busy 
period  which  we  have  been  now  considering, 
their  number  was  augmented  from  two  to  four; 

and  the  places  were  filled,  for  the 
U.  C.  333.  most  part,  with  patricians,  though 
not  limited  to  persons  of  this  rank. 

The  praefectus  annonae,  or  inspector  of  the 
markets,  was  an  officer  occasionally  named,  on  a 
prospect  of  scarcity,  to  guard  against  famine,  and 
to  provide  for  the  wants  of  the  people.  Rome 
was  in  fact  a  place  of  arms,  or  a  military  station, 
often  deluding  as  much  for  subsistence  on  the 
foresight  and  care  of  its  officers,  as  on  the  course 
of  its  ordinary  markets.  Without  a  proper  at- 
tention to  this  particular  on  the  part  of  the  state, 
the  people  were  exposed  to  suffer  from  scarcity. 
On  the  approaches  of  famine,  they  became  mu- 
tinous and  disorderly,  and  were  ready  to  barter 
their  freedom,  and  the  constitution 
U.  C.  313.  of  their  country,  for  bread.  During 
the  famine  which  first  suggested  the 
separation  of  this  trust  from  that  of  the  ordinary 
officers  of  state,  Sp.  Majlius,  a  Roman  knighi, 
being  possessed  of  great  wealth,  engrossed  great 
quantities  of  corn  ;  and  having  it  in  his  power  to 
supply  the  wants  of  the  poor,  endeavoured  to 
form  a  dangerous  party  among  them,  and  by  their 
means  to  raise  himself  to  the  head  of  the  com- 
monwealth. The  senate  took  the  alarm,  and,  as 
in  the  most  dangerous  crisis  of  the  state,  had  re- 
course to  the  nomination  of  a  dictator.  Maclius 
being  cited  to  appear  before  him,  and  having  re- 
fused to  answer,  was  put  to  dcatn. 

The  care  of  supplying  the  people  with  corn, 
which  had  been  at  this  time  committed  to  L. 
Minucius,  was  from  thenceforward  entrusted  to 
citizens  of  the  first  rank,  and  the  office  itself  be- 
came necessary  in  the  political  establishment  of 
the  commonwealth. 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  the  Roman  Re- 
public as  a  scene  of  mere  political  deliberations 
and  councils,  prepared  for  contention,  and  seem- 
ingly unable  to  exert  any  united  strength.  The 
state,  however,  presented  itself  to  the  nations 
around  it  under  a  very  different  aspect,  as  a  horde 
of  warriors,  who  had  made  and  preserved  their 
acquisitions  by  force,  and  who  never  betrayed 
any  signs  of  weakness  in  the  foreign  wars  they 
had  to  maintain. 

In  their  transition  from  monarchy  to  republic, 
indeed,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  temporary  in- 
termission of  natural  exertions.  Private  citizens, 
annually  raised  to  the  head  of  the  republic,  did 
not  with  their  elevation  acquire  the  dignity  of 
princes ;  they  did  not  command  the  same  respect 
from  their  fellow  citizens  at  home,  nor  had  the 
same  consideration  from  rival  nations  abroad. 
The  frequent  dissensions  of  the  people  seemed 
to  render  them  an  easy  prey  to  their  enemies 


34 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


During  the  life  of  Tarquin  many  powers  united 
against  them  in  behalf  of  the  exiled  king.  They 
were  stripped  of  their  territory,  confined  to  the 
walls  of  their  city,  and  deserted  by  their  allies.1 
The  fortune  of  the  state  seemed  to  fall  with  its 
monarchy.  The  event,  however,  belied  these 
appearances,  and  the  power  of  the  annual  magis- 
tracy soon  became  more  formidable  abroad,  though 
less  awful  at  home,  than  that  of  the  monarch. 
The  republican  government  sought  for  respite 
from  domestic  trouble  in  the  midst  of  foreign  war, 
and  the  forces  of  the  state,  instead  of  being  re- 
strained, were  impelled  into  action  by  intestine 
divisions.  The  ambition  with  which  the  lower 
ranks  of  the  people  endeavoured  to  watch  their 
superiors,  the  solicitude  with  which  the  higher 
order  endeavoured  to  preserve  its  distinction,  the 
exercise  of  ability  which,  in  this  contest,  was 
common  to  both,  enabled  them  to  act  against  fo- 
reign enemies  with  a  spirit  that  was  whetted,  but 
not  worn  out,  in  their  domestic  quarrels. 

The  consuls  annually  elected,  brought  to  the 
helm  of  affairs  a  fresh  vigour  of  mind  and  conti- 
nual supplies  of  renewed  ambition.  Every  offi- 
cer, on  his  accession  to  the  magistracy,  was  in 
haste  to  distinguish  his  administration,  and  to 
merit  his  triumph ;  and  numerous  as  the  enemies 
of  the  Republic  appeared,  they  were  not  sufficient 
to  furnish  every  Roman  consul,  in  his  turn,  with 
an  opportunity  to  earn  this  envied  distinction. 
It  was  given  only  to  those  who  obtained  actual 
victories,  and  who  killed  a  certain  number  of 
their  enemies.2 

In  this  nursery  of  warriors,  honours,  tending 
to  excite  ambition  or  to  reward  military  merit, 
were  not  confined  to  the  leaders  of  armies  alone  : 
the  victorious  soldier  partook  in  the  triumph  of 
his  leader,  and  had  subordinate  rewards  propor- 
tioned to  the  proofs  he  had  given  of  his  valour. 
"  I  bear  the  scars,"  said  Dentatus  (while  he 
pleaded  for  a  share  in  the  conquered  lands  to 
himself  and  his  fellow-soldiers,)  "of  five  and 
forty  wounds,  of  which  twelve  were  received  in 
one  day.  I  have  carried  many  prizes  of  valour. 
Fourteen  civic  crowns  bestowed  upon  me  by  those 
I  had  saved  in'  battle.  Three  times  the  mural 
crown ;  having  been  so  often  the  first  to  scale  the 
enemies'  walls.  Eight  times  the  prize  of  distinc- 
tion in  battle.  Many  tokens  of  esteem  and  gra- 
titude from  the  hands  of  generals.  Eighty-three 
chains  of  gold,  sixty  bracelets,  eighteen  lances, 
and  thirty-five  sets  of  horse-furniture,  from  pri- 
vate persons,  who  were  pleased  to  approve  of  my 
services."3 

Under  the  influence  of  councils  so  fertile  in 
the  invention  of  military  distinctions,  and  in 
armies  of  which  the  soldier  was  roused  by  so  many 
incentives  to  military  ambition,  the  frequent 
change  of  commanders,  which  is  commonly  im- 
politic, proved  a  perpetual  renovation  of  the  ar- 
dour and  spirit  with  which  armies  were  led.  In 
public  deliberations  on  the  subject  of  war,  the 
vehement  ambition  of  individuals  proved  a  conti- 
nual incentive  to  vigorous  resolutions,  by  which 
the  state  not  only  soon  recovered  the  consequence 
which  it  seemed  to  have  lost  in  its  transition  from 
monarchy,  but  was  speedily  enabled  to  improve 
upon  all  its  former  advantages,  as  head  of  the 
Latin  confederacy;  frequently  to  vanquish  the 


1  Dionys.  Hal.  lib.  v.  2  Five  thousand  in  one  field. 
3  Dionys.  Hal  lib.  x.  c.  36.  vel  p.  362. 


Sabines,  the  Hernici,  the  Volsci  and  Etruscans, 
and,  in  about  a  hundred  years  after  the  expulsion 
of  Tarquin,  to  extend  its  dominion  greatly  be- 
yond the  territories  which  had  been  in  the  pos- 
session of  that  prince.  In  one  direction,  from 
Falerium  to  Anxur,  about  sixty  miles ;  and  in 
the  other,  from  the  summits  of  the 
U.  C.  344.  Appenines  to  the  sea :  and  Rome, 
the  metropolis  of  this  little  empire, 
was  become,  with  a  few  competitors,  one  of  the 
principal  states  of  Italy. 

The  first  and  nearest  object  of  its  emulation 
at  this  period  was  Veise,  an  Etruscan  principality, 
of  which  the  capital,  situated  about  nine  miles 
from  Rome,  was  built  on  an  eminence,  and  se- 
cured by  precipices. 

The  Romans,  even  before  the  change  of  their 
government  from  the  form  of  a  principality  to 
that  of  a  republic,,  had  been  in  possession  of  the 
Tiber  and  both  its  banks  -f  but  on  the  right  of 
this  river  were  still  circumscribed  by  the  Vei- 
aentes,  with  whom  they  had  waged  long  and 
desperate  wars ;  and,  as  may  be  supposed  among 
rivals  in  so  close  a  neighbourhood,  with  imminent 
danger  to  both.  Veiae,  according  to  Dionysius, 
was  equal  in  extent  to  Athens,  and,  like  the  othei 
Etruscan  cantons,  was  further  advanced  than 
Rome  in  the  arts  of  peace,  probably  better  pro- 
vided with  the  resources  of  war,  but  inferior  in 
the  magnanimity  of  its  councils  and  in  the  courage 
of  its  people.  The  Veiaentes  being,  after  a  vari- 
ety of  struggles,  beat  from  the  field,  they  retired 
within  their  walls,  suffered  themselves  to  be  in- 
vested, and  underwent  a  siege  or  blockade  of  ten 
years.  The  Romans,  in  order  to  reduce  them, 
continued  during  those  ten  years  in  the  field, 
without  any  interruption  or  distinction  of  sea- 
sons ;  made  secure  approaches,  fortifying  them- 
selves in  the  posts  which  they  suc- 
IL  C.  357.  cessively  occupied,  and  in  the  end 
entered  the  place  by  storm. 

In  these  operations,  we  are  told,  that  they 
learned  to  make  war  with  more  regularity  than 
they  had  formerly  practised ;  and  having,  some 
little  time  before,  appointed  a  military  pay  for 
such  of  their  people  as  served  on  foot,  they  at 
this  time  extended  the  same  establishment  to  their 
horsemen  or  knights ;  imposed  taxes  on  the  people 
in  order  to  defray  this  expense,  and  made  other 
arrangements,  which  soon  after  enabled  them  to 
carry  their  enterprises  to  a  greater  distance,  and 
to  conduct  them  with  more  order  and  system: 
circumstances  which,  together  with  the  accessions 
of  territory  and  power,  gained  by  the  redaction 
of  Veiaa,  rendered  this  event  a  remarkable  epocha 
in  the  history  of  Rome. 

The  use  which  they  proposed  to  make  of  their 
conquest  was  partly  founded  in  the  original  policy 
of  the  state.  The  practice  of  incorporating  van- 
quished enemies,  indeed,  with  the  Roman  people, 
had  been  long  discontinued :  for  even  Tarquin, 
it  is  said,  had  introduced  the  custom  of  enslaving 
captives,  and  this  fate  the  citizens  of  Veias  un- 
derwent;4 but  their  lands,  and  the  city  itself, 
offered  a  tempting  prize  to  the  conquerors.  And 
accordingly  it  was  proposed  to  transplant  into 
those  vacant  possessions  and  seats  one  half  of  the 
Roman  senate  and  people.* 

This  proposal  was  extremely  acceptable  to  per- 
sons of  inferior  condition,  who  hoped  to  double 


4  Liv.  lib.  v.  c.  22.  5  Ibid.  c.  24 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


25 


their  possessions,  and  flattered  themselves  that 
they  might  double  the  power  of  the  state :  but  it 
was  strenuously  opposed  by  the  senate  and  nobles, 
as  tending  to  divide  and  weaken  the  common- 
wealth, and  as  more  likely  to  restore  a  rival  than 
to  strengthen  themselves.  It  was  eluded  by  a 
partial  division  of  the  Veisen  territory,  in  which 
seven  jugera,  or  about  four  English  acres,  were 
assigned  as  the  lot  of  a  family;  and  by  these 
means  the  more  indigent  citizens  were  provided 
for,  without  any  hazard  of  dismembering  the  state. 

But  while  the  Romans  were  thus  availing  them- 
selves of  the  spoils  of  a  fallen  enemy,  and  pro- 
bably enjoying,  on  the  extinction  of  their  rival,  a 
more  than  common  degree  of  imagined  security, 
they  became  themselves  an  example  of  the  insta- 
bility of  human  affairs ;  being  assailed  by  a  new 
and  unlooked-for  enemy,  who  came  like  a  stroke 
of  lightning  on  their  settlement,  dispersed  their 
people,  and  reduced  their  habitations  to  ashes. 

The  Gauls,  who  are  said  to  have  passed  the 
Alps  in  three  several  migrations,  about  two 
hundred  years  before  this  date,  being  now  mas- 
ters of  all  the  plains  on  the  Po,  and  of  all  the 
coasts  of  the  Adriatic  to  the  banks  of  the  river 
Sena,  where  they  had  a  settlement,  which,  from 
their  name  was  called  Sena  Gallia;  and  being 
still  bent  on  extending  their  possessions,  or  shift- 
ing their  habitations,  had  passed  the  Appcnines, 
and  laid  siege  to  Clusium,  the  capital  of  a  small 
nation  in  Tuscany.6    The  inhabitants  of  this 

lace  made  application  to  the  Romans  for  succour ; 

ut  could  obtain  no  more  than  a  deputation  to 
intercede  with  the  Gauls  in  their  behalf.  The 
deputies  who  were  sent  on  this  business,  and 
commissioned  to  act  only  as  mediators,  having 
appeared  in  arms  on  the  side  of  the  besieged,  the 
Gauls  complained  of  their  conduct  as  a  breach  of 
faith,  and  as  a  departure  from  the  neutrality  which 
the  Romans  professed  :  and  being  denied  satisfac- 
tion on  this  complaint,  they  dropped  their  design 
on  Clusium,  and  turned  their  arms  against  these 
mediators,  who  had  violated  the  laws  of  war. 
They  advanced  on  the  left  of  the  Tiber,  found 
the  Romans  posted  to  receive  them  on  the  Allia, 
a  small  river  which  was  the  limit  of  the  Roman 
territory,  in  the  country  of  the  Sabines,  about  ten 
miles  from  Rome;  and,  with  the  same  impetuo- 
sity which  hitherto  attended  them,  they  passed 
the  Allia  on  the  right  of  the  Roman  army,  drove 
them  into  the  angle  that  is  formed  by  the  conflu- 
ence of  the  two  rivers,  put  all  who  withstood 
them  to  the  sword,  and  forced  the  remainder  into 
the  Tiber,  where  numbers  perished,  or,  being  cut 
off  from  their  retreat  to  Rome,  were  dispersed  in 
the  neighbouring^  country. 

This  calamity  is  said  to  have  so 
U.  C.  363.  much  stunned  or  overwhelmed  the 
Roman  people,  that  they  made  no 
farther  attempt  to  defend  their  city.  All  the 
youth  that  were  fit  to  carry  arms  retired  into  the 
capitol.  The  weak  or  infirm,  whether  from  sex 
or  age,  fled  as  from  a  place  condemned  to  de- 
struction, or  suffered  themselves  to  be  surprised 
and  cut  off  in  the  streets. 

The  Gauls,  having  employed  three  days  in  the 
pursuit  and  slaughter  of  those  who  fled  from  the 
field  of  battle,  on  the  fourth  day  advanced  to- 
wards the  walls  of  Rome.  But  being  alarmed  at 
first  by  the  general  desertion  of  the  battlements, 


6  Liv.  lib.  v.  c.  35,  &.c. 

D 


which  they  mistook  for  an  ambuscade  or  an  ar- 
tifice to  draw  them  into  a  snare,  they  examined 
all  the  avenues  with  care  before  they  ventured 
to  enter  the  gates.  The  more  effectually  to  dis- 
lodge every  enemy,  they  set  fire  to  the  city,  re- 
duced it  to  ashes,  and  took  post  on  the  ruins,  in 
order  to  besiege  the  capitol,  which  alone  held 
out.7  In  this  state  of  affairs,  the  republic,  already 
so  formidable  to  all  its  neighbours,  was  supposed 
to  be  extinguished  for  ever.  The  fame  of  its 
ruin  reached  even  to  Greece,  where  Rome  began 
to  be  considered  at  this  time  as  a  rising  and  pros- 
perous commonwealth.8 

The  Gauls  remained  in  possession  of  the  ruins 
for  six  months ;  during  which  tune  they  made  a 
fruitless  attempt  to  scale  the  rock  on  which  the 
capitol  was  built ;  and  being  repulsed  by  Man- 
lius,  who,  for  his  vigilance  and  valour  on  this  oc- 
casion, acquired  the  name  of  Capitolinus.  they 
continued  to  invest  and  block  up  the  fortress,  in 
hopes  of  being  able  to  reduce  it  by  famine.  The 
Romans,  who  were  shut  up  in  the  capitol,  still 
preserved  the  forms  of  their  commonwealth,  and 
made  acts  in  the  name  of  the  senate  and  people. 
Sensible  that  Camillus,  under  whose  auspices 
they  had  reduced  the  city  of  Veia?,  and  triumphed 
over  many  other  enemies,  now  in  exile  on  the 
score  of  an  invidious  charge  of  embezzling  the 
spoils  he  had  won  at  that  place,  was  the  fittest 
person  to  retrieve  their  affairs;  they  absolved  him 
of  this  accusation,  reinstated  him  in  the  qualifi- 
cation to  command  their  armies  ;9  and,  in  order 
that  he  might  assemble  their  allies  and  collect  the 
remains  of  their  late  army,  which  was  dispersed 
in  the  neighbouring  country,  vested  him  with  the 
power  of  dictator.  In  this  extremity  of  their 
fortunes,  he  overlooked  his  wrongs,  procured 
numbers  to  resort  to  his  standard,  and  hastened 
to  arm  for  the  preservation  of  his  country.  He 
came  to  the  relief  of  the  capitol  at  a  critical  mo- 
ment, when  the  besieged,  being  greatly  reduced 
by  famine,  had  already  capitulated,  and  were 
paying  a  ransom  for  themselves  and  their  re- 
maining effects.  Before  this  transaction  was  com- 
pleted, he  surprised  the  besiegers,  obliged  them 
to  relinquish  their  prize,  and  afterwards,  in  a  de- 
cisive; battle  that  was  fought  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Rome,  revenged  the  disaster  which  his  country- 
men had  suffered  on  the  banks  of  the  Allia.10 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  true  account  of 
this  famous  adventure,  the  Romans  have  given 
it  a  place  in  their  history,  retained  a  deep  impres- 
sion of  their  danger  from  the  Gauls,  and  from 
thence  dated  the  origin  of  some  particulars  in 
their  policy,  which  seem  to  have  arisen  from  such 
an  impression.  1  "hey  set  apart  particular  fends 
in  the  treasury,  to  be  spared  in  all  other  possible 
exigences  of  the  state,  and  reserved  for  a  resource 
in  case  of  a  Gaulish  invasion.  They  subjected 
the  magistrate  to  certain  general  restrictions,  but 
allowed  an  exception  in  case  of  an  invasion  from 
the  Gauls ;  and  it  is  likely  that,  in  the  age  in 
which  they  took  these  alarming  impressions,  they 
had  not  yet  acquired  those  advantages  of  disci- 
pline and  military  skill,  in  which  they  were  after- 
wards so  much  superior  to  the  Gauis  and  other 
barbarous  neighbours.11 


7  F'utarch,  la  vit. Camilli.  8  Ibid. 

9  Lh  .  lib.  v.  c.  32.  10  Ibid.  c.  43,  &c. 

11  The  establishment  of  the  Legion,  and  the  improve- 
ment made  in  the  choice  of  its  weapons  and  manner  of 
array,  are  mentioned  as  subsequent  to  I  hie  date:  and  the 


£6 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  f. 


Although  historians  have  amply  supplied  the 
detail  of  history  before  this  event,  Ihey  neverthe- 
less acknowledge,  that  all  prior  evidence  of  facts 
perished  in  the  destruction  of  Rome ;  that  all  re- 
cords and  monuments  of  what  the  Romans  had 
formerly  been,  were  then  to  be  gathered  from  the 
ruins  of  cottages,  which  had  been  for  several 
months  trodden  under  foot  by  a  barbarous  enemy; 
that  the  laws  of  the  twelve  tables,  the  People's 
Charters  of  Right,  and  the  Forms  of  the  Consti- 
tution, were  to  be  collected  in  fragments  of  plates 
which  were  dug  from  the  rubbish  of  their  former 
habitations ;  and  that  nothing  remaining  to  mark 
the  former  position  of  Rome,  besides  the  capitol, 
raised  on  its  rock,  and  surrounded  with  ruins, 
the  people  deliberated  whether  they  should  at- 
tempt to  renew  their  settlement  on  this  ground, 
or  transfer  it  to  Veise.  It  had  been  formerly  pro- 
posed to  remove  to  that  place  one  half  of  the  se- 
nate and  people.  It  was  then  proposed,  that  they 
should  choose  that  as  the  proper  ground  on  which 
to  restore  the  name  and  the  seat  of  their  common- 
wealth. "  Why,"  said  the  promoters  of  this  de- 
sign, "  attempt,  at  a  great  expense,  and  with  so 
much  labour,  to  clear  out  the  wretched  ruins  of 
a  fallen  city,  while  we  have  another,  provided 
with  private  and  public  buildings  of  every  sort, 


yet  entire  for  our  reception  ?"  To  this  specicua 
argument  might  have  been  opposed  the  considera- 
tion of  the  many  advantages  of  their  former  situa- 
tion ;  its  place  on  a  navigable  river,  its  command 
of  the  passage  from  Latium  to  Etruria,  and  cf 
the  navigation  of  the  Tiber  from  the  descents  cf 
the  Appenines  to  the  sea.  But  motives  cf  su- 
perstition and  national  pride  were  supposed  to 
be  of  greater  weight.  "  Would  you,"  said  Ca- 
millus,  "abandon  the  seats  of  your  ancestors'? 
Would  you  have  Veia?  restored,  and  Rome  to 
perish  for  ever  ?  Would  you  relinquish  the  altars 
of  the  gods,  who  have  fixed  their  shrines  in  these 
sacred  places ;  to  whose  aid  you  are  indebted  for 
so  many  triumphs,  and  to  whom  you  owe  the 
conquest  of  those  habitations  for  which  you  now 
propose  to  forsake  their  temples?" 

Convinced  by  this  argument,  the  Romans,  de- 
termined to  remain  in  their  ancient  situation, 
proceeded  to  restore  their  habitations,  and,  in  the 
course  of  a  year,  accomplished  the  work  of  re- 
building their  city.  An  era  from  which,  as  from 
a  second  foundation,  may  be  dated  the  rise  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  the  beginning  of  a  period, 
in  which  its  history,  though  still  controverted  in 
some  particulars,  is  less  doubtful  than  before,  or 
less  disfigured  with  fable.1 


CHAPTER  III. 

Scene  of  Foreign  War  and  Domestic  Dispute  opened  with  reviving  Rome — Faction  or  Conspi- 
racy of  Manlius — Condemnation — Plebeians  elected  into  the  Office  of  Consular  Tribunes — 
Aspire  to  the  Consulate —  The  first  Plebeian  Consul — Establishment  of  the  Prcetor — Patrician 
Ediles — The  Plebeians  qualified  to  hold  all  the  Offices  of  State — The  Measure  of  Roman 
Magistracy  complete — Review  of  the  Constitution — Its  seeming  defects — But  great  successes — 
Policy  of  the  State  respecting  Foreign  or  Vanquished  Nations — Formation  of  the  Legion — 
Series  of  Wars — With  the  Samnites,  Campanians — The  Tarentines — Pyrrhus — Sovereignty 
of  Italy — Different  Fooling  on  which  the  Inhabitants  stood. 


THE  Romans  were  not  allowed  to  restore 
their  community,  nor  to  rebuild  their  habitations 

in  peace.  They  were  invaded  by 
U.  C.  365.    the  Equi,  the  Volsci,  the  Hernici, 

the  Etruscans,  and  some  of  their 
own  Latin  confederates  ;2  who  dreading  the  re- 
establishment  of  a  commonwealth,  from  which 
they  had  already  suffered  so  much,  and  whose 
power  was  so  great  an  object  of  their  jealousy, 
made  every  effort  to  prevent  it.   During  a  period 

Romans,  it  is  confessed,  made  less  progress  in  every  other 
art  than  in  that  of  war.  Their  general  Camillus,  at  his 
triumph  for  the  victory  obtained  over  the  Gauls,  made  his 
entry  into  Rome,  having  his  visage  painted  with  red ;  a 
practice,  says  Pliny,  which  is  yet  to  be  found  among  na- 
tions of  Africa,  who  remain  in  a  state  of  barbarity,  and 
which  this  natural  historian  was  inclined  to  consider  as  a 
characteristic  of  barbarous  manners. 

1  Some  parts  even  of  the  history  that  follows,  are  doubt- 
ful. The  names  of  dictators  and  of  consuls,  the  reality 
of  entire  campaigns,  as  well  as  of  single  actions,  are  con- 
troverted, (Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  5.  &  26.  lib.  v.  c.  55.  lib.  viii.  c.38. 
lib.  ix.  c.  15.)  but  that  which  preceded  this  date  rests  almost 

4>-adition  alone,  (Liv.  lib.  vi.  c.  1.)  It  serves,  however, 
*#  luuiKii  ua,  what  the  Romans  themselves  believed  ;  and 
is  therefore  the  best  comment  we  can  have  on  the  genius 
ind  tendency,  as  well  as  the  origin,  of  their  political  in- 
stitutions 

2  Liv  lib  vi.  c.  2.  &  16. 


of  one  hundred  and  seventeen  years  which  fol- 
lowed, they  accordingly  had  to  encounter  a  suc- 
cession of  enemies,  in  subduing  of  whom  they 
became  the  sovereigns  of  Italy;  while  they  con- 
tinued to  undergo  internal  convulsions,  which, 
as  formerly,  proved  the  birth  of  political  institu- 
tions, and  filled  up  the  measure  of  their  national 
establishment. 

During  this  period,  the  plebeians,  far  from  be- 
ing satisfied  with  their  past  acquisitions,  made 
continual  efforts  to  extend  their  privileges.  The 
tribunes,  by  traducing  the  senate,  and  by  dis- 
playing in  their  harangues  the  severities  of  the 
patrician  creditor,  and  the  sufferings  of  the  ple- 
beian debtor,  still  inflamed  the  animosity  of  their 
party;  the  republic  itself  was  so  feebly  established, 
that  ambitious  citizens  were  encouraged,  by  means 
of  factions  raised  among  persons  of  the  lower 
class,  to  have  thoughts  of  subverting  the  govern- 
ment. In  this  manner  Manlius,  the  famous 
champion  of  the  capitol,  who,  as  has  been  ob- 
served, by  his  vigilance  and  valour  preserved  that 
fortress  from  the  Gauls,  formed  a  design  to  usurp 
the  sovereignty.  Presuming  on  his  merit  in  this 
and  other  services,  he  thought  himself  above  the 
laws;  and  endeavouring  by  his  intrigues  with 


'Cnxr.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


27 


tlio  populace,  to  form  a  party  against  the  state, 
he  incurred,  what  was  at  Rome  of  all  imputations 
the  most  detested,  that  of  aspiring  to  be  king.  In 
opposition  to  this  conspiracy,  whether  real  or  fic- 
titious, the  Republic  was  committed  to  the  care 
of  a  dictator;  and  Manlius being  brought  before 
him,  endeavoured  to  turn  the  suspicion  of  malice 
and  envy  against  his  accusers.  He  produced  four 
hundred  citizens,  whom  he  had  redeemed  from 
their  creditors  and  released  from  chains.  He 
produced  the  spoils  of  thirty  enemies  slain  by 
himself  in  battle ;  forty  badges  of  honour  con- 
ferred on  him  b}'  generals  under  whom  he  had 
served  ;  ry  my  citizens  whom  he  had  rescued  from 
the  enemy,  and  in  the  number  of  those  he  had 
saved,  he  pointed  at  Caius  Servilius,  second  in 
command  to  the  dictator,  who  now  carried  the 
sword  of  the  state  against  the  life  of  a  person 
who  had  saved  his  own.  And  in  the  conclusion 
of  his  defence,  "Such  were  the  treasons,"  he 
said,  "  by  which  the  friends  of  the  people  were 
to  be  sacrificed  to  the  senate." 

His  merits  in  the  public  service  were  great, 
and  entitled  him  to  any  reward  from  the  people, 
except  a  surrender  of  their  liberties.  His  libera- 
lity to  the  more  indigent  citizens,  if  it  proceeded 
from  humanity,  was  noble ;  but  if  it  proceeded 
from  a  design  to  alienate  their  affections  from  the 
public,  or  transfer  them  to  himself,  was  a  crime  ; 
cind  the  most  splendid  services,  considered  as  the 
artifices  of  a  dangerous  ambition,  were  the  ob- 
jects of  punishment,  not  of  reward. 

The  people,  it  is  said,  while  they  had  in  their 
view  the  capitel,  which  had  been  saved  by  the 
vigilance  and  bravery  of  this  unfortunate  crimi- 
nal, hesitated  in  their  judgment;  but  their  meet- 
ing being  adjourned  to  the  following  day,  and  to 
a  different  place,  they  condemned  him  to  be 
thrown  from  the  rock  on  which  he  had  so  lately 
signalized  his  valour.3 

Such  alarms  to  the  general  state  of  the  com- 
monwealth, had  their  temporary  effect  in  sus- 
pending tlie  animosity  of  parties ;  but  could  not 
reconcile  their  interests,  nor  prevent  the  periodi- 
cal heats  which  continually  arose  on  the  return 
of  disputes.  The  plebeians  had  been 
U.  C.  366.  now  above  forty  years  in  possession 
of*  a  title  to  hold  the  office  of  con- 
sular tribune,  but  had  not  been  able  to  prevail  at 
any  election.4  The  majority  of  the  centuries 
were  still  composed  of  patricians;  and  when 
candidates  of  plebeian*  rank  were  likely,  by  their 
personal  consideration,  to  carry  a  majority,  the 
other  party,  in  such  particular  instances,  had  in- 
fluence enough,  as  has  been  observed,  to  revive 
the  election  of  consuls,  a  title  from  which  the 
plebeians,  by  law,  were  still  excluded. 

The  plebeians,  however,  by  the  zeal  of  their 
party,  by  the  assiduity  and  influence  of  indivi- 
duals who  aspired  to  office,  by  the  increase  of 
their  numbers  in  the  first  and  second  classes,  by 
their  alliance  with  the  patrician  families  in  con- 
sequence of  marriage,  at  last  surmounted  these 
difficulties,  obtained  the  dignity  of  consular  tri- 
bune for  one  of  their  own  order,  and  from 
thenceforward  began  to  divide  the 
U.  C.  353.  votes  of  the  centuries  with  the  pa- 
trician candidates.  They  were  ac- 
cordingly raised  in  their  turn  to  what  was  then 
the  first  office  of  the  state,  and  in  which  nothing 


3  Liv.  lib.  vi  c.27.  4  Ibid.  c.  37. 


was  wanting  but  the  title  of  consul.  To  thi.j 
too  they  were  soon  led  to  aspire ;  and  were  urged 
to  make  the  concluding  step  in  the  rise  of  their 
order,  by  the  ambition  of  a  female  patrician; 
who,  being  married  into  a  plebeian  family,  bore 
with  impatience  the  mortifications  to  which  she 
was  exposed  in  the  condition  of  her  new  rela- 
tions. She  excited  her  husband,  she  engaged 
her  own  kindred  among  the  patricians,  she  roused 
the  whole  plebeian  party  to  remove  the  indigni- 
ties which  yet  remained  affixed  to  their  race,  in 
being  supposed  unworthy  to  hold  the  consular 
dignity. 

Licinius  Stolo,  the  husband  of 
U.  C.  377.  this  lady,  and  Fublius  Sextius, 
another  active  and  ambitious  ple- 
beian, were  placed  in  the  college  of  tribunes,  in 
order  to  urge  this  point.  They  began  the  exer- 
cise of  their  office  by  proposing  three  very  im- 
portant laws :  the  first  intended  for  the  relief  of 
insolvent  debtors ;  by  which  all  payments  made 
on  the  score  of  interests,  should  be  deducted  from 
the  capital,  and  three  years  be  allowed  to  pay  off 
the  remainder. 

A  second  law  to  limit  the  extent  of  estates  in 
land,  by  which  no  citizen  should  be  allowed  to 
engross  above  five  hundred  jugera,5  or  to  have  in 
stock  above  one  hundred  bullocks,  and  five  hun- 
dred goats  and  sheep. 

A  third  law  to  restore  the  election  of  consuls, 
in  place  of  consular  tribunes,  with  an  express 
provision  that,  at  least,  one  of  the  consuls  should 
be  of  plebeian  descent. 

The  patricians  having  gained  some  of  the  tri- 
bunes to  their  party,  prevailed  upon  them  to  dis- 
sent from  their  colleagues,  and  to  suspend,  by 
their  negatives,  all  proceedings  on  the  subject  of 
these  laws.  The  tribunes,  Licinius  and  Scx- 
tius,  in  their  turn,  suspended  the  usual  election 
of  magistrates,  and  put  a  stop  to  all  the  ordinary 
affairs  of  state. 

An  anarchy  of  five  years  ensued,6  during  which 
time  the  Republic,  bereft  of  all  its  officers,  had  no 
magistracy  besides  the  tribunes  of  the  people, 
who  were  not  legally  vested  with  any  degree  of 
executive  power.7  Any  alarm  from  abroad  mmt 
have  suspended  the  contest  at  home,  and  forced 
the  parties  to  a  treaty  :  but  they  are  said  to  have 
enjoyed,  in  this  state  of  domestic  trouble,  unin- 
terrupted peace  with  their  neighbours  ;  a  cireum 
stance  from  which  we  may  infer,  that,  in  most 
of  their  wars,  they  were  themselves  the  aggres- 
sors, and  owed  this  interval  of  peace  to  the  va- 
cancy of  the  consulate,  and  to  their  want  of  the 
prompters,  by  whom  they  were  usually  excited 
to  quarrel  with  their  neighbours. 

In  the  several  questions,  on  which  the  parties 
were  now  at  variance,  the  patricians  contended 
chiefly  for  the  exclusion  of  plebeians  from  the 
office  or  title  of  consul ;  and,  as  an  insuperable 
bar  to  their  admission,  still  insisted  on  the  sacri- 
legious profanation  that  would  be  incurred,  by 
suffering  the  rites  usually  performed  by  the  con- 
suls to  pass  into  plebeian  hands.  This  argument, 
instead  of  persuading  the  popular  leaders  to  de- 
sist from  their  claim,  only  made  them  sensible 
that  it  was  necessary  to  remove  this  impediment 
by  a  previous  operation,  before  they  attempted  to 
pass  through  the  way  which  it  was  meant  to 


.r)  About  300  English  noes. 

0  From  V.C.  377  to  382.  7  Li  v.  lib.  vi.  c.  3o. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION. 


("Book  I 


obstruct.  They  appeared  then  for  a  little  to  drop 
their  pursuit  of  the  consulate;  they  affected  to 
respect  the  claim  of  the  patricians,  to  retain  the 
possession  of  places  which  had  always  been  as- 
signed to  their  order.  But  they  moved,  that  the 
number  of  ordinary  attendants  on  the  sacred 
rites  should  be  augmented  from  two  to  ten  ;  and 
that  of  these  one  half  should  be  named  of  ple- 
beian extraction. 

While  the  patricians  continued  to  reject  this 
proposal,  on  account  of  the  effect  it  was  likely  to 
have  on  their  pretensions  in  general,  they  gave 
way  successively;  and,  at  the  interval  of  some 
vears,  first  to  the  acts  that  were  devised  in  favour 
of  insolvent  debtors ;  next,  to  the  Agrarian  law, 
or  limitation  of  property  in  land ;  and  last  of  all, 
to  the  new  establishment  relating  to  the  priest- 
hood, and  to  the  communication  of  the  consulate 
itself  to  persons  of  plebeian  rank. 

The  authors  of  the  new  regulations,  knowing 
that  the  majority  of  the  centuries  was  composed 
of  patricians,  or  was  still  under  the  influence  of 
that  order,  were  not  satisfied  with  the  mere  privi- 
lege of  being  qualified  to  stand  for  the  consulate. 
They  insisted,  that  at  least  one  of  the  consuls 
should  be  a  plebeian;  and  having  prevailed  in 
this,  as  in  the  other  contested  points,  the  plebeian 
party  entered  immediately  on  the  possession  of 
their  new  privilege,  and  raised  Pu- 
U.  C.  387.  blius  Sextius,  the  tribune  who  had 
been  so  active  in  the  cause  of  his 
constituents,  to  the  office  of  consul. 

But  while  the  patricians  thus  incurred  a  re- 
peated diminution  of  their  exclusive  prerogatives, 
they  endeavoured,  by  separating  the  judicative 
from  the  executive  power  of  the  consul,  and  by 
committing  the  first  to  a  patrician  officer,  under 
the  title  of  Praetor,  to  save  a  part  from  the  gene- 
ral wreck. 

It  was  intended  that  the  praetor  should  be  su- 
bordinate, but  next  in  rank,  to  the  consul.  He 
was  attended  by  two  lictors,  and  had  his  commis- 
sion in  very  general  terms,  to  judge  of  all  differ- 
ences that  should  be  brought  before  him,  and  to 
hear  the  suits  of  the  people  until  the  setting  of 
the  sun.  This  unlimited  jurisdiction,  as  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  observe,  came  to  be  gradually 
circumscribed  by  its  own  precedents,  and  by  the 
accumulating  edicts  of  successive  praetors.  One 
person  at  first  was  supposed  able  to  discharge  all 
the  duties  of  this  office ;  but  the  number,  in  order 
to  keep  pace  with  the  growing  multiplicity  of 
civil  affairs,  was  afterwards  gradually  increased. 

Another  political  change,  by  which  the  patri- 
cians procured  some  compensation  for  what  they 
had  now  surrendered,  was  made  about  the  same 
time.  The  care  of  the  public  shows  and  enter- 
tainments had  hitherto  belonged  to  the  ediles  of 
the  people.  The  office  of  edile  being  at  its  first 
institution  expensive,  was  likely  to  become  gra- 
dually more  so  by  the  frequent  additions  which 
were  made  to  the  festivals,  and  by  the  growing 
demands  of  the  people  for  shows  and  amuse- 
ments. The  plebeians  complained  of  this  charge 
as  a  burden  on  their  order,  and  the  opposite  party 
offered  to  relieve  them  of  it,  provided  that  two 
officers  for  this  purpose,  under  the  title  of  Curile 
Ediles,  should  be  annually  elected  from  among 
the  patricians.1 

By  these  institutions  the  nobles,  while  they 


1  Liv.  lib.  vi.  c.  42. 


admitted  the  plebeians  to  partake  in  the  dignity 
of  consul,  reserved  to  their  own  order  the  exclu- 
sive right  to  the  offices  of  praetor  and  edile :  by 
the  last  of  which  they  had  the  direction  of  sport  & 
and  public  entertainments ;  a  station  which,  in  a 
state  that  was  coming  gradually  under  the  go- 
vernment of  popular  assemblies,  became,  in  pro- 
cess of  time,  a  great  object  of  ambition,  and  a 
principal  access  to  power. 

The  design  or  the  effect  of  this  institution  did 
not  escape  the  notice  of  the  plebeian  party.  They 
complained,  that  while  the  patricians  affected  to 
resign  the  exclusive  title  to  one  office,  they  had 
engrossed  two  ethers,  inferior  only  in  name,  equal 
in  consideration  and  influence.  But  no  exclusive 
advantage  could  be  long  retained  by  one  order, 
while  the  other  was  occasionally  possessed  of  the 
legislative  and  supreme  executive  power.  All  the 
offices,  whether  of  praetor  or  edile,  of  dictator  or 
censor,  were,  in  process  of  time,  filled  with  persons 
of  either  rank ;  and  the  distinction  of  patrician  or 
plebeian  became  merely  nominal,  or  served  as  a 
monument  of  the  aristocracy  which  had  subsist- 
ed in  former  ages.  The  only  effect  which  it  now 

had  was  favourable  to  the  plebeians ; 
U.  C.  417.    as  it  limited  the  choice  of  tribunes 

to  their  own  order,  while,  in  com- 
mon with  the  patricians,  they  had  access  to  every 
other  dignity  in  the  state. 

Such  is  the  account  which 
Review  of  the  historians  have  given  us  of  the 
constitution.  origin  and  progress  of  the  Ro- 
man constitution.  This  horde, 
in  the  earliest  account  of  it,  presented  a  distinc- 
tion of  ranks,  under  the  titles  of  Patrician,  Eques- 
trian, and  Plebeian ;  and  the  state,  though  go- 
verned by  a  prince,  had  occasional  or  ordinary 
assemblies,  by  which  it  approached  to  the  form 
of  a  republic.  Assemblies  to  which  every  citizen 
was  admitted  were  termed  the  Comitia:  those 
Which  were  formed  of  the  superior  ranks,  or  of  a 
select  number,  were  termed  the  Senate.  Among 
those  who  had  attained  the  age  of  manhood,  to 
be  noble  and  to  be  of  the  senate  were  probably 
synonymous  terms.  But  after  the  introduction 
of  the  census,  separate  rolls  were  kept  for  the  se- 
nate, the  equestrian  order,  and  the  people.  These 
rolls  were  composed  by  different  offices  in  succes- 
sive periods  in  the  state.  A  senate  was  composed 
of  a  hundred  members  by  Romulus.2  This  num- 
ber was  augmented  or  diminished  at  pleasure  by 
his  successors.  The  consuls  succeeded  in  this 
matter  to  the  prerogative  of  the  kings ;  and  the 
censors  were  appointed  to  exercise  it,  with  the 
other  duties  of  the  census,  as  a  principal  part  of 
their  functions.  It  is  remarkable,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  great  importance  of  the  senate  in 
the  government  of  t  heir  country,  so  little  precau- 
tion was  taken  to  ascertain  who  were  to  be  its 
constituent  members,  or  to  fix  their  legal  num- 
ber. The  body  was  accordingly  fluctuating.  In- 
dividuals were'  placed  or  displaced  at  the  discre- 
tion of  the  officer  entrusted  with  the  muster,  and 
the  numbers  of  the  whole  increased  or  diminished 
indefinitely.  The  officers  of  state,  though  not 
enrolled,  had  access  to  the  senate ;  but  their  ccn- 

2  Liv.  lib.  i.  c.  8.  According  to  Livy  (he  senate  con- 
sisted of  no  more  than  a  hundred  members  at  the  death  of 
Romulus;  but,  according  to  Dionysiu9,  their  numbers  had 
been  augmented  by  a  popular  election  at  the  admission  of 
the  Sabines ;  some  writers  say  to  two  hundred  ;  others  to 
one  hundred  and  fifty.    Dionys.  lib.  ii.  c.  47. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


tinuing  members,  after  their  year  in  office  ex- 
pired, depended  on  the  discretion  of  the  censors. 
It  seemed  to  be  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  this 
constitution,  that  the  senate  should  be  a  meeting 
of  the  superior  class  of  the  citizens. 

As  the  noble  and  popular 
Recapitulation,  assemblies  had  their  existence 
under  the  kings,  the  transition 
from  monarchy  to  republic  in  so  small  a  state,  by 
substituting  elective  and  temporary  magistrates 
in  place  of  the  king,  was  easy.  A  sufficient  occa- 
sion was  given  to  it  in  the  abuses  which  were 
felt  in  the  last  reign  of  the  monarchy.  The  dis- 
orders incident  to  the  shock  of  parties,  who  were 
set  free  from  a  former  controul,  required,  on  occa- 
sion, the  remedy  of  a  discretionary  authority  ves- 
ted in  some  person  who  might  be  entrusted  with 
the  public  safety,  and  soon  led  to  the  occasional 
institution  of  a  dictatorial  power.  The  high  pre- 
rogatives claimed  and  maintained  by  one  party, 
obliged  the  other  to  assume  a  posture  of  defence, 
and  to  place  themselves  under  the  conduct  of 
leaders  properly  authorised  to  vindicate  their 
rights.  These  rights  were  understood,  by  de- 
grees, to  imply  equality,  and,  in  the  successive 
institutions  that  followed,  put  every  citizen  in 
possession  of  equal  pretension  to  preferment  and 
honours;  pretensions  which  were  to  be  limited 
only  by  the  great  distinction  which  Nature  has 
made  between  the  capacities,  merits,  and  cha- 
racters of  men,  and  which  are  subject,  in  every 
community,  to  be  warped  by  the  effects  of  educa- 
tion and  fortune. 

New  departments  of  state,  or  additions  to  the 
number  of  officers  employed  in  them,  were  con- 
tinually suggested  by  the  increase  of  civil  affaire; 
and  while  the  territory  of  the  Republic  was  but  a 
small  part  of  Italy,  the  measure  of  her  political 
government  was  full,  and  the  list  of  her  officers 
complete.  Functions  which,  in  the  first  or  sim- 
plest ages,  were  either  unknown  or  had  been 
committed  to  the  king  alone,  were  now  thrown 
into  separate  lots  or  departments,  and  furnished 
their  several  occupations  to  two  consuls,  one  prae- 
tor, two  censors,  four  ccliles,  and  eight  quaestors, 
besides  officers  of  these  different  ranks,  who,  with 
the  titles  of  proconsul,  propraetor  and  proquaostor, 
and  without  any  limitation  of  number,  were  em- 
ployed wherever  the  exigences  of  the  state  requir- 
ed their  service. 

In  this  account  of  the  Roman  constitution  we 
are  come  nearly  to  that  state  of  its  maturity3  at 
which  Polybius  began  to  observe  and  to  admire 
the  felicity  of  its  institutions,  and  the  order  of  its 
administration.  The  plebeians  were  now  recon- 
ciled to  a  government  to  which  they  themselves 
had  access,  and  citizens  of  every  rank  made  great 
efforts  of  industry  in  a  state  in  which  men  were 
allowed-  to  arrive  at  eminence,  not  only  by  advan- 
tages of  fortune,  but  likewise  by  personal  quali- 
ties. The  senate  and  assemblies  of  the  people, 
t  he  magistrates  and  select  commissioners,  had  each 
their  departments,  which  they  administered  with 
an  appearance  of  sovereign  and  absolute  sway, 
and  without  any  interfering  of  interests  or  jea- 
lousy of  power. 

The  consuls  were  destined  to  the  command  of 
armies;  but,  while  at  Rome,  seemed  to  have  the 
highest  prerogatives  in  the  administration  of  all 
civil  and  political  affairs.    They  had  under  their 


•i  As  it  stood  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  of  Rome. 


command  all  the  other  officers  of  state,  except  the 
tribunes  of  the  people ;  they  introduced  all  foreign 
ambassadors;  and  they  alone  could  move  the  se- 
nate on  any  subject  of  deliberation,  and  put  their 
acts  or  determinations  in  writing.  The  consuls, 
too,  presided  with  a  similar  prerogative  in  the  as- 
sembly of  the  centuries,  and  in  that  of  the  curiae, 
proposed  the  question,  collected  the  votes,  declared 
the  majority,  and  framed  the  act.  In  all  military 
preparations,  in  making  their  levies  as  well  as  in 
the  command  of  the  army,  they  were  vested  with 
high  degrees  of  discretionary  power4  over  all  the 
troops  of  the  commonwealth,  composed  of  Roman 
citizens  or  allies.  They  commanded  the  treasury, 
as  far  as  necessary  to  the  service  on  which  they 
were  employed,  and  had  one  of  its  commissioners, 
or  quaestors,  appointed  to  attend  their  court,  and 
to  receive  their  orders. 

The  senate,  however,  had  the  ordinary  adminis- 
tration of  the  revenue,  took  account  of  its  receipts 
and  disbursements,  and  suffered  no  money  to  be 
issued  without  their  own  decree,  or  the  warrant 
of  the  consul  in  actual  service.  Even  the  money 
decreed  by  the  censors  for  the  repair  of  public, 
buildings,  and  the  execution  of  public  works,  could 
not  be  issued  by  the  quaestors  without  an  act  of 
the  senate  to  authorise  it.  All  crimes  and  disor- 
ders that  were  committed  among  the  free  inhabi- 
tants of  Italy,  or  municipal  allies  of  the  state,  all 
disputes  of  a  private  or  public  nature  that  arose 
among  them,  came  under  the  jurisdiction  and  de- 
termination of  the  senate.  All  foreign  embassies 
were  received  or  despatched,  and  all  negotiations 
were  conducted,  by  this  body.  In  such  matters 
the  people  did  no  more  than  affirm  or  reverse 
what  the  senate,  after  mature  deliberation,  had 
decreed,  and  for  the  most  part  gave  their  consent 
as  a  matter  of  form ;  insomuch,  that  while 
persons,  who  observed  the  high  executive  pow- 
ers of  the  consul,  considered  the  state  as  mo- 
narchial;  foreigners,  on  the  contrary,  who  resort- 
ed on  public  business  to  Rome,  were  apt  to  be- 
lieve it  an  aristocracy  vested  in  the  senate. 

The  people,  notwithstanding,  had  reserved  the 
sovereignty  to  themselves,  and,  in  their  several  as- 
semblies, exercised  the  powers  of  legislation,  and 
conferred  all  the  offices  of  state.5  They  like- 
wise, in  all  criminal  matters,  held  the  supreme 
jurisdiction.  In  their  capacity  of  sovereign,  they 
were  the  sole  arbiters  of  life  and  death;  and  even 
in  their  capacity  of  subjects,  did  not  submit  to 
restraints  which,  in  every  other  state,  arc  found 
necessary  to  government. 

A  citizen,  while  accused  of  any  crime,  continu- 
ed at  liberty  until  sentence  was  given  against  him, 
and  might  withdraw  from  his  prosecutors  at  any 
stage  of  the  trial,  even  while  the  last  century  was 
delivering  its  votes.  A  voluntary  banishment 
from  the  forum,  from  the  meetings  of  the  senate, 
and  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  was  the  highest 
punishment  which  any  citizen,  unless  he  remain- 
ed to  expose  himself  to  the  effects  of  a  formal 
sentence,  was  obliged  to  undergo;  and  it  was  ex- 
pressly stipulated,  that,  even  at  Tibur  or  Pne- 
neste,  a  few  miles  from  Rome,  a  convict  who  had 
withdrawn  from  judgment  should  be  safe.6 

4  Vid.  Zonar.  No.  501.  Fiontini  Stra»emata,  lib.  iv 
Val.  Mav.  lib.  ii.  c.  7. 

5  In  the  centuries  thoy  enacted  laws,  and  elected  the 
officers  of  State.  In  the  curia;  they  appointed  officers  to 
military  command. 

G  The  laws  of  Ptiblius,  which  gave  the  power  of  legisla- 
tion to  the  plebeian  assemblies,  and  that  of  Valerius,  which 


30 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  L 


Parts  so  detached  were  not  likely  to  act  as  one 
body,  nor  to  proceed  with  any  regular  concert; 
and  the  state  seems  to  have  carried,  in  all  its  es- 
tablishments, the  seeds  of  dissension  and  tumult. 
It  was  long  supported,  nevertheless,  by  the  un- 
common zeal  of  its  members  in  favour  of  a.  com- 
monwealth in  which  they  enjoyed  so  much  free- 
dom, and  in  which  they  were  vested  with  so  much 
personal  consequence. 

The  several  members  of  the  constitution,  while 
in  appearance  supreme,  were  in  many  respects 
dependent  on  each  other. 

The  consuls,  while  in  office,  had  the  meetings, 
and  determinations  of  the  senate  and  people,  in 
a  great  measure,  in  their  power;  but  they  re- 
ceived this  power  from  the  people,  and  were  ac- 
countable for  the  discharge  of  it  at  the  expiration 
of  their  office. 

The  senate  could  resolve,  but  they  could  not 
execute,  until  they  had  obtained  from  the  people 
a  confirmation  of  their  acts,  and  were  obliged  to 
solicit  the  tribunes  for  leave  to  proceed  in  any 
matter  which  these  officers  were  inclined  to  op- 
pose. 

The  senate  was  constituted,  or  formed,  at.  re- 
gular periods,  at  the  discretion  of  the  consuls  or 
censors,  officers  named  by  the  people. 

The  city,  nevertheless,  was  over-awed  by  the 
senate  and  officers  of  state.  On  great  and  alarm- 
ing occasions,  the  people  themselves  were  no  lon- 
ger sovereigns  than  they  were  allowed  by  the 
senate  and  consuls  to  hold  this  character.  The 
senate  and  consuls  having  it  in  their  power  to 
name  a  dictator,  could  at  once  transfer  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  state  to  a  single  person,  and  sub- 
ject every  citizen  to  his  authority.  Every  indi- 
vidual held  his  place  on  the  rolls  at  the  will  of  the 
censors,  and  his  property  at  the  disposal  of  courts 
that  were  composed  of  senators ;  the  servants  of 
the  public  in  general,  who  aimed  at  lucrative 
commissions,  depended  on  the  senate,  as  adminis- 
trators of  the  treasury,  and  trustees  in  the  collec- 
tion or  disbursements  of  the  public  money;1  and 
every  Roman  youth,  when  embodied  in  the  legions, 
entrusted  his  honours  and  his  life  in  the  hands  of 
the  consul,  or  commander  in  chief.2 

The  mass,  however,  was  far  from  being  so  well 
compacted,  or  the  unity  of  power  so  well  estab- 
lished, as  speculative  reasoners  sometimes  think 
necessary  for  the  order  of  government.  >  The  se- 
nate and  the  popular  assemblies,  in  their  legisla- 
tive capacities,  counteracted  one  another.  The 
numbers  required  to  constitute  a  legal  assembly 


secured  every  citizen  in  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  people 
at  large,  after  being  repeatedly  re-enacted,  were  now  in 
full  force.  (Liv.  lib.  x.  c.  8.) 

1  The  influence  which  the  senate  possessed  as  adminis- 
trators of  the  public  treasury,  according  to  Polybius,  was 
very  great.  They  had  a  number  of  commissions  to  give, 
in  the  collection  of  various  duties  levied  on  the  navigators 
of  rivers,  the  entry  to  sea-ports,  the  produce  of  mines,  and 
demesne  or  public  lands,  chiefly  let  out  for  pasturage. 
They  had  likewise  considerable  disbursements  on  the  re- 
pair of  highways  and  public  buildings,  and  in  the  execution 
of  a  variety  of  other  works.  In  such  transactions  great 
numbers  of  people  were  concerned,  as  contractors,  as  part- 
ners with  those  who  contracted  with  the  senate,  or  as  cre- 
ditors who  advanced  money  to  enable  the  contractors  to 
perform  their  articles.  In  all  these  several  capacities 
the  parties  depended  on  the  will  of  the  senate,  and  con- 
tinually attended  at  the  doors  of  that  assembly,  soliciting 
commissions,  pleading  for  an  abatement  of  some  condition, 
for  delay  in  the  execution  of  some  article,  or  relief  in  the 
case  ol'unforeseen  hardship  or  loss. 

2  Polyh.  lib.  vi.  c.  10,  11,  12,  13,14. 


of  the  people,  the  qualification  of  a  citizen,  which 
entitled  him  to  be  considered  as  a  member  of  the 
commonwealth,  were  still  undetermined.  Aliens 
settling  at  Rome  were  admitted  on  the  rolls  of 
the  people,  and  citizens  removing  to  the  colonies 
were  omitted.  Laws,  therefore,  might  be  obtain- 
ed in  a  clandestine  manner,  when  the  people,  not 
sufficiently  aware  of  the  consequence  of  such 
laws,  did  not  attend;  or  the  question  might  be 
determined  by  the  voice  of  a  single  alien,  as  often 
as  the  division  was  nearly  equal,  and  a  designing 
magistrate  chose  to  place  any  number  of  aliens  on 
the  rolls  for  this  purpose.3  The  state  took  its 
laws,  not  only  from  the  assemblies,  which  were 
held,  however  irregularly,  within  the  capital,  but 
from  military  detachments  and  armies,  when 


3  In  the  settlement  of  Romulus,  recruits  of  every  quality, 
whether  outlaws,  fugitives,  or  captives,  were  received 
without  distinction. — In  the  first  ages  of  the  Republic, 
aliens  settling  at  Rome  were  admitted  as  citizens,  and 
even  placed  on  the  rolls  of  the  senate.— The  Tarquins,  and 
the  first  of  the  Claudian  family,  were  emigrants  from  the 
neighbouring  cantons. — After  the  establishment  of  the  cen- 
sus, or  periodical  muster,  the  king,the  consuls,  and  last  of  all, 
the  censors,  made  up  the  rolls  of  the  senate  and  people  at 
pleasure.  They  admitted  upon  it  very  readily  every  in- 
habitant of  the  city  who  claimed  to  be  enrolled  ;  but  when 
a  right  of  voting  in  any  of  the  popular  assemblies  at  Rome 
came  to  he  considered  as  a  privilege  of  moment,  the  inha- 
bitants of  Latium  crowded  to  Rome  in  order  to  obtain  it. 
They  were  sometimes  put  upon  the  rolls  by  one  consul, 
and  forbid  the  city  by  his  colleague ;  and  in  every  such 
case  the  negative,  by  a  maxim  of  the  Roman  policy,  pre- 
vailed.—Such  as  actually  settled  at  Rome,  sooner  or  later 
found  means  to  be  inserted  in  the  tribes;  and  the  towns  of 
Latium  complained,  that  they  were  deserted  by  numbers 
of  their  people,  who  resorted  to  Rome  for  this  purpose, 
and  that  they  were  likely  to  be  depopulated.  They  ob- 
tained a  law,  by  which  Latin  emigrants  were  excluded 
from  the  rolls  of  the  Roman  people,  except  they  had  left 
offspring  to  replace  them  in  the  country  towns  they  had  left. 
Anil  this  seems  to  have  been  the  first  law  enacted  at 
Rome  to  regulate  or  restrain  the  naturalization  of  aliens. 
Some  authors  have  affirmed,  that,  even  while  aliens  were 
so  easily  admitted  on  the  rolls  of  the  people,  Roman  citi- 
zens, accepting  of  settlements  in  the  colonies,  forfeited 
their  political  rights.  In  this,  however,  it  is  probable,  that 
the  effects  of  mere  absence  have  been  mistaken  for  an  ex- 
press and  formal  exclusion.  Whoever  ceased  to  give  in 
his  name  at  the  census,  or  whoever  left  his  ward  or  tribe 
in  the  city  to  live  at  a  distance,  was  not  enrolled  in  the 
ward,  nor  placed  in  any  class.  It  did  not  follow,  however, 
thathe  had  forfeited  his  right,  or  might  not  claim  it  as  often 
as  he  attended  the  census.  In  this  case  he  was  upon  a 
foot  of  equality  with  every  other  citizen,  and  in  the  same 
manner  received  or  rejected  at  the  will  of  the  censor,  or 
other  officer  who  took  the  muster. 

In  this  account  of  the  Roman  colonies,  writers  have  fol- 
lowed the  account  of  Sigonius,  whose  opinion,  in  every 
circumstance  relating  to  the  Roman  history,  is  of  great 
authority.  In  this  particular,  however,  it  happens,  that 
the  principle  passage  he  has  quoted  in  support  of  his  opin- 
ion, is  by  some  accident  strangely  perverted.  Livy  relates, 
lib.  xxxiv.  c.  42.  that  the  people  of  Ferentium,  in  the  year 
of  Rome  five  hundred  and  fifty-seven,  started  a  new  pre- 
tension, by  which  all  Latins  who  gave  their  names  to 
be  inscribed  in  any  Roman  colony  should  be  considered  as 
Roman  citizens;  but  that  the  senate  rejected  this  claim 
when  offered  by  persons  who  were  annexed  to  the  colonies 
of  Puteoli,  Salernum,  and  Buxentum.  Novum  jus  eo  anno 
a  Ferentinatibus  tentatum,  ut  Latini,  qui  in  coloniam  Ro- 
manam  nomina  dedisscnt,  cives  Romani  cssent.  Put.eolos, 
Salernumqueet  Buxentum  adscripti  coloni,  qui  nomina  de- 
derunt  quum  ob  id  se  pro  civibus  Romanis  fervent ;  sena- 
lus  judicavit  non  esse  eos  cives  Romanos.  There  was  a 
distinction  between  Roman  colonies  and  colonies  of  Ro- 
man citizens.  The  first  might  be  Latins,  or  other  allies, 
planted  under  the  authority  of  the  Roman  state.  Tho 
second  were  probably  citizens.  And  tho  whole  amount 
of  this  passage  was  to  prove,  that  Latins  were  not  to  be 
considered  as  Roman  citizens,  merely  because  they  resided^ 
in  some  colony  of  Roman  citizens.  But  the  quotation  of 
Sigonius  is  as  follows,  and  gives  a  wonderful  perversion  t<» 
the  passage  in  question:  Dr.  ant.  i  quo  Jure  ft  alia;,  lib.  ii.  C.3 


Chap.  Hi.} 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


31 


abroad  in  the  field.5  Yet,  under  all  these  defects 
as  we  have  repeated  occasions  to  observe,  they 
enjoyed  the  most  envied  distinction  of  nations,  con- 
tinual prosperity,  and  an  almost  uninterrupted 
succession  of  statesmen  and  warriors  unequalled 
in  the  history  of  mankind. 

In  about  one  hundred  years  after 
U.  C.  465.  they  began  to  restore  their  city  from 
the  ruins  in  which  it  was  laid  by  the 
Gauls,  they  extended  their  sovereignty  from  the 
farthest  limits  of  Tuscany  on  the  one  side,  to  the 
sea  of  Tarentum  and  the  straits  of  Messina  on 
the  other;  and  as  the  contest  of  parties  at  home 
led  to  a  succession  of  political  establishments, 
their  frequent  wars  suggested  the  policy  which 
they  adopted  respecting  foreign  nations,  and  the 
arrangement  of  their  national  force. 

They  had  for  some  time  discontinued  the  prac- 
tice of  admitting  captives  into  the  number  of  their 
people;  but  continued  that  of  extending  and  se- 
curing their  acquisitions,  by  colonies  of  their  own 
citizens,  or  of  such  allies  as  they  could  most  se- 
curely trust.  They  exacted  from  the  cantons  of 
Italy  which  they  vanquished,  contributions  of 
subsistence  and  clothing  for  the  benefit  of  their 
armies ;  and  they  generally  imposed  some  condi- 
tion of  this  sort  as  a  preliminary  to  every  negotia- 
tion or  treaty  of  peace.6 

Their  forces  consisted  of  native  Romans,  and 
of  their  allies  in  Italy,  nearly  in  equal 
U.  C.  415.  parts.    The  legion,  says  Livy,  had 
been  formerly  arrayed  in  a  continued 
line,  or  compacted  column  ;7  but  in  the  course  of 


"  Quare  ascripti  coloni  nomine  quidem  erant  cives  Ro- 
mani,  revero  coloni.  Testem  postulalisl  non  longe  abiero. 
Presto  est  Livius  qui  scribit,  lib.  xxxiv.  Puteolos,  Saler- 
lium  ct  Buxentum  cioium  Human.  Adscript!  coloni,  qui 
Domini  dederant  cum  ob  id  se  pro  civibus  ferrent ;  senatus 
judicasse  non  esse  eoscives  Romanos;  et  alio  loco  narrat 
Ferentiuales  novum  jus  tentasse,  ut  Latini  qui  in  coloniam 
Romanain  nomina  dedissent,  eivea  Roinani  essent." 

The  perversion  of  this  quotation  is  remarkable.  Differ- 
ent  clauses  of  the  same  sentence  are  quoted  as  separate 
passages  in  different  parts  of  the  author.  The  order  of  the 
clauses  is  so  placed,  that  the  use  of  the  first  in  explaining 
the  second  is  lost,  and  the  words  civium  Roman  are  in- 
serted. The  passage  in  Livy,  asserting  that  even  Latins 
pleaded  to  be  admitted  as  citizens,  because  they  resided  in 
nome  colony  of  citizens,  proves  the  reverse  of  what  Sigo- 
nius  maintains,  viz.  that  citizens  removing  to  colonies  were 
disfranchised. 

The  fact  is,  that,  in  the  time  of  Livy  and  other  histo- 
rians, the  distinction  between  Roman  citizens,  whether  of 
the  city  or  of  the  colonies,  and  the  other  inhabitants  of 
Italy,  was  become  a  matter  of  antiquity  and  of  mere  curi- 
osity; and  therefore  is  not  by  them  so  fully  and  distinctly 
sLated,  as  not  to  admit  of  dispute.  The  colonists  ceasing  to 
attend  at  elections,  or  in  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  and 
not  giving  in  their  names  at  the  musters,  subjected  them- 
selves to  all  the  effects  of  positive  exclusion,  although  it  is 
probable  no  such  exclusion  had  taken  place;  for  even  ali- 
ens were  not  excluded  by  any  positive  law,  and  might  be 
admitted  on  the  rolls  at  the  discretion  of  the  officer  who 
presided  over  the  muster.  Antiquarians,  in  search  of  an- 
cient constitutions,  sometimes  suppose  that  rules  must  have 
existed,  in  order  to  have  the  pleasure  of  conjecturing  what 
they  were. 

5  The  consul  C.  Marcius,  U.  C.  396,  being  encamped 
at  Sutrium  in  Etruria,  assembled  his  army  in  their  tribes, 
and  passed  a  law  to  raise  the  twentieth  penny  on  the  price 
of  every  slave  that  should  be  manumitted.  The  senate, 
being  pleased  with  the  tax,  confirmed  the  act;  but  the  tri- 
bunes, alarmed  at  the  precedent,  obtained  a  resolution, 
by  which  it  was  declared  for  the  future  to  be  capital  for 
any  person  to  propose  any  law  in  such  detached  or  partial 
assemblies  of  the  people.  (Liv.  lib.  vii.  c.  16.) 

6  Liv.  lib.  viii.  c.  1.  et  2.  Lib.  ix.  c.  43.  Lib.  x.  c.  5. 
et  37. 

7  Liv.  lib.  viii.  c.  8. 


the  wars  which  led  to  the  conquest  of  Italy,  came 
to  be  formed  in  divisions,  and  had  different  orders 
of  light  and  heavy-armed  infantry,  as  well  as 
cavalry.  The  light-armed  infantry  were  called 
the  Velites,  and  were  supposed  to  ply  in  the  front, 
on  the  Hank,  or  in  the  rear  of  the  army;  and 
their  service  was,  to  keep  the  heavy-armed  foot 
undisturbed  by  missiles  till  they  came  into  close 
action  with  the  enemy. 

The  heavy-armed  foot  consisted  of  three  or- 
ders, called  the  Hastati,  Principes,  and  Triarii ;  of 
whom  each  had  its  separate  divisions  or  manipules ; 
and  those  of  the  different  orders  were  placed  in 
three  different  rows,  and  at  distances  from  each 
other,  equal  to  the  front  of  the  division.  By  this 
disposition  the  manipules  of  the  first  and  second 
row  could  either  act  separately,  or,  by  mutually 
filling  up  their  intervals,  could  complete  the  line, 
leaving  the  Triarii,  in  time  of  action,  as  a  body 
of  reserve,  to  support  the  line,  or  fill  up  the  place 
of  any  manipule  that  might  be  forced  by  the  ene- 
my. And,  in  order  to  faciliate  occasionally  this 
change  of  disposition,  the  divisions  of  one  row 
faced  the  intervals  of  the  other.8  They  were 
armed  with  the  pilum,  which  was  a  heavy  javelin 
or  spear  to  be  cast  at  the  enemy,  and  with  a  short 
and  massy  sword  fitted  to  strike  or  to  thrust. 
They  bore  an  oblong  shield,  lour  feet  high  by 
two  and  a  half  feet  broad,  with  a  helmet,  breast- 
plate, and  greaves. 

In  the  structure  of  these  weapons  and  this  de- 
fensive armour,  the  Romans  consulted  at  once 
both  the  principal  causes  of  courage  in  a  soldier, 
his  consciousness  of  the  means  to  annoy  his  ene- 
my, and  of  a  power  to  defend  himself.  And  with 
these  advantages  they  continued  for  ages  to  pre- 
vail in  most  of  their  conflicts,  and  were  the  model 


8  This  account  of  the  Roman  legion  is  not  without  its 
difficulties.  It  appears  irrational  to  break  and  disperse 
the  strength  of  a  body  in  this  manner ;  and  Ca-sar  makes  no 
mention  of  any  such  distinction  of  orders,  of  the  manipules, 
of  the  rows  in  which  they  were  formed,  or  of  the  intervals 
at  which  they  fought.  His  legion  consisted  often  cohorts, 
formed  from  right  to  left  on  a  continued  front.  Polybius, 
however,  one  of  the  best  military  historians,  and  himself 
an  eye-witness  of  the  disposition  of  the  Roman  legion  in 
action,  as  well  as  on  the  parade,  is  very  explicit  in  his  ac- 
count of  it  ;  refers  to  it  in  the  description  of  the  Roman 
march  (Polyb.  lib.  vi.  c.  38.)  in  the  description  ofevery  battle 
(Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  1,  2,  3,  4.)  and  (Polyb.  lib.  xv.  c.  10.)  in 
stating  the  comparative  ad  vantages  of  the  Roman  legion  and 
Macedonian  phalanx  (Polyb.  lib.  xvii.  c.  28.)  The  phalanx 
being  a  column  of  indefinite  depth,  close  ranks,  and  a  contin- 
ued front,  with  lances  or  spears,  it  was  impregnable  to  tho 
short  sword  and  loose  order  of  the  Romans,  so  long  as  it 
preserved  its  front  entire,  and  the  spear  man  made  no  ope- 
ning for  the  Roman  soldier  to  enter  within  the  point  of  his 
weapon. 

It  is  observed  that  the  Romans  made  their  attack  in  se- 
parate divisions  and  at  intervals,  in  order  to  bring  on  some 
irregularity  in  the  front  of  the  phalanx,  and  in  order  to 
make  some  openings  by  which  the  Roman  soldier  could 
enter  with  his  sword,  and,  once  within  the  pointof  his  ene 
my's  spear,  could  perform  great  slaughter  with  little  resist- 
ance (Plutarch  in  vit.  P.  Emilii.  Liv. lib.  xliv.  c.  41.  Nequo 
ulla  evidentior  causa  victoria:  fuit  quam  quod  multa  passim 
prasliaerant  qua'  Bncluantes;  turbarant  primo,  deindedis- 
jecerunt  phalanges.)  From  this  account  then  it  is  probable 
'that  the  Romans  did  not  divide  their  legion  into  orders  and 
manipules,  nor  fight  at  intervals,  until  after  they  adopted  the 
short  stabbing  sword,  which  is  said  to  have  been  originally 
from  Spain;  and  that  they  continued  to  make  this  dispo- 
sition so  long  only  as  they  had  to  do  with  enemies  who 
used  the  spear  and  continued  front;  that  after  the  social 
war  in  Italy,  and  their  own  civil  wars  began,  they  discon- 
tinued the  separate  manipules,  and  sought  to  strengthen 
themselves  against  an  army  like  their  own,  by  presenting 
a  continued  front.  Livy  accordingly  marks  the  time  at 
which  the  formation  of  manipules,  at  intervals,  was 


32 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  f. 


which  other  nations  endeavoured  to  imitate1  in 
the  form  of  their  armies  and  in  the  choice  of  their 
weapons. 

It  is  understood  in  the  antiquities  of  this  peo- 
ple, that  when  they  were  assembled  for  any  pur- 
pose, whether  of  state  or  of  war,  they  were  termed 
the  army.  In  their  musters  a  plebeian  was  a  foot 
soldier,  the  knight  a  horseman,  and  the  legion  a 
mere  detachment  of  the  whole,  draughted  for  the 
year,  or  embodied  for  a  particular  service.  The 
men,  as  well  as  the  officers,  in  the  first  period  of 
the  history  of  the  Republic,  were  annually  reliev- 
ed or  exchanged  ;  and  even  after  it  ceased  to  be 
the  practice  thus  annually  to  relieve  the  private 
men,  and  after  the  same  legions  were  employ- 
ed daring  a  succession  of  some  years,  yet 
the  people,  to  the  latest  period  of  the  common- 
wealth, continued  to  form  the  armies  of  their 
country ;  and  the  officer  of  state  was  still  under- 
stood to  command  in  virtue  of  his  civil  ma- 
gistracy, or  in  virtue  of  a  military  qualification 
which  never  failed  to  accompany  it.  No  citizen 
could  aspire  to  any  of  the  higher  offices  in  the 
commonwealth,  until  he  had  been  enrolled  in  the 
legions,  either  ten  years  if  on  horseback,  or  six- 
teen years  if  on  foot;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
special  commissions  that  were  occasionally  given 
for  separate  objects  of  state  or  of  war,  civil  and 
military  rank  were  never  disjoined.  Equal  care 
was  taken  to  furnish  the  rising  statesman  and 
warrior  with  the  technical  habits  of  either  profes- 
sion ;  or  rather  to  instruct  him,  by  his  occasional 
application  to  both,  not  to  mistake  the  forms  of 
office  in  either  for  the  business  of  state  or  of  war, 
nor  to  rest  his  pretensions  to  command  on  any 
accomplishment  short  of  that  superior  knowledge 
of  mankind,  and  those  excellent  personal  qualities 
of  penetration,  sagacity,  and  courage,  which  give 
the  person  possessed  of  them  an  ascendant,  as  a 
friend  or  as  an  enemy,  in  any  scene  or  depart- 
ment of  human  affairs.  It  may  be  difficult  to 
determine,  whether  we  are  to  consider  the  Roman 
establishment  as  civil  or  military;  it  certainly 
united,  in  a  very  high  degree,  the  advantages 
of  both,  and  continued  longer  to  blend  the  pro- 
fessions of  state  and  of  war  together,  than  we  are 
apt  to  think  consistent  with  that  propriety  of  cha- 
racter which  we  require  in  each:  but  to  this  very 
circumstance,  probably  among  others,  we  may 
safely  ascribe,  in  this  distinguished  Republic,  the 
great  ability  of  her  councils,  and  the  irresistible 
force  with  which  they  were  executed.2 

During  a  period  of  about  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty years  after  the  rebuilding  of  Rome,  the  Ro- 
mans were  engaged  in  a  continual  series  of  wars ; 
first  with  the  Latins  and  with  their  own  colonies 
who  wished  to  disengage  themselves  from  so  un- 
equal an  alliance;  and  afterwards  with  the  Etrus- 
cans on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the  Samnites, 


adopted.  Polybius  marks  the  continuance  of  it,  and  Caesar 
evidently  marks  the  discontinuance  of  it.  It  is  extremely 
probable,  that  the  last  change  was  one  of  those  made  by 
Marius,  and  was  introduced"  into  the  Roman  armies  in 
the  social  war. 

The  three  orders  of  hastati,  principes,  and  triarii,  were 
extremely  proper  to  mark  the  distinction  of  classes  subsist- 
ing among  Roman  citizens,  who  were  nevertheless,  all  of 
them  equally  bound,  on  occasion,  to  serve  in  the  condition 
of  private  soldiers;  and  this  may  be  one  reason  to  incline 
us  to  ascribe  the  discontinuance  of  this  distribution  to 
Mariu3,  who  was  a  great  leveller  of  ranks. 

1  Polyb.  lib.  vi.  c.  17—21. 

2  Polyb.  ib.  vi.  c.  17. 


Campanians,  and  Tarentines  on  the  other. 
They  quarrelled  with  the  Samnites  first  in  behalf 
of  the  Campanians,  who,  in  order  to  obtain  their 
protection,  made  a  surrender  of  themselves  and 
of  all  their  possessions.  This  act  of  surrender 
they  afterwards  had  occasion  to  enforce  against 
the  Campanians  themselves,  who  endeavoured, 
when  too  late,  to  recover  their  liberties. 

The  Samnites  were  a  fierce  nation,  inhabiting 
that  tract  of  the  Appenines  which  extends  from 
the  confines  of  Latium  to  those  of  the  Apulia ; 
and  who,  to  the  advantages  of  their  mountainous 
situation,  joined  some  singular  and  even  romantic 
institutions,3  which  enabled  them,  during  above 
forty  years,  from  the  time  at  which  their  wars 
with  the  Romans  began,  to  maintain  the  con- 
test,4 and  to  keep  the  balance  of  power  in  sus- 
pense. 

During  the  dependence  of  this  quarrel,  the 
Roman  armies  frequently  penetrated  into  Lu- 
cania  and  Apulia,  and  before  they  had  reduced 
the  Samnites,  were  known  as  protectors  and  allies, 
or  had  forced  their  passage  as  conquerors  to  the 
southern  extremities  of  Italy.  And  the  state  it- 
self, under  a  variety  of  titles,  was  in  reality  the 
head,  or  held  a  species  of  sovereignty  over  all  the 
nations  who  occupied  that  part  of  the  peninsula. 

The  city  of  Tarentum,  the  most  powerful  of 
the  Greek  settlements  in  this  quarter,  having  ne- 
glected her  military  establishments  in  proportion 
as  she  advanced  in  the  arts  of  peace,  was  alarmed 
at  the  near  approach  of  the  Romans, 
U.  C.  473.  and  applied  for  protection  to  Pyrrhus 
the  king  of  Epirus,  at  that  time  great- 
ly distinguished  among  the  military  adventurers 
of  Macedonia  and  Greece.  They  wished  to  em- 
ploy the  military  skill  of  this  prince,  without  being 
exposed  to  fall  a  prey  to  his  ambition ;  and  invited 
him  to  come,  without  any  army  of  his  own,  to 
take  the  command  of  their  people,  whose  num- 
bers they  magnified,  in  order  to  induce  him  to 
accept  of  their  offer.  But,  like  most  foreign  mili- 
tary protectors,  he  appears  to  have  had,  together 
with  many  schemes  of  ambition  against  those  on 
whom  he  made  war,  some  designs  likewise  on  the 
state  he  was  brought  to  defend.  With  this  dou- 
ble intention  he  did  not  rely  on  the  forces  of  Ta- 
rentum, but  passed  into  Italy  at  the  head  of  a  nu- 
merous army,  formed  on  the  model  of  the  Mace- 
donians, and  accustomed  to  service  in  the  wars  of 
that  country  and  of  Greece. 

This  is  the  first  enemy  whose  forces  can  be 
considered  as  a  known  measure,  with  which  to 
compare,  or  by  which  we  can  estimate,  the  power 
and  military  attainments  of  the  Romans.  They 
had  been  victorious  in  Italy,  but  the  character  and 
prowess  of  the  enemies  they  had  vanquished  are 
unknown.  This  prince  knew  the  arts  of  war  as 
they  were  practised  in  Macedonia  and  m  Greece, 
and  was  reputed  one  of  the  first  captains  of  that 
or  any  other  age.5  He  accordingly  prevailed  over 


3  Of  this  sort  it  is  mentioned,  that  ten  of  the  fairest  of 
one  sex  were  annually  selected  as  prizes  to  be  won  by  the 
bravest  and  most  deserving  of  the  other.  Slrabo,  lib.  v. 
fin.  The  Samnites  furnished  Roman  generals  with  the 
subject  of  twenty-four  triumphs,  but  mixed  with  checks 
and  disgraces  more  remarkable  than  any  they  had  received 
in  the  course  of  their  wars  with  any  other  nation.  Florus, 
lib.  1.  c.  16. 

4  Liv.  lib.  x.  c.  31. 

5  Pyrrhus,  it  is  said,  was  struck  with  the  military  aspect 
of  the  Romans  and  admired  in  particular  the  form  of  their 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


S3 


.he  Romans  in  some  of  their  first  encounters; 
but  found  that  partial  victories  did  not  subdue 
this  people,  nor  decide  the  contest.  Having  vast 
schemes  of  ambition  in  Sicily  and  Africa,  as  well 
as  in  Italy,  he  suddenly  suspended  his  operations 
against  the  Romans,  to  comply  with  an  invitation 
he  received  from  Syracuse,  to  possess  himself  of 
that  kingdom  in  behalf  of  his  son,  who  had  some 
pretensions  to  it  in  the  right  of  Agathocles,  from 
whom  he  was  descended. 

In  order  to  pursue  this  object,  he  endeavoured 
to  obtain  a  peace  or  cessation  of  arms  in  Italy ; 
but  was  told,  that,  in  order  to  treat  with  the  Ro- 
mans, he  must  evacuate  their  country  and  return 
to  his  own.6  With  this  answer  he  passed  into 
Sicily ;  and  after  some  operations  which  were 
successful,  though  not  sufficiently  supported  by 
his  partizans  in  that  country  to  obtain  the  end  of 
his  expedition,  he  returned  again  into  Italy  for 
the  defence  of  Tarentum ;  but  found  that  during 
his  absence  the  Romans  had  made  a  considerable 
progress,  and  were  in  condition  to  repay  the  de- 
feats they  had  suffered  in  the  beginning  of  the 
war.  Having  brought  this  matter  to  the  proof 
in  several  encounters,  he  committed  the  defence 
of  Tarentum  to  one  of  his  officers;  and  after 
this  fruitless  attempt  to  make  conquests  beyond 
the  Ionian  sea,  in  which  he  had  employed  six 
years,  he  returned  to  his  own  country. 

The  Romans  continuing  the  war 
U.  C.  481.  against  Tarentum,  in  about  two 
years  after  the  departure  of  Pyrrhus 
from  Italy,  made  themselves  masters  of  the  place. 
Here,  it  is  mentioned,  they  found,  for  the  first 
time,  the  plunder  of  an  opulent  city,  containing 
the  models  of  elegant  workmanship  in  the  fine 
arts,  and  the  apparatus  of  an  exquisite  luxury. 
"In  former  times,"  says  Florus,  "the  victorious 

generals  of  Rome  exhibited  in  their  triumphs 
erds  of  cattle  driven  from  the  Sabines  and  the 
Volsci,  the  empty  cars  of  the  Gauls,  and  broken 
arms  of  the  Samnites :  but  in  that  which  was 
shown  for  the  conquest  of  Tarentum,  the  pro- 
cession was  led  by  Thessalian  and  Macedonian 
captives,  followed  with  carriages  loaded  with  pre- 
cious furniture,  with  pictures,  statues,  plate,  and 
other  ornaments  of  silver  and  gold.?  Spoils  which, 
we  may  guess,  in  the  first  exhibition  of  them, 
were  valued  at  Rome  more  as  the  public  trophies 
of  victory,  than  felt  as  the  baits  of  private  ava- 
rice, or  the  objects  of  a  mean  admiration.  The 
Roman  citizen  as  yet  lived  content  in  his  cottage, 
furnished  in  the  rudest  manner ;  and  he  subsisted 
on  the  simplest  fare,  the  produce  of  his  own  la- 
bour. Curius  Dentatus,  the  consul  who  obtained 
this  triumph,  having  the  offer  of  fifty  jugera  as 
a  reward  from  the  public  for  his  services,  would 
accept  of  no  more  than  seven.  This,  he  said,  is 
the  ordinary  portion  of  a  citizen,  and  that  person 
must  be  an  unworthy  member  of  the  common- 
wealth who  can  wish  for  more.8 


encampments.  The  Greeks  always  endeavoured  to  avail 
themselves  of  natural  strengths,  and  accommodated  the 
disposition  of  their  camp  to  the  ground  ;  but  the  Romans, 
trusting  only  to  their  artificial  works,  pitched  on  the  plain, 
and  always  encamped  in  the  same  form.  Plutarch  in  vit. 
Pyrrhi. 

6  Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  xiii.    Plutarch  in  vit.  Pyrrhi. 

7  Florus,  lib.  i.  c.  18. 

8  A  Roman  citizen  in  this  period  might,  by  the  law  of 
Lucinius,  have  an  estate  of  five  hundred  jugera,  or  about 
three  hundred  acres;  but  the  ordinary  patrimony  of  a 
noble  family  was  probably  far  below  this  measure ;  and 
the  lot  of  a  citizen  in  the  new  colonies  seldom  exceeded 

E 


From  the  reduction  of  Tarentum 
U.  C.  481.  the  Romans  may  be  considered  as 
the  sovereigns  of  Italy,  although 
their  dominion  was  extremely  ill  defined,  either 
in  respect  to  its  nature  or  to  its  extent.  They 
but  in  a  few  instances  laid  claim  to  absolute  sove 
reignty,  and  least  of  all  over  those  who  were 
most  submissive  to  their  power.  It  was  their 
maxim  to  spare  the  obsequious,  but  to  crush  the 
proud  ;9  an  artful  profession,  by  which,  under 
the  pretensions  of  generosity  and  magnanimity, 
they  stated  themselves  as  the  sovereign  nation. 
Under  this  presumptuous  maxim  their  friendship 
was  to  be  obtained  by  submission  alone ;  and 
was,  no  less  than  their  enmity,  fatal  to  those 
who  embraced  it.  The  title  of  ally  was,  for  the 
most  part,  no  more  than  a  specious  name,  under 
which  they  disguised  their  dominion,  and  under 
which  they  availed  themselves  of  the  strength 
and  resources  of  other  nations,  with  the  least 
possible  alarm  to  their  jealousy  or  pride. 

With  the  Latins  they  had  early  formed  an 
alliance  offensive  and  defensive,  in  which  the 
parties  mutually  stipulated  the  number  of  troops 
to  be  furnished  by  each;  the  respective  shares 
which  each  was  to  have  in  the  spoils  of  their 
common  enemies,  and  the  manner  of  adjusting 
any  disputes  that  might  arise  between  them.  This 
was  the  league  which  the  Latins  were  supposed 
to  have  so  frequently  broken,  and  of  which  the 
Romans  so  oltcn  exacted  the  observance  by  force.10 

In  the  first  struggles  which  they  made  to  re- 
store their  settlement  destroyed  by  the  Gauls,  and 
in  the  subsequent  wars  they  had  to  maintain, 
during  a  hundred  years,  in  support  of  their  new 
establishment,  different  cantons  of  these  original 
confederates,  as  well  as  many  of  their  own  colo- 
nies, had  taken  very  different  parts,  and  in  the 
treaties  which  ensued,  obtained,  or  were  sentenced 
to,  different  conditions ;  some  were  admitted  to 
the  freedom  of  Rome,  and  partook  in  the  prero- 
gative of  Roman  citizens.  A  few  were,  by  their 
own  choice,  in  preference  to  the  character  of  Ro- 
man citizens,  permitted  to  retain  the  independency 
of  their  towns,  and  were  treated  as  allies.  Others, 
under  pretence  of  being  admitted  to  the  freedom 
of  Rome,  though  without  the  right  of  suffrage, 
were  deprived  of  their  corporation  establishments, 
and  with  the  title  of  citizens,  treated  as  subjects. 
A  few  were  governed  in  form  by  a  military 
power,  and  by  a  pracfect  or  magistrate  annually 
sent  from  Rome.11 


seven  jugera.  The  people  were  lodged  in  cottages  and 
slept  on  straw,  (Plin.  lib.  xviii.  c.  3.  Cicer,  pro  Rossio 
Val.  Max.  lib.  iv.  c.  3.)  The  Romans,  till  a  little  before 
the  siege  of  Tareotum,  had  DO  coin  but  copper,  and  esti- 
mated considerable  sums  more  commonly  by  the  head  of 
cattle  than  by  money.  They  coined  silver  for  the  first 
time  U.  C.  485.  Gold  was  known  as  a  precious  material, 
and  was  sometimes  joined  with  oxen  in  the  reward  of 
distinguished  services.  Liv.  lib.  iv.  c.  50.  Ibid.  Epi- 
tome, lib.  xv. 

9  Parcere  subjectis  ct  debellnre  superbos. 

lODionys.  Hal.  lib.  vi.  p.  415.  Liv.  lib.  vi.  c.  10.  lib. 
ix.  c.  43. 

11  The  city  of  Capua,  together  with  its  district  of  Cam- 
pania, was  the  first  example  of  a  provincial  government 
established  by  the  Romans  in  any  of  their  conquests.  The 
Campanians,  in  order  to  be  protected  ngainst  the  Sam- 
nites, had  delivered  themselves  up  to  the  Romans.  But 
they  soon  after  became  sensible  of  their  folly,  in  trusting 
their  defence  to  any  force  but  their  own,  or  in  resigning 
their  power  as  a  state,  with  a  view  to  preserve  any  thing 
else.  When  they  perceived  this  error,  they  endeavoured, 
in  conjunction  with  some  of  their  neighbours,  to  form  a 
party  against  their  new  masters;  and  being  defeated  io 


M  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  t 

From  this  unequal  treatment  arose  the  variety  about  181  years  after  this  date,  when,  as  will  be 

of  conditions  by  which  the  natives  of  Italy  were  mentioned  in  the  sequel,  the  whole  was  put  upon 

distinguished,  as  colonies,  municipal  towns,  al-  the  same  footing  by  the  general  admission  of  all 

hes,  prefectures,  or  provincial  governments,  until  the  Italians  upon  the  rolls  of  the  Roman  people 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Limits  of  Italy — Contiguous  Nations — Ligurians — Gauls — Greek  and  Phoenician  Colonies  of 
Gaul  and  Spain — Nations  of  Illyricum — Of  Greece— Achcean  League— Thebans— Athenians 
— Asiatic  Nations — Pergamus — Syria — Egypt — Carthage — The  Mamertines  of  Messina — 
Occasion  of  the  first  War  with  Carthage—Losses  of  the  Parties— Peace— State  of  the  Romans 
— Political  or  Civil  Institutions— Colonies — Musters — Operation  on  the  Coin — Increase  of  the 
Slaves — Gladiators — Different  Results  of  the  War  at  Rome  and  Carthage — Mutiny  and  In- 
vasion of  the  Mercenaries  at  Carthage — End  of  this  War — Cession  of  Sardinia — War  with 
the  Illyrians — First  Correspondence  of  Rome  with  Greece. 


AS  the  Romans,  at  the  time  to 
(J.  C.  481.  which  our  last  observations  refer, 
were  become  the  sovereigns  of  Italy, 
or,  by  their  ascendant  in  so  powerful  a  country, 
were  enabled  to  act  a  distinguished  part  among 
the  nations  around  it ;  it  is  proper  in  this  place 
to  carry  our  observations  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  that  Peninsula,  and  enumerate  the  powers 
that  were  then  established  on  dilferent  sides  of 
it,  or  beyond  the  narrow  seas  by  which  it  was 
surrounded. 

Italy  was  not  then  supposed  to  comprehend 
the  whole  of  that  tract  which  has  in  later  times 
been  known  under  this  name.  Being  bounded, 
as  at  present,  on  the  south  and  east  by  the  seas 
of  Sicily  and  bay  of  Tarentum,  it  extended  no 
further  to  the  north-west  than  to  the  Arnus  on 
the  one  hand,  and  to  the  Rubicon  on  the  other. 
Beyond  these  limits  the  western  coasts  were  in- 
habited by  a  number  of  tribes,  which,  under  the 
name  of  Ligurians,  occupied  the  descents  of  the 
Appenines  and  the  south  of  the  Alps  quite  to 
the  sea-shore.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Appe- 
nines, from  Senegallia  to  the  A  lps,  the  rich  and 
extensive  plains  on  both  sides  of  the  Po  were  in 
the  possession  of  Gaulish  nations,  who  were 
said,  some  centuries  before,  to  have  passed  the 
mountains,  and  who  were  then  actually  spread 
over  a  fertile  tract  of  more  than  twelve  hundred 
miles  in  circumference.  They  consisted  of  nine 
different  hordes,  that  were  supposed  to  have 

Eissed  the  Alps  at  different  times.  Of  these  the 
aulebecii,  Insubres,  Cenomani,  and  Veneti  oc- 
cupied the  northern  banks  of  the  Po,  including 
what  are  now  the  states  of  Milan,  Venice,  and 
other  parts  of  Lombardy  on  that  side  of  the 
river.  The  Anianes,  Boii,  ./Egones,  and  Se- 
nones,  were  settled  to  the  southward,  from  the 
Po  to  the  descents  of  the  Appenines,  and  on  the 


their  attempts  to  recover  their  independence,  were  treated 
with  the  severity  that  is  commonly  employed  against  rebel 
subjects.  Their  senate  and  popular  assembly,  under  pre- 
tence of  suppressing  seminaries  of  faction,  were  abolished, 
and  a  prcefect  or  governor  annually  appointed  (Liv.  lib. 
ix.  c.  20  )  A  similar  course,  under  the  same  pretence, 
was  soon  after  taken  with  Antium,  (Liv.  lib.  ix.  c.  21.) 
This  had  been  the  principal  sea-port  of  the  Volsci,  and 
long  the  head  of  many  formidable  combinations  against 
th«  Romans. 


coasts  of  the  Hadriatic  to  Senegallia,  over  what 
are  now  the  states  of  Parma,  Modena,  Bologna, 
and  Urbino.  In  this  favourable  situation  they 
appear  to  have  abated  much  of  their  native  fero- 
city, though  without  acquiring,  in  any  consider- 
able degree,  the  arts  that  improve  the  conveniences 
of  life.  They  fed  chiefly  on  the  milk  or  the  flesh 
of  their  cattle,  and  were  occupied  entirely  in  the 
care  of  their  arms  and  of  their  herds.  By  these, 
and  the  ornaments  of  gold,  of  which  they  were 
extremely  fond,  they  estimated  their  riches.  They 
were  divided  into  tribes  or  cantons,  and  lived  in 
cottages  huddled  together,  without  any  form  of 
towns  or  of  villages.  The  leader  of  every  horde 
was  distinguished  by  liis  retinue,  and  valued 
himself  chiefly  on  the  number  of  his  followers. 
They  had  made  frcauent  encroachments  on  the 
states  of  Etruria  and  Umbria,  but  were  met  at 
last,  and  stopped  in  their  progress,  by  the  Ro- 
mans. Such  of  them  as  were  settled  within  the 
Rubicon,  and  from  thence  to  Senegallia,  had, 
about  three  years  before  the  arrival  of  Pyrrhus 
in  Italy,  been  obliged  to  acknowledge  the  authority 
of  the  Roman  state.1 

The  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  west- 
ward of  Italy,  had  been  known  to  the  nations  of 
Greece  and  of  Asia,  and  had  received  many  co- 
lonies from  thence,  which  formed  trading  settle- 
ments, and  remained  altogether  distinct  from  the 
natives.  Such  were  the  Greek  colonies  at  Mar- 
seilles, Emporia?,  Saguntum,  and  the  Tyrian 
colony  at  Gades  on  the  coast  of  the  ocean.  On 
the  other  side  of  Italy,  and  round  the  Hadriatic, 
were  settled  a  number  of  small  nations,  the  ls- 
trians,  Dalmatians,  and  Illyrians;  of  which,  at 
the  time  when  the  Romans  became  acquainted 
with  the  navigation  of  this  gulf,  the  lllyrhns, 
being  the  chief  or  principal  power,  extended 
eastward  to  the  confines  of  Macedonia. 

Alexander  the  Great  had  finished 
U.  C.  421.  the  career  of  his  victories  about 
sixty  years  before  this  date.  His 
hereditary  dominions,  as  well  as  his  personal  con- 
quests, were  dismembered,  and  become  the  patri- 
mony of  officers,  who  had  learned  under  him  to 
affect  the  majesty  and  the  power  of  kings.  Ma- 
cedonia was  governed  by  Antigonus  Dozon,  who, 


1  Polyb.  lib.  ii.  c  17.  19.  29. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


33 


together  with  the  principality  of  Pella,  held  un- 
der his  dependence  Epirus,  Thessaly,  and  Greece, 
to  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth.  He  had  contended 
with  Pyrrhus,  the  late  invader  of  Italy,  for  part 
of  this  territory ;  and,  by  the  death  of  this  adven- 
turer, was  now  in  possession  of  the  whole. 

On  one  part  of  the  coast  of  the  Ionian  sea, 
and  on  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  were  settled  the 
Etolians,  who,  during  the  prosperity  of  Greece, 
had  been  an  obscure  and  barbarous  horde ;  but 
had  now,  by  the  confederacy  of  a  number  of 
cantons,  laid  many  districts  around  them  under 
contribution,  and  acted  a  distinguished  part  in 
the  wars  and  transactions  that  followed. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  a 
similar  confederacy  was  formed  by  the  Achaean 
league.  The  name  of  Achaea,  in  the  fabulous 
ages,  was  the  most  general  denomination  of 
Greeks.  When  other  names,  of  Dorians  and 
lonians,  of  Athenians  and  Spartans,  became 
more  distinguished,  the  name  of  Achaeans  was 
appropriated  to  the  tribes  who  occupied  the  sea- 
coast,  or  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  from  Elis  to  Sicyon. 
On  this  tract  twelve  little  cantons,  Dymae,  Phara, 
Tritaea,  Rhipes,  Thasium,  Patr„ae,  Pellene,  iEgi- 
um,  Bura,  Carynia,  Olenos,  and  Hellice,2  having 
changed  their  government  from  principalities  to 
republics,  formed  themselves  into  a  league  for 
their  common  defence.  Hellice  had  been,  from 
time  immemorial,  the  scat  of  their  assembly ;  but 
this  place  having  been  overwhelmed  by  an  inunda- 
tion of  the  sea,  their  meetings  were  transferred 
to  jEgium. 

In  the  more  famous  times  of  Sparta,  Athens, 
and  Thebes,  these  little  cantons  being  situated  on 
a  poor  and  rocky  shore,  without  shipping  and 
without  harbours,3  were  of  no  consideration  in 
the  history  of  Greece ;  they  took  no  part  in  the 
defence  of  that  country  from  the  invasions  of 
Darius,  or  of  Xerxes,  or  in  the  divisions  that 
followed  under  the  hostile  banners  of  Sparta  and 
of  Athens.  They  began,  however,  to  appear  in 
support  of  the  liberties  of  Greece  against  Philip 
the  father  of  Alexander,  and  partook  with  the 
other  Greeks  in  the  defeat  wliich  they  received 
from  that  prince  at  Chacronca,  and  in  all  its  con- 
sequences. Their  league  was  accordingly  dis- 
solved by  the  conqueror,  and  some  of  their  cantons 
separately  annexed  to  the  Macedonian  monarchy. 
But  about  the  time  that  Pyrrhus  invaded  Italy, 
Dymae,  Patrss,  Pharae,  and  Tritaea,  found  an  op- 
portunity to  renew  their  ancient  confederacy. 
They  were  joined  in  about  five  years  afterwards 
by  the  canton  of  iEgium,  and  successively  by 
those  of  Bura  and  Carynia.  These,  during  a 
period  of  about  twenty  years,  continued  to  be  the 
only  parties  in  this  famous  league.  They  had  a 
general  congress,  at  which  they  originally  elected 
two  annual  officers  of  state,  and  a  common  se- 
cretary. They  afterwards  committed  the  exe- 
cutive power  to  one  officer ;  and  under  the  famous 
Aratus  of  Sicyon,  united  that  republic,  together 
with  Corinth  and  Megara,  to  their  league.4 

About  the  time  when  the  Romans  became 
masters  of  Tarentum,  this  combination  was  be- 
come the  most  considerable  power  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus, and  affected  to  unite  the  whole  of  it 


under  their  banners;  but  Sparta,  though  greatly 
fallen  from  the  splendour  of  her  ancient  disci- 
pline and  power,  was  still  too  proud,  or  too  much 
under  the  direction  of  her  ambitious  leaders,  to 
suffer  herself  to  be  absorbed  in  this  upstart  con- 
federacy ;  she  continued  for  some  time  its  rival, 
and  was  at  last  the  cause,  or  furnished  the  occa- 
sion, of  its  fall. 

The  Thebans  and  Athenians,  though  still  pre- 
tending to  the  dignity  of  independent  nations, 
were  greatly  reduced,  and  ready  to  become  the 
prey  of  any  party  that  was  sufficiently  powerful 
to  reach  them,  by  breaking  through  the  other 
barriers  that  were  still  opposed  to  the  conquest 
of  Greece. 

In  Asia,  a  considerable  principality  was  formed 
round  the  city  of  Pcrgamus,  and  bore  its  name. 
Syria  was  become  a  mighty  kingdom,  extending 
from  the  coasts  of  Ionia  to  Armenia  and  Persia. 
This  kingdom  had  been  formed  by  Seleucus 
Nicanor,  a  principal  officer  in  the  army  of  Alex- 
ander, and  it  was  now  in  the  possession  of  his 
son,  Antiochus  Soter. 

Egypt,  in  the  same  manner,  had  passed  from 
the  first  Ftolemy  to  his  son  Philadelphus,  who, 
upon  the  expulsion  of  Pyrrhus  from  Italy,  had 
entered  into  a  correspondence  with  the  Romans. 
This  kingdom  included  the  island  of  Cyprus; 
and,  having  some  provinces  on  the  continent  of 
Asia,  extended  from  Coclo-Syria,  of  which  the 
dominion  was  still  in  contest  with  Antiochus,  to 
the  deserts  cf  Lybia  on  the  west  and  cn  the 
south.  Beyond  these  deserts,  and  almost  oppo- 
site to  the  island  of  Sicily,  lay  the  famous  repub- 
lic of  Carthage,  which  was  now  possessed  of  a 
considerable  territory,  surrounded  by  the  petty 
African  monarchies,  out  of  which  the  great  king- 
dom of  Numidia  was  afterwards  formed. 

The  city  of  Carthage  is  said  to  have  been 
founded  about  a  hundred  years  earlier  than  Rome, 
and  was  now  unquestionably  farther  advanced  in 
the  commercial  and  lucrative  arts,  and  superior 
in  every  resource  to  Rome,  besides  that  which  is 
derived  from  the  national  character,  and  which 
is  the  consequence  of  public  virtue. 

In  respect  to  mere  form,  the  constitution  of 
both  nations  was  nearly  alike.  They  had  a  se- 
nate and  popular  assemblies,  and  annually  elected 
two  officers  of  state  for  the  supreme  direction  of 
their  civil  and  military  affairs  ;5  and  even  at  Car- 
thage the  departments  of  state  were  so  fortunately 
balanced,  as  to  have  stood  for  ages  the  shock  of 
corrupt  factions,  without  having  suffered  any 
fatal  revolution,  or  without  falling  into  either  ex- 
treme of  anarchy  or  tyrannical  usurpation.  The 
frequent  prospect,  indeed,  which  the  Carthagi- 
nians had,  of  incurring  these  evils,  joined  to  the 
influence  of  a  barbarous  superstition,  which  re- 
presented the  gods  as  delighted  with  human  sa- 
crifices, probably  rendered  their  government  in 
so  high  a  degree  inhuman  and  cruel.  Under  the 
sanguinary  policy  of  this  state,  officers  were  ad- 
judged, for  mistakes  or  want  of  capacity,  as  well 
as  for  crimes,  to  expire  on  the  cross,  or  were  con- 
demned to  some  other  horrible  punishment  equally 
odious  and  unjust.6 

The  Carthaginians  being,  like  Tyre,  of  which 
they  were  supposed  to  be  a  colony,  settled  on  a 


-  Pausanius,  lib.  vii.  c.  6. 

1  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Aral.,  p.  321. 

4  Polyb.  lib.  ii.  c.  3.  and  Pausanias,  lib.  vii. 


5  Aristob.  Polit.  lib.  ii.  c.  11. 

6  Orosius,  lib.  iv.  c.  6 


30  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  I. 


peninsula,  and  at  first  without  sufficient  land  or 
territory  to  maintain  any  considerable  numbers 
of  people,  they  applied  themselves  to  such  arts 
as  might  procure  a  subsistence  from  abroad ;  and 
became,  upon  the  destruction  of  Tyre,  the  prin- 
cipal merchants  and  carriers  to  all  the  nations 
inhabiting  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean  sea. 
Their  situation,  so  convenient  for  shipping,  was 
extremely  favourable  to  this  pursuit ;  and  their 
success  in  it  soon  put  them  in  possession  of  a  ter- 
ritory by  which  they  became  a  landed  as  well  as 
a  naval  power.  They  visited  Spain,  under  pre- 
tence of  giving  support  and  assistance  to  the  city 
of  Gades,  which,  like  themselves,  was  a  colony 
from  Tyre.  They  became  masters  of  Sardinia, 
and  had  considerable  possessions  in  Sicily,  of 
which  they  were  extremely  desirous  to  seize  the 
whole.  From  every  part  of  their  acquisitions 
they  endeavoured  to  derive  the  profit  of  mer- 
chants, as  well  as  the  revenue  of  sovereigns. 

In  this  republic,  individuals  had  amassed  great 
fortunes,  and  estimated  rank  by  their  wealth.  A 
certain  estate  was  requisite  to  qualify  any  citizen 
for  the  higher  offices  of  state ;  and,  in  the  canvas 
for  elections,  every  preferment,  whether  civil  or 
military,  was  venal.7  Ambition  itself,  therefore, 
became  a  principle  of  avarice,  and  every  Cartha- 
ginian, in  order  to  be  great,  was  intent  to  be  rich. 
Though  the  interests  of  commerce  should  have 
inculcated  the  desire  of  peace,  yet  the  influence 
of  a  few  leading  men  in  the  state,  and  even  the 
spirit  of  rapacity  which  pervaded  the  people,  the 
necessity  to  which  they  were  often  reduced  of 
providing  settlements  abroad  for  a  populace  who 
could  not  be  easily  governed  at  home,  led  them 
frequently  into  foreign  wars,  and  even  engaged 
them  in  projects  of  conquest.  But  notwithstand- 
ing this  circumstance,  the  community  stifled  or 
neglected  the  military  character  of  their  own  ci- 
tizens, and  had  perpetual  recourse  to  foreigners, 
whom  they  trusted  with  their  arms,  and  made  the 
guardians  of  their  wealth.  Their  armies,  for  the 
most  part,  were  composed  of  Numidians,  Mauri- 
tanians,  Spaniards,  Gauls,  and  fugitive  slaves 
from  every  country  around  them.  They  were 
among  the  few  nations  of  the  world  who  had  the 
ingenuity,  or  rather  the  misfortune,  to  make  war 
without  becoming  militaryj  and  who  could  be  vic- 
torious abroad,  while  they  were  exposed  to  be  a 
prey  to  the  meanest  invader  at  home. 

Under  this  wretched  policy,  however,  the  first 
offices  of  trust  and  command  being  reserved  for 
the  natives,  though  the  character  of  the  people 
in  general  was  mean  and  illiberal,  yet  a  few, 
being  descended  of  those  who  had  enjoyed  the 
higher  honours  of  the  state,  inherited  the  charac- 
ters of  statesmen  and  warriors ;  and,  instead  of 
suffering  by  the  contagion  of  mercenary  charac- 
ters, they  derived  some  additional  elevation  of 
mind  from  the  contrast  of  manners  they  were 
taught  to  despise.  And  thus,  though  the  state, 
in  general,  was  degenerate,  a  few  of  its  members 
were  qualified  for  great  affairs.  War,  and  the 
other  objects  of  state,  naturally  devolved  on  such 
men,  and  occasionally  rendered  them  necessary 
to  a  sedentary  or  corrupted  people,  who,  in 
ordinary  times,  were  disposed  to  slight  their  abi- 
lities, or  to  distrust  their  power.  They  became 
unfortunately  a  party  for  war  in  the  councils  of 


7  Polyb.  lib.  vi.  c.  54. 


their  country,  as  those  who  were  jealous  of  them 
became,  with  still  less  advantage  to  the  public,  a 
party  for  peace ;  or,  when  at  war,  a  party  who 
endeavoured  to  embarrass  the  conduct  of  it ;  and, 
under  the  effects  of  misfortune,  were  ever  ready 
to  purchase  tranquillity  by  the  most  shameful  and 
dangerous  concessions. 

Carthage  being  mistress  of  the  sea,  was  already 
long  known  on  the  coasts  of  Italy:  she  had 
treaties  subsisting  with  the  Romans  above  two 
hundred  years,  in  which  they  mutually  settled 
the  limits  of  their  navigation,  and  the  regulations 
of  their  trade.  And  the  Romans,  as  parties  in 
these  treaties,  appear  to  have  had  intercourse 
with  foreign  nations  by  sea,  earlier  than  is  stated 
in  the  other  parts  of  their  history. 

In  the  first  of  those  treaties, 
U.  C.  244.  which  is  dated  in  the  consulate  of 
L.  Junius  Brutus  and  M.  Hora- 
tius,  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth,  the  Ro- 
mans engaged  not  to  advance  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  unless  they  were  forced  by  an  enemy,  or 
by  stress  of  weather,  beyond  the  Fair  Promon- 
tory, which  lay  about  twenty  leagues  to  the  west- 
ward of  the  Bay  of  Carthage. 

It  was  agreed,  that,  even  in  these  circumstances, 
they  should  remain  no  longer  than  five  days,  and 
supply  themselves  only  with  what  might  be  ne- 
cessary to  refit  their  vessels,  or  to  furnish  them 
with  victims  for  the  usual  sacrifices  performed  at 
sea.  But  that  in  Sardinia,  and  even  in  Africa, 
to  the  west  of  this  boundary,  they  should  be  at 
liberty  to  trade  and  to  dispose  of  their  merchan 
dise  without  paying  any  duties  besides  the  fees 
of  the  crier  and  clerk  of  sale ;  and  that  the  public 
faith  should  be  pledged  for  the  payment  of  the 
price  of  all  goods  sold  under  the  inspection  of 
these  officers. 

That  the  ports  of  Sicily  should  be  equally  open 
to  both  nations. 

That  the  Carthaginians,  on  their  part,  should 
not  commit  any  hostilities  on  the  coast  of  Latium, 
nor  molest  the  inhabitants  of  Ardsea,  Antium, 
Laurentium,  Circeii,  Terracina,  or  of  any  other 
place  in  alliance  with  the  Romans;  that  they 
should  not  attempt  to  erect  any  fortress  on  that 
coast ;  and  that  if  they  should  land  at  any  time 
with  an  armed  force,  they  should  not,  upon  any 
account  whatever,  remain  a  night  on  shore. 

By  a  subsequent  treaty,  in  which  the  states  of 
Utica  and  Tyre  are  comprehended  as  allies  to 
both  parties,  the  former  articles  are  renewed  with 
additional  limitations  to  the  navigation  and  trade 
of  the  Romans,  and  with  some  extension  to  that 
of  the  Carthaginians.  The  latter,  for  instance, 
are  permitted  to  trade  on  the  coast  of  Latium, 
and  even  to  plunder  the  natives,  provided  they 
put  the  Romans  in  possession  of  any  strong-holds 
they  should  sieze  on  shore ;  and  provided  they 
should  release,  without  ransom,  such  of  the  allies 
of  the  Romans  as  became  their  prisoners. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  Pyrrhus  in 
U.  C.  474.  Italy,  with  an  armament  which 
equally  alarmed  both  nations,  the 
Romans  and  Carthaginians  again  renewed  their 
treaties  with  an  additional  article,  in  which  they 
agreed  mutually  to  support  each  other  against 
the  designs  of  that  prince,  and  not  to  enter  into 
any  separate  treaty  with  him  inconsistent  with 
this  defensive  alliance :  and  further  stipulated, 
that,  in  the  wars  which  were  expected  with  this 
enemy,  the  Carthaginians,  whether  as  principals 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


37 


or  auxiliaries,  should  I'urnish  the  whole  shipping, 
both  transports  and  armed  gallies ;  but  that  the 
expense  of  every  armament  should  be  defrayed 
at  the  charge  of  that  party  in  whose  behalf  it 
was  employed.2 

In  observance  probably  of  the  last  of  these 
treaties,  and  by  mutual  concert,  though  with  con- 
siderable jealousy  and  distrust  of  each  other,  the 
forces  of  these  nations  combined  in  reducing  the 

farrison  which  Pyrrhus  had  left  at  Tarentum. 
lach  had  their  separate  designs  on  the  place ; 
and  when  its  fate  was  determined,  from  thence- 
forward considered  the  other  as  their  most  dan- 
gerous rival  for  dominion  and  power.  Pyrrhus, 
even  when  they  were  joined  in  alliance  against 
himself,  is  said  to  have  foreseen  their  quarrels, 
and  to  have  pointed  at  the  island  of  Sicily  as  the 
first  scene  of  their  contest. 

The  Carthaginians  were  already  in  possession 
of  Lylibaeum,  and  of  other  posts  on  this  island, 
and  had  a  design  on  the  whole.  The  Romans 
were  in  sight  of  it ;  and,  by  their  possession  of 
Rhegium,  commanded  one  side  of  the  Straits. 
The  other  side  was  occupied  by  the  Mamertines, 
a  race  of  Italian  extraction,  who,  being  placed  at 
Messina  by  the  king  of  Syracuse  to  defend  that 
station,  barbarously  murdered  the  citizens,  and 
took  possession  of  their  habitations  and  effects. 

This  horrid  action  was  afterwards  imitated  by 
a  Roman  legion  posted  at  Rhegium  during  the 
late  wars  in  Italy :  these  likewise  murdered  their 
hosts,  and  seized  their  possessions;  but  were 
punished  by  the  Romans,  for  this  act  of  cruelty 
and  treachery,  with  the  most  exemplary  rigour. 
They  were  conducted  in  chains  to  Rome,  scourged 
and  beheaded  by  fifties  at  a  time.  The  crime  of 
the  Mamertines  was  resented  by  the  Sicilians  in 
general  with  a  like  indignation  ;  and  the  authors 
of  it  were  pursued,  by  Hiero  king  of  Syracuse  in 
particular,  with  a  generous  and  heroic  revenge. 
They  were,  at  length,  reduced  to  such  distress, 
that  they  were  resolved  to  surrender  themselves 
to  the  first  power  that  could  afford  them  protec- 
tion. But,  being  divided  in  their  choice,  one 
party  made  an  offer  of  their  submission  to  the 
Carthaginians,  the  other  to  the  Romans.  The 
latter  scrupled  to  protect  a  crime  of  which  they 
had  so  lately  punished  an  example  in  their  own 
people.3  And,  while  they  hesitated  on  the  pro- 
posal, the  Carthaginians,  favoured  by  the  delay 
of  their  rivals,  and  by  the  neighbourhood  of  their 
military  stations,  got  the  start  of  their  competi- 
tors, and  were  received  into  the  town  of  Messina. 

This  unexpected  advantage  gained  by  a  power 
of  which  they  were  jealous,  and  the  danger  of 
suffering  a  rival  to  command  the  passage  of  the 
Straits,  removed  the  scruples  of  the  Romans ;  and 
the  officer  who  commanded  their  forces  in  the 
contiguous  parts  of  Italy,  had  orders  to  assemble 
all  the  shipping  that  could  be  found  on  the  coast 
from  Tarentum  to  Naples,  to  pass  with  his  army 
into  Sicily,  and  endeavour  to  dispossess  the  Car- 
thaginians from  the  city  of  Messina, 

As  soon  as  this  officer  appeared  in  the  road  with 
a  force  so  much  superior  to  that  of  his  rivals,  the 
party  in  the  city,  that  favoured  the  admission  of 
the  Romans,  took  arms,  and  forced  the  Cartha- 
ginians to  evacuate  the  place.4 


Here  commenced  the  first  Punic. 
U.  C.  490.  war,  about  ten  years  after  the  depar- 
ture of  Pyrrhus  from  Italy,  eight 
years  after  the  surrender  of  Tarentum,  and  in  the 
four  hundred  and  ninetieth  year  of  Rome.  In 
this  war,  the  first  object  of  either  party  was  no 
more  than  to  secure  the  possession  of  Messina, 
and  to  command  the  passage  of  the  Straits  which 
separate  Italy  from  Sicily ;  but  their  views  were 
gradually  extended  to  objects  of  more  importance, 
to  the  sovereignty  of  that  island,  and  the  domi- 
nion of  the  seas. 

The  contest  between  them  was  likely  to  be  ex- 
tremely unequal.  On  the  one  side  appeared  the 
resources  of"  a  great  nation,  collected  from  exten- 
sive dominions,  a  great  naval  force,  standing 
armies,  and  the  experience  of  distant  operations. 
On  the  other,  the  ferocity  or  valour  of  a  small 
state,  hitherto  exerted  only  against  their  neigh- 
bours of  Italy,  who,  though  subdued,  were  averse 
to  subjection,  and  in  no  condition  to  furnish  the 
necessary  supplies  for  a  distant  war;  without 
commerce  or  revenue,  without  any  army  but  what 
was  annually  formed  by  detachments  from  the 
people,  and  without  any  officers  besides  the  or- 
dinary magistrates  of  the  city ;  in  short,  without 
any  naval  force  or  experience  of  naval  or  distant 
operations. 

Notwithstanding  these  unpromising  appear- 
ances on  the  side  of  the  Romans,  the  command- 
ing aspect  of  their  first  descent  upon  Sicily  pro- 
cured them  not  only  the  possession  of  Messina, 
but  soon  after  determined  Hiero,  the  king  of 
Syracuse,  hitherto  in  alliance  with  the  Cartha- 
ginians, to  espouse  their  cause,  to  supply  their 
army  with  provisions,  and  afterwards  to  join 
them  with  his  own.  Being  thus  reinforced  by 
the  natives  of  Sicily,  they  were  enabled  to  recal 
part  of  the  force  with  which  they  began  the  war; 
continued,  though  at  a  less  expense,  to  act  on  the 
offensive;  and  drove  the  Carthaginians  from 
many  of  their  important  stations  in  the  island.5 

While  the  amis  of  the  Romans  and  of  Hiero 
were  victorious  on  shore,  the  Carthaginians  con- 
tinued to  be  masters  of  the  sea,  kept  possession 
of  all  the  harbours  in  Sicily,  overawed  the  coasts, 
obstructed  the  military  convoys  from  Italy,  and 
alarmed  that  country  itself  with  frequent  descents. 
It  was  evident,  that,  under  these  disadvantages, 
the  Romans  could  neither  make  nor  preserve  any 
maritime  acquisitions;  and  it  was  necessary, 
either  to  drop  the  contest  in  yielding  the  sea,  or 
to  endeavour,  on  that  element  likewise,  to  cope 
with  their  rival.  Though  not  altogether,  as  histo- 
rians represent  them,  unacquainted  with  shipping, 
they  were  certainly  inferior  to  the  Carthaginians 
in  the  art  of  navigation,  and  altogether  unprovided 
with  ships  of  force.  Fortunately  for  them,  neither 
the  art  of  sailing,  nor  that  of  constructing  ships, 
was  yet  arrived  at  such  a  degree  of  perfection  as 
not  to  be  easily  imitated  by  nations  who  had  any 
experience  or  practice  of  the  sea.  Vessels  of  the 
best  construction  that  was  then  known  were  fit 
to  be  navigated  only  with  oars,  or  in  a  fair  wind 
and  on  a  smooth  sea.  They  might  be  built  of 
green  timber ;  and,  in  case  of  a  storm,  could  run 
ashore  under  any  cover,  or  upon  any  beach  that 
was  clear  of  rocks.  Such  ships  as  these  the  Ro- 
mans, without  hesitation,  undertook  to  provide. 


2  Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  3. 
4  Ibid.  lib.  i.  c.  12, 


3  Ibid.  lib.  i.  c.  10. 


5  Polyb.  lib.i. 


38 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  t 


Having  a  Carthaginian  galley,  accidentally  strand- 
ed at  Messina,  for  a  model,  it  is  said,  that,  in  sixty 
days  from  the  time  that  the  timber  was  cut  down, 
they  fitted  out  and  manned  for  the  sea  one  hun- 
dred gallies  of  five  tier  of  oars,  and  twenty  of 
three  tier.  Vessels  of  the  first  of  these  rates 
carried  three  hundred  rowers,  and  two  hundred 
fighting  men. 

The  manner  of  applying  their  oars  from  so 
many  tiers,  and  a  much  greater  number  which 
they  sometimes  employed,  has  justly  appeared  a 
great  difficulty  to  the  mechanics  and  antiquari- 
ans of  modern  times,  and  is  confessedly  not  well 
understood. 

The  Romans,  while  their  gallies  were  build- 
ing, trained  their  rowers  to  the  oar  on  benches 
that  were  erected  on  the  beach,  and  placed  in  the 
form  of  those  of  the  real  galley.1  Being  sensible 
that  the  enemy  must  be  still  greatly  superior  in 
the  management  of  their  ships  and  in  the  quick- 
ness of  their  motions,  they  endeavoured  to  de- 
prive them  of  this  advantage,  by  preparing  to 
grapple,  and  to  bind  their  vessels  together.  In 
this  condition  the  men  might  engage  on  equal 
terms,  fight  from  their  stages  or  decks  as  on  so- 
lid ground,  and  the  Roman  buckler  and  sword 
have  the  same  effect  as  on  shore. 

With  an  armament  so  constructed,  still  infe- 
rior to  the  enemy,  and  even  unfortunate  in  its 
first  attempts,  they  learned,  by  perseverance,  to 
vanquish  the  masters  of  the  sea  on  their  own 
element;  and  not  only  protected  the  coasts  of 
Italy,  and  supported  their  operations  in  Sicily, 
but,  with  a  powerful  fleet  of  three  hundred  and 
thirty  sail,  overcame  at  sea  a  superior  number  of 
the  enemy,  and  carried  the  war  to  the  gates  of 
Carthage.2 . 

On  this  occasion  took  place  the  famous  adven- 
ture of  Regulus;  who  being  successful  in  his 
first  operations,  gave  the  Romans  some  hopes  of 
conquest  in  Africa:  but  they  were  checked  at 
once  by  the  defeat  of  their  army, 
U.  C.  498.    and  the  captivity  of  their  general. 

This  event  removed  the  seat  of  the 
war  again  into  Sicily ;  and  the  Romans,  still  en- 
deavouring to  maintain  a  naval  force,  suffered  so 
many  losses,  and  incurred  so  many  disasters  by 
storms,  that  they  were,  during  a  certain  period 
of  the  war,  disgusted  with  the  service  at  sea,  and 
seemed  to  drop  all  pretensions  to  power  on  this 
element.  The  experience  of  a  few  years,  how- 
ever, while  they  endeavoured  to  continue  their 
operations  by  land  without  any  support  from  the 
sea,  made  them  sensible  of  the  necessity  they 
were  under  of  restoring  their  shipping ;  and  they 
did  so  with  a  resolution  and  vigour  which  en- 
abled them  once  more  to  prevail  over  the  superior 
skill  and  experience  of  their  enemy. 

In  this  ruinous  contest  both  parties  made  the 
utmost  efforts,  and  the  most  uninterrupted  exer- 
tion of  their  forces.  Taking  the  forces  of  both 
sides,  in  one  naval  engagement,  five  hundred 
gallies  of  five  tier  of  oars,  with  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men,  and  in  another,  seven  hun- 
dred gallies,  with  three  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand men,  were  brought  into  action  ;3  and  in  the 
course  of  these  struggles  the  Romans  lost,  either 
by  tempests  or  by  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  seven 


1  Polyb.  lib.  i.  c.  20,  21.  2  Ibid.  lib.  i.  c.  27. 

3  Ibid.  lib.  i.  c.  26. 


hundred  gallies;  their  antagonists,  about  five 
hundred.4  In  the  result  of  these  destructive  en- 
counters, the  Carthaginians,  beginning  to  balance 
the  inconveniences  which  attended  the  continu- 
ance of  war  against  the  concessions 
U.  C.  512.  that  were  necessary  to  obtain  peace, 
came  to  a  resolution  to  accept  of 
the  following  terms : 

That  they  should  evacuate  Sicily,  and  all  the 
islands  from  thence  to  Africa : 

That  they  should  not  for  the  future  make  war 
on  Hiero  king  of  Syracuse,  nor  on  any  of  his 
allies : 

That  they  should  release  all  Roman  captives 
without  any  ransom : 

And  within  twenty  years  pay  to  the  Romans 
a  sum  of  three  thousand  Euboic  talents.5 

Thus  the  Romans,  in  the  result  of  a  war, 
which  was  the  first  they  undertook  beyond  the 
limits  of  Italy,  entered  on  the  possession  of  all 
that  the  Carthaginians  held  in  the  islands  for 
which  they  contended ;  and,  by  a  continuation 
of  the  same  policy  which  they  had  so  successfully 
pursued  in  Italy,  by  applying  to  their  new  acqui- 
sitions, instead  of  the  alarming  denomination  of 
subject,  the  softer  name  of  ally,  they  brought 
Hiero,  who  was  sovereign  of  the  greater  part  of 
Sicily,  into  a  state  of  dependence  on  themselves. 

Their  manners,  as  well  as  their  fortunes,  were 
a  perfect  contrast  to  those  of  the  enemy  they  had 
vanquished.  Among  the  Romans,  riches  were 
of  no  account  in  constituting  rank.  Men  became 
eminent  by  rendering  signal  services  to  their 
country,  not  by  accumulating  wealth.  Persons 
of  the  first  distinction  subsisted  in  the  capacity 
of  husbandmen  by  their  own  labour ;  and,  with 
the  fortunes  of  peasants,  rose  to  the  command  of 
armies,  and  the  first  offices  of  state.  One  consul, 
of  the  name  of  Regulus,  was  found  by  the  officer 
who  came  to  announce  his  election,  equipped 
with  the  sheet  or  the  basket,  and  sowing  the  seed 
of  his  corn  in  the  field.  Another,  better  known, 
of  the  same  name,  while  he  commanded  in  Africa, 
desired  to  be  recalled,  in  order  to  replace  the  in- 
struments of  husbandry,  which,  to  the  great  dis- 
tress of  his  family,  and  the  hazard  of  their  want- 
ing food,  a  fugitive  slave  had  carried  off  from  his 
land.  The  senate  refused  his  request,  but  order- 
ed the  farm  of  their  general  to  be  tilled  at  the 
public  expense.6 

The  association  of  pomp  and  equipage  with 
rank  and  authority,  it  may  be  thought,  is  acci- 
dental, and  only  serves  to  distract  the  attention 
which  mankind  owe  to  personal  qualities.  It 
nevertheless  appears  to  be  in  some  measure  un- 
avoidable. Superiority  is  distinguished,  even  in 
the  rudest  nations,  by  some  external  mark. 
Duillius  had  his  piper  and  his  torch,  in  honour 
of  the  first  naval  victory  obtained  by  his  country;? 
and  the  Romans  acknowledged  the  external  en- 
signs of  state,  although  they  were  still  rude  in 
the  choice  of  them. 

At  this  time,  when  the  nation  emerged  with 
so  much  lustre  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Italy 
the  parties  which  divided  the  state,  and  whose 
animosity  sharpened  so  much  the  pangs  which 


4  Polyb.  c.  63.  5  Ibid.  c.  62,  &c. 

6  Valer.  Maxim,  lib.  iv.  c.  4.    Liv.  Epitom.  lib.  xviii. 
Seneca  ad  Albinam.  c.  12.  Auctor  do  versibus  illuBtribus. 
7"  Liv.  Epitom.  lib.  xvii.  xviii. 


ClIAV.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


39 


preceded  the  birth  of  many  of  its  public  establish- 
ments, had  no  longer  any  object  of  contest.  The 
officers  of  state  were  taken  promiscuously  from 
either  class  of  the  people,  and  the  distinction  of 
plebeian  and  patrician  had  in  a  great  measure 
lost  its  effect.  A  happier  species  of  aristocracy 
began  to  arise  from  the  lustre  of  personal  quali- 
ties, and  the  honours  of  family,  which  devolved 
upon  those  who  were  descended  from  citizens 
who  had  borne  the  higher  offices  of  state,  and 
were  distinguished  in  their  country's  service. 

The  different  orders  of  men  in  the  common- 
wealth having  obtained  the  institutions  for  which 
they  severally  contended,  the  number  of  officers 
was  increased,  for  the  better  administration  of 
affairs,  which  were  fast  accumulating.  Thus  a 
second  prstor  was  added  to  the  original  establish- 
ment of  this  office;  and  the  persons  who  held  it 
were  destined  to  act  either  in  a  civil  or  military 
capacity,  to  hear  causes  in  the  city,  or  to  com- 
mand armies  in  the  field.  They  were  assisted  in 
the  first  of  these  functions  by  a  new  institution, 
that  of  the  centumvirs,  or  the  hundred,  who  were 
draughted  from  the  tribes,  and  appointed,  during 
the  year  of  their  nomination,  under  the  direction 
of  the  praetors,  to  take  cognizance  of  civil  dis- 
putes. The  number  of  tribes  being  now  com- 
pleted to  thirty-five,  and  three  of  the  centumvirs 
being  draughted  from  each,  made  the  whole 
amount  to  a  hundred  and  five.8 

The  city,  during  the  late  destructive  war,  sent 
abroad  two  colonies,  one  to  Castrum  Innui,  a 
village  of  the  Latins,  the  other  to  Firmium  in 
the  Picenum,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  penin- 
sula, intended  rather  to  guard  and  protect  the 
coast,  than  to  provide  for  any  superabundance  of 
the  people,  whose  numbers  at  this  time  under- 
went a  considerable  diminution  ;9  the  rolls  having 
decreased  in  the  course  of  five  years,  from  two 
hundred  and  ninety-seven  thousand  two  hundred 
and  twenty-seven,  to  two  hundred  and  fifty-one 
thousand  two  hundred  and  twenty-two.10  The 
revenue,  to  which  citizens  who  were  accustomed 
to  pay  with  their  personal  service,  had  little  to 
spare  from  their  effects,  and  which  was  at  all 
times  probably  scanty,  being  often  exhausted  by 
the  expenses  of  the  late  war,  brought  the  com- 
munity under  the  necessity  of  acquitting  itself 
of  its  debts,  by  diminishing  the  weight,  or  raising 
the  current  value  of  its  coin.  The  ass,  which 
was  the  ordinary  measure  of  valuation,  being  the 
libra,  or  pound  of  copper  stamped,  and  hitherto 
containing  twelve  ounces,  was  reduced  in  its 
weight  to  two  ounces.11 

1  he  contribution  now  exacted  from  Carthage 
amounting  to  about  two  hundred  and  seventy- 


8  Liv.  Epilom.  lib.  xx. 

9  Livy,  in  different,  place:*,  mention3  between  thirty  and 
forty  Roman  colonies  subsisting  in  Italy  in  the  time  of  the 
second  Punic  war.  (Liv.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  9  et  38.)  Velleius 
Paterculus  reckons  about  forty  planted  in  Italy  after  the 
recovery  of  Rome  from  its  destruction  by  the  Gauls. 
(Lib.  i.  c.  xv.)  And  Sigonius,  collecting  the  names  of 
all  the  colonies  mentioned  by  any  Roman  writer  as  planted 
in  Italy,  has  made  a  list  of  about  ninety.  But  this  matter, 
which  so  much  interests  this  very  learned  antiquarian  and 
many  others,  was  become,  as  we  have  mentioned,  a  sub- 
ject of  mere  curiosity,  even  in  the  times  of  the  writers 
from  whom  our  accounts  are  collected  ;  as  all  the  Italians 
were  by  that  time  admitted  on  the  roll  of  Roman  citizens 
by  the  law  of  L.  Julius  Caesar,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
Marsic  law,  U.  C.  663. 

10  Liv.  Epitom.  lib.  xix. 

11  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  8. 


nine  thousand  pounds,  together  with  the  rents 
to  be  collected  in  Sicily,  were  likely  to  be  great 
accessions  of  wealth  to  such  a  state. 

The  spoils  of  their  enemies,  for  the  most  part, 
consisted  of  prisoners  who  were  detained  by  the 
captor  as  his  slaves,  or  sent  to  market  to  be  sold. 
They  had  made  a  prize  of  twenty  thousand  cap- 
tives in  their  first  descent  upon  Africa ;  and  the 
number  of  slaves  in  Italy  was  already  become  so 
great  as  to  endanger  the  state.12 

The  favourite  entertainments  of  the  people 
were  combats  of  armed  slaves,  known  by  the 
name  of  gladiators,  derived  from  the  weapons 
with  which  they  most  frequently  fought.  Such 
exhibitions,  it  is  said,  were  first  introduced  in  the 
interval  between  the  first  and  second  Punic  war, 
by  a  son  of  the  family  of  Brutus,  to  solemnize 
the  funeral  of  his  father.  Though  calculated 
rather  to  move  pity  and  cause  horror,  than  to 
give  pleasure,  yet,  like  all  other  scenes  which 
excite  hopes  and  fears,  and  keep  the  mind  in 
suspense,  they  were  admired  by  the  multitude, 
and  became  frequent  on  all  solemn  occasions  or 
festivals. 

In  the  circumstances  or  events  which  immedi- 
ately followed  the  peace  between  Rome  and  Car- 
thage, these  nations  showed  the  different  tendency 
of  their  institutions  and  manners.  The  Romans, 
in  the  very  struggles  of  a  seemingly  destructive 
contest,  had  acquired  strength  and  security,  not 
only  by  the  reputation  of  great  victories,  but  still 
more  by  the  military  spirit  and  improved  disci- 
pline and  skill  of  their  people  by  sea  and  by  land. 
Although  their  subjects  in  Italy  revolted,  and 
their  allies  withdrew  their  support,  yet  both  were 
soon  reduced,  at  the  first  appearance  of  those 
veteran  soldiers  who  had  been  formed  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  preceding  war. 

The  Carthaginians,  on  the  contrary,  had  made 
war  above  twenty  years  without  becoming  more 
warlike  ;  had  exhausted  their  resources,  and  con- 
sumed the  bread  of  their  own  people  in  main- 
taining foreign  mercenaries,  who,  instead  of  being 
an  accession  of  strength,  were  ready  to  prey  on 
their  weakness,  and  to  become  the  most  formid- 
able enemies  to  the  state  they  had  served.  Their 
army,  composed,  as  usual,  of  hirelings  from 
Gaul,  Spain,  and  the  interior  parts  of  Africa, 
estimated  their  services  in  the  war  which  was 
then  concluded  at  a  higher  value  than  the  state 
was  disposed  to  allow,  and  attempted  to  take  by 
force  what  was  refused  to  their  representations 
and  claims.  Being  assembled  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Carthage  to  receive  the  arrears  of  their 
pay,  the  senate  wildly  proposed,  in  consideration 
of  the  distressed  condition  of  the  public  revenue, 
that  they  should  make  some  abatement  of  the 
sums  that  were  due  to  them.  But  the  state,  in- 
stead of  obtaining  the  abatements  which  were 
thus  proposed,  only  provoked  men  with  arms  in 
their  hands  to  enter  into  altercations,  and  to  mul- 
tiply their  claims  and  pretensions.  The  merce- 
naries took  offence  at  the  delays  of  payment,  rose 
in  their  demands  upon  every  concession,  and 
marched  at  last  to  the  capital,  with  all  the  ap- 
pearances and  threats  of  an  open  and  victorious 
enemy.  They  issued  a  proclamation  on  their 
march,  inviting  all  the  provincial  subjects  of  the 
commonwealth  to  assert  their  freedom,  and,  by 


12  Zonar.  lib.  ii.    Orosius,  lib.  ii.  o.  7. 


10 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


the  numbers  that  flocked  to  them  from  every 
quarter,  became  a  mighty  host,  to  which  the  city 
had  nothing  to  oppose  but  its  walls.  To  effec- 
tuate the  reduction  of  Carthage,  they  invested 
Tunis  and  Utica,  and  submitted  to  all  the  disci- 
pline of  war  from  the  officers  whom  they  them- 
selves had  appointed  to  command. 

In  this  crisis,  the  republic  of  Carthage,  cut  off 
from  all  its  resources  and  ordinary  supplies,  at- 
tacked with  that  very  sword  on  which  it  relied 
for  defence,  and  in  a  situation  extremely  deplor- 
able and  dangerous,  having  still  some  confidence 
in  the  ability  of  their  senators,  and  in  the  mag- 
nanimity of  officers  tried  and  experienced  in 
arduous  and  perilous  situations,  was  not  alto- 
gether reduced  to  despair.  Although  the  people 
had  committed  their  arms  into  the  hands  of 
strangers,  the  command  of  armies  had  been  still 
reserved  to  their  own  citizens ;  and  now,  by  the 
presence  and  abilities  of  a  few  great  men,  they 
were  taught  to  assume  a  necessary  courage,  to 
put  themselves  in  a  military  posture,  and  to 
maintain,  during  three  years,  and  through  a  scene 
of  mutual  cruelties  and  retaliations,  unheard  of 
in  the  contests  of  nations  at  war,  a  struggle  of 
the  greatest  difficulty.  In  this  struggle  they 
prevailed  at  last  by  the  total  extirpation  of  this 
vile  and  outrageous  enemy.1 

During  the  dependence  of  this  odious  revolt,  in 
which  a  mercenary  army  endeavoured  to  subdue 
the  state  which  employed  them,  the  Romans  pre- 
served that  character  for  generosity  and  magnani- 
mity of  which  they  knew  so  well  how  to  avail 
themselves,  without  losing  any  opportunity  that 
offered  for  the  secure  advancement  of  their  power. 
They  refrained  from  giving  any  countenance 
even  against  their  rival  to  such  unworthy  anta- 
gonists. They  affected  to  disdain  taking  any 
advantage  of  the  present  distresses  of  Carthage, 
and  refused  to  enter  into  any  correspondence  with 
a  part  of  the  rebel  mercenaries,  who,  being  sta- 
tioned in  Sardinia,  offered  to  surrender  that  island 
into  their  hands.  They  prohibited  the  traders  of 
Italy  to  furnish  the  rebels  with  any  supply  of 
provisions  or  stores,  and  abandoned  every  vessel 
that  presumed  to  transgress  these  orders,  to  the 
mercy  of  the  Carthaginian  cruisers  which  plied 
before  the  harbours  of  Tunis  and  Utica.  Above 
five  hundred  Roman  prisoners,  seized  by  these 
cruisers,  were  detained  in  the  jails  of  Carthage. 
At  the  termination,  however,  of  this  war,  when 
the  Carthaginians  were  far  from  being  disposed 
to  renew  any  quarrel  whatever,  the  Romans  fixed 
on  this  as  a  ground  of  dispute,  complained  of 
piracies  committed  against  the  traders  of  Italy, 
under  pretence  of  intercepting  supplies  to  the 
rebels ;  and,  by  threatening  immediate  war  upon 
tins  account,  obtained  from  the  state  itself  a  sur- 
render of  the  island  of  Sardinia,  which  they  had 
refused  to  accept  from  the  rebels,  and  got  an  ad- 
dition of  two  hundred  talents  to  the  sum  stipu- 
lated in  the  late  treaty  of  peace,  to  make  up  for 
their  pretended  losses  by  the  supposed  unwar- 
rantable capture  of  their  ships.2 

Upon  this  surrender  the  Sardinians  bore  with 
some  discontent  the  change  of  their  sovereigns ; 
and,  on  the  first  prohibition  of  their  usual  com- 


merce with  Carthage,  to  which  they  had  been 
long  accustomed,  took  arms,  and  endeavoured  for 
some  time  to  withstand  the  orders  which  they 
were  required  to  obey. 

Soon  after  the  Romans  had  reconciled  these 
new  acquired  subjects  to  their  government,  had 
quelled  a  revolt  in  Tuscany,  and  vanquished  some 
cantons  of  Liguria,  whom  it  is  said  they  brought 
to  submit  as  fast  as  the  access  to  that  country 
could  be  opened,  they  found  themselves  at  peace 

with  all  the  world  ;3  and,  in  token 
U.  C.  519.    of  this  memorable  circumstance, 

shut  the  gates  of  the  temple  of  Ja- 
nus ;  a  ceremony  which  the  continual  succession 
of  wars,  from  the  reign  of  Numa  to  the  present 
time,  had  prevented,  during  a  period  of  four  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years ;  a  ceremony,  which,  when 
performed,  marked  a  situation  as  transient  as  it 
was  strange  and  uncommon. 

Fresh  disturbances  in  some  of  the  possessions 
recently  seized  by  the  republic,  and  a  quarrel  of 
some  importance  that  carried  her  arms  for  the 
first  time  beyond  the  Hadriatic,  embroiled  her 
anew  in  a  succession  of  wars  and  military  ad- 
ventures. 

The  Illyrians  had  become  of  late  a  considerable 
nation,  and  were  a  party  in  the  negotiations  and 
quarrels  of  the  Macedonians  and  the  Greeks. 
Having  convenient  harbours  and  retreats  for 
shipping,  they  carried  on  a  piratical  war  with 
most  of  their  neighbours,  and,  in  particular,  com- 
mitted depredations  on  the  traders  of  Italy,  which 
it  concerned  the  Romans,  as  the  sovereigns  of 
this  country,  to  prevent.  They  accordingly  sent 
deputies  to  complain  of  these  practices,  to  de- 
mand a  reparation  of  past  injuries,  and  a  security 
from  any  such  attempts  for  the  future.  The  Il- 
lyrians at  this  time  were  under  the  government 
of  Teuta,  the  widow  of  a  king  lately  deceased, 
who  held  the  reins  of  government  as  guardian  to 
her  son.  This  princess,  in  answer  to  the  com- 
plaints and  representations  of  the  Romans,  de- 
clared, that  in  her  kingdom  no  public  commission 
had  ever  been  granted  to  make  war  on  the  Ita- 
lians ;  but  she  observed,  that  the  seas  being  open, 
no  one  could  answer  for  what  was  transacted 
there ;  and  that  it  was  not  the  custom  of  kings 
to  debar  their  subjects  from  what  they  could  seize 
by  their  valour.  To  this  barbarous  declaration 
one  of  the  Roman  deputies  replied,  that  his 
country  was  ever  governed  by  different  maxims ; 
that  they  endeavoured  to  restrain  the  crimes  of 
private  persons  by  the  authority  of  the  state,  and 
should,  in  the  present  case,  find  a  way  to  reform 
the  practice  of  kings  in  this  particular.  The 
queen  was  incensed ;  and  resenting  these  words 
as  an  insult  to  herself,  gave  orders  to  waylay  and 
assassinate  the  Roman  deputy  on  his  return  to 
Rome.4 

In  revenge  of  this  barbarous  outrage,  and  of 
the  former  injuries  received  from  that  quarter, 
the  Romans  made  war  on  the  queen  of  Illyri- 
cum,  obliged  her  to  make  reparation  for  the  in- 
juries she  had  done  to  the  traders  of  Italy,  to 
evacuate  all  the  towns  she  had  occupied  on  the 
coast,  to  restrain  her  subjects  in  the  use  of  armed 
ships,  and  to  forbid  them  to  navigate  the  Ionian 
sea  with  more  than  two  vessels  in  company. 


1  Polyb.  lib.  i.  c.  67— fine. 

2  Polyb.  lib.  i.  c.  88.  lib.  iii.  c.  10.  Appian  de  Bell. 
Punic,  p. 


3  Florus,  lib.  ii.  c.  3.  Eutrop.  lib.  ii.  4  Polyb=  lib 
ii.  c  8. 


Chap.  V.] 

The  Romans,  being  desirous  of  having  their 
conduct  in  this  matter  approved  of  by  the  nations 
of  that  continent,  sent  a  copy  of  this  treaty,  to- 
gether with  an  exposition  of  the  motives  which 
had  induced  them  to  cross  the  Adriatic,  to  be  read 
in  the  assembly  of  the  Achaean  league.  They  soon 
after  made  a  like  communication  at  Athens  and 


41 

at  Corinth,  where,  in  consideration  of  the  signal 
service  they  had  performed  against  the  Illyrians, 
then  reputed  the  common  enemy  of  civilized  na- 
tions, they  had  an  honorary  place  assigned  them 

at  the  Isthmian  games ;  and  in  this 
U.  C.  525.  manner  made  their  first  appearance 

in  the  councils  of  Greece.5 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER  V. 


Progress  of  the  Romans  within  the  Alps — Origin  of  the  second  Punic  War — March  of  HannibOo 
into  Italy — Progress — Action  on  the  Tecinus — On  the  Trebia — On  the  Lake  Thrasimenus — 
Battle  qf  Carina — Hannibal  not  supported  from  Carthage — Sequel  of  the  War — In  Italy — Ami 
Africa — Scipio's  Operations — Battle  of  Zama — End  of  the  War. 


THE  city  of  Rome,  and  most  of  the  districts 
fif  Italy,  during  the  dependence  of  the  last  enu- 
merated wars  which  v/ere  waged  at  a  distance 
and  beyond  the  seas,  be^an  to  experience  that 
uninterrupted  tranquillity  in  which  the  capita  I  and 
interior  divisions  of  every  considerable  nation  re- 
main, even  during  the  wars  in  which  the  state  is 
engaged.  They  had  indeed  one  source  of  alarm 
on  the  side  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  which  they  thought 
it  necessary  to  remove,  in  order  to  obtain  that 
entire  security  to  which  they  aspired.  The 
country  of  the  Scnoncs,  from  Sena  Gallia  to  the 
Rubicon,  they  had  already  subdued,  even  before 
the  arrival  of  Pyrrhus  in  Italy  ;  but  the  richest 
and  most  fertile  tracts  on  the  Po  were  still  in  the 
possession  of  the  Gaulish  nations;  and  it  had 
been  proposed,  about  four  years  after  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  first  Punic  war,  to  erect  a  barrier 
against  the  invasion  of  this  people,  by  occupying 
with  Roman  colonies  the  country  of  the  Senones, 
from  Sena  Gallia  to  the  Rubicon.  Although  the 
inhabitants  to  be  removed  to  make  room  for  these 
settlements  had  been  subject  to  the  Romans  above 
forty  years,  yet  their  brethren  on  the  Po  con- 
sidered this  act  of  violence  as  an  insult  to  the 
Gaulish  name,  resolved  to  avenge  it,  and  invited 
their  countrymen  from  beyond  the  Alps  to  take 
part  in  the  quarrel. 

In  consequence  of  their  negotiations  and  con- 
certs, in  about  eight  years  after  the  Romans  were 
settled  on  the  Rubicon,  a  great  army  of  Gauls  ap- 
peared on  the  Roman  frontier.  These  nations 
used  to  make  war  by  impetuous  assaults  and  in- 
vasions, and  either  at  once  subdued  and  occupied 
the  countries  which  they  over-ran,  or,  being  re- 
pulsed, abandoned  them  without  any  farther  in- 
tention to  persist  in  the  war.  Their  tumultuary 
operations,  however,  were  subjects  of  the  greatest 
alarm  at  Rome,  and  generally  produced  a  suspen- 
sion of  all  the  ordinary  forms  of  the  common- 
wealth. On  a  prospect  of  the  present  alarm  from 
that  quarter,  the  senate  apprehending  the  neces- 
sity of  great  and  sudden  exertions  of  all  their 
strength,  ordered  a  general  account  to  be  taken 
of  all  the  men  fit  to  carry  arms,  whether  on  foot 
or  on  hoscback,  that  could  be  assembled  for  the 
defence  of  Italy ;  and  they  mustered,  on  this 


famous  occasion,  above  seven  hundred  thousand 
foot  and  seventy  thousand  horse.6  From  this 
numerous  return  of  men  in  arms,  the  state  was 
enabled  to  make  great  detachments,  which  they 
stationed  under  the  consuls  and  one  of  the  praetors 
separately,  for  the  defence  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  Gauls,  having  penetrated  into  Etruria,  where, 
the  praHor  was  stationed,  attacked  and  obliged 
him  to  retire.  The  consuls,  however,  being  ar- 
rived with  their  several  armies  in  different  direc- 
tions to  support  the  praetor,  renewed  the  conflict 
with  united  force,  and  put  the  greater  part  of  the 
Gaulish  invaders  to  the  sword. 

In  the  year  following,  the  Romans 
U.  C.  529.  carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  coun- 
try ;  and  in  about  three  years  more, 
passed  the  Po,  and  made  themselves  masters  ot 
all  the  plains  on  that  river  quite  to  the  foot  of  the 
Alps.  To  secure  this  valuable  acquisition  they 
projected  two  colonies  of  six  thousand  men  each, 
one  at  Cremona  and  the  other  at  Placentia,  on 
the  opposite  sides  of  the  Po  ;  but  were  disturbed 
in  the  execution  of  this  project,  first,  by  a  revolt 
of  the*  natives,  who  justly  considered  these  set- 
tlements as  military  stations,  intended  to  repress 
and  keep  themselves  in  subjection  ;  and  after- 
wards, by  the  arrival  of  a  successful  invader,  who, 
by  his  conduct  and  implacable  animosity,  ap- 
peared to  be  the  most  formidable  enemy  that  had 
ever  attempted  to  shake  the  power,  or  to  [sprit  the 
progress  of  the  Roman  state. 

The  Republic  had  now  enjoyed,  during  a  period 
of  twenty-one  years  from  the  end  of  the  first  Pu- 
nic war,  the  fruits  not  only  of  that  ascendant  she 
had  acquired  among  the  nations  of  Italy,  but  those 
likewise  of  the  high  reputation  she  had  gained, 
and  of  the  great  military  power  she  had  formed 
in  the  contest  with  Carthage.  The  wars  that 
tilled  up  the  interval  of  peace  with  this  principal 
antagonist,  were  either  trivial  or  of  short  duration  ; 
and  the  city  itself,  though  still  rude  in  the  form 
of  its  buildings,  and  in  the  manners  of  its  people, 
probably  now  began  to  pay  a  growing  attention 
to  the  arts  of  peace.  Laws  are  dated  in  this  pe- 
riod which  have  a  reference  to  manufacture  and 
to  trade.  Clothiers  are  directed  in  the  fabric  of 
cloth,  and  carriers  by  water  are  directed  in  the 


5  Polyb.  lib.  ii.  c.  12.    Appian  in  lllyr. 


(i  Polyb.  lib.  ii.  c.  22—2-1,  &c.  Liv.  Epitom.  lib. 


42 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  L 


size  of  their  vessels.1  Livius  Andronicus  and 
Nevius  introduced  some  species  of 
U.  C.  513.  dramatic  entertainments,  and  found  a 
favourable  reception  from  the  people 
to  their  farcical  productions.2 

But  whatever  progress  the  people  were  now 
inclined  to  make  in  the  useful  or  pleasurable  arts 
of  peace,  they  were  effectually  interrupted,  and 
obliged  to  bend  the  force  of  their  genius,  as  in  for- 
mer times,  to  the  arts  of  war,  and  to  the  defence 
of  their  settlements  in  Italy. 

The  Carthaginians  had  been  for  some  time 
employed  in  Spain,  making  trial  of  their  strength, 
and  forming  their  armies.  In  that  country  Ha- 
milcar,  an  officer  of  distinguished  fame  in  the  late 
war  with  the  Romans,  and  in  that  which  ensued 
with  the  rebel  mercenaries,  had  sought  refuge 
from  that  disgust  and  those  mortifications  which 
in  the  late  treaty  of  peace,  he  felt  from  the  ab- 
ject councils  of  his  country.  And  having  found 
a  pretence  to  levy  new  armies,  he  made  some  ac- 
quisitions of  territory,  to  compensate  the  losses 
which  Carthage  had  sustained  by  the  surrender 
of  Sardinia  and  of  Sicily. 

Spain  appears  to  have  been  to  the  trading  na- 
tions of  Greece,  Asia,  and  Africa,  what  America 
has  been,  though  upon  a  larger  scale,  to  the  mo- 
dern nations  of  Europe — an  open  field  for  new  set- 
tlements, plantations,  and  conquests.  The  na- 
tives were  brave,  but  impolitic,  and  ignorant  of 
the  arts  of  peace,  occupied  entirely  with  the  care 
of  their  horses  and  their  arms.  These,  says  a 
historian,  they  valued  more  than  their  blood.3 
They  painted  or  stained  their  bodies,  affected  long 
hair  with  gaudy  ornaments  of  silver  and  of  gold. 
The  men  were  averse  to  labour,  and  subsisted 
chiefly  by  the  industry  of  their  women.  Their 
mountains  abounded  in  mines  of  copper  and  of 
the  precious  metals;  insomuch  that,  on  some  parts 
of  the  coast,  it  was  reported  that  the  natives  had 
vessels  and  utensils  of  silver  employed  in  the  most 
common  uses.4  A  fatal  report!  such  as  that 
which  afterwards  carried  the  posterity  of  this  very 
people,  with  so  much  destructive  avidity,  to  visit 
the  new  world ;  and  is  ever  likely  to  tempt  the 
dangerous  visits  of  strangers,  who  are  ready  to 
gratify  their  avarice  and  their  ambition  at  the  ex- 
pense of  nations  to  whose  possessions  they  have 
no  reasonable  or  just  pretension.  The  Spa- 
niards were  at  this  time  divided  into  many  bar- 
barous hordes  or  small  principalities,  which  could 
neither  form  any  effectual  concert  to  prevent  the 
intrusion  and  settlement  of  foreigners,,  nor  pos- 
sessed the  necessary  docility  by  which  to  profit 
ny  foreign  examples,  whether  in  the  form  of  their 
policy  or  the  invention  of  arts. 

The  Carthaginians  had  made  their  first  visits 
to  Spain  under  pretence  of  supporting  the  colony 
of  Gades,  which,  like  themselves,  was  sprung 
from  Tyre.  They  made  a  settlement  under  the 
name  of  New  Carthage,  in  a  situation  extremely 
favourable  to  the  communication  of  Spain  with 
Africa,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  richest 
mines.  Hamilcar,  after  a  few  successful  cam- 
paigns, in  extending  the  bounds  of  this  settle- 
ment, being  killed  in  battle,  was  succeeded  by  his 
son-in-law,  Hasdrubal,  who  continued  for  some 
years  to  pursue  the  same  designs. 


j  Lex  Metilia  de  Fullonibus.  Lex  Claudia  lib.  xvii.  c.  21. 

2  Cicer.  in  Bruto,  p.  35.    A  Gall. 

3  Ju6tin,  lib.  xliv.  c.  2.       4  Strabo,  lib.  iii. 


The  Romans,  in  the  mean  while,  were  occu- 
pied on  the  coast  of  lllyricum,  or  amused  with 
alarms  from  Gaul.  They  were  sensible  of  the 
progress  made  by  their  rivals  in  Spain  ;  but  im- 
agining that  any  danger  from  that  quarter  was 
extremely  remote,  or  while  they  had  wars  at  once 
on  both  sides  of  the  Hadriatic,  being  unwitting 
to  engage  at  the  same  time  with  so  many  ene- 
mies, were  content  with  a  negotiation  and  a  treaty, 
in  which  they  stipulated  with  the  Carthaginians 
that  they  should  not  pass  the  Iberus  to  the  east- 
ward, nor  molest  the  city  of  Saguntum.  This 
they  considered  as  a  proper  barrier  on  that  side, 
and  professed  for  the  inhabitants  of  that  place  the 
concern  of  allies.  Trusting  to  the  effect  of  thia 
treaty,  as  sufficient  to  limit  the  progress  of  the 
Carthaginians  in  Spain,  they  proceeded,  in  the 
manner  that  has  been  mentioned,  to  contend  with 
the  Gauls  for  the  dominion  of  Italy,  which  hither- 
to, under  the  frequent  alarms  they  received  from 
this  people,  was  still  insecure.5 

Hasdrubal,  after  nine  years'  service,  being  as- 
sassinated by  a  Spanish  slave,  who  committed 
this  desperate  action  in  revenge  of  an  injury 
which  had  been  done  to  his  master,  was  succeed- 
ed in  the  command  of  the  Carthaginian  troops 
in  Spain  by  Hannibal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar. 
This  young  man,  then  of  five  and  twenty  years 
of  age,  had,  when  a  child,6  came  into  Spain  with 
his  father,  seemed  to  inherit  his  genius,  and  pre- 
served, probably  with  increasing  animosity,  his 
aversion  to  the  Romans.  Being  reared  and 
educated  in  camps,  and  from  his  earliest  youth 
qualified  to  gain  the  confidence  of  soldiers,  he  on 
the  death  of  Hasdrubal,  by  the  choice  of  the 
troops  was  raised  to  the  command  of  that  army, 
and  afterwards  confirmed  in  it  by  the  senate  of 
Carthage. 

The  Carthaginians  had  now  for  some  time 
ceased  to  feel  the  defeats  and  the  sufferings  which 
had  induced  them  to  accept  of  the  late  disadvan- 
tageous conditions  of  peace,  and  were  sensible 
only  of  the  lasting  inconveniences  to  which  that 
treaty  exposed  them.  They  had  long  felt,  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Romans,  an  insur- 
mountable bar  to  their  progress.  They  had  felt, 
during  above  seventeen  years  from  the  date  of 
their  last  treaty  of  peace,  the  loss  of  their  mari- 
time settlements,  and  the  decline  of  their  navi- 
gation. They  had  felt  the  load  of  a  heavy  con- 
tribution, which,  though  restricted  to  a  particular 
sum,  had  the  form  gf  a  tribute,  in  being  exacted 
by  annual  payments ;  and  they  entertained  sen- 
timents of  animosity  and  aversion  to  the  Romans, 
which  nothing  but  the  memory  of  recent  suffer- 
ings and  the  apprehension  of  danger  could  have 
so  long  suppressed. 

Hamilcar,  together  with  a  considerable  party 
of  the  senate,  were  supposed  to  have  borne  with 
the  late  humiliating  peace  only  that  they  might 
have  leisure  to  provide  for  a  subsequent  war. 
"1  have  four  sons,"  this  famous  warrior  had 
been  heard  to  say,  "whom  I  shall  rear  like  so 
many  lions'  whelps  against  the  Romans."  In 
this  spirit  he  set  armies  on  foot  to  be  trained 
and  accustomed  to  service  in  Spain,  and  had 
already  projected  the  invasion  of  Italy  from 
thence. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  military  services 
which  the  Carthaginians  devisedrthe  execution  of 


5  Polyb.  lib.  ii.  c.  13.  6  At  nine  years  of  age. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


13 


them  was  secured  by  the  coming  of  Hannibal 
to  the  head  of  their  army.  He  was  well  formed 
for  greal  enterprise,  and  professed  an  hereditary 
aversion  to  the  Romans.  In  the  first  and  second 
year  of  his  command  he  continued  the  operations 
which  had  been  begun  by  his  predecessors  in 
Spain ;  but  during  this  time,  although  he  made 
conquests  beyond  the  Iberus,  he  did  not  molest 
the  city  of  Saguntum,  nor  give  any  umbrage  to 
the  Romans.  But,  in  the  third  year  after  his 
appointment,  Ids  progress  alarmed  the  Sagun- 
tines,  and  induced  them  to  send  a  deputation  to 
Rome  to  impart  their  fears. 

At  the  arrival  of  this  deputation  from  Sagun- 
tum, the  Romans  had  fitted  out  an  armament 
under  the  command  of  the  consul  L.  Emilius 
Paulus,  destined  to  make  war  on  Demetrius  the 
prince  of  Pharos,  a  small  island  on  the  coast  of 
iilyricum.  This  armament,  if  directed  to  Spain, 
might  have  secured  the  city  of  Saguntum  against 
the  designs  of  Hannibal ;  but  the  Romans  still 
considered  any  danger  from  that  quarter  as  remote 
and  continued  to  employ  this  force  in  its  first  des- 
tination. They  paid  so  much  regard,  neverthe- 
less, to  the  representations  of  the  Saguntines,  as 
to  send  deputies  into  Spain,  with  orders  to  ob- 
serve the  posture  of  affairs,  and  to  inform  the 
Carthaginian  officer  on  that  station,  of  the  en- 
gagements which  had  been  entered  into  by  his 
predecessor,  and  of  the  concern  which  the  Ro- 
mans must  undoubtedly  take  in  the  safety  of  Sa- 
guntum. The  return  which  they  had  to  this 
message  gave  sufficient  intimation  of  an  ap- 
proaching war;  and  it  appears  that,  before  the 
Roman  commissioners  could  have  made  their  re- 
port, the  siege  of  Saguntum  was  actually  com- 
menced by  Hannibal.  He  had  already  formed 
his  design  for  the  invasion  of  Italy,  and,  that  he 
might  not  leave  to  the  Romans  a  place  of  arms 
and  a  powerful  ally  in  the  country  from  which' 
he  was  about  to  depart,  determined  to  occupy  or 
destroy  that  place.  He  was  impatient  to  reduce 
Saguntum  before  any  succours  could  arrive  from 
Italy,  or  before  any  force  could  be  collected 
against  him,  so  as  to  fix  the  theatre  of  the  war  in 
Spain.  He  pressed  the  siege,  therefore,  with 
great  impetuosity,  exposing  his  person  in  every 
assault,  and  exciting,  by  his  own  example,  with 
the  pickaxe  and  spade,  the  parties  at  work  in 
making  his  approaches.7  Though  abundantly 
cautious  not  to  expose  himself  on  slight  occasions, 
or  from  a  mere  ostentation  of  courage,  yet  in 
this  siege,  which  was  the  foundation  of  his  hopes, 
and  the  necessary  prelude  to  the  farther  progress 
of  his  enterprise,  he  declined  no  fatigues,  and 
shunned  no  danger,  that  led  to  the  attainment  of 
his  end.  He  was  nevertheless,  by  the  valour  of 
the  besieged,  which  they  exerted  in  hopes  of  re  - 
lief  from  Rome,  detained  about  eight  months  be- 
fore this  place,  and  deprived  at  last  of  great  part 
of  its  spoils  by  the  desperate  resolu- 
U.  C.  534.  tion  of  the  citizens,  who  chose  to  pe- 
rish, with  all  their  effects,  rather 
than  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands.  The  booty, 
however,  which  he  saved  from  th?s  wreck,  en- 
abled him,  by  his  liberalities,  to  gaJn  the  affec- 
tion of  his  army,  and  to  provide  for  the  execution 
of  his  design  against  Italy. 

The  siege  of  Saguntum,  being  an  infricHon  of 
the  late  treaty  with  the  Romans,  was  undoubt- 


edly an  act  of  hostility ;  and  this  people  incurred 
a  censure  of  remissness,  uncommon  in  their 
councils,  by  suffering  an  ally,  and  a  place  of 
such  importance,  to  remain  so  long  in  danger, 
and  by  suffering  it  at  last  to  fall  a  prey  to  their 
enemy,  without  making  any  attempt  to  relieve 
it  It  is  probable,  that  the  security  they  began 
to  derive  from  a  frontier,  far  removed  from  the 
seat  of  their  councils,  and  covered  on  every  side 
by  the  sea,  or  by  impervious  mountains,  rendered 
them  more  negligent  than  they  had  formerly  been 
of  much  slighter  alarms.  They  expected  to  go- 
vern by  the  dread  of  their  power,  and  proposed 
to  punish,  by  exemplary  vengeance,  the  insults 
which  they  had  not  taken  care  to  prevent. 

The  attention  of  the  Romans,  during  the  de- 
pendence of  this  event,  had  been  fixed  on  the 
settlements  they  were  making  at  Cremona  and 
Placentia,  to  keep  in  subjection  the  Gauls,  and 
on  the  naval  expedition  which  they  had  sent  un- 
der the  consul  Emilius  to  the  coast  of  Iilyricum. 
This  officer,  about  the  time  that  Hannibal  had 
accomplished  his  design  on  Saguntum,  and  was 
retired  for  the  winter  to  his  usual  quarters  at 
New  Carthage,  had  succeeded  in  his  attack  on 
Demetrius  prince  of  Pharos,  had  driven  him  from 
his  territories,  and  obliged  him  to  seek  for  refuge  at 
the  court  of  Macedonia,  where  his  intrigues  pro- 
ved to  be  of  some  consequence  in  the  sequel  of 
these  transactions. 

The  people  of  Rome  being  amused  with  these 
events,  and  with  a  triumphal  procession,  which, 
as  usual,  announced  their  victory,  proceeded  in 
the  affairs  of  Spain  according  to  the  usual  forms, 
and  agreeably  to  the  laws  which  they  had,  from 
time  immemorial,  prescribed  to  themselves  in  the 
case  of  injuries  received — sent  to  demand  satisfac- 
tion; complained  at  Carthage  of  the  infraction 
of  treaties;  and  required  that  Hannibal  with  his 
army  should  be  delivered  up  to  their  messengers; 
or  if  this  were  refused,  gave  orders  to  denounce 
immediate  war.  The  Roman  commissioner, 
who  spoke  to  this  effect  in  the  senate  of  Carthage, 
having  made  his  demands,  held  up  the  lap{>et  of 
of  his  gown,  and,  said  "Here  are  both  peace  and 
war;  choose  ye."— He  was  answered,  "  We  choose 
that  which  you  like  best." — "Then 
U.  C.  525.  it  is  war,"  he  said;  and  from  this  time 
both  parties  prepared  for  the  contest. 

Hannibal  had  been  long  devising  the  invasion 
of  Italy,  probably  without  communicating  his 
design  even  to  the  councils  of  his  own  country. 
The  war  being  now  declared,  he  made  his  dis- 
positions for  the  safety  of  Africa  and  Spain; 
gave  intimation  to  the  army  under  his  command, 
that  the  Romans  had  required  them  to  be  deliver- 
ed up,  as  a  beast  which  commits  a  trespass  is  de- 
manded in  reparation  for  the  damage  he  lias 
done.8  If  they  felt  a  proper  resentment  of  this 
indignity,  he  warned  them  to  prepare  for  an  ar- 
duous march.  He  was  in  the  eight  and  twen- 
tieth year  of  his  age  when  he  entered  upon  the 
execution  of  this  design ;  an  undertaking  which, 
together  with  the  conduct  of  it  has  raised  his  re- 
putation for  enterprise  and  ability  to  an  equal,  if 
not  to  a  higher  pitch,  than  that  of  any  leader  of 
armies  whatever. 

The  Romans,  a  few  years  before,  had  mus- 
tered near  eight  hundred  thousand  men,  to  whom 


8  Velut  ob  noxam  sibi  dedirunt  tularet  populus  Ro 
manus.  Liv.  lib.  xx\.  c.  30. 


44 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  L 


the  use  of  arms  was  familiar,  to  whom  valour 
was  the  most  admired  of  the  virtues,  and  who 
were  ready  to  assemble  in  any  numbers  propor- 
tioned to  the  service  for  which  they  might  be  re- 
quired: the  march  from  Spain  into  Italy  lay 
across  tremendous  mountains,  and  through  the 
territory  of  fierce  and  barbarous  nations,  who 
might  not  be  inclined  tamely  to  suffer  a  stranger 
to  pass  through  their  country,  or  lose  any  oppor- 
tunity to  enrich  themselves  with  his  spoils. 

From  such  topics  as  these,  historians  have 
magnified  the  courage  of  this  celebrated  warrior 
at  the  expense  of  his  judgment.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  both  were  equally  exerted  in  this 
memorable  service.  In  the  contest  of  nations, 
that  country  which  is  made  the  seat  of  the  war, 
for  the  most  part  labours  under  great  compara- 
tive disadvantage,  is  obliged  to  subsist  the  army 
of  its  enemy  as  well  as  its  own,  is  exposed  to 
devastation,  to  hurry,  confusion,  and  irresolution 
of  councils ;  so  much  that,  in  nations  powerful 
abroad,  invasions  often  betray  great  incapacity 
and  weakness,  or  at  least  fix  the  whole  sufferings 
of  the  war  upon  those  who  are  invaded.  Han- 
nibal, besides  this  general  consideration,  had 
with  great  care  informed  himself  of  the  real  state 
of  Italy,  and  knew,  that  though  the  Roman 
musters  were  formidable,  yet  much  of  their  sup- 
posed strength  consisted  of  discordant  parts;  a 
number  of  separate  cantons  recently  united,  and 
many  of  them  disaffected  to  the  power  by  which 
they  were  cemented  together.  Most  of  the  in- 
habitants of  that  country,  being  the  descendants 
of  different  nations,  and  distinguished  by  various 
languages,  still  retained  much  animosity  to  each 
other,  and  most  of  all  to  their  new  masters. 
Those  who  had  longest  borne  the  appellation  of 
Roman  allies,  even  the  colonies  themselves,  as 
well  as  the  conquered  nations,  had  occasionally 
revolted,  and  were  likely  to  prefer  separate  es- 
tablishments to  their  present  dependance  on  the 
Roman  state.  The  Gauls  and  Ligurians,  even 
the  Etruscans,  had  been  recently  at  war  with 
those  supposed  masters  of  Italy,  and  were  ready 
to  resume  the  sword  in  concert  with  any  success- 
ful invader.  The  Gauls  on  the  Fo  were  already 
in  arms,  had  razed  the  fortifications  which  the 
Romans  had  begun  to  erect  at  Cremona  and 
Placentia,  and  forced  the  settlers  to  take  refuge 
at  Mutina.  Every  step,  therefore,  that  an  in- 
vader should  make  within  this  country,  was 
likely  to  remove  a  support  from  the  Romans,  and 
to  add  a  new  one  to  himself.  The  Roman 
power,  composed  of  parts  so  ill  cemented,  was 
likely  to  dissolve  on  the  slightest  touch.  Though 
great  when  employed  at  a  distance,  and  wielded 
by  a  single  hand,  yet  broken  and  disjointed  by 
the  presence  of  an  enemy,  it  was  likely  to  lose 
its  strength ;  or,  by  the  revolt  of  one  or  more  of 
its  districts,  might  furnish  a  force  that  could  be 
successfully  employed  against  itself.  A  few 
striking  examples  of  success,  therefore,  for  which 
he  trusted  to  his  own  conduct,  and  to  the  supe- 
riority of  veterans  hardened  in  the  service  of 
many  3^ears,  were  likely  to  let  loose  the  discon- 
tents which  subsisted  in  Italy,  and  to  shake  the 
fidelity  of  those  allies  who  composed  so  great  a 
part  of  the  Roman  strength.  Even  with  a  less 
favourable  prospect  of  success,  the  risk  was  but 
small,  compared  to  the  chance  of  gain.  A  single 
army  was  to  be  staked  against  a  mighty  state; 
3nd  a  few  men,  that  could  be  easily  replaced, 


were  to  be  sacrificed  in  an  enterprise  which,  it 
successful,  was  to  make  Carthage  the  mistress  of 
the  world ;  or  even  if  it  should  miscarry,  migh' 
inflict  on  her  enemy  a  deeper  wound  than  she 
herself  was  likely  to  suffer  from  the  loss. 

Hannibal  collected  together  for  this  expedition 
ninety  thousand  foot  and  twelve  thousand  horse. 
In  his  march  to  the  Iberus,  he  met  with  no  in- 
terruption. From  thence  to  the  Pyrenees,  being- 
opposed  by  the  natives,  he  forced  his  way  through 
their  country;  but  apprehending  some  incon- 
venience from  such  an  enemy  left  in  his  rear,  he 
stationed  his  brother  Hanno,  with  ten  thousand 
foot  and  one  thousand  horse,  to  observe  their 
motions,  and  to  keep  them  in  awe.  After  he 
had  begun  to  ascend  the  Pyrenees,  a  considerable 
body  of  his  Spanish  allies  deserted  him  in  the 
night,  and  fell  back  to  their  own  country.  This 
example  he  had  reason  to  believe,  would  prove 
contagious;  and  as  the  likeliest  way  to  prevent 
its  effects,  he  gave  out,  that  the  party  which  had 
left  him  being  no  longer  wanted  for  the  purposes 
they  served  on  the  march,  were  returned  by  his 
orders  to  their  own  country;  that  he  meant  to 
spare  a  few  more  of  the  troops  of  the  same  nation, 
as  being  unnecessary  in  the  remaining  parts  of 
the  service ;  and  actually  dismissed  a  considerable 
body  to  Confirm  this  opinion.  By  these  separa- 
tions, or  by  the  swords  of  the  enemy,  his  numbers, 
in  descending  the  mountains,  were  reduced  fron 
ninety  to  fifty  thousand  foot  and  nine  thousand 
horse,  with  seven  and  thirty  elephants.1 

This  celebrated  march  took  place 
U.  C.  534.  in  the  year  of  Rome  five  hundred 
and  thirty-four,  and  in  the  consulate 
of  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio  and  Tiberius  Sem- 
pronius  Longus.  The  Romans,  as  usual  on 
such  occasions,  raised  two  consular  armies,  and 
proposed,  by  immediate  armaments  directed  to 
Spain  and  to  Africa,  to  fix  the  scene  of  the  war 
in  the  enemy's  country. 

Sempronius  assembled  an  army  and  a  fleet  in 
the  ports  of  Sicily,  and  had  orders  to  pass  into 
Africa.  Scipio  embarked  with  some  legions  for 
Spain,  and,  touching  on  the  coast  of  Gaul,  first 
learned,  that  a  Carthaginian  army  was  marching 
by  land  into  Italy.  This  intelligence  determined 
him  to  land  his  troops  at  Marseilles,  and  to  send 
out  a  detachment  of  horse  to  observe  the  country, 
and  to  procure  farther  and  more  particular  infor- 
mation of  the  enemy. 

Hannibal  had  arrived  on  the  Rhone  at  some 
distance  above  its  separation  into  two  channels, 
and  about  four  days'  march  from  the  sea.  In 
order  to  effect  the  passage  of  the  river,  he  in- 
stantly collected  all  the  boats  that  could  be  found 
on  its  extensive  navigation.  At  the  same  time, 
the  natives,  being  unacquainted  with  strangers 
in  any  other  capacity  than  that  of  enemies,  as- 
sembled in  great  numbers  to  dispute  his  farther 
progress  in  their  country. 

Finding  so  powerful  a  resistance  in  front,  he 
delayed  the  embarkation  of  his  army  on  the 
Rhone,  and  sent  a  detachment  up  the  banks  of 
the  river  to  pass  it  at  a  different  place,  and  to 
make  a  diversion  on  the  flank  or  the  rear  of  the 
enemy  who  opposed  him. 

The  division  employed  on  this  service,  after  a 
march  of  twenty-five  miles,  found  the  Rhone  se- 
parated into  branches  by  small  islands,  and  at  a 


1  Polyb.  lib.  Hi.  c.  3.1—42. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


4b 


convenient  place  got  over  on  rafts  to  the  oppo- 
site shore ;  and  being  thus  in  the  rear,  or  on  the 
right  of  the  Gaulish  army,  hastened  towards  them 
in  order  to  give  an  alarm  on  that  quarter,  while 
Hannibal  should  pass  the  river  in  their  front. 

On  the  fifth  day  after  the  departure  of  this  par- 
ty, Hannibalj  having  intelligence  that  they  had 
succeeded  in  passing  the  Rhone,  made  his  dispo- 
sition to  profit  by  the  diversion  they  were  ordered 
to  make  in  his  favour.  The  larger  vessels, 
which  were  destined  to  transport  the  cavalry, 
were  ranged  towards  the  stream,  to  break  the 
force  of  the  current ;  and  many  of  the  horses  were 
fastened  to  the  stern  of  the  boats.  The  smaller 
canoes  were  ranged  below,  and  were  to  carry 
over  a  body  of  foot. 

The  Gauls,  seeing  these  preparations,  left 
their  camp,  and  advanced  to  meet  the  enemy. 
They  were  drawn  up  on  the  banks  of  the  river, 
when  the  Carthaginian  detachment  arrived  on 
their  rear,  and  lighted  fires  as  a  signal  of  their 
approach  Hannibal  observing  the  smoke,  not- 
withstanding the  posture  which  the  enemy  had 
taken  to  resist  his  landing,  instantly  put  off  from 
the  shore :  both  armies  shouted ;  but  the  Gauls 
being  thrown  into  great  consternation  by  the  re- 
port and  effects  of  an  attack  which  they  little  ex- 
pected on  their  rear,  without  resistance  gave  way 
to  the  Carthaginians  in  front,  and  were  speedily 
routed.  Hannibal,  having  thus  lodged  himself 
on  the  eastern  banks  of  the  Rhone,  in  a  few  days, 
without  any  farther  interruption  or  loss,  passed 
that  river  with  his  elephants,  baggage,  and  the 
remainder  of  his  army. 

Soon  after  the.  Carthaginian  general  had  sur- 
mounted this  difficulty,  intelligence  came  that  a 
Roman  army  had  arrived  on  the  coast,  and  was 
disembarked  at  Marseilles.  To  gain  further  and 
more  certain  information  of  this  enemy,  he,  nearly 
about  the  same  time  that  Scipio  had  sent  a  de- 
tachment on  the  same  design,  directed  a  party  of 
horse  to  examine  the  country.  These  parties 
met ;  and,  after  a  smart  engagement,  returned  to 
their  several  armies  with  certain  accounts  of  an 
enemy  being  near. 

Scipio  advanced  with  the  utmost  despatch  to 
fix  the  scene  of  the  war  in  Gaul;  and  I  lannibal 
hastened  his  departure,  being  equally  intent  on 
removing  it,  if  possible,  into  Italy.  The  last,  in 
order  to  keep  clear  of  the  enemy,  directed  his 
march  at  a  distance  from  the  sea  coast,  and  took 
his  route  by  the  banks  of  the  Rhone.  After  four 
days  march  from  the  place  where  he  had  passed 
this  river,  he  came  to  its  confluence  with  another 
river,  which  was  probably  the  Isere,  though  by 
Polybius  himself,  who  visited  the  tract  of  this 
march,  the  place  seems  to  be  mistaken  for  the 
confluence  of  the  Rhone  and  Saone.2  Here  he 
found  two  brothers  contending  for  the  throne  of 
their  father,  and  gained  a  useful  ally  by  espousing 
the  cause  of  the  elder.  Being,  in  return  for  this 
service,  supplied  with  arms,  shoes,  and  other  ne- 
cessaries, and  attended  by  the.  prince  himself, 


2  In  the  manuscripts  of*  Polybius,  the  river  Which  falls 
into  the  Rhone  at  tins  place  was  called  by  a  name  unknown 
in  that  country.  The  first  editors,  to  correct  the  mistake, 
changed  this  unknown  name  for  that  of  the  Arar.  But  it 
is  extremely  probable,  that  they  ought  to  have  made  it  the 
lsara,  as  the  continence  of  the  Isere  and  the  Rhone  cor- 
responds much  better  with  the  distances  and  marches  men- 
tioned by  Polybius.  Four  marches,  for  instance,  from  the 
place  ;H  which  Hannibal  had  passed  tiie  Rhone,  and  four 
more  from  thence  to  the  sea. 


who  with  a  numerous  body  covered  his  rear,  he 
continued  his  march  during  ten  days,  probably  on 
the  Isere ;  and,  about  a  hundred  miles  above  the 
place  where  he  had  passed  the  Rhone,  began  to 
make  his  way  over  the  summit  of  the  Alps ;  a 
labour  in  which  he  was  employed  with  his  army 
during  fifteen  days.3 

The  natives,  either  fearing  him  as  an  enemy, 
or  proposing  to  plunder  his  baggage,  had  occupied 
every  post  at  which  they  could  obstruct  his  march ; 
assailed  him  from  the  heights,  endeavoured  to 
overwhelm  his  army  in  the  gorges  of  the  moun- 
tains, or  force  them  over  precipices,  which  fre- 
quently sunk  perpendicular  under  the  narrow 
paths  by  which  they  were  to  pass. 

Near  to  the  summits  of  the  ridge,  at  which  he 
arrived  by  a  continual  ascent  of  many  days,  he 
had  his  way  to  form  on  the  sides  of  frozen  moun- 
tains, and  through  masses  of  perennial  ice,  which, 
at  the  approach  of  winter,  were  now  covered  with 
recent  snow.  Many  of  his  men  and  horses, 
coming  from  a  warm  climate,  perished  by  the 
cold;  and  his  army  having  struggled,  during  so 
long  a  time,  with  extremes  to  which  it  was  little 
accustomed,  was  reduced  from  fifty  thousand  foot 
and  nine  thousand  horse,  the  numbers  which  re- 
mained to  him  in  descending  the  Pyrenees,  to 
twenty  thousand  foot  and  six  thousand  cavalry,  a 
force,  in  all  appearance,  extremely  disproportioned 
to  the  service  for  which  they  were  destined.4 

The  Roman  consul,  in  the  mean  time,  had, 


3  This  famous  route  lias  been  a  subject  of  different 
opinions,  and  of  some  controversy.  In  a  country  that  is 
ruised  into  vast  mountains,  round  which  the  way  must  be 
found  by  narrow  valleys,  and  the  channels  of  rivers,  it  is 
impossible  to  decide  any  question  of  this  sort  from  the 
map.  Polybius  visited  the  ground,  in  order  to  satisfy  him- 
self on  the  tract  of  this  famous  route;  and,  from  this  cir- 
cumstance, as  well  as  from  his  general  knowledge  of  war, 
is  undoubtedly  the  best  authority  to  whom  we  can  have 
recourse  in  this  question.  By  his  account,  Hannibal,  after 
four  marches  from  the  place  at  which  he  had  passed  the 
Rhone,  came  to  the  confluence  of  this  with  another  river, 
which  is  evidently  the  Isere.  From  thence,  having  con- 
tinued his  route  ten  days  on  the  river,  and  marched  about 
a  hundred  miles,  he  began  to  ascend  the  summit,  and  was 
employed  in  that  difficult  work  fifteen  days.  This  account 
may  incline  us  to  believe,  that  Hannibal  followed  the 
course  of  the  Isere  from  its  confluence  with  the  Rhone  to 
about  Conflans;  that,  having  surmounted  the  summit,  he 
descended  into  Italy  by  the  channel  of  another  river,  or  thu 
Vale  of  Aoste.  Such  are  the  passages  by  which  ridges  ol 
mountains,  in  every  instance,  arc  to  be  traversed.  It  is 
indeed  asserted,  or  implied  in  the  text  of  Polybius,  that 
Hannibal  marched  ten  days  on  the  Rhone  after  its  conflu- 
ence with  the  Arar  or  lsara;  but  it  is  probable,  that,  in 
visiting  a  barbarous  country,  in  which  the  Romans  had 
yet  no  possessions,  and  with  the  language  of  which  he  was 
unacquainted,  he  may  have  mistaken  the  Isere  for  the 
Khone,  and  consequently  the  Rhone  for  the  Arar  or  Saone 
The  Rhone  and  Isere  take  their  rise  from  the  same  ridge, 
and  run  nearly  in  the  same  directions.  In  this  account  of 
the  course  of  the  supposed  Rhone  which  he  visited,  he 
mentions  nothing  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  which  is  scarce 
ly  possible,  if  he  had  seen  it.   Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  47. 

According  to  this  conjecture,  Hannibal  having  marched 
by  the  vale  of  Isere,  Grenoble,  Chaniberry,  and  Mountme 
lian  and  descended  by  the  vale  of  Aoste,  nuisthave  passed 
the  summit  at  or  near  the  lesser  abbey  of  St.  Bernard. 

As  mountains  are  penetrated  by  the  channels  of  rivers, 
it  is  probable  that  Hannibal,  if  he  were  himself  to  explore 
his  passage,  would  try  the  course  of  the  first  considerable 
river  he  found  on  his  right  descending  from  the  Alps, 
which  was  the  Isere;  but  if,  as  is  extremely  probable,  he 
had  well-instructed  guides,  it  is  not  likely  that  they  woeld 
lead  him  so  long  a  circuit  as  he  must  have  made  by  thn 
course  and  sources  of  the  Rhone,  when,  in  fact,  he  had 
one  equally  practicable,  and  much  nearer,  by  the  Isere 
on  one  side  of  the  Alps,  and  the  Horea  Baltea  on  the  other 

4  Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  55.    Liv.  lib.  xxi. 


4G 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  L 


in  search  of  his  enemy,  directed  his  march  to  the 
Rhone;  and  in  three  days  after  the  departure  of 
Hannibal,  had  arrived  at  the  place  where  he  had 
passed  that  river ,  but  was  satisfied  that  any  fur- 
ther attempts  to  pursue  him  in  this  direction, 
would  only  carry  himself  away  from  what  was  to 
be  the  scene  of  the  war,  and  from  the  ground  he 
must  occupy  for  the  defence  of  Italy;  he  returned 
therefore  without  loss  oi  time  to  his  ships;  sent 
his  brother,  Cneius  Scipio,  with  the  greater  part 
of  the  army,  to  pursue  the  objects  of  the  war  in 
Spain;  and  he  himself  with  the  remainder,  set 
sail  for  Pisa,  where  he  landed  and  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  legions  which  he  found  in  that 
quarter;  and  which  had  been  appointed  to  restore 
the  settlements  of  Cremona  and  Placenti.  With 
these  forces  he  passed  the  Po,  and  was  arrived 
on  the  Tecinus,  when  Hannibal  came  down 
into  the  plain  country  at  some  distance  below 
Turin.  _      _  j 

The  Carthaginian  general,  at  his  arrival  in 
those  parts,  had  moved  to  his  right;  and,  to  gra- 
tify his  new  allies  the  Insubres,  inhabiting  what 
is  now  the  dutchy  of  Milan,  who  were  then  at 
war  with  the  Taurini  or  Piedmontese,  he  laid 
siege  to  the  capital  of  that  country,  and  in  three 
days  reduced  it  by  force.  From  thence  he  con- 
tinued his  march  on  the  left  of  the  Po;  and,  as 
the  armies  advanced,  both  generals,  as  if  by  con- 
cert, approached  with  their  cavalry,  or  light  troops, 
mutually  to  observe  each  other.  They  met  on 
the  Tecinus,  with  some  degree  of  surprise  on  both 
sides,  and  were  necessarily  engaged  in  a  conflict, 
which  served  as  a  trial  of  their  respective  forces, 
and  in  which  the  Italian  cavalry  were  defeated 
by  the  Spanish  and  African  horse.  The  Roman 
consul  was  wounded,  and  with  much  difficulty 
rescued  from  the  enemy  by  his  son  Publius  Cor- 
nelius, afterwards  so  conspicuous  in  the  history 
of  this  war,  but  then  only  a  youth  of  seventeen 
years  of  age,  entering  on  his  military  service.1 

The  Roman  detachment,  it  seems,  had  an 
easy  retreat  from  the  place  of  this  encounter  to 
that  of  their  main  army,  and  were  not  pursued. 
Scipio,  disabled  by  his  wound,  and  probably  from 
the  check  he  had  received  sensible  of  the  enemy's 
superiority  in  the  quality  of  their  horse,  deter- 
mined to  retire  from  the  plains;  repassed  the  Po, 
marched  up  the  Trebia,  and  to  stop  the  progress 
of  the  Carthaginians,  while  he  waited  for  in- 
structions or  reinforcements  from  Rome,  took 
post  on  the  banks  of  that  river.  While  he  lay  in 
this  position,  an  alarming  effect  of  his  defeat,  and 
of  the  disaffection  of  some  Gauls  who  professed 
to  be  his  allies,  appeared  in  the  desertion  of  two 
thousand  horsemen  of  that  nation,  who  went  over 
to  the  enemy. 

The  Roman  senate  received  these  accounts 
with  surprise,  and  with  some  degree  of  conster- 
nation. An  enemy  was  arrived  in  Italy,  and 
had  obliged  the  consul,  with  his  legions,  to  re- 
tire. The  forces  which  they  had  lately  muster- 
ed were  numerous,  but  consisted  in  part  of  doubt- 
ful friends  or  of  declared  enemies.  They  supposed 
all  their  late  vanquished  subjects  on  the  Po  to  be 
already  in  rebellion,  or  to  be  mustered  against 
them  in  the  Carthaginian  camp.  And,  notwith- 
standing the  numerous  levies  that  could  have 
been  made  in  the  city,  and  in  the  contiguous  colo- 


1  Polyb.  lib.  x.  c.  3. 


nies;  notwithstanding  the  expediency  of  carry 
ing  the  war  into  Africa,  as  the  surest  way  of 
forcing  the  Carthaginians  to  withdraw  their  for- 
ces from  Italy  for  the  defence  of  their  own  country, 
they,  with  a  degree  of  pusillanimity  uncommon 
in  their  councils,  ordered  the  other  consul,  Sem- 
pronius  Longus,  to  desist  from  his  design  upon 
Africa;  they  recalled  him  with  his  army  from 
Sicily,  and  directed  him,  without  delay,  to  join 
his  colleague  on  the  Trebia,  and  if  possible,  to 
stop  the  progress  of  this  daring  and  impetuous 
enemy. 

The  consul  Sempronius,  therefore,  after  he  had 
met  and  defeated  a  Carthaginian  fleet  on  the  coast 
of  Sicily,  and  was  preparing  for  a  descent  on  Af- 
rica, suddenly  changed  his  course,  and  having 
turned  the  eastern  promontories  of  Sicily  and 
Italy,  steered  for  Ariminum,  where  he  landed; 
and,  having  performed  this  voyage  and  march  in 
forty  days,  joined  his  colleague,  where  he  lay 
opposed  to  Hannibal  on  the  Trebia. 

By  the  arrival  of  a  second  Roman  consul,  the 
balance  of  forces  was  again  restored,  and  the  na- 
tives still  remained  in  suspense  between  the  two 
parties  at  war.  Instead  of  a  deliverance  from 
servitude,  which  many  of  them  expected  to  ob- 
tain from  the  arrival  of  foreigners  to  balance  the 
force  of  the  Romans,  they  began  to  apprehend, 
as  usual  in  such  cases,  a  confirmation  of  their 
bonds,  or  a  mere  change  of  their  masters.  When 
the  contest  should  be  ended,  they  wished  to  have 
the  favour  of  the  victor,  and  not  to  share  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  vanquished.  They  had,  there- 
fore, waited  to  see  how  the  scales  were  likely  to 
incline,  and  had  not  repaired  to  the  standard  of 
Hannibal  in  the  manner,  it  is  probable,  he  ex- 
pected ;  and  this,  with  every  other  circumstance 
of  the  war,  forced  him  to  rapid  and  hazardous 
counsels.  Being  too  far  from  his  resources  to 
continue  a  dilatory  war,  he  hastened  to  secure 
the  necessary  possessions  on  the  Po;  and  by  the 
reputation  of  victory,  to  determine  the  waver- 
ing inhabitants  to  declare  on  his  side.  For 
these  reasons  he  ever  pressed  on  the  enemy,  and 
sought  for  occasions  to  draw  them  into  action. 
He  had  been,  ever  since  the  encounter  on  the 
Tecinus,  cautiously  avoided  by  Scipio;  who, 
even  after  he  was  reinforced  by  the  other  con- 
sular army,  endeavoured  to  engage  his  colleague 
likewise  in  the  same  dilatory  measures;  but 
Sempronius,  imputing  this  caution  to  the  im- 
pression which  Scipio  had  taken  from  his  late 
defeat,  and  being  confident  of  his  own  strength, 
discovered  to  the  Carthaginian  general  an  incli- 
nation to  meet  him,  and  to  decide  the  campaign 
by  a  general  action.  Sempronius  was  farther 
encouraged  in  this  intention  by  his  success  in 
some  encounters  of  foraging  parties,  which  hap- 
pened soon  after  he  had  arrived  on  this  ground ; 
and  Hannibal,  seeing  this  disposition  of  his 
enemy,  took  measures  to  bring  on  the  engagement 
in  circumstances  the  most  favourable  to  himself. 

He  had  a  plain  in  his  front,  through  which 
the  Trebia  ran,  and  parted  the  two  armies.  He 
wished  to  bring  the  Romans  to  his  own  side  of 
the  river,  and  to  fight  on  the  ground  where  his 
army  was  accustomed  to  form.  Here,  besides 
the  other  advantages  which  he  proposed  to  take, 
he  had  an  opportunity  to  place  an  ambuscade, 
from  which  he  could  attack  the  enemy  on  the 
flank  or  the  rear,  while  they  should  be  engaged 
in  front.    It  was  the  middle  of  winter,  and  there 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


4? 


were  frequent  showers  of  snow.  The  enemy's 
infantry,  if  they  should  ford  the  river,  and  after- 
wards remain  any  time  inactive,  were  likely  to 
suffer  considerably  from  the  effects  of  wet  and 
cold.  Hannibal,  to  lay  them  under  this  disadvan- 
tage, sent  his  cavalry  across  the  fords,  with  orders 
to  parade  on  the  ground  before  the  enemy's  lines; 
and,  if  attacked,  to  repass  the  river  with  every  ap- 
pearance of  flight.  He  had,  in  the  mean  time, 
concealed  a  thousand  chosen  men  under  the 
shrubby  banks  of  a  brook,  which  fell  into  the 
Trebia  beyond  the  intended  field  of  battle.  He 
had  ordered  his  army  to  be  in  readiness,  and  to 
prepare  themselves  with  a  hearty  meal  for  the 
fatigues  they  were  likely  to  undergo. 

When  the  Carthaginian  cavalry,  passing  the 
river  as  they  had  been  ordered,  presented  them- 
selves to  the  Romans,  it  was  but  break  of  day, 
and  before  the  usual  hour  of  the  first  meal  in  the 
Roman  camp.  The  legions  were,  nevertheless, 
hastily  formed,  and  pursued  the  enemy  to  where 
they  were  seen  in  disorder  to  pass  the  river ;  and 
there,  by  the  directions  of  their  general,  who 
supposed  he  had  gained  an  advantage,  and  with 
the  ardour  which  is  usual  in  the  pursuit  of  vic- 
tory, they  passed  the  fords,  and  made  a  display 
of  their  forces  on  the  opposite  bank.  Hannibal, 
expecting  this  event,  had  already  formed  his 
troops  on  the  plain,  and  made  a  show  of  only 
covering  the  retreat  of  his  cavalry,  while  he  knew 
that  a  general  action  could  no  longer  be  avoided. 
After  it  began  in  front,  the  Romans  were  attacked 
in  the  rear  by  the  party  which  had  been  posted  in 
ambush  for  this  purpose ;  and  this  being  added  to 
the  other  disadvantages  under  which  they  en- 
gaged, they  were  defeated  with  great  slaughter. 

The  legions  of  the  centre,  to  the  amount  of 
ten  thousand  men,  cut  their  way  through  the 
enemy's  line,  and  escaped  to  Placcntia.  Of  the 
remainder  of  the  army,  the  greater  part  either  fell 
in  the  field,  perished  in  attempting  to  repass  the 
river,  or  were  taken  by  the  enemy.  In  this  action, 
although  few  of  the  Africans  fell  by  the  sword, 
they  suffered  considerably  by  the  cold  and  asper- 
ity of  the  season,  to  which  they  were  not  accus- 
tomed ;  and  of  the  elephants,  of  which  Hannibal 
had  brought  a  considerable  number  into  this 
country,  only  one  survived  the  distress  of  this 

In  consequence  of  this  victory,  Hannibal 
secured  his  quarters  on  the  Po;  and  by  the 
treachery  of  a  native  of  Brundusium,  who  com- 
manded at  Clastidium,  got  possession  of  that 
place,  after  the  Romans  had  fortified  and  fur- 
nished it  with  considerable  magazines  for  the 
supply  of  their  own  army.  In  his  treatment  of 
the  prisoners  taken  at  this  place,  he  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  citizens  of  Rome  and  their 
allies :  the  first  he  used  with  severity,  the  others 
he  dismissed  to  their  several  countries,  with  as- 
surances that  he  was  come  to  make  war  on  the 
Romans,  and  not  on  the  injured  inhabitants  of 
Italy. 

The  Roman  consul,  Scmpronius,  was  among 
those  who  escaped  to  Placentia.  He  meant,  in 
his  despatches  to  the  senate,  to  have  disguised  the 
amount  of  his  loss ;  but  the  difficulty  with  which 
his  messenger  arrived  through  a  country  over-run 
by  the  enemy,  with  many  other  consequences  of 
his  defeat,  soon  published  at  Rome  the  extent  of 


that  calamity.  The  people,  however,  rose  in  their 
ardour  and  animosity,  instead  of  being  sunk.  As 
awakened  from  a  dream  of  pusillanimity,  in 
which  they  had  hitherto  seemed  to  confine  their 
views  to  the  defence  of  Italy,  they  not  only  com 
manded  fresh  levies  to  replace  the  army  they  had 
lost  on  the  Trebia,  but  they  ordered  the  consul 
Scipio  to  his  first  destination  in  Spain,  and  sent 
forces  to  Sardinia,  Sicily,  Tarentum,  and  every 
other  station  where  they  apprehended  any  defec- 
tion of  their  allies,  or  any  impression  to  be  made 
by  the  enemy.3 

The  unfortunate  Sempronius,  being  called  to 
the  city  to  hold  the  election  of  magistrates, 
escaped,  or  forced  his  way  through  the  quarters 
of  the  enemy.  He  was  succeeded  by  Caius 
Flaminius  and  Cn.  Servilius;  the  first,  being 
of  obscure  extraction,  was  chosen  in  opposition 
to  the  nobles,  to  whom  the  people  imputed  the 
disasters  of  the  present  war.  He  was  ordered 
early  in  the  spring  to  take  post  at  Arretium,  that 
he  might  guard  the  passes  of  the  Appenines  and 
cover  Etruria,  while  the  other  consul  was  sta- 
tioned at  Ariminum  to  stop  the  progress  of  the 
enemy,  if  he  attempted  to  pass  by  the  eastern  coast. 

Hannibal,  after  his  first  winter  in  Italy,  took 
the  field  for  an  early  campaign;  and  being  in- 
clined to  counsels  the  most  likely  to  surprise  his 
enemies,  took  his  way  to  Etruria,  by  a  passage  in 
which  the  vales  of  the  Appenines  were  marshy, 
and,  from  the  effects  of  the  season,  still  covered 
with  water.  In  a  struggle  of  many  days  with  the 
hardships  of  this  dangerous  inarch,  he  lost  many 
of  his  horses  and  much  of  his  baggage;  and 
himself,  being  seized  with  an  inflammation  in  one 
of  his  eyes,  lost  the  use  of  it.  Having  appeared, 
however,  in  a  quarter  where  he  was  not  expected, 
he  availed  himself  of  this  degree  of  surprise  with 
all  his  former  activity  and  vigour. 

The  character  of  Flaminius,  who  was  raised  by 
the  favour  of  the  people  in  opposition  to  the 
senate,  and  who  was  now  disposed  to  gratify  his 
constituents  by  some  action  of  splendour  and 
success,  encouraged  Hannibal  to  hope  that  he 
might  derive  some  advantage  from  the  ignorance 
and  presumption  of  his  enemy.  He  therefore  en- 
deavoured to  provoke  the  new  consul,  by  dot  r<  13 
ing  the  country  in  his  presence,  and  to  brave  his 
resentment,  by  seeming,  on  many  occasions,  to 
expose Jiimself  to  his  attacks.  He  even  ventured 
to  penetrate  into  the  country  beyond  him  with  an 
appearance  of  contempt.  In  one  of  these  move- 
ments he  marched  by  the  banks  of  the  Lake 
Thrasimenus,  over  which  the  mountains  rose 
with  a  sudden  and  steep  ascent.  He  trusted  that 
the  Roman  consul  would  follow  him,  and  occu- 
pied a  post  from  which  with  advantage  to  attack 
him,  if  he  should  venture  to  engage  amidst  the 
difficulties  of  this  narrow  way.  On  the  day  in 
which  his  design  was  ripe  for  execution,  he  was 
favoured  in  concealing  his  position  on  the  ascent 
of  the  mountains  by  a  fog  which  covered  the 
brows  of  the  hills ;  and  he  succeeded  in  drawing 
the  Roman  consul  into  a  snare,  in  which  he 
perished,  with  the  greater  part  of  his  army. 

The  loss  of  the  Romans  in  this  action  amount- 
ed to  fifteen  thousand  men  who  fell  by  the  sword, 
or  who  were  forced  into  the  lake  and  drowned. 
Of  those  who  escaped  by  different  ways,  some 
continued  their  flight  for  fourscore  miles,  the  dis- 


2  Polyb.  lib.  hi.  c.  74. 


3  Polyb.  lib.  lii.  c.  "5. 


48 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


tance  of  this  field  of  battle  from  Rome,  and  ar- 
rived in  the  city  with  the  news  of  this  disastrous 
event.  On  the  first  reports  great  multitudes  as- 
sembled at  the  place  from  which  the  people  were 
accustomed  to  receive  a  communication  of  public 
despatches  from  the  officers  of  state ;  and  the 
prsetor,  who  then  commanded  in  the  city,  being  to 
inform  them  of  what  had  passed,  began  his  ac- 
count of  the  action  with  these  words  :  "  We  are 
vanquished  in  a  great  battle;  the  consul,  with 
great  part  of  his  army,  is  slain."  He  was  about 
to  proceed,  but  could  not  be  heard  for  the  conster- 
nation, and  the  cries  which  arose  among  the  peo- 
ple :  insomuch,  that  persons  who  had  been  present 
in  the  action  confessed,  they  heard  these  words 
with  a  deeper  impression,  than  any  they  had  re- 
ceived amidst  the  bloodshed  and  horrors  of  the 
field ;  and  that  it  was  then  only  they  became  sen- 
sible of  the  whole  extent  of  their  loss. 

To  increase  the  general  affliction,  farther  ac- 
counts were  brought,  at  the  same  time,  that  four 
thousand  horse,  which  had  been  sent,  upon  hear- 
ing that  Hannibal  had  passed  the  Appenines,  by 
the  consul  Servilius,  to  support  his  colleage,  were 
intercepted  by  the  enemy  and  taken.  The  senate 
continued  their  meetings  for  many  days  without 
interruption ;  and  the  people,  greatly  affected  with 
the  weight  of  their  mortifications  and  disappoint- 
ments, committed  themselves  with  proper  docility 
to  the  conduct  of  this  respectable  body.  In  con- 
sidering the  cause  of  their  repeated  defeats,  it  is 
probable  that  they  imputed  them  more  to  the  dif- 
ference of  personal  qualities  in  the  leaders,  than 
to  any  difference  in  the  arms,  discipline,  or  cour- 
age of  the  troops.  In  respect  to  the  choice  of 
weapons,  Hannibal  was  so  much  convinced  of 
the  superiority  of  the  Romans,  that  he  availed 
himself  of  his  booty  on  the  Trebia  and  the  Lake 
Thrasimenus,  to  arm  his  African  veterans  in 
their  manner.1  In  respect  to  discipline  and  cour- 
age, although  mere  detachments  of  the  Roman 
people  were  likely,  in  their  first  campaigns,  to 
have  been  inferior  to  veterans,  hardened  in  the 
service  of  many  years  under  Hamilcar,  Hasdru- 
bal  and  Hannibal  himself,  yet  nothing  is  im- 
puted by  any  historian  to  this  point  of  disparity. 
They  are  not  said  to  have  been  backward  in  any 
attack,  to  have  failed  their  general  in  the  execu- 
tion of  any  plan,  to  have  disobeyed  his  orders,  to 
have  been  seized  with  any  panic,  or,  in  any  in- 
stance, to  have  given  way  to  the  enemy  until, 
being  caught  in  some  snare  by  the  superiority  of 
the  general,  they  fought  with  disadvantage,  and 
perished  in  great  numbers  on  the  field. 

The  result  of  the  senate's  deliberations  was  to 
name  a  dictator.  This  measure,  except  to  dis- 
pense with  some  form  tha  t  hampered  the  ordinary 
magistrate,  had  not  been  adopted  during  an  inter- 
val of  five  and  thirty  years.  The  choice  fell  upon 
Ctuintus  Fabius  Maximus,  who  seemed  to  pos- 
sess the.  vigilance,  caution,  and  vigour  which 
were  wanted  in  this  arduous  state  of  affairs.  In 
proceeding  to  name  him,  the  usual  form  which, 
perhaps,  in  matters  of  state,  as  well  as  in  matters 
of  religion,  should  be  supposed  indispensable, 
could  not  be  observed.  Of  the  consuls,  of  whom 
one  or  the  other,  according  to  ancient  practice, 
ought  to  name  the  dictator,  one  was  dead ;  the 
other,  being  at  a  distance,  was  prevented  by  the 
enemy  from  any  communication  with  the  city. 


The  senate,  therefore,  to  elude  the  supposed  ne- 
cessity of  his  presence,  resolved  that  not  a  dicta- 
tor, but  a  pro-dictator,  should  be  named;  and 
that  the  people  should  themselves  choose  this 
officer,  with  all  the  powers  that  were  usually  en- 
trusted to  the  dictator  himself.  Fabius  was  ac- 
cordingly elected  pro-dictator,  and  in  this  capacity 
named  M.  Minutius  Rufus  for  his  second  in 
command,  or  general  of  the  horse. 

While  the  Romans  were  thus  preparing  again 
to  collect  their  forces,  Hannibal  continued  to  pur- 
sue his  advantage.  He  might,  with  an  enemy 
more  easily  subdued  or  daunted  than  the  Ro- 
mans, already  have  expected  great  fruit  from  his 
victories,  at  least  he  might  have  expected  offers 
of  concession  and  overtures  of  peace:  but  it  is 
probable  that  he  knew  the  character  of  this  peo- 
ple enough,  not  to  flatter  himself  so  early  in  the 
war  with  these  expectations,  or  to  hope  that  he 
could  make  any  impression  by  a  nearer  approach 
to  the  city,  or  by  any  attempt  on  its  walls.  He 
had  already,  by  his  presence,  enabled  the  nations 
of  the  northern  and  western  parts  of  Italy  to 
shake  off  the  dominion  of  Rome.  He  had  the 
same  measures  to  pursue  with  respect  to  the  na- 
tions of  the  south.  The  capital,  he  probably 
supposed,  might  be  deprived  of  the  support  of  its 
allies,  cut  off  from  its  resources,  and  even  de- 
stroyed ;  but  while  the  state  existed  could  never 
be  brought  to  yield  to  an  enemy. 

Under  these  impressions  the  Carthaginian 
general,  leaving  Rome  at  a  great  distance  on  his 
right,  repassed  the  Appenines  to  the  coast  of 
Picenum,  and  from  thence  directed  his  march  to 
Apulia.  Here  he  proceeded,  as  he  had  done  on 
the  side  of  Etruria  and  Gaul,  to  lay  waste  the 
Roman  settlements,  and  to  detach  the  natives 
from  their  allegiance  to  Rome.  But  while  he 
pursued  this  plan  in  one  extremity  of  Italy,  the 
Romans  took  measures  to  recover  the  possessions 
they  had  lost  on  the  other,  or  at  least  to  prevent 
the  disaffected  Gauls  from  making  any  consider- 
able diversion  in  favour  of  their  enemy. 

For  this  purpose,  while  Fabius  Maximus  was 
assembling  an  army  to  oppose  Hannibal  in  Apu- 
lia, the  praetor,  Lucius  Posthumius,  was  sent  with 
a  proper  force  to  the  Po.  Fabius  having  united  the 
troops  that  had  served  under  the  consul  Servilius, 
with  four  legions  newly  raised  by  himself,  follow- 
ed the  enemy.  On  his  march  he  issued  a  procla- 
mation, requiring  all  the  inhabitants  of  open 
towns  and  villages  in  that  quarter  of  Italy  to  re- 
tire into  places  of  safety,  and  the  inhabitants  oi 
every  district  to  which  the  enemy  approached,  to 
set  fire  to  their  habitations  and  granaries,  and 
to  destroy  whatever  they  could  not  remove  in 
their  flight.2  Though  determined  not  to  hazard 
a  battle,  he  drew  near  to  the  Carthaginian  army, 
and  continued  from  the  heights  to  observe  and  to 
circumscribe  their  motions.  Time  alone,  he 
trusted,  would  decide  the  war  in  his  favour, 
against  an  enemy  who  was  far  removed  from  any 
supply  or  recruit,  and  in  a  country  that  was  daily 
wasting  by  the  effect  of  his  own  depredations. 

Hannibal,  after  endeavouring  in  vain  to  bring 
the  Roman  dictator  to  a  battle,  perceived  his  de 
sign  to  protract  the  war;  and  considering  inactior 
as  the  principal  evil  he  himself  had  to  fear,  Ire 
quently  exposed  his  detachments,  and  even  hit 
whole  army,  in  dangerous  situations.    The  ad 


1  Polyb.  lib.  iii.  c.  115. 


2  Liv.  lib.  xxii.  c.  11. 


Chap.  V.j 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


40 


vantages  he  gave  by  these  acts  of  temerity  were 
sometimes  effectually  seized  by  his  wary  antago- 
nist, but  more  frequently  recovered  by  his  own 
singular  conduct  and  unfailing  resources. 

In  this  temporary  stagnation  of  Hannibal's 
fortune,  and  in  the  frequent  opportunities  which 
the  Romans  had,  though  in  trifling  encounters, 
to  measure  their  own  strength  with  that  of  the 
enemy,  their  confidence  began  to  revive.  The 
public  resumed  the  tranquillity  of  its  councils,  and 
looked  round  with  deliberation  to  collect  its  force. 
The  people  and  the  army  recovered  from  their 
late  consternation,  and  took  advantage  of  the 
breathing-time  they  had  gained,  to  censure  the 
very  conduct  to  which  they  owed  the  returns  of 
their  confidence  and  the  renewal  of  their  hopes. 
They  forgot  their  former  defeats,  and  began  to 
imagine  that  the  enemy  kept  his  footing  in  Italy 
by  the  permission,  by  the  timidity,  or  by  the  ex- 
cessive caution  of  their  leader. 

A  slight  advantage  over  Hannibal,  who  had 
too  much  exposed  his  foraging  parties,  gained  by 
the  general  of  the  horse  in  the  absence  of  the 
dictator,  confirmed  the  army  and  the  people  in 
this  opinion,  and  greatly  sunk  the  reputation  of 
Fabius.  As  he  could  not  be  superseded  before 
the  usual  term  of  his  office  was  expired,  the  se- 
nate and  people,  though  precluded  by  law  from 
proceeding  to  an  actual  deposition,  came  to  a  re- 
solution equally  violent  and  unprecedented,  and 
which  they  hoped  might  induce  him  to  resign  his 
power.  They  raised  the  general  of  the  horse  to 
an  equal  command  with  the  dictator,  and  left 
them  to  adjust  their  pretensions  between  them. 
Such  affronts,  under  the  notions  of  honour 
which  in  modern  times  are  annexed  to  the  mili- 
tary character,  would  have  made  it  impossible  for 
the  dictator  to  remain  in  his  station.  But  in  a 
commonwealth,  where,  to  put  any  personal  con- 
sideration in  competition  with  the  public,  would 
have  appeared  absurd,  seeming  injuries  done  by 
the  state  to  the  honour  of  a  citizen,  only  furnish- 
ed him  with  a  more  splendid  occasion  to  display 
his  virtue.  The  Roman  dictator  continued  to 
serve  under  this  diminution  of  his  rank  and  com- 
mand, and  overlooked  with  magnanimity  the  in- 
sults with  which  the  people  had  requited  the  ser- 
vice he  was  rendering  to  his  country. 

Minutius  being  now  associated  with  the  dicta- 
tor, in  order  to  be  free  from  the  restraints  of  a 
joint  command,  and  from  the  wary  counsels  of  his 
colleague,  desired,  as  the  properest  way  of  adjust- 
ing their  pretensions,  to  divide  the  army  between 
them.  In  this  new  situation  he  soon  after,  by  his 
rashness,  exposed  himself  and  his  division  to  be 
entirely  cut  off  by  the  enemy.  But  being  rescued 
by  Fabius,  he  too  gave  proofs  of  a  magnanimous 
spirit,  confessed  the  favour  he  had  received,  and 
committing  himself,  with  the  whole  army,  to  the 
conduct  of  his  colleague,  he  left  this  cautious 
officer,  during  the  remaining  period  of  their  joint 
command,  to  pursue  the  plan  he  had  formed  for 
the  war.3 

At  this  time,  however,  the  people,  and  even 
the  senate,  were  not  willing  to  wait  for  the  effect 
of  such  seemingly  languid  and  dilatory  measures 
as  Fabius  was  inclined  to  pursue.  They  resolved 
to  augment  the  army  in  Italy  to  eight  legions, 
which,  with  an  equal  number  of  the  allies, 
amounted  to  eighty  thousand  foot  and  seven 


3  Plutarch,  in  rit.  Fab.  Max. 
G 


thousand  two  hundred  horse ;  and  they  intended, 
in  the  approaching  election  of  consuls,  to  choose 
men,  not  only  of  reputed  abilities,  but  of  decisive 
and  resolute  counsels.  As  such  they  elected  C. 
Terentius  Varro,  supposed  to  be  of  a  bold  ana 
dauntless  spirit ;  and,  in  order  to  temper  his  ar- 
dour, joined  with  him  in  the  command  L.  Emilius 
Paulus,  an  officer  of  approved  experience,  who 
had  formerly  obtained  a  triumph  for  his  victories 
in  Illyricum,  and  who  was  high  in  the  confidence 
of  the  senate,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  people. 

In  the  autumn  before  the  nomination  of  these 
officers  to  command  the  Roman  army,  Hannibal 
had  surprised  the  fortress  of  Canna?  on  the  Aufi- 
dus, a  place  to  which  the  Roman  citizens  of  that 
quarter  had  retired  with  their  effects,  and  at 
which  they  had  collected  considerable  magazines 
and  stores.  This,  among  other  circumstances, 
determined  the  senate  to  hazard  a  battle,  and  to 
funiish  the  new  consuls  with  instructions  to  this 
efl'ect. 

These  officers,  it  appears,  having  opened  the 
campaign  on  the  banks  of  the  Aufidus,  advanced 
by  mutual  consent  within  six  miles  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian camp,  which  covered  the  village  of  Canna*. 
Here  they  differed  in  their  opinions,  and,  by  a 
strange  defect  in  the  Roman  policy,  which,  in 
times  of  less  virtue,  must  have  been  altogether 
ruinous,  and  even  in  these  times  was  ill-fitted  to 
produce  a  consistent  and  well-supported  series  of 
operations,  had  no  rule  by  which  to  decide  their 
precedency,  and  were  obliged  to  take  the  com- 
mand each  a  day  in  his  turn. 

Varro,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  his  colleague, 
proposed  to  give  battle  on  the  plain,  and  with  this 
intention,  as  often  as  the  command  devolved  upon 
him,  still  advanced  on  the  enemy.  In  order  that 
he  might  occupy  the  passage  and  both  sides  of  the 
Aufidus,  he  encamped  in  two  separate  divisions 
on  its  opposite  banks,  having  his  larger  division 
on  the  right  of  the  river,  opposed  to  Hannibal's 
camp.  Still  taking  the  opportunity  of  his  turn  to 
command  the  army,  he  passed  with  the  larger  di- 
vision to  a  plain,  supposed  to  he  or.  the  left  of  tho 
Aulidus,  and  there,  though  the  field  was  too  nar- 
row to  receive  the  legions  in  their  usual  form,  he. 
pressed  them  together,  and  gave  the  enemy,  it" 
he  chose  it,  an  opportunity  to  engage.  To  ac- 
commodate his  order  to  the  extent  of  his  ground, 
he  contracted  the  head  and  the  intervals  of  his 
nianipules  or  columns,  making  their  depth  greatly 
to  exceed  the  front  which  they  turned  to  the 
enemy.4 

He  placed  his  cavalry  on  the  flanks,  the  Roman 
knights  on  his  right  towards  the  river,  and  the 
horsemen  of  the  allies  on  the  left. 

Hannibal  no  sooner  saw  tins  movement  and 
disposition  of  the  enemy,  than  he  hastened  to 
meet  them  on  the  plain  which  they  had  chosen 
for  the  field  of  action.  He  likewise  passed  the 
Aufidus,  and,  with  his  left  to  the  river,  and  his 
front  to  the  south,  formed  liis  army  upon  an 
equal  line  with  that  of  the  enemy. 

He  placed  the  Gaulish  and  Spanish  cavalry  on 
his  left  facing  the  Roman  knights,  and  the  Isu- 
midians  on  his  right  facing  the  allies. 

The  flanks  of  his  infantry,  on  the  right  and 
the  left,  were  composed  of  the  African  foot,  arm- 
ed in  the  Roman  manner,  with  the  piluni,  the 


i  Tloi<.ov  to  SkBo;  iv  f«t{  Srr«it.v.*{  U:\Kc.-\a<ritv  rt' 
,o  .-r5;rcy.     Viilc  Pohh. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  £ 


heavy  buckler,  and  the  stabbing  sword.  His 
centre,  though  opposed  to  the  choice  of  the  Ro- 
man legions,  consisted  of  the  Gaulish  and  the 
Spanish  foot,  variously  armed  and  intermixed 
together. 

Hitherto  no  advantage  seemed  to  be  taken  on 
either  side.  As  the  armies  fronted  south  and 
north,  even  the  sun,  which  rose  soon  after  they 
were  formed,  shone  upon  the  flanks,  and  was  no 
disadvantage,  to  either.  The  superiority  of  num- 
bers was  greatly  on  the  side  of  the  Romans;  but 
Hannibal  rested  his  hopes  of  victory  on  two  cir- 
cumstances ;  first,  on  a  motion  to  be  made  by  his 
cavalry,  if  they  prevailed  on  either  side  of  the 
enemy's  wings;  next,  on  a  position  he  was  to 
take  with  his  centre,  in  order  to  begin  the  action 
from  thence,  to  bring  the  Roman  legions  into 
some  disorder,  and  expose  them,,  under  that  dis- 
advantage, to  the  attack  which  he  was  prepared 
to  make  with  his  veterans  on  both  their  flanks. 

The  action  accordingly  began  with  a  charge 
of  the  Gaulish  and  Spanish  horse,  who,  being 
superior  to  the  Roman  knights,  drove  them  from 
their  ground,  forced  them  into  the  river,  and  put 
the  greater  part  of  them  to  the  sword.  By  this 
event  the  flank  of  the  Roman  army,  which  might 
have  been  joined  to  the  Aufidus,  was  entirely 
uncovered. 

Having  performed  this  service,  the  victorious 
cavalry  had  orders  to  wheel  at  full  gallop  round 
the  rear  of  their  own  army,  and  to  join  the  Nu- 
midian  horse  on  their  right,  who  were  still  en- 
gaged with  the  Roman  allies.  By  this  unexpect- 
ed junction,  the  left  wing  of  the  Roman  army 
was  likewise  put  to  flight,  and  pursued  by  the 
African  horse;  at  the  same  time  the  Spanish 
cavalry  prepared  to  attack  the  Roman  infantry, 
wherever  they  should.be  ordered,  on  the  flank  or 
the  rear.. 

While  these  important  events  took  place  on  the 
wings,  Hannibal  amused  the  Roman  legions  of 
the  main  body  with  a  singular  movement  that 
was  made  by  the  Gauls  and  Spaniards,  and  with 
which  he  proposed  to  begin  the  action.  These 
came  forward,  riot  in  a  straight  line  abreast,  but 
swelling  out  to  a  curve  in  the  centre,  without  dis- 
joining their  flanks  from  the  African  infantry, 
who  remained  firm  on  their  ground. 

By  this  motion  they  formed  a  kind  of  crescent 
convex  to  the  front.  The  Roman  manipules  of 
the  right  and  the  left,  fearing,  by  this  singular 
disposition,  to  have  no  share  in  the  action,  hasten- 
ed to  bend  their  line  into  a  corresponding  curve ; 
and,  in  proportion  as  they  came  to  close  with  the 
enemy,  charged  them  with  a  confident  and  im- 
petuous courage.  The  Gauls  and  Spaniards  re- 
sisted, this  charge  no  longer  than  was  necessary 
to  awaken  the  precipitant  ardour  with  which 
victorious  troops  often  blindly  pursue  a  flying 
enemy.  And  the  Roman  line  being  bent,  and 
fronting  inwards  to  the  centre  of  it&  concave,  the 
legions  pursued  where  the  enemy  led  them. 
Hurrying  from  the  flanks  to  share  in  the  victory, 
they  narrowed  their  space  as  they  advanced,  and 
the  men  who  were  accustomed  to  have  a  square 
of  six  feet  clear  for  wielding  their  arms,  being 
now  pressed  together,  so  as  to  prevent  entirely 
the  use  of  their  swords,  found  themselves  strug- 
gling against  each  other  for  space,  in  an  inextri- 
cable and  hopeless  confusion. 

Hannibal,  who  had  waited  for  this  event,  or- 
dered a  general  charge  of  his  cavalry  on  the  rear 


of  the  Roman  legions,  and  at  the  came  time  an 
attack  from  his  African  infantry  on  both  their 
flanks ;  by  these  dispositions  and  joint  operations, 
without  any  considerable  loss  to  himself,  he  ef- 
fected an  almost  incredible  slaughter 
U.  C.  537.  of  his  enemies.  With  the  loss  of 
no  more  than  four  thousand,  and 
these  chiefly  of  the  Spanish  and  Gaulish  infan- 
try, he  put  fifty  thousand  of  the  Romans  to  the 
sword. 

The  consul,  Emilius  Paulus,  had  been  wound- 
ed in  the  shock  of  the  cavalry ;  but  when  he  saw 
the  condition  in  which  the  infantry  were  en- 
gaged, he  refused  to  be  carried  off,  and  was 
slam.1  The  consuls  of  the  preceding  year,  with 
others  of  the  same  rank,,  were  likewise  killed. 
Of  six  thousand  horse  only  seventy  troopers 
escaped  with  Varro.  Of  the  infantry  three  thou- 
sand fled  from  the  carnage  that  took  place  on  the 
field  of  battle,  and  ten  thousand  who  had  been 
posted  to  guard  the  camp  were  taken. 

The  unfortunate  consul,  with  such  of  the 
stragglers  as  joined  him  in  his  retreat,  took  post 
at  Venusia ;  and  with  a  noble  confidence  in  his 
own  integrity,  and  in  the  resources  of  his  coun- 
try, put  himself  in  a  posture  to  resist  the  enemy5 
till  he  could  have  instructions  and  reinforcements 
from  Rome.2 

This  calamity  which  had  befallen  the  Romans 
in  Apulia,  was  accompanied  with  the  defeat  of 
the  prsetor  Posthumius,  who,  with  his  army,  on 
the  other  extremity  of  the  country,  was  cut  off 
by  the  Gauls.  A  general  ferment  arose  through- 
out all  Italy.  Many  cantons  of  Grecian  extrac- 
tion, having  been  about  sixty  years  subject  to 
Rome,  now  declared  for  Carthage.  Others,  feel- 
ing themselves  released  from  the  dominion  of  the 
Romans,  but  intending  to  recover  their  liberties, 
not  merely  to  change  their  masters,  now  waited 
for  an  opportunity  to  stipulate  the  conditions  on 
which  they  were  to  join  the  victor.  Of  this 
number  were  the  cities  of  Capua,  Tarentumj 
Locri,  Metapontus,  Crotona,  and  other  towns 
in  the  south-east  of  the  peninsula.  In  other 
cantons,  the  people  being  divided  and  opposed  to 
each  other  with  great  animosity,  severally  called 
to  their  assistance  such  of  the  parties  at  war  as 
they  judged  were  most  likely  to  support  them 
against  their  antagonists.  Some  of  the  Roman 
colonies,  even  within  the  districts  that  were  open 
to  the  enemy's  incursions,  still  adhered  to  the 
metropolis ;  but  the  possessions  of  the  republic 
were  greatly  reduced,  and  scarcely  equalled  what 
the  state  had  acquired  before  the  expulsion  of 
Pyrrhus  from  Italy,  or  even  before  the  annexa- 
tion of  Campania,  or  the  conquest  of  Samnium. 
The  allegiance  of  her  subjects  and  the  faith  of 
her  allies  in  Sicily  were  greatly  shaken.  Hiero, 
the  king  of  Syracuse,  who  had  some  time,  under 
the  notion  of  an  alliance,  cherished  his  depend- 
ance  on  Rome,  being  now  greatly  sunk  in  the 
decline  of  years,  could  no  longer  answer  for  the 
conduct  of  his  own  court,  and  died  soon  after  this 
event,  leaving  his  successors  to  change  the  party 
of  the  vanquished  for  that  of  the  victor. 

Hitherto  the  nations  of  Greece  and  of  Asia 
had  taken  no  part  in  the  contest  of  those  power- 


1  He  has  received  from  the  poet  the  following  honour  • 
able  grave :  Animas  que  magn®  prodigum  Faulum  super- 
ante  Pceno.    Hor.  Car.  lib.  i.  Ode  18. 

2  Liv.  lib.  xxiii. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


ful  rivals.  But  the  Romans  having  already  inter- 
fered in  the  affairs  of  Greece,  and  made  their 
ambition  be  felt  beyond  the  Adriatic  and  the 
Ionian  Sea,  the  news  of  their  supposed  approach- 
ing fall  was  received  there  with  attention;  it 
awakened  the  hopes  of  many  who  had  suffered 
from  the  effects  of  their  power.  Among  these 
Demetrius,  the  exiled  king  of  Pharos,  being  still 
at  the  court  of  Macedonia,  and  much  in  the  con- 
fidence of  Philip,  who  had  recently  mounted  the 
throne  of  that  kingdom,  urging  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  remain  an  indifferent  spectator  in  the 
contest  of  such  powerful  nations,  persuaded  the 
king  to  prefer  the  alliance  of  Carthage  to  that  of 
Rome,  and  to  join  with  Hannibal  in  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  Roman  power;  observing,  that  with 
the  merit  of  declaring  himself  while  the  event 
was  yet  in  any  degree  uncertain,  the  king  of 
Macedonia  would  be  justly  in  titled  to  a  proper 
share  of  the  advantages  to  be  reaped  in  the  con- 
quest. 

Philip  accordingly  endeavoured  to  accommo- 
date the  differences  which  he  had  to  adjust  with 
the  Grecian  States,  and  sent  an  officer  into  Italy 
to  treat  with  Hannibal,  and  with  the  Cartha- 
ginian deputies  who  attended  the  camp.  In  the 
negotiation  which  followed  it  was  agreed,  that  the 
king  of  Macedonia  and  the  republic  of  Carthage 
should  consider  the  Romans  as  common  enemies ; 
that  they  should  pursue  the  war  in  Italy  with 
their  forces  united,  and  make  no  peace  but  on 
terms  mutually  agreeable  to  both.  In  this  treaty 
the  interest  of  the  prince  of  Pharos  was  particu- 
larly attended  to;  and  his  restoration  to  the 
kingdom  from  which  he  had  been  expelled  by  the 
Romans,  with  the  recovery  of  the  hostages  which 
had  been  exacted  from  him,  were  made  principal 
articles.3 

Hannibal,  from  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Italy, 
after  having  made  war  for  three  years  in  that 
country,  had  received  no  supply  from  Africa,  and 
seemed  to  be  left  to  pursue  the  career  of  his  fate 
with  such  resources  as  he  could  devise  fer  him- 
self; but  this  alliance  with  the  king  of  Macedo- 
nia, promised  amply  to  make  up  for  t  he  deficiency 
of  his  aids  from  Carthage;  and  Philip,  by  an 
easy  passage  into  Italy,  was  likely  to  furnish  him 
with  every  kind  of  support  or  encouragement  that 
was  necessary  to  accomplish  the  end  of  the  war. 

The  Romans  were  apprised  of  this  formidable 
accession  to  the  power  of  their  enemy,  as  well  as 
of  the  general  defection  of  their  own  allies,  and 
of  the  revolt  of  their  subjects.  Though  taxes 
were  accumulated  on  the  people,  and  frequent 
loans  obtained  from  the  commissaries  and  con- 
tractors employed  in  the  public  service,  their  ex- 
penses began  to  be  ill  supplied.  There  appeared 
not,  however,  in  their  councils,  notwithstanding 
all  these  circumstances  of  distress,  the  smallest 
disposition  to  purchase  safety  by  mean  conces- 
sions of  any  sort.  When  the  vanquished  consul 
returned  to  the  city,  in  order  to  attend  the  nomi- 
nation of  a  person  who,  in  this  extremity  of  their 
fortunes  might  be  charged  with  the  care  of  the 
commonwealth,  the  senate,  as  conscious  that  he 
had  acted  at  Cannse  by  their  own  instructions, 
and  had,  upon  the  same  motives  that  animated 
the  whole  Roman  people,  disdained,  with  a  supe- 
rior army,  to  stand  in  awe  of  his  enemy,  or  to 
refuse  him  battle  upon  equal  ground,  went  out  in 


3  Liv.  lib.  xx.Tiii.  c.  33. 


a  kind  of  procession  to  meet  him ;  and,  upon  a 
noble  idea  that  men  are  not  answerable  for  the 
strokes  of  fortune,  nor  for  the  effects  of  superior 
address  in  an  enemy,  they  overlooked  his  temer- 
ity and  his  misconduct  in  the  action;  they  at- 
tended only  to  the  undaunted  aspect  he  preserved 
after  his  defeat,  returned  him  thanks  for  not 
having  despaired  of  the  commonwealth;4  and 
from  thence  forward  continued  their  preparations 
for  war,  with  all  the  dignity  and  pride  of  the 
most  prosperous  fortune.  They  refused  to  ran- 
som the  prisoners  who  had  been  taken  by  the 
enemy  at  Cannae,  and  treated  with  sullen  con- 
tempt, rather  than  severity,  those  who  by  an 
early  flight  had  escaped  from  the  field;  being 
petitioned  to  employ  them  again  in  the  war, 
"  We  have  no  service,"  they  said,  "  for  men  who 
could  leave  their  fellow  citizens  engaged  with  an 
enemy."  They  seemed  to  rise  in  the  midst  of 
their  distress,  and  to  gain  strength  from  misfor- 
tune. They  prepared  to  attack  or  to  resist  at 
once,  in  all  the  different  quarters  to  which  the 
war  was  likely  to  extend,  and  took  their  mea- 
sures for  the  support  of  it  in  Spain,  in  Sardinia 
and  Sicily,  as  well  as  in  Italy.  They  continued 
their  fleets  at  sea;  not  only  observed  and  ob- 
structed the  communications  of  Carthage  with 
the  seats  of  the  war,  but  having  intercepted  part 
of  the  correspondence  of  Philip  with  Hannibal, 
they  sent  a  powerful  squadron  to  the  coast  of 
Epirus;  and,  by  an  alliance  with  the  States  of 
Etolia,  whom  they  persuaded  to  renew  their  late 
war  with  Philip,  found  that  prince  sufficient  em- 
ployment on  the  frontiers  of  his  own  kingdom, 
effectually  prevented  his  sending  any  supply  to 
Hannibal,  and,  in  the  sequel,  reduced  him  to  the 
humiliating  necessity  of  making  a  separate  peace. 

In  the  ordinary  notions  which  are  entertained 
of  battles  and  their  consequences,  the  last  victory 
of  Hannibal  at  Canntc,  in  the  sequel  of  so  many 
others  that  preceded  it,  ought  to  have  decided  the 
war;  and  succeeding  ages  have  blamed  this 
general  for  not  marching  directly  to  the  capital, 
in  order  to  bring  the  contest  to  a  speedy  termina- 
tion by  the  reduction  of  Rome  itself.  But  his 
own  judgment  is  of  much  more  weight  than  that 
of  the  persons  who  censure  him.  He  knew  the 
character  of  the  Romans  and  his  own  strength. 
Though  victorious,  he  was  greatly  m  akened  by 
his  victories,  and  at  a  distance  from  the  means  of 
a  reinforcement  or  supply.  He  was  unprovided 
with  engines  of  attack ;  and,  so  far  from  being  in 
a  condition  to  venture  on  the  siege  of  Rome,  that 
he  could  not  undertake  even  that  of  Naples, 
which,  after  the  battle  of  Cannao,  refused  to 
open  its  gates ;  and,  indeed,  soon  after  this  date 
he  received  a  check  from  Marcellus  in  attempting 
the  siege  of  INola.5 

The  Romans,  immediately  after  their  disaster 
at  Cannae,  prepared  again  to  act  on  the  offensive, 
formed  a  fresh  army  of  five  and  twenty  thousand 
men,  which  they  sent,  under  the  dictator  JuniuB 
Pera,  to  collect  the  remains  of  their  late  van- 
quished forces,  and  to  annoy  the  enemy  wherever 
they  might  find  him  exposed. 

Hannibal  kept  in  motion  with  his  army  to  pro- 
tect the  cantons  that  were  inclined  to  declare  on 
his  side ;  but  together  with  the  extent  and  multi- 


4  In  the  famous  and  admired  expression,  Qui  derepub- 
lica  nan  desperaeeet. 

5  Liv.  lib.  xxiii.  c.  14,  15,  1C. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  J. 


iilication  of  his  new  possessions,  which  obliged 
lim  to  divide  his  army  in  order  to  occupy  and  to 
secure  them,  he  became  sensible  of  his  weak- 
ness ;  and,  with  the  accounts  sent  to  Carthage  of 
his  victories,  he  likewise  sent  representations  of 
his  losses,  and  demanded  a  supply  of  men,  of 
stores,  and  of  money.  He  was  indeed  in  his 
new  situation  so  much  in  want  of  these  articles, 
that,  having  in  the  three  first  years  of  the  war 
apparenty  raised  the  reputation  of  Carthage  to 
t  ie  greatest  height,  and  procured  to  his  coun- 
try more  allies  and  more  territory  in  Italy  than 
were  left  in  the  power  of  the  Romans,  together 
with  Capua,  and  other  cities,  more  wealthy  than 
Rome  itself,  and  surrounded  with  lands  better 
cultivated,  and  more  full  of  resources,  yet  his  af- 
fairs from  thenceforward  began  to  decline. 

Armies  are  apt  to  suffer  no  less  from  an  opinion, 
tjiat  all  the  ends  of  their  service  are  obtained, 
than  they  do  from  defeats,  and  from  despair  of 
success.  The  soldiers  of  Hannibal,  now  elated 
with  victory,  perhaps  grown  rich  with  the  plun- 
der of  the  countries  they  had  overrun,  and  of  the 
armies  they  had  defeated ;  and  presuming  that 
the  war  was  at  an  end,  or  that  they  themselves 
ought  to  be  relievedj  or  sent  to  enjoy  the  rewards 
of  so  glorious  and  so  hard  a  service,  became  re- 
miss in  their  discipline,  or  indulged  themselves  in 
all  the  excesses,  of  which  the  means  were  to  be 
found  in  their  present  situation.  Being  mere 
soldiers  of  fortune,  without  a  country,  or  any  civil 
ties  to  unite  them  together,  they  were  governed 
by  the  sole  authority  of  their  leader,  and  by  their 
confidence  in  his  singular  abilities.  Although 
there  is  no  instance  of  their  openly  mutinying 
against  him  in  a  body,  there  are  many  instances 
of  their  separately  and  clandestinely  deserting  his 
service.  The  Spanish  and  Numidian  horse,  in 
particular,  to  whom  he  owed  great  part  of  his 
victories,  upon  some  disappointment  in  their 
hopes,  or  upon  a  disgust  taken  at  the  mere  stag- 
nation of  his  fortune,  went  over  in  troops  and 
and  squadrons  to  the  enemy.1  His  hopes  from  the 
side  of  Macedonia  were  entirely  disappointed,  the 
power  of  that  nation  having  full  employment  at 
home.2  He  found  himself  unable,  without  di- 
viding his  forces,  to  preserve  his  recent  conquests, 
or  to  protect  the  Italians  who  had  declared  for 
him.  Some  of  his  possessions,  therefore,  he  aban- 
doned or  destroyed ;  and  the  natives  of  Italy,  be- 
come the  victims  of  his  policy,  or  left  to  the  mer- 
cy of  the  Romans  whom  they  had  offended,  be- 
came averse  to  his  cause,  or  felt  that  they  could 
not  rely  on  his  power  to  protect  them.3  Moved 
by  these  considerations,  he  made  earnest  applica- 
tions at  Carthage  for  reinforcements  and  supplies, 
~o  enable  him  to  continue  the  war.  But  the  coun- 
cils of  that  republic,  though  abject  in  misfortune, 
were  insolent  or  remiss  in  prosperity.  Being 
broken  into  factions,  the  projects  of  one  party, 
however  wise,  were  frustrated  by  the  opposition 
of  the  other.  One  faction  received  the  applications 
of  Hannibal  with  scorn.  "Do  victories,"  they 
said,  "reduce  armies  to  the  want  of  reinforce- 
ments and  of  supplies,  even  against  the  very  ene- 
mies they  had  vanquished  1  And  do  the  acqui- 
sitions of  Hannibal  require  more  money  and  men 
to  keep  them  than  were  required  to  make  them  1 


1  Liv.  lib.  xxiii.  c.  4G. 

2  Ibid.  lib.  xxvi/c.  28,  29.    Lib.  xxviii.  a.  4. 

3  Ibid.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  1  and  16. 


Other  victorious  generals  are  proud  to  display  the 
fruits  of  their  conquests,  or  bnng  home  the  spoils 
of  their  enemies  to  enrich  their  own  country,  in- 
stead of  draining  it  to  support  a  career  of  vain 
and  unprofitable  victories." 

These  invectives  concluded  with  a  motion, 
which,  on  the  supposition  that  the  advantages 
gained  by  Hannibal  were  real,  was  well-founded 
in  wisdom  and  sound  policy :  that  the  occasion 
should  be  seized  to  treat  with  the  Romans,  when 
the  State  had  reason  to  expect  the  most  advan- 
tageous terms.  But  this  counsel  either  was,  or 
appeared  to  be,  the  language  of  faction ;  and  no 
measures  were  adopted,  either  to  obtain  peace,  oi 
effectually  to  support  the  war. 

The  friends,  as  well  as  the  enemies  of  Hanni- 
ba\,  contributed  to  the  neglect  with  which  he  was 
treated.  In  proportion  as  his  friends  admired  him, 
and  gloried  in  his  fortune,  they  acted  as  if  he 
alone  were  able  to  surmount  every  difficulty ;  and 
they  accordingly  were  remiss  in  supporting  him. 
The  republic,  under  the  effects  of  this  wretched 
policy,  with  all  the  advantages  of  her  navigation 
and  of  her  trade,  suffered  her  navy  to  decline,  I 
and  permitted  the  Romans  to  obstruct,  or  molest, 
all  the  passages  by  which  she  could  communicate 
with  her  armies  in  Spain  and  Italy,  or  her  allies 
in  Sicily  and  Greece.4  They  voted  indeed  to  Han- 
nibal, on  the  present  occasion,  a  reinforcement  of 
four  thousand  Numidian  horse,  forty  elephants, 
and  a  sum  of  money.  But  this  resolution  appears 
to  have  languished  in  the  execution ;  and  the  ar- 
mament, when  ready  to  sail,  was  suffered  to  be 
diverted  from  its  purpose,  and  ordered  to  Spain 
instead  of  Italy  ^ 

Notwithstanding  these  mortifications  and  dis- 
appointments, Hannibal  still  kept  his  footing  in 
Italy  for  sixteen  years ;  and  so  long  gave  sufficient 
occupation  to  the  Remans,  in  recovering,  by  slow 
and  cautious  steps,  what  he  had  ravished  from 
them  in  three  years,  and  by  a  few  daring  exam- 
ples of  ability  and  valour.  When  the  war  had 
taken  this  turn,  and  the  Romans,  by  the  growing 
skill  and  ability  of  their  leaders,  as  well  as  by  the 
unconquerable  spirit  of  their  people,  began  to  pre- 
vail, Hannibal,  receiving  no  support  directly  from 
Africa,  endeavoured  to  procure  it  from  Spain  by 
the  junction  of  his  brother  Hasdrubal,  to  whom 
he  recommended  a  second  passage  over  the  A  lps, 
in  imitation  of  that  which  he  himself  had  accom- 
plished. Every  attempt  of  this  sort.,  however,  had 
been  defeated,  during  six  years,  by  the  vigour  and 
abilities  of  the  two  Scipios,  Cnseius  and  Pubnus, 
and  afterwards  by  the  superior  genius  of  the  young 
Publius  Scipio,  who  succeeding  the  father  and  the 
uncle,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel,  supported, 
with  fresh  lustre,  the  cause  of  his  country. 

The  two  Scipios,  after  some  varieties  of  fortune, 
though,  while  they  acted  together,  they  were  gen- 
erally successful,  having,  in  the  seventh  year  of 
this  war,  separated  their  forces,  were  both,  within 
the  space  of  forty  days,  betrayed  or  deserted  by 
their  allies,  and  cut  off  by  the  superior  force  of 
the  enemy. 

The  natives  of  Spain  had,  by  their  want  of 
union  and  military  skill,  as  has  been  mentioned, 
suffered  many  foreign  establishments  to  be  made 
in  their  country ;  they  had  permitted  the  Cartha- 
ginians, in  particular,  to  possess  themselves  of  a 
considerable  territory;  but  afterwards,  in  order  to 


4  Liv.  lib.  xxviii.  c.  4.      5  Ibid.  lib.  xxiii.  c.  13  and  32. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


53 


remove  them  from  thence,  accepted  of  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Romans ;  and,  in  the  sequel,  occasion- 
ally applied  to  either  of  these  parties  for  aid 
against  the  other,  being,  during  the  greater  part 
of  this  war,  the  unstable  friends,  or  irresolute 
enemies  of  both. 

A  service  of  so  much  danger,  so  little  in  pub- 
lic view,  and  at  a  distance  from  the  principal 
scenes  of  the  war,  was  not  sought  for  as  an  op- 
portunity to  accumulate  fame.  The  young  Scipio, 
tired  with  the  memory  of  his  father  and  of  his  un- 
cle, who  had  fallen  in  that  service,  and,  instead  of 
being  deterred  by  their  fate,  eager  to  revenge  their 
fall,  courted  a  command,  wliich  every  other  Roman 
is  said  to  have  declined.  This  young  man,  as 
has  been  observed,  had  begun  his  military  ser- 
vices, in  the  first  year  of  this  war,  on  the  Tecinus, 
where  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  rescue  his  father. 
He  was  afterwards  present  at  the  battle  of  Cannae, 
and  was  one  of  the  few,  who,  from  that  disas- 
trous field,  forced  their  way  to  Canusium.  Being 
chosen  commander  by  those  who  escaped  to  this 
place,  he  prevented  the  effect  of  a  desperate  reso- 
lution they  had  taken  to  abandon  Italy.  Many 
of  the  severer  forms  of  the  commonwealth  having 
been  dispensed  with  in  the  present  exigences  of 
the  state,  Scipio  had  been  chosen  edile,  though 
under  the  standing  age,  being  only  turned  of 
twenty-four,  one  year  younger  than  Hannibal 
was  when  he  took  the  command  of  the  army  in 
Spain,  and  four  years  younger  than  he  was  when 
he  marched  into  Italy. 

Such  particulars  relating  to  men  of  superior 
genius  and  virtue,  are  in  the  highest  degree  in- 
teresting to  mankind.  It  is  even  pleasing  to 
know,  that  this  young  man  was,  according  to 
Livy,  tall  and  graceful  in  his  person,  with  a 
beautiful  countenance  and  engaging  aspect. 

The  Romans  had  been  hitherto  preserved  in 
all  the  extremities  of  their  fortune  by  the  superi- 
ority of  their  national  character,  and  by  means 
of  political  establishments,  which,  although  they 
do  not  inspire  men  with  superior  genius,  yet  raise 
ordinary  citizens  to  a  degree  of  elevation  approach- 
ing to  heroism ;  enabling  the  states  they  compose 
to  subsist  in  great  dangers,  and  to  await  the  ap- 
pearance of  superior  men.  They  had  not  yet 
opposed  to  Hannibal  an  officer  of  similar  talents, 
or  of  a  like  superiority  to  the  ordinary  race  of 
mankind.  Scipio  was  the  first  who  gave  indu- 
bitable proofs  of  liis  title  to  this  character.6  Up- 
on his  arrival  in  Spain,  with  a  fleet  of  thirty  gal- 
leys, and  ten  thousand  men,  he  found  the  remains 
of  the  vanquished  Romans  retired  within  the 
Iberus,  where,  under  the  command  of  T.  Fon- 
teius  and  Lucius  Marcius,  they  had  scarcely  been 
able  to  withstand  the  further  progress  of  the  ene- 
my.7 There  he  accordingly  landed,  and  fixed 
his  principal  quarters  for  the  winter  at  Tarrago- 
na. By  his  information  of  the  posture  of  the 
enemy,  it  appeared,  that  they  had  placed  all  their 
magazines  and  stores  at  New  Carthage;  and  that, 
thinking  this  place  sufficiently  secured  by  a  gar- 
rison of  a  thousand  men,  they  had  separated  their 
army  into  three  divsions,  and  were  gone  in  dif- 
ferent directions  to  extend  their  possessions,  or  to 
cover  the  territories  they  had  acquired.  Of  these 
divisions,  none  were  nearer  to  their  principal  sta- 
tion than  ten  days'  march. 

Upon  these  informations,  Scipio  formed  a  pro- 


€  Liv.  liv.  xxvi.  c.  18, 19,  Sec.        7  Ibid.  c.  19  and  20. 


ject  to  surprise  the  town  of  New  Carthago, 
though  at  a  distance  from  Tarragona  of  above 
three  hundred  miles.  He  rested  his  hopes  of 
success  on  the  security  of  his  enemies,  and  on  the 
prospect  of  being  able  to  accomplish  the  greater 
part  of  his  march  before  his  design  should  be 
suspected,  or  before  any  measures  could  be  taken 
to  prevent  him.  For  this  purpose  he  disclosed 
it  to  Lselius  alone;  and  gave  him  orders  to  steer 
for  that  place  with  his  fleet,  while  he  himself 
made  hasty  marches  by  land.  This  city  was  si- 
tuated, like  Old  Carthage,  on  a  peninsula,  or  neck 
of  land,  surrounded  by  the  sea.  Scipio  took  post 
on  the  isthmus,  fortified  himself  towards  the  con- 
tinent, from  which  he  had  reason  to  expect  some 
attempt  would  be  made  to  relieve  the  place,  and 
secured  himself  on  that  side,  before  he  attacked 
the  town. 

In  his  first  attempts  on  the  ramparts  he  was 
repulsed;  but  observing,  that  at  low  water,  tin; 
walls  were  accessible  at  a  weaker  place  than  that 
at  which  he  made  his  assault ;  and  having  en- 
couraged las  men  by  informing  them  that  the 
god  of  the  sea  had  promised  to  favour  them, 
which  they  thought  to  be  verified  by  the  season- 
able ebb  which  ensued,  he  there  planted  his  lad- 
ders, and  forced  his  way  into  the  town.  Here 
he  made  a  great  booty  in  captives,  money,  and 
ships.8 

In  this  manner  Scipio  conducted  his  first  ex- 
ploit in  Spain ;  and  having  carried  on  the  war 
with  equal  ability  and  success  for  five  years,  he 
obliged  the  Carthaginians,  after  repeated  defeats, 
to  abandon  that  country.  He  himself,  while 
Hasdrubal  attempted  to  join  his  brother  Hanni- 
bal in  Lucania,  and  Mago  to  make  a  diversion  in 
his  favour  in  Liguria,  returned  to  Rome.  He 
was  yet  under  thirty  years  of  age,  and  not  legally 
qualified  to  bear  the  office  of  consul.  But  having 
an  unquestionable  title  to  the  highest  confidence 
of  his  country,  the  services  which  he  had  already 
performed  procured  a  dispensation  in  his  favour. 
He  was  accordingly  raised  to  the  consulate  ;  and 
when  the  provinces  came  to  be  assigned  to  the 
officers  of  state,  he  moved  that  Africa  should  be 
included  in  the  number,  and  be  allotted  to  him- 
self: "There,"  he  said,  "the  Carthaginians  may 
receive  the  deepest  wounds,  and  from  thence  be 
the  soonest  obliged  for  their  own  safety  to  recall 
their  forces  from  Italy." 

This  motion  was  unfavourably  received  by  the 
greater  part  of  the  senate ;  it  seemed  to  be  matter 
of  surprise,  that,  while  Rome  itself  lay  between 
two  hostile  armies,  that  of  Hannibal  in  Brutium, 
and  that  of  Maga  in  Liguria  or  Gaul,  the  con- 
sul should  propose  to  strip  the  republic  of  so  great 
a  force  as  would  be  necessary  for  the  invasion  of 
Africa.9  The  fatal  miscarriage  of  Rcgulus  on 
that  ground  in  a  former  war,  the  unhappy  effects 
of  precipitant  counsels  in  the  beginning  of  the 
present,  were  cited  against  him,  and  the  desire  of 
so  arduous  a  station  was  even  accounted  presump- 
tuous in  so  young  a  man. 

Among  the  difficulties  which  Scipio  met  with 
in  obtaining  the  consent  of  the  senate  to  the  exe- 
cution of  his  plan,  is  mentioned  the  disinclination 
of  the  great  Fabius,  who,  from  a  prepossession  in 
favour  of  that  dilatory  war,  by  which  he  himself 
had  acquired  so  much  glory ;  and  by  which  at  a 


8  Polyb.  lib.  x.  c.  9—15—17.    Appian  de  Bell.  Hiapan 

9  Appian  de  Bell.  Punic,  p.  4. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  T. 


time  when  procrastination  was  necessary,  he  had 
retrieved  the  fortunes  of  his  country,  obstinately 
opposed  the  adopting  of  this  hazardous  project. 

It  had  been,  for  the  most  part,  an  established 
maxim  in  the  counsels  of  Rome,  to  carry  war, 
when  in  their  power,  into  the  enemy's  country. 
They  had  been  prevented  in  the  present  case  only 
by  the  unexpected  appearance  of  Hannibal  in 
Italy,  and  were  likely  to  return  to  the  execution 
of  their  first  design  as  soon  as  their  affairs  at 
home  should  furnish  them  with  a  sufficient  re- 
spite. We  may,  therefore,  conceive  what  they 
felt  of  the  difficulties  of  the  present  war,  from  this 
and  other  circumstances ;  that  even  after  fortune 
had  so  greatly  inclined  in  their  favour,  they  did 
not  yet  think  themselves  in  condition  to  retaliate 
on  the  enemy ;  or  safe  against  the  designs  which 
Hannibal  might  form  in  Italy,  if  they  should 
divide  their  forces,  or  detach  so  great  a  part  of 
them  as  might  be  necessary  to  execute  the  project 
of  a  war  in  Africa. 

They  concluded,  however,  at  last,  with  some 
hesitation,  that  Scipio,  while  the  other  consul 
should  remain  opposed  to  Hannibal  in  Italy, 
might  have  for  his  province  the  island  of  Sicily, 
dispose  of  the  forces  that  were  still  there,  receive 
the  voluntary  supplies  of  men  and  of  money 
which  he  himself  might  be  able  to  procure  ;  and 
if  he  found,  upon  mature  deliberation,  a  proper 
opportunity,  that  he  might  make  a  descent  upon 
Africa.  Agreeably  to  this  resolution,  he  set  out 
for  the  province  assigned  him,  having  a  consider- 
able fleet  equipped  by  private  contribution,  and 
a  body  of  seven  thousand  volunteers,  who  em- 
barked in  high  expectation  of  the  service  in  which 
he  proposed  to  employ  them.1 

While  Scipio,  by  his  exertions  in  Spain,  was 
rising  to  this  degree  of  eminence  in  the  councils 
of  his  country,  the  war,  both  in  Sicily  and  in 
Italy,  had  been  attended  with  many  signal  events, 
and  furnished  many  proofs  of  distinguished  abi- 
lity in  the  course  of  its  operations,  highly  interest- 
ing to  those  who  are  qualified  to  receive  instruc- 
tion from  such  examples  of  conduct,  and  from 
the  experience  of  great  events.  But  in  the  sum- 
mary account  of  the  steps  by  which  the  Romans 
ascended  to  empire,  we  can  only  point  out  the 
tract  by  which  they  advanced ;  and,  with  a  few 
general  observations  on  the  means,  hasten  to  con- 
template the  end  which  they  attained. 

The  fortunes  of  Hannibal,  as  we  have  already 
remarked,  had  been  some  time  <m  the  decline. 
Capua  and  Tarentum,  notwithstanding  his  ut- 
most efforts  to  preserve  them,  had  been  taken  by 
the  Romans.  While  the  first  of  these  places  was 
besieged,  he  endeavoured  to  force  the  enemy's 
lines :  and  being  repulsed,  made  a  feint,  by  a 
hasty  march  towards  Rome  itself,  to  draw  off  the 
besiegers.  By  this  movement  he  obtained  a 
sight  of  that  famous  city ;  but  again  retired  with- 
out having  gained  any  advantage  from  this  in- 
tended diversion.  His  allies,  in  Sicily,  were  en- 
tirely overwhelmed  by  the  reduction  of  Syracuse ; 
but  that  which  chiefly  affected  his  cause,  by 
cutting  off  all  hopes  of  future  supplies  or  rein- 
forcements, was  the  fall  of  his  brother  Hasdru- 
bai.  This  officer  had  found  means  to  elude  the 
foices  of  Scipio  in  Spain ;  and  attempted,  by  pur- 
suing the  tract  of  his  brother  into  Italy,  to  join 
him  m  that  country.    In  this  design  he  actually 


1  Appian  dc  Bell.  Punic. 


surmounted  all  the  difficulties  of  the  Pyrenees  ami 
of  the  Alps,  had  passed  the  Po  and  the  Rubicon, 
and  advanced  to  the  Metaurus  before  he  met 
with  any  considerable  check.  There,  at  last,  he 
encountered  with  the  Roman  consuls,  M.  Clau- 
dius Nero  and  M.  Livius  Salinator,  and  was  de- 
feated with  the  loss  of  his  whole  army,  amount- 
ing to  fifty  thousand  men,  of  whom  not  one 
escaped  being  taken  or  slain.2 

On  this  occasion,  the  Romans,  who  had  so 
long  left  their  possessions  in  the  country  a  prey 
to  the  enemy,  began  to  enjoy  some  degree  of  se- 
curity, returned  to  their  ruined  habitations,  and 
resumed  the  labours  of  the  field.  Hannibal,  as 
overwhelmed  with  despair  or  affliction,  confess- 
ed, that  he  could  no  longer  be  in  doubt  of  the  fate 
that  awaited  his  countr}7.3  From  this  time  he 
contracted  his  quarters,  withdrew  his  posts  from 
Apulia,  gave  intimation  to  all  his  allies  in  Italy, 
who  had  much  to  fear  from  the  resentment  of  | 
the  Romans,  that  they  should  retire  under  the 
covert  of  his  army  in  Brutium.  Here  he  himself 
remained  on  the  -defensive  ;  and,  as  if  sensible 
that  his  career  in  Italy  was  nearly  at  an  end, 
erected  those  curious  monuments  which  are 
cited  by  Polybius,  and  on  which  were  recorded 
the  particulars  of  his  march  from  Spain  to  Italy, 
and  the  numbers  of  his  army  at  different  periods 
of  the  war.4 

In  the  following  year,  Mago,  as  we  have  ob- 
served, being  unable  to  effect  any  considerable 
service  in  Spain,  had  orders  to  make  sail  for  Italy, 
and  once  more  endeavour  to  reinforce  the  army 
of  Hannibal.  But,  having  lost  some  time  in  a 
fruitless  attempt  on  New  Carthage,  and  a  report 
in  the  mean  time  having  spread  of  Scipio' s  inten- 
tion to  invade  Africa,  he  received  a  second  order 
to  land  at  Genua  ;  and,  that  he  might  distract  or 
employ  the  forces  of  the  R  omans  at  home,  endea- 
vour to  rekindle  the  war  in  Liguria  and  Gaul. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Scipio  pro- 
posed to  invade  Africa,  passed  into  Sicily,  and 
employed  the  whole  year  cf  his  consulate  in 
making  preparations.  In  this  interval,  however, 
having  access  by  sea  to  the  coasts  which  were  oc- 
cupied by  Hannibal  in  Italy,  he  forced  the  town 
of  Locri,  and  posted  a  garrison  there,  under  the 
command  of  Pleminius,  an  officer,  whose  singu- 
lar abuses  of  power  became  the  subjects  of  com- 
plaint at  Rome,  and  drew  some  censure  on  Sci- 
pio himself,  by  whom  he  was  employed,  and  sup- 
posed to  be  countenanced. 

Scipio  was  said,  on  this  occasion,  not  only  10 
have  connived  at  the  outrages  committed  by  Ple- 
minius, whom  he  had  stationed  at  Locri,  but  to 
have  been  himself,  while  at  Syracuse,  abandoned 
to  a  life  of  effeminacy  and  pleasure,  unworthy  of 
a  person  entrusted  with  so  important  a  command. 
It  may  appear  strange,  that  this  censure  shoold 
arise  from  his  having  shown  a  disposition  at  Sy- 
racuse to  become  acquainted  with  the  learning  ot 
the  Greeks.  His  enemies  gave  out,  that  he  af- 
fected the  manners  of  that  people;  that  he  passed 
his  time  among  books,  and  in  public  places  oi 
conversation  and  exercise.  Upon  these  surmises, 
a  commission  was  granted  to  the  praetor  of  Sicily, 
with  ten  senators,  two  tribunes  of  the  people,  and 
one  of  the  ediles,  who  had  orders  to  join  tho 


2  Liv.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  49. 

3  Agnoscere  se  fortunam  Cartnaginis.  Liv.  lib.  xxvii 
fine. 

4  Lir.  lib.  xxviii.  fine. 


Vtfkp.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


praetor  in  that  island.  To  these  instructions 
were  given,  that  if  they  found  Scipio  accessary 
to  the  disorders  committed  at  Locri,  or  reprehen- 
sible in  his  own  conduct,  they  should  send  him  in 
arrest  to  Rome  :  but  that,  if  they  found  him  in- 
nocent, he  should  continue  in  his  command,  and 
be  suffered  to  carry  the  war  wherever  he  thought 
most  expedient  for  the  good  of  the  commonwealth. 

The  members  of  thi3  formidable  court  of  in- 
quest, having  landed  at  Locri,  in  their  way  to 
Sicily,  ordered  Pleminius,  with  thirty  of  his  offi- 
cers, in  chains  to  Rome :  and  from  Locri,  pro- 
ceeding to  Syracuse,  they  reported  from  thence, 
that  Scipio  was  no  way  accessary  to  the  crimes 
committed  by  the  troops  in  garrison  at  Locri  s 
and  that  within  the  district  of  his  own  imme- 
diate command  the  allies  were  fully  protected, 
and  the  troops  preserved  in  such  order  and  dis- 
cipline,5 as,  whenever  they  should  be  employed, 
gave  the  most  encouraging  prospect  of  victory. 

Such  was  the  report  in  favour  of  this  young 
man,  who  appears  to  have  been  the  first  Roman 
statesman  or  warrior,  who  showed  any  consider- 
able disposition  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
literature  and  ingenious  arts  of  the  Greeks.  In 
this  particular,  his  Carthaginian  rival  is  said  to 
have  advanced  before  him,  having  long  studied 
the  language  and  learning  of  those  nations  ;  and 
having  in  his  retinue  some  persons  from  Greece 
to  aid  him  in  the  use  of  their  writings. 

Scipio,  while  he  commanded  the  Roman  army 
m  Spain,  having  already  conceived  his  design  upon 
Africa,  had  with  this  view  opened  a  correspon- 
dence with  Syphax,  king  of  Numidia ;  and  had 
actually  made  a  visit  in  person  to  this  prince,  who, 
being  at  variance  with  Carthage,  was  easily  pre- 
vailed upon  to  promise  his  support  to  the  Romans, 
in  case  they  should  carry  the  war  into  that  coun- 
try. The  Roman  general,  now  ready  to  embark 
with  a  considerable  army,  sent  Lsslius  with  the 
first  division,  probably  to  examine  the  coast,  to 
choose  a  proper  station  at  which  to  fix  the  assem- 
bling of  his  fleet,  and  to  call  upon  the  king  of 
Numidia  to  perform  his  engagements. 

This  division  of  the  fleet,  at  its  first  appear- 
ance, was  supposed  to  bring  the  Roman  procon- 
sul, with  all  his  forces,  from  Sicily ;  and  the  Car- 
thaginians, whatever  reason  they  might,  for  some 
time,  have  had  to  expect  this  event,  were  in  a 
great  measure  unprepared  for  it.  They  had 
their  levies  to  make  at  home,  and  troops  to  hire 
from  abroad ;  their  fortifications  were  out  of  re- 
pair, and  their  stores  and  magazines  unfurnished. 
Even  their  fleet  was  not  in  a  condition  to  meet 
that  of  the  enemy.  They  now  hastened  to  supply 
these  defects ;  and,  though  undeceived  with  re- 
spect to  the  numbers  and  force  of  the  first  em- 
barkation, they  made  no  doubt  that  they  were 
soon  to  expect  another;  accordingly  they  con- 
tinued their  preparation,,  and  took  every  measure 
to  secure  themselves,  or  to  avert  the  storm  with 
which  they  were  threatened. 

They  had  recently  made  their  peace  with  Sy- 
phax, king  of  Numidia;  and,  instead  of  an  ene- 
my in  the  person  of  this  prince,  had  obtained  for 
themselves  a  zealous  ally.  He  had  broke  off  his 
engagements  with  Scipio  and  the  Romans,  tempt- 
ed by  his  passion  for  Sophonisba,  the  daughter  of 
Hasdrubal,  a  principal  citizen  of  Carthage,  who 
refused  to  marry  him  on  any  other  terms.  But 


this  transaction,  which  procured  to  the  Cartha- 
ginians one  ally,  lost  them  another;  for  this  high- 
minded  woman,  who,  instead  of  a  dower,  con- 
tracted for  armies  in  defence  of  her  country,  had 
formerly  captivated  Massinissa,  another  Numi- 
dian  prince,  that,  being  deprived  of  his  kingdom 
by  Syphax,  had  received  his  education,  and  form- 
ed his  attachments,  at  Carthage.6  Massinissa, 
while  he  had  hopes  of  an  alliance  with  the  family 
of  Hasdrubal,  engaged  all  his  partisans  in  Nu- 
midia in  behalf  of  the  Carthaginians;  and  he 
himself  fought  their  battles  in  person.  But,  stung 
with  his  disappointment,  and  the  preference 
which  was  given  to  his  rival,  he  determined  to 
court  the  favour  of  their  enemies ;  had  made  ad- 
vances to  Scipio,  before  his  departure  from  Spain ; 
and,  now,  hearing  of  the  arrival  of  the  Roman 
fleet,  hastened  to  Hippo,  where  Laelius  had  come 
to  an  anchor,  and  made  offer  of  his  assistance, 
with  that  of  his  friends  in  the  kingdom  of  Nu- 
midia. 

Such  was  the  state  of  parties  in  Africa,  when 
this  country  was  about  to  become  the  scene  of 
war.  The  "Carthaginians,  still  in  hopes  of  divert- 
ing the  storm,  sent  earnest  instructions  to  both 
their  generals  to  press  upon  the  Romans  in  Italy, 
and  to  make  every  effort  to  distract  or  to  occupy 
their  forces,  and  to  leave  them  no  leisure  for  the 
invasion  of  Africa.  They  sent,  at  the  same  time, 
an  embassy  to  the  king  of  Macedonia,  to  remind 
him  of  the  engagements  into  which  he  had  enter- 
ed with  Hannibal,  and  to  represent  the  danger 
to  which  he  and  every  other  prince  must  be  ex- 
posed from  a  people  so  ambitious  as  the  Romans, 
if  they  were  suffered  to  unite,  by  a  conquest,  the 
resources  of  Carthage  with  those  of  Rome. 

Philip,  at  the  earnest  entreaty  of  many  Gre- 
cian states,  who  were  anxious  that  the  Romans 
should  have  no  pretext  to  embroil  the  affairs  of 
Greece,  had,  in  the  preceding  year,  made  a  se- 
parate peace  first  with  the  Etolians,  and  after- 
wards with  the  Romans  themselves;7  and  was 
now  extremely  averse  to  renew  the  quarrel. 
The  occasion,* however,  appeared  to  be  of  great 
moment;  and  he  listened  so  far  to  the  remon- 
strances of  the  Carthaginians,  as  to  furnish  them 
with  a  body  of  four  thousand  men,  and  a  supply 
of  money. 

By  such  measure*  as  these,  hastily  taken  01.' 
the  approach  of  danger,  the  Carthaginians  en- 
deavoured to  make  amends  for  the  former  remiss 
ness  of  their  counsels.  Hitherto  they  appeal 
to  have  considered  the  war  with  little  concern, 
and  to  have  left  their  exertions  to  the  ambition 
of  a  single  family,  by  whom  the  state  was  enga- 
ged in  this  quarrel.8  They  neglected  their 
strength  at  home,  in  proportion  as  they  believed 
the  enemy  to  be  at  a  distance  ;  and  were  indif- 
ferent to  national  objects,  while  their  private  in- 
terests were  secure. 

The  harbour  of  Hippo,  about  fifty  miles  wee  t 
from  Carthage,  and  under  the  Fair  Promontory, 
being  seized  by  Latins,  furnished  a  place  of  rt- 
ception  for  Scipio' s  fleet.  This  officer  accord- 
ingly sailed  from  Sicily  with  fifty  armed  galleys , 
and  four  hundred  transports.  As  he  had  reason 
to  expect  that  the  country  would  be  laid  waste 
before  him,  great  part  of  this  shipping  was  em- 
ployed in  carrying  his  provisions  and  stores.  The 


5  Liv.  lib.  xxix.  c.  CO. 


fi  Appian  do  Fell.  Hi«pan.  p.  275. 

7  Liv.  lib.  xxix.c.  13.  8  The  sons  of  Hamilcar. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  £ 


numbers  of  his  army  are  not  mentioned.  His 
first  object  was  to  make  himself  master  of  Utica, 
situated  about  half  way  between  Carthage  and 
Hippo,  the  place  where  he  landed.  He  accord- 
ingly, without  loss  of  time,  presented  himself  be- 
fore it;  but  soon  found  himself  unable  to  execute 
his  purpose.  The  country,  to  a  considerable  dis- 
tance, was  laid  waste  or  deserted  by  the  natives, 
and  could  not  subsist  his  army.  The  Cartha- 
ginians had  a  great  force  in  field,  consisting  of 
thirty  thousand  men,  under  Hasdrubal,  the  son 
of  Gisgo,  together  with  fifty  thousand  foot  and 
ten  thousand  horse,  under  Syphax,  king  of  Nu- 
midia,  who  now  advanced  to  the  relief  of  Utica. 

Scipio,  on  the  junction  and  approach  of  these 
numerous  armies,  retired  from  Utica,  took  pos- 
session of  a  peninsula  on  the  coast,  fortified  the 
isthmus  which  led  to  it,  and  in  this  station  hav- 
ing a  safe  retreat,  both  for  his  fleet  and  his  army, 
continued  to  be  supplied  with  provisions  by  sea 
from  Sardinia,  Sicily,  and  Italy.  But  being 
thus  reduced  to  act  on  the  defensive  in  the  pre- 
sence of  a  superior  enemy,  and  not  likely,  with- 
out some  powerful  reinforcements  from  Italy,  to 
make  any  further  impression  on  Africa,  he  had 
recourse  to  a  stratagem  which,  though  amounting 
nearly  to  a  breach  of  faith,  was  supposed  to  be 
allowed  in  war  with  an  African  enemy. 

The  combined  armies  of  Carthage  and  Numi- 
dia  lay  in  two  separate  encampments,  and,  it  be- 
ing winter,  were  lodged  in  huts  covered  with 
brushwood  and  the  leaves  of  the  palm.  In  these 
circumstances  the  Roman  general  formed  a  de- 
sign to  set  fire  to  their  camp,  and  in  the  midst  of 
the  confusion  which  that  alarm  might  occasion, 
to  attack  them  in  the  night.  In  order  to  gain  a 
sufficient  knowledge  of  the  ground,  and  of  the 
ways  by  which  his  emissaries  must  pass  in  the 
execution  of  this  design,  he  entered  into  a  negotia- 
tion, and  affected  to  treat  of  conditions  for  termi- 
nating the  war.  His  deputies,  under  this  pretence, 
being  freely  admitted  into  the  enemy's  station, 
brought  him  minute  information  of  their  position, 
and  of  the  avenues  which  led  to  different  parts 
of  their  camp. 

Scipio  being  possessed  of  these  informations, 
broke  off  the  treaty,  advanced  with  his  army  in 
the  night,  and  in  many  different  places  at  once, 
set  fire  to  Hasdrubal' s  camp.  The  flames,  being 
easily  caught  by  the  dry  materials,  spread  with 
the  greatest  rapidity.  The  Carthaginians  suppo- 
sing that  these  fires  were  accidental,  and  having 
no  apprehension  of  the  pi*esence  of  an  enemy, 
ran  without  arms  to  extinguish  them :  and  the 
Numidians,  with  still  less  concern,  left  their  huts 
to  gaze  on  the  scene,  or  to  lend  their  assistance. 
In  this  state  of  security  and  confusion  Scipio  at- 
tacked and  dispersed  them  with  great  slaughter;1 
and  being,  in  consequence  of  this  action,  again 
master  of  the  field,  he  returned  to  Utica,  and 
renewed  the  siege  or  blockade  of  that  place. 

In  such  a  surprise  and  defeat  as  the  African 
armies  had  now  received,  they  were  likely  to 
have  lost  their  arms  and  their  baggage,  and  to 
have  nowhere  sufficient  numbers  together  to  with- 
stand an  enemy ;  on  this  supposition,  it  had  been 
already  proposed  at  Carthage  to  have  recourse  to 
their  last  resort,  the  recalling  of  Hannibal  from 
Italy.  But  this  motion,  upon  a  report  from  Has- 
drubal and  Syphax,  that  they  were  again  arming 


and  assembling  their  forces,  and  that  they  were 
joined  by  a  recruit  of  four  thousand  men,  newly 
arrived  from  Spain,  was  for  some  time  laid  aside. 
These  hopes,  however,  were  speedily  blasted  by 
a  second  defeat  which  the  combined  army  receiv- 
ed before  they  were  fully  assembled,  and  by  a  re- 
volution which  ensued  in  the  kingdom  of  Numi- 
dia,  where  Syphax,  pursued  by  Massinissa  and 
Laelius,  was  vanquished  and  driven  from  his 
kingdom,  which  from  thenceforward  became  the 
possession  of  his  rival,  and  a  great  accession  of 
strength  to  the  Romans.  On  this  calamity  Has- 
drubal being  threatened  by  the  populace  of  Car- 
thage with  vengeance  for  his  repeated  miscar- 
riages, and  being  aware  of  the  relentless  and  san- 
guinary spirit  of  his  countrymen,  durst  not  trust 
himself  in  their  hands ;  and  in  a  species  of  exile, 
with  a  body  of  eight  thousand  men  that  adhered 
to  him,  withdrew  from  their  service. 

In  this  extremity  there  was  no  hope  but  in  the 
presence  of  Hannibal;  and  expresses  were  ac- 
cordingly sent  both  to  Mago  and  himself,  to 
hasten  their  return  into  Atrica,  with  all  the 
forces  they  could  bring  for  the  defence  of  their 
country. 

Hannibal,  it  is  probable,  had  for  some  time" 
been  prepared  for  this  measure,  having  trans- 
ports in  readiness  to  embark  his  army ;  yet  he  is 
said  to  have  received  the  order  with  some  expres- 
sions of  rage.  "  They  have  now  accomplished," 
he  said  (speaking  of  the  opposite  faction  at  Car- 
thage,) "what,  by  withholding  from  me  the  ne 
cessary  supports  in  this  war,  they  have  long  en 
deavoured  to  effect.  They  have  wished  to  destroy 
the  family  of  Barcas;  and  rather  than  fail  in  their 
aim,  are  willing  to  bury  it  at  last  under  the  ruiny 
of  their  country."2 

While  the  Carthaginians  were  thus  driven  to 
their  last  resource,  Scipio  advanced  towards  their 
city,  and  invested  at  once  both  Tunis  and  Utica, 
which,  though  at  the  distance  of  above  thirty 
miles  from  each  other,  may  be  considered  as  bas- 
tions on  the  right  and  the  left,  which  flanked  and 
commanded  the  country  which  led  to  this  famous 
place.  His  approach  gave  the  citizens  a  fresh 
alarm,  and  seemed  to  bring  their  danger  too  near 
to  suffer  them  to  await  the  arrival  of  relief  from 
Italy,  It  appeared  necessary  to  stay  the  arm  of 
the  victor  by  a  treaty ;  and  thirty  senators  were 
accordingly  deputed  to  sue  for  peace,  The  depu- 
ties, in  their  address  to  the  Roman  proconsul, 
laid  the  blame  of  the  war  upon  Hannibal,  suppor- 
ted, as  they  alleged,  by  a  desperate  faction  who 
had  adopted  his  wild  designs.  They  entreated 
that  the  Romans  would  once  more  be  pleased  to 
spare  a  republic  which  was  again  brought  to  the 
brink  of  ruin  by  the  precipitant  counsels  of  a  few 
of  its  members. 

In  answer  to  this  abject  request,  Scipio  men 
tioned  the  terms  upon  which  he  supposed  that 
the  Romans  would  be  willing  to  treat  of  a  peace. 
A  cessation  of  arms  was  agreed  to,  and  a  nego- 
tiation commenced;  but  it  was  suddenly  inter- 
rupted and  prevented  of  its  final  effect  by  the 
arrival  of  Hannibal.  This  general,  after  many 
changes  of  fortune,  having  taken  the  necessary 
precautions  to  secure  his  retreat,  in  case  he  should 
be  called  off  for  the  (defence  of  Carthage;  now  in 
the  seventeenth  year  of  the  war,  and  after  he  had 
supported  himself  sixteen  years  in  Italy,  by  the 


1  Tolyb.  lib,  xiv.  c.  5.    Liv.  lib.  xxx.  c.  6. 


3  Liv.  lib.  xxx.  c.  W. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


5? 


sole  force  of  his  personal  character  and  abilities, 
against  the  whole  weight,  institutions,  resources, 
discipline,  and  national  character  of 
U.  C.  551.  the  Romans,  transported  his  army 
from  thence,  landed  at  Hadrumetum, 
at  a  distance  from  any  of  the  quarters  occupied 
by  the  Romans,  and  drew  to  his  standard  all  the 
remains  of  the  lately  vanquished  armies  of  Car- 
thage, and  all  the  forces  which  the  republic  was 
yet  in  a  state  to  supply. 

This  event  produced  a  change  in  the  counsels 
of  Carthage,  and  inspired  the  people  with  fresh 
presumption.  They  now  slighted  the  faith 
which  they  had  lately  engaged  to  Scipio,  and 
seized  on  all  the  Roman  vessels,  which,  trusting 
to  the  cessation  of  arms,  had  taken  refuge  in  their 
bay.  They  even  insulted  the  messenger  whom 
the  Roman  general  sent  to  complain  of  this  out- 
rage ;  and  thus  hostilities,  after  a  very  short  truce, 
were  renewed  with  redoubled  animosity  and  ran- 
cour on  both  sides. 

The  people  of  Carthage,  under  dreadful  appre- 
hensions of  becoming  a  prey  to  the  Romans, 
sent  a  message  to  Hannibal,  then  at  Hadrume- 
tum, to  hasten  his  march,  requesting  him  to  at- 
tack the  enemy,  and  at  any  hazard  to  relieve  the 
city  from  the  dangers  and  hardships  of  a  siege. 
To  this  message  he  made  answer,  that  in  affairs 
of  state  the  councils  of  Carthage  must  decide; 
but  in  the  conduct  of  war,  the  general  who  com- 
mands must  judge  of  his  opportunity  to  fight. 

The  forcing  of  Hannibal  to  evacuate  Raly  was 
a  victory  to  Scipio;  as  this  was  the  first  fruit 
which  he  ventured  to  promise  from  the  invasion 
of  Africa.  With  this  enemy,  however,  in  his 
rear,  it  was  not  expedient  to  continue  the  attack 
of  Tunis  or  Utica.  He  withdrew  his  army  from 
both  these  places,  and  prepared  to  contend  for 
the  possession  of  the  field. 

The  Carthaginian  leader,  having  collected  his 
forces  at  Hadrumetum,  marched  to  the  west- 
ward, intending  to  occupy  the  banks  of  the  Ba- 
grada,  and  from  thence  to  observe  and  counteract 
the  operations  of  his  enemy.  Scipio,  intending 
to  prevent  him,  or  to  occupy  the  advantageous 
ground  on  the  upper  Bagrada,  took  his  route  to 
the  same  country ;  and  while  both  directed  their 
march  to  Sicca,  they  met  on  the  plains  of  Zama. 

When  the  armies  arrived  on  this  ground,  nei- 
ther party  was  m  condition  to  protract  the  war. 
Hannibal,  whose  interest  it  would  have  been  to 
avoid  any  hazardous  measures,  and  to  tire  out  his 
enemy  by  delays,  if  he  were  in  possession  of  his 
own  country,  or  able  to  protect  the  capital  from 
insult,  was  in  reality  obliged  to  risk  the  whole  of 
its  fortunes,  in  order  to  rescue  it  from  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  or  to  prevent  their  renewing  the 
blockade. 

Scipio  was  far  advanced  in  an  enemy's  coun- 
try, which  was  soon  likely  to  be  deserted  by  its 
natives,  and  exhausted  of  every  means  of  sub- 
sistence ;  he  was  far  removed  from  the  sea,  the 
principal  and  only  secure  source  of  any  lasting 
supply;  surrounded  by  enemies;  a  great  army 
under  Hannibal  in  his  front;  the  cities  of  Utica, 
Carthage,  and  Tunis,  with  all  the  armed  force 
that  defended  them,  in  his  rear. 

In  such  circumstances  both  parties  probably 
saw  the  necessity  of  immediate  action ;  and  the 
Carthaginian  general,  sensible  of  the  unequal 
stake  he  was  to  play,  the  safety  of  liis  country 
against  the  fortune  of  a  single  army,  whose  loss 


would  not  materially  affect  the  State  from  whence 
they  came,  chose  to  try  the  effect  of  a  negotiation, 
and  for  this  purpose  desired  a  personal  interview 
with  Scipio. 

In  compliance  with  this  request,  the  Roman 
general  put  his  army  in  motion,  and  the  Cartha- 
ginians advancing  at  the  same  time,  they  halted 
at  the  distance  of  thirty  stadia,  or  about  three 
miles  from  each  other.  The  generals,  attended 
by  a  few  horse,  met  on  an  eminence  between 
their  lines.  Hannibal  began  the  conference,  by 
expressing  his  regret  that  the  Carthaginians 
should  have  aimed  at  any  conquests  beyond  their 
own  coasts  in  Africa,  or  the  Romans  beyond  those 
of  Italy.  "We  began,"  he  said,  "with  a  contest 
for  Sicily;  we  proceeded  to  dispute  the  posses- 
sion of  Spain,  and  we  have  each  in  our  turns 
seen  our  native  land  overrun  with  strangers,  and 
our  country  in  danger  of  becoming  a  prey  to  its 
enemies.  It  is  time  that  we  should  distrust  our 
fortune,  and  drop  an  animosity  which  has  brought 
us  both  to  the  verge  of  destruction.  This  lan- 
guage indeed  may  have  little  weight  with  you, 
who  have  been  successful  in  all  your  attempts, 
and  who  have  not  yet  experienced  any  reverse  of 
fortune;  but  I  pray  you  to  profit  by  the  expe- 
rience of  others.  You  now  behold  in  me  a  per- 
son who  was  once  almost  master  of  your  country, 
and  who  am  now  brought,  at  last,  to  the  defence 
of  my  own.  I  encamped  within  five  miles  of 
Rome,  and  offered  the  possessions  round  the 
forum  to  sale.  Urge  not  the  chance  of  war  too 
far.  I  now  offer  to  surrender,  on  the  part  of 
Carthage,  all  her  pretensions  to  Spain,  Sardinia, 
Sicily,  and  every  other  island  that  lies  between 
this  continent  and  yours.  I  wish  only  for  peace 
to  my  country,  that  she  may  enjoy  undisturbed 
her  ancient  possessions  on  this  coast;  and  1  think 
that  the  terms  I  offer  you  are  sufficiently  advan- 
tageous and  honourable  to  procure  it." 

To  this  address  Scipio  replied,  "  That  the 
Romans  had  not  been  aggressors  in  the  present 
or  preceding  wars  with  Carthage :  that  they 
strove  to  maintain  their  own  rights,  and  to  pro- 
tect their  allies;  and  that,  suitably  to  these 
righteous  intentions,  they  had  been  favoured  by 
the  justice  of  the  gods:  that  no  one  knew  bettor 
than  himself  the  instability  of  human  affairs,  nor 
should  be  more  on  his  guard  against  the  chances 
of  war.  The  terms,"  he  said,  "  which  you  now 
propose  might  have  been  ftcce]  ted  of,  had  you 
offered  them  while  yet  in  Italy,  and  had  proposed, 
as  a  prelude  to  the  treaty,  to  remove  from  thence  ; 
but  now,  that  you  are  driven  from  every  post,  you 
propose  to  surrender ;  and  are  forced,  not  only  to 
evacuate  the  Roman  territory,  but  arc  stripped  of 
part  of  your  own.  These  concessions  are  no 
longer  sufficient ;  they  are  no  more  than  a  part 
of  the  conditions  already  agreed  to  by  your  coun- 
trymen, and  which  they,  on  your  appearance  in 
Africa,  so  basely  retracted.  Besides  what  you 
now  offer,  it  was  promised  on  their  part,  that  all 
Roman  captives  should  be  restored  without  ran- 
som ;  that  all  armed  ships  should  be  delivered  up ; 
that  a  sum  of  five  thousand  talents  should  be 
paid,  and  hostages  given  by  Carthage  for  the  per- 
formance of  all  these  articles. 

"On  the  credit  of  this  agreement  we  granted 
a  cessation  of  arms,  but  were  shamefully  betrayed 
by  the  councils  of  Carthage.  Now  to  abate  any 
part  of  the  articles  which  were  then  stipulated, 
would  be  to  reward  a  breach  of  faith,  and  to  in 


58 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  f. 


struct  nations  hereafter  how  to  profit  by  perfidy. 
You  may  therefore  be  assured,  that  I  will  not  so 
much  as  transmit  to  Rome  any  proposal  that  does 
not  contain,  as  preliminaries,  every  article  for- 
merly stipulated,  together  with  such  additional 
concessions  as  may  induce  the  Romans  to  renew 
the  treaty.  On  any  other  tei-ms  than  these,  Car- 
thage must  vanquish,  or  submit  at  discretion."1 

Prom  this  interview  both  parties  withdrew 
with  an  immediate  prospect  of  action ;  and  on  the 
following  day,  neither  having  any  hopes  of  advan- 
tage from  delay  or  surprise,  came  forth  into  the 
plain  in  order  of  battle. 

Hannibal  formed  his  army  in  three  lines  with 
their  elephants  in  front. 

Scipio  drew  forth  his  legions  in  their  usual  di- 
visions, but  somewhat  differently  disposed. 

Hannibal  had  above  eighty  elephants,  with 
which  he  proposed  to  begin  the  action.  Behind 
these  he  formed  the  mercenary  troops,  composed 
of  Gauls,  Ligurians,  and  Spaniards.  In  a  second 
line  he  placed  the  Africans  and  natives  of  Car- 
thage ;  and  in  a  third  line,  about  half  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  behind  the  first,  he  placed  the  veterans  who 
had  shared  with  himself  in  all  the  dangers  and 
honours  of  the  Italian  war.  He  placed  his  cavalry 
in  the  wings  opposite  to  those  of  the  enemy. 

Scipio  posted  Laelius  with  the  Roman  cavalry 
on  his  left,  and  Massinissa  with  the  Numidian 
horse  on  his  right.  He  placed  the  manipules,  or 
divisions  of  the  legions,  not  as  usual,  mutually 
covering  their  intervals,  but  covering  each  other 
from  front  to  rear.  His  intention  in  this  disposi- 
tion was  to  leave  continued  avenues  or  lanes, 
through  which  the  elephants  might  pass  without 
disordering  the  columns.  At  the  head  of  each 
line  he  placed  the  Velites,  or  irregular  infantry, 
with  orders  to  gall  the  elephants,  and  endeavour 
to  force  them  back  upon  their  own  lines ;  or,  if 
this  could  not  be  effected,  to  fly  before  them  into 
the  intervals  of  the  heavy-armed  foot,  and,  by  the 
ways  which  were  left  open  between  the  manipules, 
to  conduct  them  into  the  rear.  It  being  the  na- 
ture of  these  animals,  even  in  their  wild  state,  to 
be  the  dupes  of  their  own  resentment,  and  to  follow 
the  hunter  by  whom  they  are  galled  into  any 
snare  that  is  prepared  for  them  ;2  the  design  thus 
formed  by  Scipio  to  mislead  them,  accordingly 
proved  successful.  As  soon  as  the  cavalry  began 
to  skirmish  on  the  wings,  Hannibal  gave  the  sig- 
nal for  the  elephants  to  charge.  They  were  re- 
ceived by  a  shower  of  missile  weapons  from  the 
Roman  light  infantry,  and,  as  usual,  carried  their 
riders  in  different  directions.  Some  broke  into 
their  own  line  with  considerable  disorder,  others 
fled  between  the  armies  and  escaped  by  the  flanks, 
and  many,  incited  with  rage,  as  Scipio  had  fore- 
seen, pursued  the  enemy  that  galled  them  through 
the  intervals  of  the  Roman  divisions  quite  out  of 
the  action ;  and  in  a  little  time  the  front  of  the  two 
armies  was  cleared  of  these  animals,  and  of  all  the 
irregulars  who  had  skirmished  between  them  in 
the  beginning  of  the  battle. 

In  the  mean  time  the  first  and  second  line  of 
Hannibal's  foot  had  advanced,  to  profit  by  the  im- 
pression which  the  elepha  nts  were  likely  to  make. 
The  third  line  still  remained  on  its  ground,  and 
seemed  to  stand  aloof  from  the  action. 

In  this  posture,  the  first  line  of  the  Carthagi- 
nian army,  composed  of  Gauls  and  Ligurians^ 


engaged  with  the  Roman  legions;  and,  after  a 
short  resistance,  were  forced  back  on  the  second 
line,  who,  having  orders  not  to  receive  them,  nor 
allow  them  to  pass,  presented  their  arms.  The 
fugitives  were  accordingly  massacred  on  both 
sides,  and  fell  by  the  swords  of  their  own  party,- 
or  by  those  of  the  enemy. 

The  second  line,  consisting  of  the  African  and 
native  troops  of  Carthage,  had  a  similar  fate; 
they  perished  by  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  or  by 
those  of  their  own  reserve,  who  had  orders  to  re- 
ceive them  on  their  swords,  and  turn  them  back, 
if  possible,  against  the  enemy. 

Scipio,  after  so  much  blood  had  been  shed,  find- 
ing his  men  out  of  breath,  and  spent  with  hard 
labour,  embarrassed  with  heaps  of  the  slain, 
scarcely  able  to  keep  their  footing  on  ground  be- 
come slippery  with  mud  and  gore,  and  in  these  1 
circumstances  likely  to  be  instantly  attacked  by  a 
fresh  enemy,  who  had  yet  borne  no  part  in  the 
contest,  he  endeavoured,  without  loss  of  time,  to 
put  himself  in  a  posture  to  renew  the  engagement. 

His  cavalry,  by  good  fortune,  in  these  hazard- 
ous circumstances,  were  victorious  on  both  the 
wings,  and  were  gone  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy..  * 
He  ordered  the  ground  to  be  cleared;  and  his 
columns,  in  the  original  form  of  the  action,  hav- 
ing been  somewhat  displaced,  he  ordered  those  of 
the  first  fine  to  close  to  the  centre ;  those  of  the 
second  and  third  to  divide,  and,  gaining  the 
flanks,  to  form  in  a  continued  line  with  the  front. 
In  this  manner,  while  the  ground  was  clearing 
of  the  dead,  probably  by  the  Velites  or  irregular 
troops,  he,  with  the  least  possible  loss  of  time,  and 
without  any  interval  of  confusion,  completed  his 
line  to  receive  the  enemy.  An  action  ensued, 
which,  being  to  decide  the  event  of  this  memor- 
able war,  was  likely  to  remain  some  time  in  sus-  . 
pense;  when  the  cavalry  of  the  Roman  army, 
returning  from  the  pursuit  of  the  horse  they  had 
routed,  fell  on  the  flank  of  the  Carthaginian  in- 
fantry, and  obliged  them  to  give  way. 

Hannibal  had  rested  his  hopes  of  victory  on 
the  disorder  that  might  arise  from  the  attack  of 
his  elephants,  and  if  this  should  fail,  on  the  steady 
valour  of  the  veterans,  whom  he  reserved  for  the 
last  effort  to  be  made,  when  he  supposed  that  the 
Romans,  already  exhausted  in  their  conflict  with 
the  two  several  lines  whom  he  sacrificed  to  their 
ardour  in  the  beginning  of  the  battle,  might  be 
unable  to  contend  with  the  third,  yet  fresh  for 
action  and  inured  to  victory.  He  was  disap- 
pointed in  the  effect  of  his  elephants,  by  the  pre- 
caution which  Scipio  had  taken  in  opening  his 
intervals,  and  in  forming  continued  lanes  for  their 
passage  from  front  to  rear ;  and  of  the  effect  of 
his  reserve,  by  the  return  of  the  enemy's  horse, 
while  the  action  was  yet  undecided.3  Havinf 
taken  no  measures  to  secure  a  retreat,  nor  to  savf 
any  part  of  his  army,  he  obstinately  fought  ever} 
minute  of  the  day  to  the  last ;  and  when  he  could 
delay  the  victory  of  his  enemy  no  longer,  he 
quitted  the  field  with  a  small  party  of  horse,  of 
whom  many,  overwhelmed  with  hunger  and  fa- 
tigue, having  fallen  by  the  way,  he  arrived  with  a 
few,  in  the  course  of  two  days  and  two  nights,  at 
Hadrumetum.  Here  he  embarked  and  proceeded 
by  sea  to  Carthage.  His  arrival  convinced  his 
countrymen  of  the  extent  of  their  loss.  Seeing 
Hannibal  without  an  army,  they  believed  them- 


1  Polyb.lib.xv.c.6,7,8.      2  Vid.  Buff.  Hist.  Nat. 


3  Polyb.lib.xv.c.  16. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


59 


solves  vanquished;  and,  with  minds  unprovided 
with  that  spirit  which  supported  the  Romans 
when  overthrown  at  Thrasimenus  and  Cannae, 
were  now  desirous,  by  any  concessions,  to  avert 
t  he  supposed  necessary  consequences  of  their  fate. 

The  riotous  populace,  that  had  so  lately  pur- 
fced  with  vengeance,  and  threatened  to  tear 
asunder  the  supposed  authors  of  peace,4  were  now 
silent,  and  ready  to  embrace  any  terms  that  might 
be  prescribed  by  the  enemy.  Hannibal,  knowing 
how  little  his  countrymen  were  qualified  to  con- 
tend with  misfortune,  confessed  in  the  Senate, 
that  he  w  is  come  from  deciding,  not  the  event  of 
a  single  battle,  but  the  fate  of  a  great  war,  and 
advised  them  to  accept  of  the  victor's  terms.5 
They  accordingly  determined  to  sue  for  peace. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Roman  army,  . in  pursuit 
of  its  victory,  was  returned  to  the  coast;  and 
having  received  from  Italy  a  large  supply  of 
stores  and  military  engines,  together  with  a  rein- 
forcement of  fifty  galleys,  was  in  a  condition,  not 
only  to  resume  the  siege  of  Utica  and  Tunis,  but 
likewise  to  threaten  with  a  storm  the  capital  it- 
self; and,  for  this  purpose,  began  to  invest  the 
town  and  block  up  the  harbour. 

Scipio  being  himself  embarked,  and  conducting 
the  fleet  to  its  station,  was  met  by  a  Carthaginian 
vessel  that  hoisted  wreaths  of  olive  and  other  en- 
signs of  peace.  This  vessel  had  ten  commission- 
ers on  board,  who  were  authorized  to  declare  the 
submission  of  Carthage,  and  to  receive  the  victor's 
commands. 

The  ambition  of  Scipio  might  have  inclined 
him  to  urge  his  victory  to  the  utmost ;  that  he 
might  carry,  instead  of  a  treaty,  the  spoils  of  Car- 
thage to  adorn  his  triumph  at  Rome.  But  the 
impatience  with  which  the  consuls  of  the  present 
and  of  the  preceding  year  endeavoured  to  snatch 
from  his  hands  the  glory  of  terminating  the  war, 
may,  with  other  motives,  have  induced  him  to  re- 
ceive the  submission  of  the  vanquished  upon  the 
first  terms  that  appeared  sufficiently  honourable, 
and  suited  to  the  object  of  the  commission  with 
which  he  had  been  entrusted. 

In  allusion  to  this  circumstance,  he  was  heard 
to  say,  that  Claudius,  by  his  impatience  to  sup- 
plant him  in  this  command,  had  saved  the  repub- 
lic of  Carthage.6  But  men  seldom  act  from  any 
fiingle  consideration;  and  Scipio  is,  in  all  proba- 
bility, justly  supposed  to  have  had  other  and 
nobler  motives  than  this  jealousy  of  a  successor. 
He  is  even  said  to  have  spared  the  rival  of  liis 
country,  in  order  to  maintain  the  emulation  of 
courage  and  of  national  virtue.  This  motive 
Cato,  who  had  served  under  him  in  the  capacity 
of  quaestor,  and  who  was  not  inclined  to  Hatter, 
did  him  the  honour  to  assign  in  a  speech  to  the 
senate.7 

Scipio,  having  appointed  the  Carthaginian 
commissioners  to  attend  him  at  Tunis,  prescribed 
the  following  terms : 

That  Carthage  should  continue  to  hold  in  Af- 
rica all  that  she  had  possessed  before  the  war,  and 
be  governed  by  her  own  laws  and  institutions : 

That  she  should  make  immediate  restitution 
of  all  Roman  ships  or  other  effects  taken  in  vio- 
lation of  the  late  truce  : 

Should  release  or  deliver  up  all  captives  de- 


4  Appian  de  Bell.  Punic,  p.  31. 

5  Polyb.  lib.  xv.  c.  4—17.  Liv.  lib.  xxx.  c.  31. 
<i  Appian  do  Bell.  Punic,  p.  36.  7  Ibid. 


serters,  or  fugitive  slaves,  taken  or  received  dur 
ing  any  part  of  the  war : 

Surrender  the  whole  of  her  fleet,  saving  ten 
gallies  of  three  tier  of  oars: 

Deliver  up  all  the  elephants  she  then  had  in 
the  stalls  of  the  republic,  and  refrain  from  taming 
or  breaking  any  more  of  those  animals : 

That  she  should  not  make  war  on  any  nation 
whatever  without  consent  of  the  Romans : 

That  she  should  indemnify  Massinissa  for  all 
the  losses  he  had  sustained  in  the  late  war  : 

And,  to  reimburse  the  Romans,  pay  a  sum  of 
ten  thousand  talents,8  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred 
talents  a  year  for  fifty  years : 

That  the  state  should  give  hostages  for  the 
performance  of  these  several  articles,  such  as 
Scipio  should  select  from  the  noblest  families  of 
Carthage,  not  under  fourteen,  nor  exceeding 
thirty  years  of  age : 

And  that,  until  this  treaty  should  be  ratified, 
they  should  supply  the  Roman  forces  in  Africa 
with  pay  and  provisions. 

When  these  conditions  were  reported  in  the 
senate  of  Carthage,  one  of  the  meml>crs  arose, 
and,  in  terms  of  indignation,  attempted  to  dis- 
suade the  acceptance  of  them:  but  Hannibal, 
with  the  tone  of  a  master,  interrupted  and  com- 
manded him  silence.  This  action  was  resented 
by  a  general  cry  of  displeasure  ;  and  Hannibal,  in 
excuse  of  his  rashness,  informed  the  senate,  that 
he  had  left  Carthage  while  yet  a  child  of  nine 
years  old.;  that  he  was  now  at  the  age  of  forty- 
five  ;  and,  after  a  life  spent  in  camps  and  military 
operations,  returned  for  the  first  time  to  bear  his 
part  in  political  councils;  that  he  hoped  they 
would  bear  with  his  inexperience  in  matters  of 
civil  form,  and  regard  more  the  tendency  than  the 
manner  of  what  he  had  done ;  that  he  was  sensi- 
ble the  proposed  terms  of  peace  were  unfavour- 
able, but  he  knew  not  how  else  his  country  was 
to  be  rescued  from  her  present  difficulties;  he 
wished  to  reserve  her  for  a  time  in  which  she 
could  exert  her  resolution  with  more  advantage. 
He  hoped  that  the  senate  would,  in  the  present 
extremity,  accept,  without  hesitation,  and  even 
without  consulting  the  people,  conditions  which, 
though  hard,  were,  notwithstanding,  less  fatal  to 
the  commonwealth  than  any  one  could  have 
hoped  for  in  the  night  that  followed  the  battle  of 
Zama.9 

The  conditions  were  accordingly 
U.  C.  552.  accepted,  and  deputies  were  sent  to 
Rome  with  concessions,  which  in 
some  measure  stripped  the  republic  of  her  sove- 
reignty. The  ratification  of  the  treaty  was  re- 
mitted to  Scipio,  and  the  peace  concluded  on  the 
terms  he  had  prescribed. 

Four  thousand  Roman  captives  were  instantly 
released:  five  hundred  galleys  were  delivered  up 
and  burnt:  the  first  payment  of  two  hundred 
talents  was  exacted,  and,  under  the  execution  of 
this  article,  many  members  of  the  Carthaginian 
senate  were  in  tears.  Hannibal  was  observed  to 
smile,  and  being  questioned  on  this  insult  to  the 
public  distress,  made  answer,  That  a  smile  of 
scorn  for  those  who  felt  not  the  loss  of  their 
country,  until  it  affected  their  own  interest,  was 
an  expression  of  sorrow  for  Carthage. 


8  Near  two  millions  sterling. 

9  Polyb.  lib.  xv.  c.  18.    Liv.  lib.  XXX.  c.  37. 


60 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Stale  of  Rome  at  the  Peace  with  Carthage — Wars  with  the  Gauls — With  the  Macedonians — 
Battle  of  Cynocaphalai — Peace — Freedom  to  Greece — Preludes  to  the  War  with  Antiochus — 
Flight  of  Hannibal  to  that  Prince — Antiochus  passes  into  Europe — Dispositions  made  by  the 
Romans — Flight  of  Antiochus  to  Asia — His  Defeat  at  the  Mountains  of  Sipylus — Peace  and 
Settlement  of  Asia — Course  of  Roman  Affairs  at  Home,  fyc. 


IN  the  course  of  the  war,  which  terminated  in 
so  distinguished  a  superiority  of  the  Roman  over 
the  Carthaginian  republic,  the  victors  had  ex- 
perienced much  greater  distress  than  had,  even  in 
the  last  stage  of  the  conflict,  fallen  to  the  share  of 
the  vanquished.  The  greater  part  of  their  terri- 
tory, during  a  series  of  years,  lay  waste ;  was 
ruined  in  its  habitations,  plundered  of  its  slaves 
and  its  cattle,  and  deserted  of  its  people.  The 
city  itself  was  reduced  to  a  scanty  supply  of 
provisions  that  threatened  immediate  famine.1 
Among  other  modes  of  taxation  devised  at  this 
time,  the  monopoly  of  salt  was  established  or  re- 
newed ;  but  every  public  fund  that  was  consti- 
tuted in  the  ordinary  way  being  insufficient,  the 
state  had  recourse  to  the  voluntary  contribution 
of  its  members,  and  called  for  their  plate  and  other 
ornaments  of  silver  and  gold  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses. They  debased  their  silver  coin  by  a  great 
mixture  of  alloy,  and  farther  reduced  the  copper 
Ass  from  its  late  coinage  at  two  ounces  to  one.2 
The  numbers  of  the  people  on  the  rolls,  either  by 
desertion  or  by  the  sword  of  the  enemy,  uncom- 
monly fatal  in  such  a  series  of  battles,  were  re- 
duced from  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand 
to  nearly  the  half.3 

In  the  musters  and  levies,  no  less  than  twelve 
colonies  at  once  withheld  their  names,  and  re- 
fused their  support.  Yet,  proof  against  the  whole 
of  these  sufferings,  the  Romans  maintained  the 
conflict  with  a  resolution  which  seemed  to  imply, 
that  they  considered  the  smallest  concession  as 
equivalent  to  ruin.  In  the  farther  exertion 
of  this  unconquerable  spirit,  when  the  pressure 
of  this  war  was  removed,  their  fortunes  rose  to  a 
flood  of  prosperity  and  greatness,  proportioned  to 
the  low  ebb  to  which  they  seemed  to  have  fallen 
in  the  course  of  it. 

They  joined,  in  Sicily,  to  their  former  posses- 
sions, the  city  of  Syracuse,  and  the  whole  king- 
dom of  Hiero.  In  Spain,  they  succeeded  to  all  the 
possessions,  to  all  the  claims  and  pretensions  of 
Carthage,  and  became  masters  of  all  that  had 
been  the  subject  of  dispute  in  the  war.  They 
brought  Carthage  herself  under  contribution,  and 
reduced  her  almost  to  the  state  of  a  province. 

On  the  side  of  Macedonia  and  lllyricum,  in 
their  treaty  with  Philip  and  his  allies,  they  re- 
tained to  themselves  considerable  pledges,  not 
only  of  security,  but  of  power ;  and  began  to  be 
considered  in  the  councils  of  Greece,  as  the  prin- 
cipal arbiters  of  the  fortunes  of  nations. 

In  Italy,  where  their  progress  was  still  of 
greater  consequence,  they  became  more  absolute 
masters  than  they  had  been  before  the  war. — 


1  Polyb.  Excerptae  Legationes. 

2  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  lib.  iii.  c.  iii. 

3  These  were  probably  the  citizens,  fit  to  carry  arms, 
residing  in  the  city ;  for  it  was  not  yet  the  practice  to  enrol 
ihose  who  did  not  offer  their  names  at  Rome. 


The  cantons,  which,  in  so  general  a  defection  of 
their  other  allies,  had  continued  faithful  to  them> 
were  fond  of  the  merit  they  had  acquired,  and 
were  confirmed  in  their  attachment  by  the  habits 
of  zeal  which  they  had  exerted  in  so  prosperous 
a  cause.  Those,  on  the  contrary,  who  had  re- 
volted, or  withdrawn  their  allegiance,  were  re- 
duced to  a  state  of  submission  more  entire  than 
they  had  formerly  acknowledged ;  and  the*  sove- 
reignty of  this  whole  country  being,  till  now, 
precarious  and  tottering,  derived,  from  the  very 
storm  which  had  shaken  it,  stability  and  force. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  splendour  of  such 
rapid  advancement,  and  of  the  high  military  and 
political  talents  which  procured  it,  if  by  any  ac- 
cident the  career  of  the  Romans  had  been  stopt  at 
the  present  era,  their  name,  it  is  probable,  would 
never  have  appeared  on  the  record  of  polished 
nations,  nor  they  themselves  been  otherwise 
known  than  as  a  barbarous  dynasty,  that  fell  a 
prey  to  some  more  fortunate  pretenders  to  domi- 
nion and  conquest. 

The  Romans,  being  altogether  men  of  the 
sword,  or  of  the  state,  made  no  application  to  let- 
ters or  sedentary  occupations.  Cato  is  introduced 
by  Cicero  as  saying,  That  it  had  been  anciently 
the  fashion  at  Roman  feasts  to  sing  heroical  bal- 
lads in  honour  of  their  ancestors  :  but  that  this 
custom  had  been  discontinued  in  his  own  time-, 
and  it  is  probable,  from  the  great  change  which 
their  language  underwent  in  a  few  years,  that 
they  had  no  popular  or  established  compositions 
in  writing,  or  even  in  vulgar  tradition,  by  which 
the  uniformity  of  language  has,  mother  instances, 
been  longer  preserved. — They  had  hitherto  no 
historian,  poet,  or  philosopher;  and  it  was  only 
now,  that  any  taste  began  to  appear  for  the  com 
positions  of  such  authors.  Fabius,  Ennius,  and 
Cato,  became  the  first  historians  of  their  country, 
and  raised  the  first  literary  monuments  of  genius 
that  were  to  remain  with  posterity.4 

The  inclination  which  now  appeared  for  the 
learning  of  the  Greeks  was,  by  many,  considered 
as  a  mark  of  degeneracy,  and  gave  rise  to  the 
never-ending  dispute,  which,  in  this  as  in  other 
nations,  took  place  between  the  patrons  of  ancient 
and  modern  manners.  The  admirers  of  ancient 
times,  being  attached  to  what  they  received  from 
their  ancestors,  were  disposed  to  reject  every  new 
improvement,  and  seemed  willing  to  stop  the 
progress  of  ingenuity  itself.  The  gay,  and  the 
fashionable,  on  the  other  hand,  liked  what  was 
new ;  were  fond  of  every  change,  and  would  ever 
adopt  the  latest  invention  as  the  model  of  pro- 
priety, elegance,  and  beauty. 

To  the  simplicity  of  the  Roman  manners  in 
other  respects,  and  to  the  ability  of  the  most  ac- 
complished councils  of  state,  was  joined  a  very 


4  In  the  sixth  century  of  Rome 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


gross  superstition,  which  led  to  many  acts  of  ab- 
surdity and  cruelty.  In  this  particular  it  appears, 
that  the  conceptions  of  men  are  altogether  uncon- 
nected with  their  civil  and  political,  as  well  as 
military  character ;  and  that  the  rites  they  adopt, 
even  when  innocent,  and  the  most  admissible  ex- 
pressions of  worship,  do  not  deserve  to  be  record- 
ed for  any  other  purpose,  than  to  show  how  far 
they  are  arbitrary;  and  how  little,  in  many  in- 
stances, they  are  directed,  even  among  nations 
otherwise  the  most  accomplished,  by  any  rule  of 
utility,  humanity,  or  reason. 

A  little  time  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  late 
war,  the  Roman  senate,  upon  the  report  of  a  pro- 
phecy that  the  Gauls  and  the  Greeks  were  to 
possess  the  city,  ordered  a  man  and  a  woman  of 
each  of  those  nations  to  be  buried  alive  in  the 
market-place ;  supposing,  we  may  imagine,  that, 
Dy  this  act  of  monstrous  injustice  and  cruelty, 
they  were  to  fulfil  or  elude  the  prediction.5  They 
attended  to  the  numberless  prodigies  that  were 
annually  collected,  and  to  the  charms  that  were 
suggested  to  avert  the  evils  which  those  prodi- 
gies were  supposed  to  presage,  no  less  than  they 
did  to  the  most  serious  affairs  of  the  common- 
wealth.0 They  frequently  seemed  to  impute 
their  distresses  more  to  the  neglect  of  supersti- 
tious rites,  than  to  the  misconduct  of  their  offi- 
cers, or  to  the  superiority  of  their  enemies.  Fa- 
bius,  who,  by  perseverance  and  steadiness,  had 
the  merit  of  restoring  their  affairs,  was  no  less 
celebrated  for  his  diligence  in  averting  the  effect 
of  prodigies  and  unhappy  presages,  than  he  was 
for  the  conduct  and  ability  of  a  cautious  and  suc- 
cessful commander.7  Even  Scipio  is  said  to  have 
been  influenced  by  his  dreams,  and  to  have  pre- 
tended to  special  revelations. 

From  such  examples  as  these,  we  may  learn 
the  fallacy  of  partial  representations  of  national 
character,  and  carefully  to  guard  against  drawing 
any  inference  from  the  defects  or  accomplishments 
which  a  people  may  exhibit  of  one  kind,  to  estab- 
lish those  of  another. 

The  peace  with  Carthage  was  introduced  with 
some  popular  acts  in  favour  of  those  who  had 
suffered  remarkably  in  the  hardships  and  dangers 
of  the  war.  Large  quantities  of  corn  that  had 
been  seized  in  the  magazines  of  the  enemy,  were 
sold  in  the  city  at  a  low  price,  and  a  considerable 
distribution  of  land  was  made  to  numbers  of  the 
people  in  reward  of  their  long  and  perilous  services. 

These  precedents,  however  reasonable  in  the 
circumstances  from  which  they  arose,  were  the 
sources  of  great  abuse;  private  citizens,  in  the 
sequel,  were  taught  to  rely  on  public  gratuities, 
and  were  made  to  hope,  that,  in  the  midst  of  sloth 
and  riot,  they  might  subsist  without  care,  and 
without  industry.  Soldiers  were  taught  to  expect 
extraordinary  rewards  for  ordinary  services;  and 
ambitious  leaders  were  instructed  how  to  transfer 
the  affection  and  the  hopes  of  the  legions  from 
the  republic  to  themselves. 

The  treaty  with  Carthage,  while  it  terminated 
the  principal  war  in  which  the  Romans  were  en- 
gaged, left  them  at  leisure  to  pursue  a  variety  of 
quarrels,  which  still  remained  on  their  hands, 
rather  than  bestowed  entire  peace.  The  Insu- 
bres,  and  other  Gaulish  nations  on  the  Po,  al- 
though they  had  not  taken  the  full  advantage 


5  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Marcell.  6  Vide  Liv.  passim. 
7  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Fab.  Max. 


which  the  presence  of  Hannibal  in  Italy  might  have 
given  them  against  the  Romans,  were  unable  to 
remain  at  peace,  and  were  unwilling  to  acknow- 
ledge the  sovereignty  of  any  nation  over  their 
own.  Having  a  Carthaginian  exile,  of  the  name 
of  Hamilcar,  at  their  head,  they  attempted  again 
to  dislodge  the  colonies  of  Cremona  and  Flacentia ; 
and  on  that  side,  with  various  events  for  some 
years,  furnished  occupation  to  the  arms  of  the  re- 
public. 

Philip,  notwithstanding  the  treaty  of  peace, 
which,  about  three  years  before,  he  had  concluded 
with  the  Romans,  had  lately  supplied  the  Car- 
thaginians with  an  aid  of  four  thousand  men,  and 
a  sum  of  money.  Of  the  men  he  had  sent  to  the 
assistance  of  Carthage,  many  had  been  taken  at 
the  battle  of  Zama,  and  detained  as  captives. 
Trusting,  however,  to  the  authority  of  his  crown, 
he  sent,  during  the  dependence  of  the  treaty  be- 
tween the  Romans  and  Carthaginians,  a  message 
to  demand  the  enlargement  of  those  Macedonian 
captives.  To  this  message  the  senate  replied  with 
disdain,  that  the  king  of  Macedonia  appeared  to 
desire  a  war  and  should  have  it. 

The  people,  nevertheless,  wearied  and  exhaust- 
ed with  the  late  contest,  engaged  in  this  war  with 
uncommon  reluctance.  The  senate,  they  thought, 
was  directed  by  the  ambition  of  a  few  members, 
who  never  ceased  to  seek  for  new  subjects  of  tri- 
umph, and  for  fresh  occasion  of  military  honours. 
But  notwithstanding  their  aversion  to  enter  into 
a  war  upon  these  motives,  they  were  persuaded 
to  give  their  consent  upon  a  representation  of  the 
great  progress  which  was  making  by  the  king  of 
Macedonia,  and  the  supposed  necessity  of  carry- 
ing the  war  into  his  own  country,  in  order  to 
check  or  prevent  his  designs  upon  Italy. 

Philip,  from  being  the  head  of  a  free  confede- 
racy, in  which  the  Achseans,  and  many  other 
states  of  Greece,  were  united,  aspired  to  become 
the  despotic  sovereign  of  that  country;  and, 
either  by  insinuation  or  force,  had  made  himself 
master  of  most  places  of  consequence  round  the 
JEgenn  sea,  whether  in  Europe  or  Asia.  Upon 
tin'  death  of  Ptolemy  Philopater,  and  the  succes- 
sion of  an  infant  son  of  that  prince  to  the  throne 
of  Egypt,  Philip  had  entered  into  a  treaty  with 
Antiochus,  king  of  Syria,  to  divide  between  them 
the  possessions  of  the  Egyptian  monarchy ;  and 
in  order  to  be  ready  for  his  more  distant  operations, 
was  busy  in  reducing  the  places  which  still  held  out 
against  him  in  Greece,  and  in  its  neighbourhood. 

For  this  purpose  lie  sent  an  army  with  orders 
to  take  possession  of  Athens,  and  was  himself 
employed  in  the  siege  of  Abydos.  The  Atheni- 
ans sent  a  message  to  Rome  to  sue  for  protection. 
"It  is  no  longer  a  question,"  said  the  consul Sul- 
picius,  in  his  harangue  to  the  people,  "whether 
you  will  have  a  war  with  Philip,  but  whether 
you  will  have  that  war  in  Macedonia  or  in  Italy. 
If  you  stay  until  Philip  has  taken  Athens,  as 
Hannibal  took  Saguntum,  you  may  then  see  him 
arrive  in  Italy,  not  after  a  march  of  five  months, 
and  after  the  passage  of  tremendous  mountains, 
but  after  a  voyage  of  five  days  from  his  embarka- 
tion at  Corinth." 

These  considerations  decided  the  resolution  of 
the  Roman  people  for  war;  and  the  officers,  yet 
remaining  in  Sicily  at  the  head  of  the  sea  and  the 
land  forces  that  had  been  employed  against  Car- 
thage had  orders,  without  touching  on  Italy,  to 
make  sail  for  the  coast  of  Epirus. 


(52 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


I  Book  t. 


The  consul  Sulpicius  was  des- 
U.  C.  552.    tined  to  command  in  that  country. 

He  found,  upon  his  arrival,  that 
Attalus,  the  king  of  Pergamus,  and  the  republic 
of  Rhodes,  had  taken  arms  to  oppose  the  progress 
of  Philip.  In  concert  with  these  allies,  and  in 
conjunction  with  the  Dardanians  and  other  can- 
tons who  joined  him  on  the  frontiers  of  Macedo- 
nia, the  Roman  consul  was  enabled  to  relieve  and 
to  protect  the  Athenians.  But  the  other  states 
of  Greece,  though  already  averse  to  the  preten- 
sions of  Philip,  and  impatient  of  his  usurpations ; 
even  the  Etolians,  though  the  most  determined 
opponents  of  this  prince,  seemed  to  be  undecided 
on  this  occasion,  and  deferred  entering  into  any 
engagement  with  the  Romans.  The  reputation 
of  the  Macedonian  armies  was  still  very  high; 
and  it  was  doubtful,  whether  these  Italian  inva- 
ders, considered  as  an  upstart  and  a  barbarous 

Sower,  might  be  able  to  protect  the  states  that 
eclared  for  them  against  the  vengeance  of  so 
great  a  king.i 

The  two  first  years  of  the  war  elapsed  with- 
out any  decisive  event.  Philip  took  post  on  the 
mountains  that  separate  Epirus  from  Thessaly, 
and  effectually  prevented  the  Romans  fronv  pe- 
netrating any  farther.  But,  in  the  third  year, 
Titus  Gluintius  Flamininus,  yet  a  young  man 
under  thirty  years  of  age,  being  consul,  and  des- 
tined to  this  command,  brought  to  an  immediate 
issue  a  contest  which,  till  then,  had  been  held  in 
suspense. 

The  Roman  legion,  except  in  its  first  encoun- 
ters with  Pyrrhus,  had  never  measured  its  force, 
or  compared  its  advantages  with  any  troops  form- 
ed on  the  Grecian  model,  and,  to  those  who  rea- 
soned on  the  subject,  may  have  appeared  greatly 
inferior  to  the  Macedonian  phalanx.  One  pre- 
sumption, indeed,  had  appeared  in  favour  of  the 
legion,  that  both  Pyrrhus  and  Hannibal  thought 
proper  to  adopt  its  weapons,  though  there  is  no 
account  of  their  having  imitated  the  line  of  battle 
or  form  of  its  manipules. 

The  phalanx  was  calculated  to  present  a  strong 
and  impenetrable  front,  supported  by  a  depth  of 
column,  which  might  be  varied  occasionally  to 
suit  with  the  ground.  The  men  were  armed 
with  spears  of  twenty-one  or  twenty-four  feet  in 
length.  The  five  first  ranks  could  level  and 
carry  their  points  to  the  front  of  the  column. 
The  remainder  rested  their  spears  obliquely  on 
the  shoulders  of  those  that  were  before  them; 
and  in  this  posture,  formed  a  kind  of  shed  to  in- 
tercept the  missiles  of  the  enemy;  and,  with  their 
pressure,  supported,  or  urged,  the  front  of  their 
own  column. 

In  the  shock  of  the  phalanx  and  legion,  it  is 
computed,  that  every  single  man  in  the  front  of 
the  legion,  requiring  a  square  space  of  six  feet  in 
which  to  ply  his  weapons,  and  acting  with  his 
buckler  and  sword,  had  ten  points  of  the  enemy's 
spears  opposed  to  him:2  nevertheless,  the  strength 
of  the  phalanx  being  entirely  collected  in  front, 
and  depending  on  the  closeness  of  its  order ;  when 
attacked  on  the  flank  or  rear,  when  broken  or 
taken  by  surprise,  and  unformed,  it  was  easily 
routed,  and  was  calculated  only  for  level  ground, 
and  the  defence  of  a  station  accessible  only  in  one 
direction. 


1  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Flamin.  p.  407.  2  Polyb.  lib. 

scvii.  c.23. 


The  Roman  legion  could  act  on  its  front,  its 
flank,  or  its  rear.  Each  division,  or  manipule, 
and  even  the  men  that  composed  it,  could  act 
apart ;  and,  if  they  had  space  enough  to  ply  their 
weapons,  could  scarcely  be  taken  by  surprise,  or 
be  made  to  suffer  for  want  of  a  determinate  order. 
It  was  serviceable,  therefore,  upon  any  ground, 
and,  except  on  the  front  of  the  phalanx,  Tiad  an 
undoubted  advantage  over  that  body. 

In  its  ordinary  form,  the  legion  made  its  attack 
by  separate  divisions,  at  considerable  intervals; 
and  this  mode  of  attack  had  a  tendency  to  break 
and  disjoin  the  front  of  the  phalanx.  The  divi- 
sions of  the  second  line  were  made  to  face  the  in- 
tervals of  the  first,  in  order  to  take  advantage  of 
any  disorder  that  might  arise  from  the  impression 
made  on  the  enemy,  whether  they  repulsed  and 
pursued,  or  gave  way  to  the  divisions  that  attack- 
ed them. 

Such  are  reasonings  which  occurred  to  military 
men,  at  least  after  the  events  of  the  present  war. 
In  the  mean  time  the  Romans,  in  whatever  de- 
gree they  comprehended  this  argument,  had  suffi- 
cient confidence  in  their  own  weapons,  and  in 
their  loose  order,  to  encounter  the  long  spear  and 
compacted  force  of  their  enemy. 

When  Flamininus  arrived  in  Epirus,  Philip 
received  him  in  a  rugged  pass,  where  the  Aous 
bursts  from  the  mountains  that  separate  Epirus 
from  Thessaly.  This  post  was  strong,  and  could 
be  defended  even  by  irregular  troops;  but  the 
phalanx,  in  this  place,  had  none  of  its  peculiar 
advantages  ;  the  Romans  got  round  it  upon  the 
heights,  and  obliged  the  king  of 
U.  C.  555.  Macedonia  to  retire.  He  fled 
through  Thessaly,  and,  to  incom- 
mode the  enemy  in  their  attempts  to  pursue  him, 
laid  waste  the  country  as  he  passed. 

The  flight  of  Philip  determined  the  Etolians 
to  take  part  in  the  war  against  him;  and  the 
Roman  general,  after  the  operations  of  the  cam- 
paign, being  to  winter  in  Phocis  on  the  gulf  of 
Corinth,  found,  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
Achoean  states  were  likewise  disposed  to  join  him. 
He  took  advantage  of  this  disposition,  and  got  pos- 
session of  all  the  towns  in  the  Peloponnesus,  ex- 
cept Corinth  and  Argos,  which  hitherto  had  been 
in  alliance  with  the  enemy. 

In  the  following  spring,  Philip,  having  with 
great  industry  collected  and  disciplined  the  forces 
of  his  kingdom,  received  Flamininus  in  Thessaly. 
The  armies  met  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Phera; ; 
but  the  country,  being  interspersed  with  gardens, 
and  cut  with  plantations  and  hedges,  the  king 
declined  a  battle,  and  withdrew.  Flamininus, 
knowing  that,  he  had  magazines  at  Scotusa,  sup- 
posed that  he  was  gone  towards  that  place,  and 
followed  by  a  route  that  was  separated  from  that 
of  the  king  by  a  ridge  of  hills.  In  the  first  day's 
march,  the  Romans  and  Macedonians  were  hid 
from  each  other  by  the  heights ;  on  the  second 
day  they  were  covered  by  a  thick  fog,  which 
hindered  them  from .  seeing  distinctly  even  the 
different  parts  of  their  own  armies. 

The  scouts  and  advanced  parties  on  both  sides, 
had,  about  the  same  time,  ascended  the  heights, 
to  gain  some  observation  of  their  enemy.  They 
met  by  surprise,  and  could  not  avoid  an  engage- 
ment. Each  party  sent  for  support  to  the  main 
body  of  their  respective  armies.  The  Romans 
had  begun  to  give  way,  when  a  reinforcement 
arrived,  that  enabled  them,  in  their  turn,  to  press 


Chap.  VI. J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


63 


on  the  enemy,  and  to  recover  the  height  from 
which  they  had  been  forced.  Philip  was  deter- 
mined not  to  hazard  his  phalanx  on  that  unfa- 
vourable ground,  broken  and  interspersed  with 
little  hills ;  which,  on  account  of  their  figure, 
were  called  the  Cynocephalae.3  He  sent,  never- 
theless, all  his  horse  and  irregular  infantry  to  ex- 
tricate his  advanced  party,  and  to  draw  them  off 
with  honour.  Upon  their  arrival,  the  advantage 
came  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  Macedonians ;  and 
the  Roman  irregulars  were  forced  from  the  hills 
in  the  utmost  disorder.  The  cry  of  victory  was 
carried  back  to  the  camp  of  the  king.  His  cour- 
tiers exclaimed  that  now  was  the  time  to  urge  a 
flying  enemy,  and  to  complete  his  advantage. 
The  king  hesitated,  but  could  not  resist  the 
general  voice.  He  ordered  the  phalanx  to  move  ; 
and  he  himself  at  the  head  of  the  right  wing, 
while  his  left  was  marching  in  column,  had  ar- 
rived and  formed  on  the  hill. — On  his  way  to  this 
ground,  he  was  flattered  with  recent  tracts  of  the 
victory  which  had  been  gained  by  his  troops. 

Flamininus,  at  the  same  time,  alarmed  at  the 
defeat  of  his  light  infantry,  and  seeing  a  kind  of 
panic  likely  to  spread  through  the  legions,  put  the 
whole  army  in  motion,  and  advanced  to  receive 
his  flying  parties.  In  that  point  of  time  the  fog 
cleared  up,  and  showed  the  right  of  the  Macedo- 
nian phalanx  already  formed  upon  the  height. 

Flamininus  hastily  attacked  this  body,  and  be- 
ing unable  to  make  any  impression,  gave  up  the 
day,  on  that  quarter,  for  lost.  But,  observing 
that  the  enemy  opposite  to  his  right  were  not  yet 
come  to  their  ground,  he  instantly  repaired  to  that 
wing,  and,  with  his  elephants  and  light  infantry, 
supported  by  the  legions,  attacked  them  before  the 
phalanx  was  formed,  and  put  them  to  flight. 

In  this  state  of  the  action,  a  tribune  ot  the  vic- 
torious legion,  being  advanced  in  pursuit  of  the 
enemy,  as  they  fled  beyond  the  flank  of  their  own 
phalanx  on  the  right,  took  that  body  in  the  rear ; 
and,  by  this  fortunate  attempt,  in  so  critical  a  mo- 
ment, completed  the  victory  in  all  parts  of  the  field. 

Thus  Philip,  if  his  phalanx  had  any  advantage 
over  the  legion  of  the  Romans,  had  not,  in  two 
successive  encounters,  been  able  to  avail  himself 
of  it ;  and  it  may  well  be  supposed,  that,  in  the 
movements  of  armies,  which  often  require  them 
to  act  on  varieties  of  ground,  the  chances  were 
greatly  in  favour  of  the  more  versatile  body.4 

From  this  field  the  king  of  Macedonia  fled  with 
a  mind  already  disposed  not  to  urge  the  fate  of 
the  war  any  farther.  He  retired  to  the  passes  of 
the  mountains  that  surround  the  valley  of  Tempe, 
and  from  thence  sent  a  message  to  the  Roman 
general  with  overtures  of  peace. 

It  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  in  the  manners 
and  policy  of  the  Romans,  that  the  same  motives 
of  ambition  which  urged  the  rulers  of  the  state  to 
war,  likewise,  on  occasion,  inclined  the  leaders  of 
armies  to  peace,  made  them  admit  from  an  enemy 
the  first  oilers  of  submission,  and  embrace  any 
terms  on  which  they  could  for  themselves  lay 
claim  to  a  triumph. 

The  prayer  of  the  republic,  in  entering  on  a 
war,  included  three  objects,  safety,  victory,  and 
enlargement  of  territory.5  Every  general  endea- 
voured to  obtain  these  ends  for  his  country ;  but, 


3  The  name  implies,  that  theso  hills  resembled  the  head 
of  a  dog. 

4  Polyb.  lib.  xth.  c.  22.      5  Liv.  lib.  xxxi.  c.  5. 


in  proportion  as  he  approached  to  the  completion 
of  his  wishes,  he  became  jealous  of  his  successor, 
and  desirous  to  terminate  the  war  before  any  other 
should  come  to  snatch  out  of  his  hands  the  tro- 
phies he  had  won.  This  people  appeared,  there- 
fore, on  most  occasions,  willing  to  spare  the  van- 
quished, and  went  to  extremities  only  by  degrees, 
and  urged  by  the  ambition  of  successive  leaders, 
who,  each  in  his  turn,  wished  to  make  some  ad- 
dition to  the  advantages  previously  gained  to  hu 
country.  At  the  same  time,  the  state,  when  fur- 
nished with  a  fair  pretence  for  reducing  a  province 
to  subjection,  made  the  most  effectual  arrange- 
ments to  accomplish  this  purpose. 

Flamininus,  on  the  present  occasion,  encourag- 
ed the  advances  that  were  made  to  him  by  Philip, 
granted  a  cessation  of  arms,  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  continue  his  applications  for  peace  at 
Rome,  and  forwarded  the  messenger  whom  he 
sent  on  this  business.  The  senate,  on  being  in- 
formed that  the  king  of  Macedonia  cast  himself 
entirely  on  the  mercy  and  justice  of  the  Romans, 
named  ten  commissioners  to  be  joined 
U.  C.  557.  with  Flamininus,  and  to  determine, 
in  presence  of  the  other  parties  con- 
cerned in  the  war,  what  were  to  be  the  terms  on 
which  peace  should  be  granted. 

The  time  was  not  yet  come  for  the  Romans  to 
lay  hold  of  any  possessions  beyond  the  sea  of 
Ionia.  They  had  passed  into  that  country  as  the 
protectors  of  Athens,  were  now  satisfied  with  the 
title  of  deliverers  of  Greece;  and,  under  pretence 
cf  setting  the  republics  of  that  quarter  free,  de- 
tached them  from  the  Macedonian  monarchy ; 
but,  in  this  manner,  made  the  first  step  towards 
conquest,  by  weakening  their  enemy,  and  by  strip- 
ping him  of  great  part  of  that  power  with  which 
he  had  been  able  to  resist  them  in  the  late  war. 

They  obliged  the  king  of  Macedonia  to  with- 
draw his  garrisons  from  every  fortress  in  Greece, 
and  to  leave  ever)7  Grecian  city,  whether  of  Eu- 
rope or  Asia,  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  its  own  in- 
dependence and  separate  laws. 

To  secure  the  effects  of  this  treaty,  they  obliged 
him  to  surrender  all  his  ships  of  war,  except  one 
galley,  on  which,  it  was  said,  were  mounted  six- 
teen tier  of  oars,  requiring  a  height  above  the 
water,  and  dimensions  in  every  part,  more  fitted 
for  ostentation  than  wieldiness  or  use. 

They  made  him  reduce  his  ordinary  military 
establishment  to  five  hundred  men,  and  forbade 
him  entirely  the  use  of  elephants. 

For  themselves,  they  desired  only  to  have  the 
Reman  captives  restored,  deserters  delivered  up, 
and  a  sum  of  one  thousand  talents  to  reimburse 
the  expense  of  the  war.6 

By  this  treaty  the  Romans  not  only  weakened 
their  enemy,  but  acquired  o;reat  accessions  of 
reputation  and  general  confidence.  They  an- 
nounced themselves  as  protectors  of  all  free  na- 
tions; and  in  this  character  took  an  ascendant, 
which,  even  over  the  states  they  had  rescued 
from  foreign  usurpations,  by  degrees  might  rise 
into  sovereignty  and  a  formal  dominion. 

To  give  the  greater  solemnity  to  the  gift  of 
liberty  which  they  made  to  the  Grecian  states, 
they  had  this  act  of  splendid  munificence  pro- 
claimed at  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  in  presence  of 
great  multitudes  from  every  part  of  Greece  met 
to  solemnize  the  ordinary  games;  and,  in  return, 


6  Liv.  lib.  x.xxiii.  c.  51. 


64 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


were  extolled  by  the  flatterers  of  their  power,  or 
the  dupes  of  their  policy,  as  the  common  restorers 
of  freedom  to  mankind. 

The  Romans  hastened  the  completion  of  the 
treaty,  by  which  they  disarmed  the  king  of  Ma- 
cedonia, upon  having  received  information  that 
Antiochus,  king  of  Syria,  was  in  motion  with  a 
mighty  force,  and,  without  declaring  his  inten- 
tions, made  sail  towards  Europe.  This  prince 
succeeded  to  the  kingdom  of  Syria  a  few  years 
before  Ptolomy  Philopater  began  to  reign  in 
Egypt,  or  Philip  in  Greece ;  and  was  nearly  of 
the  same  age  with  those  princes.  In  his  youth  he 
waged  war  with  the  kingdom  of  Egypt  for  the 
possession  of  C ado-Syria,  and  with  the  Satraps 
or  governors  of  his  own  provinces,  who  attempted 
to  render  themselves  independent,  and  to  dismem- 
ber his  kingdom.  His  success  in  reuniting  all  the 
members  of  his  own  monarchy,  put  him  in  pos- 
session of  a  great  empire,  which  reached  from  the 
extremities  of  Armenia  and  Persia  to  Sardis  and 
the  seas  of  Greece.  The  splendour  of  his  fortunes 
procured  him  the  title  of  Antiochus  the  Great. 
The  crown  of  Egypt  had  been,  for  some  time, 
the  principal  object  of  his  jealousy  and  of  his 
ambition.  He  had  made  an  alliance  with  Philip, 
in  which  the  common  object  of  the  parties  was  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  minority  of  Ptolomy : 
but  he  was  not  aware,  in  time,  how  much  the 
king  of  Macedonia  stood  in  need  of  his  support 
against  the  Romans;  or  how  much  it  was  his 
interest  to  preserve  that  kingdom  as  a  barrier 
against  the  encroachments  of  an  ambitious  peo- 
ple, who  now  began  to  direct  their  views  to  the 
East.  He  advanced,  however,  though  now  too 
late,  by  the  coast  of  Asia  to  the  Hellespont,  with 
a  fleet  and  an  army  rather  destined  for  observa- 
tion, than  for  any  decided  part  in  a  war  which 
was  brought  to  a  conclusion  about  the  time  of  his 
arrival  in  those  parts. 

At  Lysimachia,  the  Roman  deputies,  who 
were  charged  with  the  adjustment  and  execution 
of  the  late  treaty,  met  with  Antiochus,  and  re- 
monstrated against  some  of  his  proceedings  on  the 
coast  of  Asia,  as  affecting  the  possessions  both  of 
Philip  and  of  Ptolomy.  They  complained  of  his 
present  invasion  of  Europe  with  a  hostile  force. 
"The  Romans,"  they  said,  " had  rescued  the 
Greeks  from  Philip,  not  to  deliver  them  over  to 
Antiochus."  They  demanded  a  restitution  of  all 
the  towns  he  had  taken  from  Ptolomy,  and  en- 
joined him  to  refrain  from  any  attempts  on  the 
freedom  of  Greece. 

To  these  remonstrances  and  requisitions  the 
king  of  Syria  with  scorn  replied,  That  he  knew 
the  extent  of  his  rights,  and  was  not  to  be  taught 
by  the  Romans :  that  they  were  busy  in  setting 
bounds  to  the  ambition  of  other  states,  but  set  no 
bounds  to  their  own ;  advised  them  to  confine 
their  views  to  the  affairs  of  Italy,  and  to  leave 
those  of  Asia  to  the  parties  concerned. 

During  the  conferences  which  were  held  on 
these  subjects,  each  of  the  parties,  without  com- 
municating what  they  heard  to  the  others,  received 
report  of  the  death  of  Ptolomy,  the  infant  king  of 
Egypt ;  and  they  separated  from  each  other,  in- 
tent on  the  evils  to  be  apprehended,  or  the  benefits 
to  be  reaped,  from  this  event. 

This  report,  in  which  both  parties  were  soon 
after  undeceived,1  occasioned  the  return  of  Antio- 


chus into  Syria,  and  suspended  for  some  tune  the 
war  which  he  was  disposed  to  carry  into  Europe 

Under  pretence  of  observing  the  motions  of  this 
prince,  the  Romans,  although  they  had  professed 
an  intention  to  evacuate  the  Greek  cities,  still 
kept  possession  of  Demetrias,  a  convenient  sea- 
port in  Thessaly,  and  of  Chalcis  on  the  straits  of 
Euboea ;  and  Flamininus,  under  pretence  of  re- 
straining the  violence  of  Nabis,  the  tyrant  of 
Lacedaemon,  and  of  restoring  the  tranquillity  of 
that  country,2  still  remained  with  an  army  in  the 
Peloponnesus. 

While  the  Romans  were  carrying  their  for- 
tunes with  so  high  a  hand  in  this  part  of  the  world, 
and  defeating  armies  hitherto  deemed  invincible, 
they  received  a  considerable  check  in  Spain. 

That  country  had  been  recently  divided  into 
two  provinces ;  and  though  now  possessed  by  the 
Romans,  without  the  competition  of  any  foreign 
rival,  it  continued  to  be  held  by  a  very  difficult 
and  precarious  tenure,  that  of  force,  opposed  to 
the  impatience  and  continual  revolts  of  a  fierce 
and  numerous  people. 

Spain  had  already  furnished  to  Italy  its  princi- 
pal supplies  of  silver  and  gold.  At  every  triumph 
obtained  in  that  country,  the  precious  metals  were 
brought  in  considerable  quantities  to  the  treasury 
of  Rome ;.  but  were  purchased  for  the  most  part 
with  the  blood  of  her  legions,  and  led  her  into  a 
succession  of  wars,  in  which  she  experienced 
defeat  as  well  as  victory.  About  the  time  that 
Flamininus  had  terminated  the  war  in  Macedonia., 
the  Proconsul-  Sempronius,  in  the  nearer  province 
of  Spain,  was  defeated  with  the  loss  of  many 
officers  of  rank.  He  himself  was  wounded  in 
action,  and  soon  after  died." 

Even  the  Roman  possessions  in  Italy  were  not 
yet  fully  recovered  from  the  troubles  that  had 
arisen  in  the  time  of  the  late  war  with  Carthage. 
The  Gaulish  nations  on  the  Po  still  continued  in 
a  state  of  hostility.  The  slaves,  of  which  the 
numbers  had  greatly  increased  in  Etruria,  and 
other  parts  of  the  country,  being  mostly  captives 
taken  from  enemies  inured  to  arms  and  to  vio- 
lence, interrupted  their  servitude  with  frequent 
and  dangerous  insurrections.  Having  persons 
among  them,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  com- 
mand as  well  as  to  obey,  they  often  deserted  from 
their  masters,  formed  into  regular  bodies,  and 
encountered  the  armies  of  the  republic  in  battle.3 

The  ridge  of  the  Appenines  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  Etruria  and  the  Roman  frontier,  still  har- 
boured fierce  and  numerous  tribes  known  by  the 
name  of  Ligurians  and  Gauls,  who  not  only  often 
and  long  defended  their  own  mountains  and 
woods,  but  likewise  frequently  invaded  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Romans.  Here,  or  in  Spain,  during 
the  recess  of  other  wars,  there  was  a  continual 
service  for  the  consuls  and  praetors,  and  a  continual 
exercise  to  the  legions.  The  state,  nevertheless, 
though  still  occupied  '\n  this  manner  with  petty 
enemies  and  desultory  wars,  never  lost  sight  of 
the  great  objects  of  its  jealousy,  from  whom  were 
to  be  apprehended  a  more  regular  opposition, 
and  better  concerted  designs  against  its  power. 
Among  these,  the  Carthaginians  were  not  likely 
to  continue  longer  at  peace  than  until  they  re- 
covered their  strength,  or  had  the  prospect  of 
some  powerful  support. — Antiochus,  possessed 
of  all  the  resources  of  Asia,  was  ready  to  join  with 


1  Liv.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.41. 


2  Liv.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  43.      3  Ibid.  lib.  xxviii.  c.  36 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


65 


this  or  any  other  state  that  was  inclined  to  check 
the  advancement  of  the  Roman  power. 

About  a  year  after  the  conclusion 
U.  C.  558.  of  the  war  with  Philip,  the  Romans 
received  intelligence,  that  the  Car- 
thaginians had  entered  into  a  correspondence  with 
Antiochus;  and  as  their  supposed  implacable 
enemy,  Hannibal,  was  then  in  one  of  the  first 
offices  of  state  at  Carthage,  it  was  not  doubted 
that  the  secret  intrigues  of  those  parties  were  hos- 
tile to  Rome.  It  was  determined,  therefore,  to 
send  a  proper  commission  into  Africa,  under  pre- 
tence of  an  amicable  mediation,  in  some  differ- 
ences that  subsisted  between  Massinissa  and  the 
people  of  Carthage;  but  with  injunctions  to  the 
commissioners  to  penetrate,  if  possible,  the  de- 
signs of  the  Carthaginians ;  and,  if  necessary,  to 
demand  that  Hannibal,  the  supposed  author  of 
a  dangerous  conspiracy  against  the  peace  of  both 
the  republics  should  be  delivered  up. 

This  great  man,  from  the  termination  of  the 
late  war,  had  acquitted  himself,  in  the  political  de- 
partments, to  which  he  had  been  appointed,  with 
an  integrity  and  ability  worthy  of  his  high  repu- 
tation as  a  soldier ;  but  his  reformations  in  a  cor- 
rupted state  had  procured  him  enemies  at  home, 
not  less  dangerous  than  those  he  had  encountered 
abroad.4  Upon  the  arrival  of  the  Roman  depu- 
ties, he  suspected  that  the  commission  regarded 
himself,  and  made  no  doubt  that  a  faction  whose 
ambition  he  had  restrained,  and  many  particular 
persons  whom  he  had  recently  incensed  by  the 
reformation  of  certain  abuses  in  which  they  were 
interested,  would  gladly  seize  that  opportunity  to 
rid  themselves  of  a  powerful  enemy,  and  from 
fear  or  some  other  motives,  prevail  on  a  corrupted 
people  to  deliver  him  up  to  the  Romans.  It  is 
said,  that  he  had  been  long  prepared  for  an  emer- 
gence of  this  sort,  and,  without  any  embarrass- 
ment, appeared,  upon  the  arrival  of  these  messen- 
gers, in  all  the  functions  of  his  public  character; 
but  at  night  withdrew  to  the  coast,  and  set  sail 
for  Asia.5  He  was  received  by  Antiochus  at 
Ephesus,  and  treated  as  a  person  worthy  to  direct 
the  councils  of  a  great  king ;  an  office  too  much 
exposed  to  envy  for  the  favourites  of  a  court,  or 
even  for  the  prince  himself  long  to  endure. 

From  this  time  forward  the  king  of  Syria,  sup- 
nosed  to  be  governed  by  the  counsels  of  Hanni- 
bal, became  the  principal  object  of  attention  and 
of  jealousy  at  Rome  ;  and  though  he  seemed  to 
remain  in  tranquillity  during  about  three  years 
after  the  acquisition  of  this  formidable  counsellor, 
yet  it  was  not  doubted  that  the  first  violent  storm 
was  to  burst  from  that  quarter. 

Flamininus  had,  during  the  greater  part  of  this 
interval,  remained  in  Greece ;  had  been  occupied 
in  settling  the  affairs  of  that  country,  and  in  observ- 
ing the  Etolians,  who,  being  dissatisfied  with  the 
late  peace,  endeavoured  to  raise  a  spirit  of  discontent 
against  the  Romans.  He  made  war  at  the  same 
time  against  Nabis  the  tyrant  of  Laced«mon;  and 
though  he  failed  in  his  attempt  to  force  this  fa- 
mous usurper  in  his  own  capital,  he  obliged  him 
to  evacuate  Argos,  and  to  cede  all  his  possessions 
on  the  coast.  By  these  means  he  removed  all  the 
dangers  with  which  any  of  the  states  of  the 
Achaean  league  had  been  threatened,  and  restored 
them  to  the  full  possession  of  their  freedom. 

To  leave  no  ground  of  jealousy  or  distrust  in 


Greece,  Flamininus  persuaded  the  Roman  com- 
missioners to  evacuate  Demetrias,  Chalcis,  and 
Corinth,  which  they  were  disposed  to  retain  in 
the  prospect  of  a  war  with  Antiochus ;  and  hav- 
ing thus  concluded  the  affairs  that  were  entrust- 
ed to  him,  he  returned  into  Italy,  and  made  his 
entry  at  Rome  in  a  triumphal  procession,  which 
lasted  three  days,  with  a  splendid  display  of  spoils, 
captives,  and  treasure.6. 

All  the  troubles  of  Greece,  at  the  departure  of 
Flamininus,  seemed  to  be  composed ;  these  ap- 
pearances, however,  were  but  of  short  duration. 
Nabis  was  impatient  under  his  late  concessions  ; 
and  flattering  himself  that  the  Romans  would 
not  repass  the  sea  merely  to  exclude  him  from  the 
possession  of  a  lew  places  of  little  consequence  on 
the  coast  of  the  Peloponnesus,  began  to  employ 
insinuation,  corruption,  and  open  force,  in  order 
to  recover  the  towns  he  had  lost.  In  this  design 
he  was  encouraged  by  the  Etolians,  who  flattered 
him  with  the  hopes  of  support,  not  only  from 
themselves,  but  likewise  from  Antiochus,  and 
even  from  Philip ;  all  of  whom  had  an  evident 
interest  in  repressing  the  growing  power  of  the 
Italian  republic.  1  he  Etolians  had  expected, 
at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Philip,  to  come  into 
the  place  of  that  prince,  as  the  head  of  all  the 
Grecian  confederacies,  and  to  have  a  principal 
share  in  the  spoils  of  his  kingdom.  They  urged 
the  Roman  commissioners  to  the  final  suppression 
of  that  monarchy;  and,  being  disappointed  in  all 
their  hopes,  complained  of  the  Romans,  as  bestow- 
ing upon  others  the  fruits  of  a  victory  which  had 
been  obtained  chiefly  by  their  means,  and  as  hav- 
ing, under  the  pretence  of  setting  the  Greeks  at 
liberty,  reduced  that  country  into  a  weak  and  dis- 
jointed state,  which  might  in  any  future  period 
render  it  an  easy  prey  to  themselves. 

Flamininus  accordingly  had,  in  all  his  mea- 
sures for  the  settlement  of  Greece,  found  from 
this  people  a  warm  and  obstinate  resistance.  He 
found  them  endeavouring  to  form  a  powerful  con- 
federacy against  the  Romans,  and  tor  this  pur- 
pose engaged  in  intrigues  with  Nabis,  Philip,  and 
Antiochus ;  applying  to  each  of  them  in  terms 
suited  to  the  supposed  injuries  they  had  severally 
received  in  the  late  war,  or  in  the  negotiations 
that  followed. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  peace  with  Philip, 
Antiochus  thinking  himself  by  the  effect  of  that 
treaty  aggrieved,  in  respect  to  the  freedom  grant- 
ed to  some  cantons  in  Thrace,  on  which  he  deri- 
ved a  claim  from  his  ancestors,  sent  an  embassy 
to  Rome  with  remonstrances  on  that  subject. 
The  Romans  made  answer,  in  the  capacity  which 
they  had  assumed  of  the  deliverers  of  Greece,  that 
they  would  oppose  every  attempt  to  enslave  any 
Grecian  settlement ;  and  as  they  had  no  designs 
on  Asia,  they  expected  that  the  king  of  Syria 
would  not  intermeddle  in  the  concerns  of  Europe. 
While  they  gave  this  answer  to  the  ambassador 
of  Antiochus,  they  resolved  under  pretence  of 
treating  with  the  king,  to  send  commissioners,  in 
their  turn,  to  observe  his  motions. 

The  famous  Scipio  Africanus  is  mentioned  by 
some  historians  as  having  been  of  this  commission, 
and  as  having  had  some  conversations  with  Han- 
nibal, which  are  recorded  to  the  honour  of  both. 
Livy,  however,  seems  to  reject  these  particulars 
as  fabulous,  while  he  admits  t  hat  the  apparent  in- 


4  Liv.  lib.  xxviii.  c.  4fi— 49. 

I 


|  Ibid.  o.  40— 49. 


G  Liv.  lib.  xxxiv.  c.  52. 


66 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  1. 


timacy  of  Hannibal  with  the  Roman  commission- 
ers, very  much  diminished  the  part  which  this  for- 
midable counsellor  held  in  the  confidence  of  the 
king. ' 

At  this  time  it  became  known  that  Antiochus 
was  meditating  the  invasion  of  Italy  as  well  as 
of  Greece ;  that  the  first  of  these  objects  was  to 
be  committed  to  Hannibal,  who  undertook  to  pre- 
vail on  the  republic  of  Carthage  to  take  a  princi- 
pal share  in  the  war ;  and  that,  for  this  purpose, 
he  had  sent  a  proper  person  to  concert  measures 
with  his  party  at  Carthage;  but  the  intrigue  being 
discovered,  the  Carthaginians,  in  order  to  excul- 
pate themselves,  sent  an  account  of  it  to  Rome. 

Before  this  intelligence  had  been  received,  the 
Roman  commissioners  were  set  out  for  Asia,  and, 
according  to  their  instructions,  passed  through 
Pergamus  to  consult  with  Eumenes  the  sovereign 
of  that  kingdom,  who  having  reason  to  dread  the 
power  of  Antiochus  employed  all  his  credit  to  en- 
gage the  Romans  in  a  war  with  that  prince. 
They  had  an  audience  of  the  king  of  Syria  at 
Apamea,  and  a  conference  afterwards,  on  the 
object  of  their  commission,  with  a  principal  officer 
of  his  court  at  Ephesus.  This  minister  made  no 
scruple  to  charge  the  Romans  with  the  real  de- 
signs of  ambition,  which  they  endeavoured  to 
disguise  under  the  pretence  of  procuring  the  liber- 
ties of  Greece.  "Your conduct,"  he  said,  "where 
you  are  in  a  condition  to  act  without  disguise,  is 
a  much  better  evidence  of  your  intention,  than 
any  professions  you  may  think  proper  to  make  in 
Greece  or  in  Asia,  where,  by  assuming  a  popular 
character,  you  have  so  many  parties  to  reconcile 
to  your  interest.  Are  not  the  inhabitants  of  Na- 
ples and  of  Rhegium  Greeks,  as  well  as  those 
of  Lampsacus  and  Smyrna  ?  You  are  extremely 
desirous  to  set  the  Greeks  at  liberty  from  the  do- 
minion of  Antiochus  and  Philip,  but  have  no  re- 
morse in  subjecting  them  to  your  own." 

The  deputies  of  the  cities  whose  interest  was 
in  question  were  present  at  these  conferences, 
and  each  pleaded  the  cause  of  his  country ;  but 
without  any  other  effect  than  that  of  convincing 
the  parties  concerned,  that  a  war  could  not  long 
be  avoided.  The  Romans,  alarmed  by  the  intel- 
ligence received  from  Carthage  during  the  depend- 
ance  of  this  conference,  had  already  begun  to 
prepare  for  hostilities;  and  upon  the  report  of 
their  commissioners  from  Asia,  still  continued  to 
augment  their  forces  by  sea  and  by  land.  Under 
pretence  of  repressing  the  violences  committed  by 
Nabis,  they  ordered  one  army  into  Greece,  and 
stationed  a  second  on  the  coast  of  Calabria  and 
Apulia,  in  order  to  support  the  operations  of  the 
first. 

The  Romans  had  reason  to  consider  the  Eto- 
lians  as  enemies,  and  even  to  distrust  the  inten- 
tions of  many  of  the  republics  lately  restored  to 
their  liberty,  who  began  to  surmise,  that  under 
the  pretence  of  being  relieved  from  the  dominion 
of  Philip,  they  were  actually  reduced  to  a  state 
of  dependance  on  Rome. 

To  obviate  the  difficulties  which  from  these 
surmises  might  arise  among  the  Grecian  repub- 
lics, the  Roman  senate  sent  a  fresh  commission 
into  that  country,  requiring  those  who  were 
named  in  it  to  act  under  the  direction  of  Flamini- 
nus,  the  late  deliverer  of  Greece.  These  commis- 
sioners found  the  principal  cities  of  that  country 


variously  affected :  a  general  meeting  of  the  States 
being  called  to  receive  them  at  Demetrias,  they 
were,  by  some  of  the  parties  present  at  this 
meeting,  reproached  with  a  design,  under  pre- 
tence of  restoring  the  Greeks  to  their  liberties,  of 
separating  them  from  every  power  that  was  fit  to 
protect  them;  and  they  were  likewise  reproached 
with  a  design  of  establishing  their  own  tyranny, 
under  pretence  of  opposing  that  of  every  other 
state. 

This  species  of  blasphemy,  uttered  against  a 
power  which  the  majority  of  those  who  were  pre- 
sent affected  to  revere,  raised  a  great  ferment  in  the 
council ;  and  the  persons  who  had  thus  ventured 
to  insult  the  Romans  being  threatened  with  vio- 
lence, were  forced  to  withdraw  from  Demetrias,  and 
to  take  refuge  in  Etolia.  The  remaining  deputies 
of  Greece  endeavoured  to  pacify  the  Roman  com- 
missioners, or  at  least  entreated  them  that  they 
would  not  impute  to  so  many  different  nations, ' 
what  was  no  more  than  the  frenzy  of  a  few  indi- 
viduals. 

The  Etolians  had  already  invited  Antiochus  to 
pass  into  Europe.  The  measure  was  according- 
ly under  deliberation  in  the  council  of  this  prince. 
Hannibal  warmly  recommended  the  invasion  of 
Italy  as  the  most  effectual  blow  that  could  be 
struck  at  the  Romans.  "  At  home."  he  said, 
"their  force  is  still  composed  of  disjointed  mate- 
rials, which  will  break  into  pieces  when  assailed 
by  the  immediate  touch  of  an  enemy ;  and  the 
most  effectual  power  that  can  be  raised  up  against 
them,  is  that  which  may  be  formed  from  the  yuins 
of  their  own  empire.  But  if  you  allow  them  to 
remain  in  quiet  possession  of  Italy,  and  to  stretch 
out  the  arms  of  that  country  to  a  distance,  their  re- 
sources are  endless,  and  their  strength  irresistible." 
He  made  an  offer  of  himself  for  this  service,  de- 
manding a  hundred  galleys,  ten  thousand  foot,  and 
a  thousand  horse.  With  this  armament  he  propo- 
sed to  present  himself  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and 
from  what  further  reinforcements  or  supplies  he 
could  derive  from  Carthage,  to  effect  his  descent 
upon  Italy. 

These  counsels,  however,  were  given  in  vain. 
Hannibal,  as  a  person  likely  to  reap  all  the  glory 
of  every  service  in  which  he  bore  any  part,  was 
become  an  object  of  jealousy  to  the  court  of  An- 
tiochus, and  to  the  king  himself.  His  advice 
being  received  with  more  aversion  than  respect, 
served  to  determine  the  king  against  every  mea- 
sure he  proposed.  "  Such  a  monarch,"  it  was 
said  by  the  courtiers,  "  could  not  be  under  any  ne- 
cessity to  employ  foreign  aid  or  direction: — his 
own  force  was  sufficient  to  overcome  the  Ro- 
mans in  any  part  of  the  world : — the  recovery  of 
Greece  must  be  the  first  object  of  his  arms : — the 
people  of  that  country,  whenever  his  galleys  ap- 
peared, would  crowd  to  the  shores  to  receive  him : 
— the  Etolians  were  already  in  arms  for  this  pur- 
pose : — Nabis  was  impatient  to  recover  the  pos- 
sessions of  which  he  had  been  stripped  by  the 
Romans : — Philip  must  eagerly  fly  to  his  standard, 
and  embrace  every  opportunity  to  revenge  the 
indignities  which  had  been  lately  put  upon  him- 
self and  his  kingdom."2 

Flattered  with  these  expectations, 
U.  C.  562.    Antiochus  set  sail  for  Europe  with 
ten  thousand  foot,  some  elephants, 
and  a  body  of  horse.    He  was  received  at  De- 


1  Liv.  lib.  xxxv.  c.  14. 


2  Liv.  lib.  xxxv.  c.  18.  et  42. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


67 


metrias  with  acclamations  of  joy ;  but  soon  after, 
in  the  sequel,  came  to  understand  that  his  allies 
in  that  country  had  sent  for  him  to  bear  the  bur- 
den of  the  war,  and  were  devising  how  they 
should  reap  for  themselves  the  advantages  that 
might  be  made  to  arise  from  it. 

The  Etolians,  at  whose  instance  Antiochus 
had  come  into  Greece,  were  still  divided.  One 
party  among  them  contended  for  peace,  and  al- 
leged that  the  presence  of  the  king  of  Syria  was 
a  fortunate  circumstance,  as  it  might  give  them  an 
opportunity  to  negotiate  with  greater  advantage. 
Another  party  contended  for  immediate  war ;  in- 
sisting that  force  alone  could  obtain  any  equitable 
terms  from  such  a  party  as  that  they  had  to  do 
with. 

Flamininus  was  present  in  the  assembly  of 
Etolia  when  these  debates  took  place  relating  to 
the  resolution  for  peace  or  war  with  the  Romans. 
He  observed  to  the  party  who  contended  for  war, 
that,  before  they  proceeded  to  this  extremity,  they 
ought  to  have  made  their  representations  at 
Rome,  and  to  have  waited  for  an  answer  from 
thence.  "  We  shall  make  our  representations, 
and  demand  our  answer,"  said  a  principal  person 
in  the  assembly,  still  thinking  of  a  descent  upon 
Italy,  to  be  effected  by  Hannibal,  "  perhaps  where 
we  are  least  expected,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber."3 

The  resolution  for  war  with  the  Romans  was 
accordingly  taken  in  this  assembly,  and  Antiochus 
was  declared  head  of  the  confederacy  to  be  formed 
for  mutual  support  in  the  conduct  of  it.  This 
prince  endeavoured  to  obtain  a  declaration  to  the 
same  effect  from  the  Achaeans  and  Boeotians ;  but 
being  disappointed  in  his  application  to  those 
states,  he  left  part  of  his  forces  at  Demetrias,  and 
he  himself  having  negotiated  his  admission  at 
Chalcis  on  the  Straits  of  Euboca,  retired,  as  if 
he  had  come  to  act  upon  the  defensive,  behind  the 
Euripus,  and  established  his  court  at  that  place  for 
the  winter. 

Mean  time  the  Romans  prepared  themselves  as 
for  a  struggle  of  great  difficulty,  and  probably  of 
long  duration.4  They  considered  the  abilities  of 
Hannibal,  employed  to  conduct  the  forces  of  Asia, 
as  a  sufficient  ground  of  alarm.  Their  first  ob- 
ject was  to  guard  Italy  and  their  other  possessions. 
An  army  of  observation  was  for  this  purpose  sta- 
tioned at  Tarentum.  A  numerous  fleet  was  or- 
dered to  protect  the  coast.  The  praetors  and  other 
officers  of  state,  with  proper  forces  under  their 
command,  had  charge  of  the  different  districts  of 
Italy  that  were  suspected  of  inclining  to  the 
enemy,  or  of  being  disaffected  to  the  common- 
wealth. The  instructions  given  to  these  officers, 
were,  to  observe  what  was  passing  in  the  several 
quarters  to  which  they  were  sent,  but  to  avoid 
every  occasion  of  animosity  or  tumult  that  might 
open  a  way  for  the  adfnission  of  an  enemy,  or 
show  an  invader  where  to  direct  his  atta<  k. 

Having  made  these  dispositions  for  their  own 
security,  they  proceeded  to  form  an  army  which 
was  to  act  offensively,  and  to  fix  the  scene  of  the 
war  in  their  enemy's  country.  Baebius,  a  praetor 
of  the  preceding  year,  under  pretence  of  opposing 
Nabis,  who  had  renewed  the  war  in  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, had  already  passed  into  Epirus  with  a 
considerable  force.  Acilius  Glabrio,  one  of  the 
consuls  of  the  present  year,  to  whose  lot  this 
province  had  fallen,  was  understood  to  have  in 


3  Liv.  lib.  xxxv.  c.33.         4  Appian  Syriacae,  p.  95. 


charge  the  farther  preparations  that  were  making 
for  a  war  in  that  country,  and  hastened  the  as- 
sembling of  an  army  and  fleet  suffrient  to  dis- 
concert the  measures  of  the  parties  that  were 
supposed  to  be  forming  against  the  Romans. 

The  usual  tithes  of  corn  were  ordered  from 
Sardinia,  and  double  tithes  from  Sicily,  to  supply 
the  army  in  Epirus.  Commissaries  likewise  were 
sent  to  Carthage  and  Nunfidia,  in  order  to  pur- 
chase supplies  from  thence.  And  with  such  a 
sense  of  its  importance  did  the  Romans  enter  on 
this  war,  that  the  consul  Cornelius  issued  an 
edict,  prohibiting  all  senators,  and  all  those  who 
were  entitled  to  be  admitted  into  the  senate,  to 
absent  themselves  from  Rome  above  one  day  at  a 
time,  and  requiring  that  no  more  than  five  sena- 
tors should  on  the  same  day  be  absent  from  the 
city. 

The  equiqment  of  the  fleet  was  retarded  by  a 
dispute  that  arose  with  eight  of  the  maritime 
colonies  or  sea-ports,  who  pretended  to  a  right  of 
exemption  from  the  present  service.  But  their 
plea,  upon  an  appeal  to  the  tribunes,  and  a  re- 
ference from  them  to  the  senate,  was  over-ruled. 

Antiochus  passed  the  winter  at  Chalcis  in  a 
manner  too  common  with  princes  of  a  mean  ca- 
pacity, who  put  every  matter  of  personal  caprice 
on  the  same  footing  with  the  affairs  of  state. 
Being  enamoured  of  a  Grecian  beauty,  he  em- 
ployed the  attention  of  his  court  on  feasts  and 
processions,  devised  for  her  entertainment,  and  to 
enhance  his  pleasures.  His  reputation  declined, 
and  his  forces  made  no  progress  either  in  num- 
bers or  discipline. 

In  the  spring  he  lost  some  time  in  forming  con- 
federacies with  petty  states,  which  are  ever  under 
the  necessity  of  declaring  themselves  for  the  pre- 
vailing power,  and  who  change  their  side  with 
the  reverses  of  fortune.  Having  traversed  the 
country  from  Boeotia  to  Arcania,  negotiating  trea- 
ties with  such  allies  as  these,  he  had  passed  into 
Thcssaly,  and  had  besieged  Larissa,  when  the 
Roman  praetor  began  to  advance  from  Epirus. 

After  the  contending  parties  had  thus  taken 
the  field,  and  the  armies  of  Rome  and  of  Syria 
were  about  to  decide  the  superiority  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  Macedonia,  Philip  seemed  to  remain  in 
suspense,  having  yet  made  no  open  declaration  to 
which  side  he  inclined.  He  had  felt  the  arms  of 
the  Romans,  and  had  reason  to  dread  those  of 
Antiochus. 

The  princes  who  divided  the  Macedonian  em- 
pire were  not  only  rivals  in  power,  they  were  in 
some  degree  mutual  pre  tenders  .to  the  thrones 
which  they  severally  occupied ;  Philip,  probably 
considering  Antiochus,  in  this  capacity,  as  the 
principal  object  of  his  jealousy,  took  his  resolu- 
tion to  declare  for  the  Romans;  and  having  ac- 
cordingly joined  the  praetor  on  the  confines  of 
Thcssaly,  their  vanguard  advanced  to  obsenc  the 
position  and  motions  of  the  enemy. 

Antiochus,  upon  the  junction  of  these  forces, 
thought  proper  to  raise  the  siege  of  Larissa. — 
From  this  time  forward  he  seemed  to  have  drop- 
ped all  his  sanguine  expectations  of  conquest  in 
Europe,  was  contented  to  act  on  the  defensive, 
and  when  the  Roman  consul  arrived  in  Epirus, 
and  directed  his  march  towards  Thessaly,  he 
took  post  at  the  Straits  of  Thermopylae,  intend- 
ing to  shut  up  this  passage  into  Greece;  but  be- 
ing dislodged  from  thence,  his  army  was  routed, 
the  greater  part  of  it  perished  in  the  flight,  and  he 


68 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


Himself,  with  no  more  than  five  hundred  men, 
♦•scaped  to  Chalcis,  his  former  retreat  in  Euboea, 
from  whence  he  soon  after  set  sail  for  Asia. 

Upon  the  flight  of  Antiochus,  the  Etolians 
alone  remained  in  the  predicament  of  open  ene- 
mies to  the  Romans.  They  were  yet  extremely 
irresolute  and  distracted  in  their  councils.  After 
having  brought  the  king  of  Syria  into  Europe, 
they  had  not  supported  him  with  a  sufficient 
force ;  and  now,  upon  his  departure,  being  sensi- 
ble, of  their  danger  from  the  Romans,  a  powerful 
enemy  whom  they  had  greatly  provoked,  they 
endeavoured  to  persuade  the  king  to  return  ;  re- 
presenting to  him  how  much  he  was  concerned  to 
furnish  that  arrogant  people  with  a  sufficient  oc- 
cupation in  Greece,  to  prevent  their  passing  into 
Asia.  They  at  the  same  time  made  offers  of 
pacification  and  of  submission  to  the  Romans, 
but  were  received  in  a  manner  which  gave  them 
no  hopes  of  being  able  to  palliate  the  offence 
they  had  given.  The  consul  advanced  into  their 
country,  laid  siege  to  Naupactus,  and  having  re- 
duced that  place  and  the  whole  nation  to  great 
distress,  agreed  to  a  cessation  of  arms,  only  while 
they  sent  deputies  to  Rome  to  implore  forgiveness 
and  to  make  their  peace  with  the  senate.  Such 
was  the  posture  of  affairs  when  Lucius  Cornelius 
Scipio,  being  elected  one  of  the  consuls  for  the 
ensuing  year,  was  destined  to  succeed  Acilius 
Glabrio  in  Etolia ;  and,  with  his  brother  Publius, 
the  victor  in  the  battle  of  Zama,  who  was  to  act 
as  second  in  command,  had  orders  to  prosecute 
the  war  against  the  kingdom  of  Syria. 

These  leaders  being  arrived  in  Greece,  and  in- 
tent on  the  removal  of  the  war  into  Asia,  wil- 
lingly accepted  of  the  submission  of  all  the  towns 
that  had  incurred  any  suspicion  during  the  stay 
of  Antiochus  in  Europe;  and  leaving  the  dif- 
ference which  remained  to  be  settled  with  the 
Etolians  in  a  state  of  negotiation,  they  proceeded 
without  delay,  by  the  route  of  Macedonia  and 
Thrace,  towards  the  Hellespont. 

In  passing  through  these  countries,  they  were 
conducted  and  furnished  with  all  the  necessary 
supplies  of  provisions  and  carriages  by  Philip. 

The  fleets  of  Asia  and  Europe,  during  this 
march  of  the  Roman  army,  contended  for  the 
command  of  the  seas.  That  of  Europe,  which 
was  joined  by  the  navy  of  Rhodes,  and  even  by 
that  of  the  Carthaginians,  who,  to  vindicate 
themselves  from  any  blame  in  the  present  war, 
had  taken  part  with  their  rival,  after  various  en- 
counters, obtained  the  victory  in  a  decisive  battle, 
which  made  them  entire  masters  of  the  sea,  and 
opened  all  the  ports  of  Asia  to  the  shipping  of  the 
Romans. 

The  king  of  Syria  had  fortified  Sestos  and 
Abydos  on  the  Hellespont,  and  Lysimachia  on 
the  isthmus  of  Chersonesus,  with  an  apparent 
resolution  to  dispute  the  march  and  passage  of  the 
Scipios  at  all  these  different  stations,  but  on  the 
total  defeat  of  his  navy,  he  either  considered 
those  places  as  lost,  or,  fearing  to  have  his  forces 
separately  cut  off  in  attempting  to  defend  them, 
he  withdrew  his  garrisons  from  Lysimachia, 
Sestos,  and  Abydos ;  and  while  he  thus  opened 
the  way  for  his  enemies  to  reach  him,  gave  other 
signs  of  despondency,  or  of  a  disposition  to  sink 
under  adversity,  making  overtures  of  peace,  and 
offering  to  yield  every  point  which  he  had  for- 
merly disputed  in  the  war.  In  reply  to  these 
offers  he  was  told,  That  he  must  do  a  great  deal 


more ;  that  he  must  submit  to  such  terms  as  the 
Romans  were  entitled  to  expect  from  victory. — 
But  as  he  continued  to  assemble  his  forces,  he 
chose  rather  to  stake  his  fortune  on  the  decision 
of  a  battle ;  and  having  in  vain  endeavoured  to 
make  himself  master  of  Pergamus,  the  capital  of 
Eumenes,  he  fell  back  on  Thyatira,  and  from 
thence  proceeded  to  take  post  on  the  mountains 
of  Sypylus,  where  he  meant  to  contend  for  the 
empire  of  Asia. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Scipios  advanced  to  the 
Hellespont,  and  without  any  resistance  passed 
the  Strait.  This  was  the  first  time  that  any 
Roman  army  set  foot  on  Asia ;  and  being  met  by 
the  deputies  of  the  king  with  the  overtures  of 
peace  that  have  been  mentioned,  sent  accounts  to 
Rome  of  their  arrival,  and  made  a  halt  for  some 
days. 

This  descent  was  considered  by  the  Romans 
as  an  epoch  of  great  renown ;  and  the  messenger 
who  brought  the  accounts  of  it  was  received  with 
processions  and  solemn  rites.  Supplications  and 
prayers  were  offered  up  to  the  gods,  that  this 
first  landing  of  a  Roman  army  in 
U.  C.  562.  Asia  might  be  prosperous  for  the 
commonwealth. 

Publius  Scipio,  the  famous  antagonist  of  Han- 
nibal, soon  after  his  arrival  in  Asia,  was  taken 
ill;  or,  what  may  be  supposed  for  his  honour,  be- 
ing desirous  not  to  rob  his  brother  of  any  share 
in  the  glory  which  he  perceived  was  to  be  easily 
won  against  the  present  enemy,  he  affected  indis- 
position, and  remained  at  a  distance  from  the 
camp.  Lucius,  thus  left  alone  to  command  the 
Roman  army,  advanced  upon  the  king,  attacked 
him  in  the  post  he  had  chosen,  and  in  a  decisive 
victory,  dispersed  the  splendid  forces  of  Asia, 
with  all  their  apparatus  of  armed  chariots,  horses, 
and  elephants,  narnessed  with  gold. 

The  king  himself  fled  with  a  few  attendants, 
passed  through  Sardis  in  the  night,  and  con- 
tinued his  flight  to  Apamea  in  Fisidia,  where  he 
expected  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  his  pursuers. 

Thyatira,  Sardis,  and  Magnesia  soon  after 
opened  their  gates  to  the  Romans  ;  and  the  king 
himself  by  a  messenger  from  Apamea,  again 
made  haste  to  own  himself  vanquished,  and  to  sue 
for  peace. 

The  Romans,  to  display  a  moderation  which 
they  frequently  affected  in  the  midst  of  their  vic- 
tories, renewed  the  same  conditions  which  they 
had  prescribed  on  their  arrival  in  Asia ;  and  a 
cessation  of  arms  being  granted,  officers  from 
Antiochus,  and  from  all  the  other  parties  con- 
cerned in  the  approaching  treaty,  repaired  to 
Rome,  in  order  to  receive  the  final  decision  of  the 
senate  and  people,  on  the  future  settlement  of 
their  affairs. 

Eumenes,  the  king  of  Pergamus,  on  this  occa- 
sion, attended  in  person,  and,  together  with  the 
republic  of  Rhodes,  who  had  distinguished  them- 
selves by  their  zeal  and  faithful  services  in  the 
late  war,  became  the  principal  gainer  in  the 
treaty. 

It  was  agreed  by  the  senate,  that  the  prelimi- 
nary articles  already  prescribed  by  the  consul 
should  be  confirmed : 

That,  according  to  these  articles,  Antiochus 
should  resign  all  his  pretensions  in  Europe,  and 
contract  the  boundaries  of  his  kingdom  in  Asia 
within  the  mountains  of  Taurus : 

That  he  should  pay  to  the  Romans,  at  succea- 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


69 


sive  terms,  five  thousand  talents  to  reimburse  the 
expense  of  the  war  : 

To  Eumenes  four  hundred  talents  on  the  score 
of  a  debt  that  had  been  due  to  his  father. 

And,  for  the  performance  of  these  conditions, 
should  give  twenty  hostages,  such  as  the  Romans 
should  name. 

In  the  farther  execution  of  this  treaty,  the  Ro- 
mans again  appeared  to  be  solicitous  only  for  the 
interest  of  their  allies,  and  required  no  more  than 
indemnification  for  themselves.  They  appointed 
ten  commissioners  to  repair  into  Asia,  and  there 
to  determine  the  several  questions  that  might  arise 
relating  to  the  settlement  of  that  country.  In  the 
mean  time  they  published  to  all  parties  the  fol- 
lowing instructions,  as  the  basis  on  which  the 
commissioners  were  to  proceed  : 

That  the  preliminaries  of  the  peace  with  An- 
tiochus  already  offered  should  be  ratified  : 

That  all  the  provinces  which  he  was  to  evacu- 
ate, except  Caria  and  Lycia,  were  to  be  assigned 
to  Eumenes : 

That  these  provinces,  bounded  by  the  Meander 
on  the  east,  should  be  given  to  the  republic  of 
Rhodes : 

That  all  the  Greek  cities  which  had  been 
tributary  to  Eumenes  should  continue  so,  and  all 
which  had  been  tributary  to  Antiochus  should  be 
set  free.1 

A  settlement  was  accordingly  soon  after  made 
in  Asia  in  these  terms ;  and  the  Romans,  while 
they  were  hastening  to  universal  dominion,  ap- 
peared to  have  no  object  beyond  the  prosperity  of 
their  allies:  they  were  merciful  to  the  vanquished, 
and  formidable  only  to  those  who  presumed  to 
resist  their  arms.  In  the  midst  of  their  conquests, 
they  reserved  nothing  to  themselves  besides  the 
power  of  giving  away  entire  kingdoms  and  pro- 
vinces ;  or,  in  other  words,  they  reserved  nothing 
but  the  power  of  seizing  the  whole  at  a  proper 
time,  and,  for  the  present,  the  supreme  ascendant 
over  all  the  conquered  provinces  that  were  given 
away,  and  over  those  who  received  them. 

The  Etolians  were  now  the  only  parties  in 
Greece  who  pretended  to  hold  their  liberties,  or 
their  possessions,  by  any  other  tenure  than  that 
of  a  grant  from  the  Romans. 

During  the  dependance  of  the  war  in  Asia,  the 
Etolians  were  making  continual  efforts  to  recover 
their  own  losses,  and  to  preserve  the  city  of  Am- 
bracia,  then  besieged  by  the  Romans ;  but,  upon 
the  defeat  of  Antiochus,  the  Ambraciots  surren- 
dered at  discretion,  and  the  Etolians  sued  for 
peace. 

Ambracia  had  been  the  capital  of  Pyrrhus,  and 
now  furnished  the  captor  with  a  plentiful  spoil  of 
statues,  pictures,  and  other  ornaments  to  adorn 
his  triumph.  The  Etolians,  at  the  intercession  of 
the  Athenians,  were  allowed  to  hope  for  peace  on 
the  following  terms.2 

That  they  should  not  allow  to  pass  through 
their  country  the  troops  of  any  nation  at  war  with 
the  Romans : 

That  they  should  consider  the  allies  of  Rome 
as  their  allies,  and  the  enemies  of  Rome  as  their 
enemies : 

That  they  should  make  instant  payment  of  two 
hundred  talents  in  silver,  the  standard  of  Athens; 
and  of  three  hundred  more  at  separate  instal- 
ments within  six  years : 


That  if  they  chose  to  make  these  payments  in 
gold  rather  than  silver,  the  proportion  should  be 
one  of  gold  to  ten  of  silver ;  and  that  they  should 
give  hostages  for  the  performance  of  these  several 
articles.3 

While  the  Etolians  were  on  these  terms  con- 
cluding a  peace,  or  rather  obtaining  a  pardon,  the 
Consul  Manlius,  who  had  succeeded  the  Scipios 
in  Asia,  willing,  if  possible,  to  bring  back  into 
Italy,  together  with  the  victorious  legions,  some 
pretence  of  a  triumph  for  himself,  led  his  army 
against  the  Galatians.  These  were  the  descend- 
ants of  a  barbarous  horde,  which  had,  some  ages 
before,  migrated  from  the  north  of  Europe,  visited 
Italy  and  Greece  in  their  way,  and  stopped  on  the 
Halys  in  the  Lesser  Asia,  where  they  made  a 
settlement,  round  which  they  levied  contributions 
quite  to  the  shores  of  the  Euxine,  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  Egean  Seas.  Their  forces  had  lately 
made  a  part  in  the  army  of  Antiochus,  and  they 
had  not  yet  acceded  to  the  peace  which  that  prince 
had  accepted.  By  these  means  they  furnished  the 
Roman  Consul  with  a  pretence  for  invading  their 
country;  and  being  unable  to  resist  him,  submit- 
ted at  discretion.  In  thus  extinguishing  the  re- 
mains of  every  hostile  combination,  the  Romans 
took  care  to  satisfy  the  world  that  it  never  was 
safe  to  take  part  against  them  in  any  confederacy, 
and  that,  while  they  never  abandoned  any  ally  of 
their  own,  they  were  in  condition  to  compel  the 
powers,  with  whom  they  were  at  war,  frequently 
to  abandon  theirs. 

Thus  ended  the  first  expedition  of  the  Romans 
into  Asia :  in  the  result  of  which,  without  seem- 
ing to  enlarge  their  own  dominions,  they  had 
greatly  reduced  the  powers  both  of  the  Syrian 
and  Macedonian  monarchies ;  and  by  restoring, 
whether  from  inclination  or  policy,  every  state  to 
its  independence,  they  had  balanced  a  multitude 
of  parties  against  each  other,  in  such  a  manner, 
as  that  no  formidable  combination  was  likely  to  be 
formed  against  themselves ;  or  if  any  one,  or  a  few 
parties,  should  presume  to  withstand  their  power, 
many  others  were  ready  to  join  in  the  cry  of  in- 
gratitude, and  to  treat  any  opposition  that  was 
made  to  them  as  an  unworthy  return  to  those 
who  had  so  generously  espoused  the  cause  of 
mankind. 

The  pacification  of  Asia  and  Greece  left  the 
republic  at  leisure  to  manage  its  ordinary  quarrels 
with  nations  unsubdued  on  the  opposite  frontier. 
In  the  west,  hostilities  had  subsisted  without  in- 
terruption, during  the  whole  time  that  the  state 
was  intent  on  its  wars  in  the  East ;  and  triumphal 
processions  were  exhibited  by  turns  from  those 
opposite  quarters. 

In  Spain  the  commanders  were,  for  the  most 
part,  annually  relieved,  and  the  army  annually 
recruited  from  Italy.  The  variety  of  events  which 
are  mentioned,  and  the  continuance  of  the  war 
itself,  are  sufficient  to  evince  that  no  decisive  vic- 
tories were  obtained,  or  conquests  finally  made. 
On  the  coast  of  Spain  there  were  many  Greek  or 
African  settlements  established  for  commerce.  Of 
these  the  Romans,  either  as  having  supplanted 
the  Carthaginians,  formerly  their  masters,  or  as 
having  subdued  the  natives,  were  still  in  posses- 
sion. But  the  interior  parts  of  the  country  were 
occupied  by  many  hordes,  who  appear  to  have 
been  collected  in  townships  and  fortified  stations, 


1  Polvb  Excerptae  Legationcs,  c.  35.     2  Ibid,  c  28. 


3  Polyb.  Excerptie  Legatinnes,  c.  '28. 


70 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  1. 


from  which  they  assembled  to  oppose  the  Roman 
armies  in  the  field,  or  in  which  they  defended 
themselves  with  obstinate  valour.  Though  often 
defeated,  they  still  renewed  the  contest.  Tiberius 
Sempronius  Gracchus,  in  the  year  of  Rome  five 
hundred  and  seventy-four,  about  ten  years  after 
the  peace  with  Antiochus,  is  said  to  have  received 
the  submission  of  one  hundred  and  three  towns 
of  that  country.1  The  troubles  of  Spain  were, 
nevertheless,  renewed  under  his  successors,  and 
continued  to  occupy  the  Roman  arms  with  a 
repetition  of  similar  operations,  and  a  like  variety 
of  events. 

The  war  in  Liguria  was  nearly  of  the  same 
description  with  that  in  Spain ;  continued  still  to 
occupy  a  certain  part  of  the  Roman  force ;  and, 
both  before  and  after  the  late  expedition  to  Greece 


and  Asia,  was  for  some  years  the  principal  em- 
ployment of  both  the  consuls.  Here,  however,  the 
Romans  made  a  more  sensible  progress  towards 
an  entire  conquest  than  they  made  in  Spain. 
They  facilitated  their  access  to  the  country  by 
highways  across  the  mountains ;  they  reduced  the 
numbers  of  the  enemy  by  the  sword  and  by  the 
ordinary  distresses  of  war ;  and,  after  the  experi- 
ence of  many  pretended  submissions  and  repeated 
revolts  of  that  people,  who  seemed  to  derive  the 
ferocity  of  their  spirit,  as  well  as  the  security  of 
their  possession,  from  the  rugged  and  inaccessible 
nature  of  their  country,  it  was  determined  to 
transplant  the  natives  to  some  of  the  more  acces- 
sible parts  of  Italy,  where  the  lands,  being  waste 
from  the  effect  of  former  wars,  were  still  unoc- 
cupied and  at  the  disposal  of  the  republic.2 


CHAPTER  VII. 

State  of  Italy — Character  of  the  Roman  Policy — Death  of  Scipio  and  of  Hannibal — Indulgence 
of  the  Romans  to  the  King  of  Macedonia — Complaints  against  Philip — Succession  of  Perseus, 
and  Origin  of  the  War — Action  on  the  Peneus — Overtures  of  Peace — Progress  of  the  War — 
Defeat  of  Perseus  at  Pidna,  by  Paulus  Emilius — His  Might  and  Captivity — Settlement  of 
Macedonia  and  Illyricum — Manners  of  the  Romans. 


BY  the  methods  above  related  the  Romans 
proceeded  to  extend  their  dominion  over  all  the 
districts  around  them,  and  either  brought  to  their 
own  standard,  or  disarmed,  the  several  nations 
who  had  hitherto  resisted  their  power.  While  they 
were  about  to  accomplish  this  end,  the  Trans- 
alpine Gauls,  still  having  their  views  directed  to 
the  southward  of  the  mountains,  made  some  at- 
tempts at  migration  into  Italy,  in  one  of  which 
they  settled  a  party  of  their  people  at  Aquileia. 
The  Romans  were  alarmed,  and  ordered  these 
strangers  to  be  dislodged  and  reconducted  across 
the  Alps. 

This  circumstance  suggested  the  design  of 
securing  the  frontier  on  that  side  by  a  colony ; 
and  for  this  purpose  a  body  of  Latins  was  accord- 
ingly sent  to  Aquileia,  a  settlement  which  nearly 
completed  the  Roman  establishments  within  the 
Alps.  The  country  was  now,  in  a  great  measure, 
occupied  by  colonies  of  Roman  and  Latin  ex- 
traction, who,  depending  on  Rome  for  protection, 
served,  wherever  they  were  settled,  to  carry  the 
deepest  impressions  of  her  authority,  and  to  keep 
the  natives  in  a  state  of  subjection  to  her  govern- 
ment. 

The  domestic  policy  of  the  state,  during  this 
period,  appears  to  have  been  orderly  and  wise 
beyond  that  of  any  other  time.  The  distinction 
between  patrician  and  plebeian  was  become  alto- 
gether nominal.  The  descendants  of  those  who 
had  held  the  higher  offices  of  state,  were,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  preferments  of  their  ancestors, 
considered  as  noble.  Instead  of  a  title  of  nobility, 
the  son  named  his  father  and  grandfather,  who 
had  been  vested  with  public  honours.  And  as  the 
plebeians  now  found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  the 
offices  of  state,  they  were  continually  opening  the 
way  of  their  posterity  to  the  rank  of  nobles. 
"  Thus  I,"  said  Decius  Mus,3  while  he  pleaded  to 


have  the  priesthood,  joined  to  the  other  honours 
which  the  different  orders  of  the  people  enjoyed 
in  common,  "can  cite  my  father  in  the  rank  of 
consul ;  and  my  son  can  cite  both  his  grandfather 
and  me."4  The  plebeians  were  entitled  by  law  to 
claim  one  of  the  consul's  seats,  and  frequently 
occupied  both. 

The  authority  of  the  senate,  the  dignity  of  the 
equestrian  order,  and  the  manners  of  the  people, 
in  general,  were  guarded,  and,  in  a  great  measure, 
preserved,  by  the  integrity  and  strict  exercise  of 
the  censorial  power.  The  wisest  and  the  most 
respected  of  the  citizens,  from  every  condition, 
were  raised  into  office ;  and  the  assemblies  whe- 
ther of  the  senate,  or  the  people,  without  envy, 
and  without  jealousy,  suffered  themselves  to  be 
governed  by  the  counsels  of  a  few  able  and  virtu- 
ous men.  It  is  impossible  otherwise  to  account 
for  that  splendour  with  which  the  affairs  of  this 
republic,  from  the  time  of  the  first  Punic  war  to 
that  of  the  last  wars  with  Macedonia  and  Car- 
thage, though  committed  to  hands  that  were  con- 
tinually changing,  were,  nevertheless,  uniformly 
and  ably  conducted. 

The  spirit  of  the  people  was  in  a  high  degree 
democratical ;  and  though  they  suffered  them- 
selves to  be  governed  by  the  silent  influence  of 
personal  authority  in  a  few  of  their  citizens,  yet 
could  not  endure  any  species  of  uncommon  pre- 
eminence ;  even  that  which  arose  from  the  lustre 
and  well-founded  pretensions  of  distinguished 
merit. 

The  great  Scipio,  with  his  brother  Lucius,  ok 
their  return  from  Asia,  encountered  a  prosecu- 
tion, unworthily  supported  by  a  popular  clamour: 
which  brought  them  to  trial  on  a  formal  charge 
of  secreting  part  of  the  treasure  received  from 
Antiochus.  It  is  likely,  from  the  manner  in  which 
Publius  Scipio  disdained  to  answer  this  charge, 
that  he  carried  his  personal  spirit  too  high  foi 


1  Liv.  lib  xl.  c.  50  et  passim.  2  Liv.  lib.  xl.  c.  38. 
3  Vid.  B.  i.  c.  3. 


4  Liv.  lib.  x.  c  8. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


71 


iemocratical  government,  which  can  allow  no 
private  merit  to  come  in  competition  with  the 
rights  of  the  people  to  sovereignty,  and  of  indi- 
viduals to  equal  attention  in  the  state.  At  his 
first  citation  on  the  libel  which  was  brought 
against  him,  seeming  not  to  hear  the  person  who 
accused  him,  he  reminded  the  people,  that  this 
was  the  anniversary  of  that  day  on  which  they 
had  gained  the  victory  at  Zama;  and  desired  that 
they  would  follow  him  to  the  temples,  in  which 
he  was  to  return  thanks  to  the  gods  for  that  im- 
portant event.  He  was  followed  accordingly  by 
the  whole  multitude,  and  the  accuser  for  that  time 
was  deserted.  At  his  second  citation,  he  called 
for  the  paper  of  accounts,  on  which  he  had  en- 
tered all  the  sums  he  had  received  in  Asia ;  and, 
while  the  people  expected  that  he  was  to  satisfy 
them  by  a  state  of  particulars,  he  tore  the  scroll  in 
their  presence;  and,  taking  the  privilege  of  a 
Roman  citizen,  retired,  without  deigning  to  give 
any  answer,  and  went  as  an  exile  into  a  country 
village  of  Italy,  where  he  soon  after  died. 

The. same  year  likewise  terminated  the  life  of 
his  antagonist  Hannibal.  This  great  man,  him- 
self a  sufficient  object  of  jealousy  to  nations,  was, 
by  an  article  in  the  late  treaty  of  peace  with  An- 
tiochus,  to  have  been  delivered  up  to  the  Romans  ; 
and  had,  in  order  to  avoid  that  danger,  retired 
into  Crete.  From  thence  he  took  refuge  with 
Prusias,  king  of  Bithynia,  where  the  enmity  of 
Rome  still  pursued  him,  and  where  an  embassy 
was  sent  to  demand  that  he  should  be  delivered 
up.  .  As  soon  as  he  knew  that  this  demand  was 
actually  made,  and  that  the  avenues  to  his  dwell- 
ing were  secured  in  order  to  seize  him,  he  took 
poison,  and  died. 

The  Romans  had  been  so  well  satisfied  with 
the  part  which  was  taken  by  Philip  in  the  late 
war  with  Antiochus,  that  they  released  his  son 
Demetrius,  then  at  Rome,  a  hostage  for  pay- 
ment of  the  father's  tribute,  of  which  they  like- 
wise remitted  a  part.  They  even  connived  at  his 
recovering  some  of  his  former  possessions,andmade 
no  inquiry  into  the  numbers  of  his  troops,  in  which 
he  greatly  exceeded  the  establishment  prescribed 
by  the  last  treaty.  They  continued  in  this  dispo- 
sition during  four  years  after  the  late  peace  with 
the  king  of  Syria;  and,  in  this  interval,  permitted 
the  kingdom  of  Macedonia,  by  the  improvement 
of  its  revenue,  and  the  increase  of  its  people,  in  a 
great  measure  to  recover  its  former  strength. 

These  circumstances  of  prosperity,  however, 
did  not  fail  to  excite  apprehension  in  the  minds 
of  all  those  who,  holding  independent  possessions 
in  that  neighbourhood,  were  exposed  to  be  the 
first  victims  of  this  reviving  power;  and  repre- 
sentations, to  awaken  the  attention  of  the  Ro- 
mans on  this  subject,  were  accordingly  made  at 
Rome,  from  Eumenes,  the  king  of  Pergamus,  and 
from  all  the  petty  princes  and  small  communities 
on  the  frontier  of  Macedonia. 

On  receiving  these  admonitions,  the  senate,  in 
their  usual  form,  sent  to  the  country  from  whence 
they  were  alarmed,  a  select  number  of  their  mem- 
bers to  make  inquiry  into  the  real  state  of  affairs. 
Before  a  tribunal  thus  constituted,  the  king  of 
Macedonia  was  cited  to  appear  as  a  private  party, 
first  at  Tempe,  to  answer  the  charge  of  the  Thes- 
salians,  and  afterwards  at  Thessalonica,  to  an- 
swer that  of  Eumenes.  After  a  discussion,  suf- 
ficiently humbling  to  a  sovereign,  he  received 
sentence,  by  which  he  was  required  to  evacuate 
all  the  places  he  had  occupied  beyond  the  ancient 


limits  of  his  kingdom.  This  sentence  he  received 
with  indignation  and  resentment,  which  were  too 
unguardedly  expressed,  and  which  rendered  him 
thenceforward  an  object  of  continual  attention 
and  of  jealousy  to  the  Romans. 

A  second  commission  was  granted  to  see  the 
sentence  of  the  first  put  in  execution ;  and  as 
soon  as  it  became  publicly  known,  that  the  Ro- 
mans were  willing  to  receive  complaints  against 
Philip,  and  were  disposed  to  protect  every  person 
who  incurred  his  displeasure,  ambassadors  from 
the  princes  of  Asia,  and  persons  of  every  condi- 
tion, from  all  the  cities  of  Greece,  and  from  all  the 
districts  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Macedonia,  re- 
sorted to  Rome  with  complaints  against  the  king, 
some  of  a  private,  and  others  of  a  public  nature. 
The  city  was  crowded  with  strangers,  and  the 
senate  was  occupied,  from  morning  to  night,  in 
hearing  the  representations  that  were  made  by 
their  allies  on  the  subject  of  the  usurpations  and 
oppressions  they  had  suffered. 

Philip,  to  divert  the  storm,  had  sent  his  younger 
son,  Demetrius,  to  answer  the  several  charges 
which  were  expected  to  be  brought  against  him  j 
and,  in  the  end,  obtained  a  resolution  of  the  se- 
nate to  accommodate  matters  on  an  amicable  foot- 
ing. This  resolution  was  grounded  on  pretence 
of  the  favour  which  the  Romans  bore  to  Deme- 
trius, who  had  long  resided  as  a  hostage  in  their 
city.  "  The  king  will  please  to  know,"  they  said, 
"that  he  has  done  one  thing  extremely  agreeable 
to  the  Romans,  in  trusting  his  cause  to  an  advocate 
so  well  established  in  their  esteem  and  regard."5 

This  language  of  the  Roman  senate  respecting 
Demetrius,  together  with  dangerous  suggestions 
from  some  of  his  own  confidants,  probably  inspired 
the  young  man  with  thoughts,  or  rendered  him 
suspected  of  designs,  injurious  to  the  rights  of 
Perseus,  his  cider  brother.  This  prince  took  the 
alarm,  and  never  ceased  to  excite  the  suspicions 
already  formed  in  the  breast  of  the  father,  until 
he  prevailed  in  securing  his  own  succession  by 
the  death  of  his  younger  brother.6 

Philip,  having  ordered  the  execution  of  one  son 
to  gratify  the  jealousy  of  the  other,  lived  about 
three  years  after  this  action,  suffering  part  of  the 
punishment  that  was  due  to  him  on  that  account, 
in  the  most  gloomy  apprehensions  of  danger  from 
his  surviving  son,  and  died  in  great  solicitude  for 
the  fate  of  his  kingdom. 

Perseus,  nevertheless,  in  ascending  the  throne 
of  Macedonia,  gave  hopes  of  a  better  and  happier 
reign  than  that  of  his  predecessor.  He  was  im- 
mediately acknowledged  .by  the  Romans;  and, 
during  a  few  years  after  his  accession,  appeared 
to  have  no  cause  of  disquietude  from  this  people. 
Although  he  had  adopted  the  measures  of  his 
father,  and  endeavoured  by  attention  to  his  reve- 
nue, his  army,  and  magazines ;  and  by  forming 
alliances  with  some  of  the  warlike  Thracian 
hordes  in  his  neighbourhood,  to  put  his  kingdom 
in  a  posture  of  defence,  and  in  condition  to  assert 
its  independence  ;  yet  he  appears  to  have  excited 
less  jealousy  in  the  minds  of  his  neighbours.  The 
progress  which  he  made  seems  to  have  escaped 
the  attention  of  the  Romans;  until,  at  last 
awakened  by  t  he  report  of  a  secret  correspondence 
which  he  carried  on  with  the  republic  of  Carthage, 
they  thought  proper  to  send  a  deputation  into 
Macedonia,  in  order  to  observe  lus  motions. 


5  Polyb.  Excerpt.  Legat.  c.  46.  Liv.  lib.  xxxix.  46,  17 

6  Liv.  lib.  xl.  c.  24. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  I. 


By  the  deputies  employed  in  this  service,  the 
Romans  obtained  intelligence,  that  Perseus  had 
made  advances  to  the  Achreans  as  well  as  to  the 
Carthaginians,  and  to  other  states ;  and  was  likely 
lo  form  a  powerful  party  among  the  Greeks. 

From  this  time  forward  the  leaders  of  the  Ro- 
man councils  seemed  to  have  taken  a  resolution 
to  remove  this  subject  of  jealousy,  and  to  suppress 
the  Macedonian  monarchy.  They  renewed  their 
attention  to  the  state  of  parties  in  Greece,  and 
endeavoured  to  reconcile  all  the  differences  that 
might  incline  any  of  those  republics  to  oppose 
them  in  the  execution  of  their  design.  They 
encouraged  the  king  of  Pergamus,  who  after- 
wards appears  to  have  repented  of  the  part  which 
he  took  in  that  matter,  to  state  his  complaints. 
They  brought  him  to  Rome  in  person,  and  cited 
him  before  the  senate  to  give  a  complete  detail  of 
the  circumstances  that  were  alarming  in  the  policy 
of  Perseus.  Eumenes,  having  been  thus  brought 
forward  as  a  formal  accuser,  and  being  to  return 
through  Greece,  in  order  to  offer  his  devotions  at 
the  temple  of  Delphi,  was  assaulted  and  wounded 
by  a  party  who  meant  to  assassinate  him ;  and 
this  design,  with  some  other  acts  of  violence,  be- 
ing imputed  to  Perseus,  served  as  a  pretence  for 
the  war  which  followed. 

The  Roman  senate  had  already  granted  two 
separate  commissions,  the  one  of  a  deputation  to 
visit  Macedonia,  and  to  observe  the  motions  of 
Perseus ;  the  other  of  an  embassy  into  Egypt,  to 
confirm  their  alliance  with  Ptolemy.  On  hearing 
of  the  attempt  that  had  been  made  to  assassinate 
Eumenes,  they  directed  one  of  the  praetors, 
Caius  Sicinius,  with  a  proper  force,  to  pass  into 
Epirus ;  and,  in  order  to  secure  their  access  into 
that  country,  to  take  possession  of  Apollonia,  and 
other  towns  on  the  coast.  But  a  misunderstanding 
then  subsisting  between  the  consuls,  and  other  prin- 
cipal men  of  the  senate,  caused  some  obstruction 
in  the  farther  immediate  prosecution  of  the  war. 

Perseus  however,  alarmed  by  the  arrival  of  a 
Roman  force  in  his  neighbourhood,  sent  an  em- 
bassy to  Rome  with  expostulations  on  the  subject, 
and  with  offers,  by  every  reasonable  concession 
that  the  senate  or  the  people  could  require,  to 
avert  the  storm  which  threatened  him.  But  the 
Romans,  affecting  resentment  of  the  injuries  they 
pretended  to  have  received,  ordered  his  ambassa- 
dor, without  delay,  to  depart  from  Italy;  and 
gave  intimation,  that,  if  for  the  future  he  should 
have  any  thing  to  offer,  he  might  have  recourse 
to  the  commander  of  the  Roman  army  in  Epirus. 

The  interview,  which  Perseus  soon  after  had 
with  the  Roman  commissioners,  terminated  with 
the  strongest  signs  of  hostility  on  both  sides.1 
The  king,  however,  having  taken  minutes  of 
what  passed  at  their  conference,  sent  copies  to  all 
the  neighbouring  states,  in  order  to  exculpate 
himself  from  any  guilt  in  the  approaching  war ; 
and  as  the  event  afterwards  showed  how  much 
it  was  the  interest  of  every  state  to  support  him, 
he  being  the  only  power  that  could  give  them 
any  protection  against  the  Romans ;  so  numbers, 
already  moved  by  this  apprehension,  were  in- 
clined to  favour  his  cause.  The  Rhodians,  then 
a  formidable  naval  power,  though  restrained  by 
fear  from  an  open  breach  with  the  Romans,  yet 
gave  sufficient  evidence  of  this  disposition.  Eu- 
menes, likewise,  though  a  principal  instrument  in 
fomenting  the  present  quarrel,  soon  became  averse 

1  Liv.  lib.  lxii.  c.  35. 


to  its  consequences^  The  Boeotians  and  Epirots, 
as  well  as  the  Illyrians,  openly  declared  for  the 
king  of  Macedonia.2 

These  circumstances  were  stated  at  Rome  as 
additional  grounds  of  complaint  against  the  king ; 
and  his  endeavours  to  vindicate  the  part  he  had 
acted,  were  considered  as  attempts  to  form  a  hos- 
tile confederacy  against  the  republic. 

Additional  fleets  and  armies  were  accordingly 
assembled,  and  directed  towards  Epirus ;  and  a 
declaration  of  war  was  issued  in  the  form  of  an 
act  of  the  Roman  people. 

The  Romans  had  now,  during  about  twenty- 
five  years,  borne  a  principal  part  among  the  na- 
tions that  surrounded  the  Mediterranean  sea. 
The  ascendant  they  had  gained  in  all  their  wars 
or  treaties,  had  made  them  common  objects  of 
fear  or  respect  to  all  the  contiguous  powers  of 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  The  Macedonians,  „ 
however,  as  the  latest  conquerors  of  the  world, 
still  retained  a  very  high  reputation  for  military 
skill  and  valour.  The  events  of  the  late  war 
rather  surprised  mankind,  than  convinced  them 
of  any  decided  superiority  on  the  part  of  the  Re- 
man arms.  The  novelty  of  a  new  enemy,  the 
mistakes  or  misconduct  of  the  late  king,  might 
have  accounted  for  his  ill  success.  The  kingdom 
had  now  been  above  twenty  years  exempted  from 
any  signal  calamity,  had  re-established  its*  armies, 
and  filled  its  magazines  and  its  coffers.  The 
military  establishment  amounted  to  forty  thousand 
men  ;  the  greater  part  formed  and  disciplined  upon 
the  plan  of  the  phalanx,  and  supported  with  nu- 
merous troops  of'  irregulars  from  the  warlike  can- 
tons of  Thrace.  The  king  himself,  in  the  vigour 
of  manhood,  sensible  that  the  storm  could  not  be 
diverted,  affected  rather  to  desire  than  to  decline 
the  contest ;  and,  under  all  these  circumstances, 
nations  seemingly  least  interested  in  the  conse- 
quences, were  intent  on  the  scene  that  wras  about 
to  be  opened  before  them. 

Eumenes,  supposed  to  be  incited  b}7  inveterate 
animosity  to  Perseus,  and  by  recent  provocations, 
prepared  to  fulfil  his  professions  in  behalf  of  the 
Romans. 

Ariarafhes,  the  king  of  Cappadocia,  equally 
inclined  by  policy  to  wish  for  a  counterpoise  to 
the  Macedonian  power,  but  having  recently 
formed  an  alliance  by  marriage  with  the  family 
of  Perseus,  determined  to  be  neutral  in  the  war. 

Ptolemy  Philomater,  who  then  filled  the  throne 
of  Egypt,  was  a  minor.  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
who  had  lately  succeeded  his  brother  Seleucus,  in 
the  kingdom  of  Syria,  having  been  some  time  a 
hostage  at  Rome,  affected  in  his  own  court  the 
manners  of  a  Roman  demagogue ;  but  was  chiefly 
intent  on  his  pretensions  to  Coelesyria,  which  he 
hoped  to  make  good  under  favour  of  the  approach- 
ing conjuncture  formed  by  the  minority  of  Ptole- 
my, and  by  the  avocation  of  the  Roman  forces  in 
Greece. 

The  Carthaginians,  and  the  king  of  Numidia, 
while  they  severally  preferred  their  complaints 
against  each  other  before  the  Roman  senate,  vied 
likewise  in  their  professions  of  zeal  for  the  Ro- 
man republic,  and  in  their  offers  of  supply  of 
men,  horses,  provisions,  or  ships. 

Gentius,  the  king  of  Illyricum,  had  incurred 
the  jealousy  of  the  Romans ;  but  remained  unde- 
termined what  part  he  should  take. 

Cotys,  a.  Thracian  king,  declared  openly  for 

2  Toh  b.  E.vr^ptep  Logationcs,  c.  64—67. 


CllAP.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


73 


Perseus.  The  people  of  Greece,  in  their  several 
republics,  were  divided  among  themselves.  The 
popular  parties  in  general,  being  desirous  to  ex- 
change the  government  of  their  own  aristocracies 
for  that  of  a  monarchy,  favoured  the  king  of  Ma- 
cedonia. The  leading  men  were  either  inclined 
to  the  Romans,  or  wished  to  balance  the  rival 
powers,  so  as  to  have,  in  the  protection  of  the  one 
some  security  against  the  usurpations  of  the  other.3 

The  Romans  had  committed  an  error  by  send- 
ing a  small  force  into  Epirus,  which  the  king  of 
Macedonia  might  have  cut  off  before  it  could  be 
properly  supported  from  Italy ;  but  their  commis- 
sioners, then  in  that  country,  had  the  address  to 
amuse  the  king  with  a  negotiation,  and  to  divert 
him,  during  the  first  year  of  the  war,  from  any 
attempt  on  Apollonia,  or  on  any  other  station 
then  in  possession  of  the  Roman  troops. 

In  the  following  summer,  about  seven  years 
after  the  accession  of  Perseus  to  the  throne  of 
Macedonia,  the  war  in  that  kingdom  being  com- 
mitted to  the  Consul  Licinius,  this  general  follow- 
lowed  the  army  which  had  been  transported  to 
the  coast  of  Epirus  ;  and  while  the  Roman  fleet, 
with  their  allies,  assembled  in  the  straits  of  Eu- 
boea,  the  armies  on  both  sides  began  their  opera- 
tions. The  Macedonians  encamped  at  Sycurium 
on  the  declivity  of  mount  Ossa.  The  Roman  con- 
sul penetrated  into  Thessaly;  and,  having  passed 
the  river  Peneus,  took  post  at  Scea,  twelve  miles 
from  the  camp  of  the  enemy.  Here  he  was  joined 
by  Attalus,  brother  to  the  king  of  Pergamus,  with 
four  thousand  men,  and  by  smaller  bodies  collected 
from  different  states  of  Greece. 

Perseus  endeavoured  to  lay  waste  the  kingdom 
of  Pherae,  from  which  the  Romans  drew  the 
greatest  part  of  their  subsistence ;  and  an  action 
ensued,  in  which  the  whole  cavalry  and  light 
infantry  of  both  armies  being  engaged,  the  Ro- 
mans were  defeated ;  and  the  consul,  no  longer 
able  to  support  his  foraging  parties  on  that  side 
of  the  Peneus  against  a  superior  enemy,  decamp- 
ed in  the  night,  and  repassed  the  river. 

Although  this  victory  had  a  tendency  to  raise 
the  hopes  of  the  king,  it  was  by  him  wisely  con- 
sidered as  a  fit  opportunity  to  renew  the  overtures 
of  peace ;  and,  in  order  to  bring  on  a  negotiation, 
it  was  resolved,  that  the  condition  which,  under 
the  misfortune  of  repeated  defeats,  had  been 
offered  by  his  father,  should  be  made  the  prelimi- 
naries of  the  present  treaty. 

It  appeared  to  the  king,  and  to  those  with  whom 
he  consulted,  that,  in  the  sequel  of  a  victory,  this 
would  appear  an  act  of  moderation,  not  of  fear ; 
that  all  neutral  powers,  who  dreaded  the  conse- 
quences of  a  decided  superiority  on  either  side, 
would  favour  the  person  who  should  propose  to 
have  peace  re-established  on  moderate  terms  ;  and 
that  the  Romans,  being  induced  to  terminate  the 
war  under  the  effects  of  a  defeat,  would  from 
thenceforward  respect  the  Macedonian  mon- 
archy, and  be  cautious  how  they  disturbed  its 
tranquillity. 

But  if  in  this  manner  the  opportunity  was  per- 
ceived, and  wisely  laid  hold  of  by  the  councils  of 
Perseus,  it  by  no  means  escaped  the  Roman 
council  of  war,  which  was  assembled  to  receive 
the  proposals  of  the  king. 

The  Romans,  whether  from  national  spirit  or 
policy  at  all  times  declined  entering  on  negotia- 
tions or  treaties  in  consequence  of  defeats.  They 


3  Liv.  lib.  xlii.  c.  ZD— 30. 
K 


spurned  the  advances  of  a  victorious  enemy,  while 
they  received  those  of  the  vanquished  with  con- 
descension and  mildness.  They  accordingly,  in 
the  present  case,  treated  the  concessions  of  Per- 
seus with  disdain,  haughtily  answering,  that  he 
must  submit  at  discretion.4 

This  reply  was  received  at  the  court  of  Per- 
seus with  extreme  surprise.  But  it  produced  still 
farther  concessions ;  and  instead  of  resentment 
from  the  king,  a  repetition  of  his  message  with 
an  offer  to  augment  the  tribute  which  had  been 
paid  by  his  father.4 

The  remainder  of  the  summer  having  passed 
in  the  operations  of  foraging  parties,  without  any 
considerable  action,  the  Romans  retired  for  the 
winter  into  Bceotia.  On  this  coast  the  fleet,  hav- 
ing met  with  no  enemy  at  sea,  had  made  repeated 
descents  to  distress  the  inhabitants  who  had  de- 
clared for  the  king.  The  consul  took  possession 
of  his  quarters,  without  any  resistance,  in  the 
interior  parts  of  the  country ;  and  in  this,  with 
the  progress  that  was  made  by  the  army  em- 
ployed on  the  side  of  Illvrieum  in  detaching  that 
nation  from  Perseus,  consisted  the  service  of  t  he 
first  campaign. 

Licinius,  at  the  expiration  of  the  usual  term, 
was  relieved  by  his  successor  in  office,  A.  Hos- 
tilius  Marcius.  This  commander,  being  defeated 
and  baffled  in  some  attempts  he  made  to  pene- 
trate into  the  kingdom  of  Macedonia,  appears  to 
have  made  a  campaign  still  less  fortunate  than 
that  of  his  predecessor ;  and  the  senate,  at  the 
end  of  the  summer,  having  ordered  him  home  to 
preside  at  the  annual  elections,  sent  a  deputation 
to  visit  the  army,  and  to  inquire  into  the  cause 
of  their  miscarriages,  and  the  slowness  of  their 
progress. 

rl  he  Romans,  although  they  had  experienced 
disappointments  in  the  beginning  of  other  wars, 
particularly  in  their  first  encounters  with  Pyr- 
rhus  and  with  Hannibal ;  and  had  reason  to  ex- 
pect a  similai  effect  in  the  opening  of  the  present 
war,  appear  to  have  been  greatly  mortified  and 
surprised  at  this  unpromising  aspect  of  their 
enterprise.  They  were  engaged  with  an  enemy 
renowned  for  discipline,  who  had  made  war  a 
trade,  and  the  use  of  arms  a  profession  ;  while 
they  themselves,  it  appears,  for  a  considerable 
period  alter  the  present  war,  even  during  the 
most  rapid  progress  of  their  arms,  had  no  military 
establishment  besides  that  of  their  civil  and  poli- 
tical constitution,  no  soldiers  besides  their  citi- 
zens, and  no  officers  but  the  ordinary  magistrates 
of  the  commonwealth. 

If  this  establishment  had  its  advantages,6  it 
may  have  appeared,  on  particular  occasions,  like- 
wise to  have  had  its  defects.  The  citizen  may 
have  been  too  much  a  master  in  his  civil  capacity 
to  subject  himself  fully  to  the  bondage  of  a  soi- 
dier;  and  too  absolute  in  his  capacity  of  military 
officer  to  bear  with  the  control  of  political  regula- 
tions. As  the  obligation  to  serve  in  the  legions 
was  general  and  without  exception,  many  a  citi- 
zen, at  least  in  the  case  of  any  distant  or  unpro- 
mising service,  would  endeavour  to  shun  his  duty. 
And  the  officer  would  not  always  dare  to  enforce 
disagreeable  duty  on  those  by  whom  he  himself 
was  elected,  or  on  whom  he  in  [jart  depended  for 
farther  advancement. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  war,  the  legions  were 

4  In  adversis  vultum  secunds  forturise  gerere,  mode- 
ran  axtimos  in  secundia.    Liv.  lib.  xlii.  a  62. 
o  I'olyb.  Excerpt.  Lc^at.  c.  b'J.     G  Vi  [.  IV  i.  c.  3. 


t 


74  THE  PROGRESS  A. 

augmented  from  five  thousand  two  hundred  foot 
and  two  hundred  horse,  to  six  thousand  foot  and 
three  hundred  horse and,  probably,  to  raise 
the  authority  of  the  consul  more  effectually  into 
that  of  a  commander-in-chief,  he  was  commis- 
sioned to  name  the  tribunes,  as  well  as  the  cen- 
turions of  the  army,  that  were  to  serve  under 
his  orders :  but,  upon  a  complaint  that  this  ex- 
tension of  the  consul's  powers  did  not,  by  en- 
forcing the  discipline  of  the  army,  serve  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  made,  the  people  re- 
sumed their  right  of  election  in  the  appointment 
even  of  inferior  officers.  The  deputies,  now  sent 
into  Macedonia,  by  the  senate,  reported,  that  the 
legions  employed  in  that  country  were  extremely 
incomplete,  numbers  both  of  the  lower  officers 
and  private  men  being,  by  the  dangerous  indul- 
gence of  their  leaders,  suffered  to  absent  them- 
selves from  their  colours.2  This  abuse  we  may 
apprehend  to  have  been  frequent  in  a  service 
that  was  to  be  performed  by  citizens  who  had 
the  choice  of  their  own  commanders.  And  from 
speculative  ideas  on  the  subject,  if  we  were  not 
bound  to  be  governed  by  experience  as  the  pre- 
ferable tutor,  we  should  be  apt  to  reject,  as  an  im- 
proper mode  of  forming  armies,  that  establishment 
by  which  the  Romans  conquered  the  world. 

It  is  probable,  that  not  only  the  defect  of  sub- 
ordination in  the  beginning  of  every  war,  but 
that  of  skill,  likewise,  in  the  use  of  their  peculiar 
weapons,  made,  in  the  Roman  armies,  a  great 
disparity  between  raw  and  veteran  troops. 

The  use  of  the  buckler  and  sword  required  great 
skill,  agility,  and  muscular  strength ;  all  of  them 
the  effect  of  exercise  and  of  continued  practice. 

The  experience  of  the  soldier  who  survived 
many  actions  tended  to  confirm  his  courage,  be- 
cause his  escape  was  in  a  great  measure  the 
effect  of  his  skill,  or  of  his  strength ;  and  upon  a 
return  of  similar  dangers,  gave  him  confidence 
in  himself. 

In  battles  the  strong  and  the  skilful  escaped,  the 
weak  and  the  awkward  were  likely  to  perish ;  and 
every  action  not  only  exercised  the  arms  of  those 
that  survived,  but  made  a  selection  of  the  vigorous 
and  skilful  to  be  reserved  for  future  occasions. 

Hence,  probably,  in  the  Roman  armies,  much 
more  than  in  those  of  modern  Europe,  the  prac- 
tised soldier  had  a  great  superiority  over  the 
novice  ;  and  citizens,  when  brought  into  the  field 
by  rotation,  had  much  to  learn  in  the  course  of 
every  campaign. 

In  the  present  contest,  the  checks  of  the  first 
and  the  second  year  of  the  war,  though  extremely 
mortifying  to  the  Romans,  were  received  without 
any  signs  of  irresolution,  or  change  of  their  pur- 
pose. In  the  third  year  after  hostilities  com- 
menced, the  command  of  the  army  in  Macedonia 
devolved  on  Q,.  Marcius  Philippus,  who,  being 
chosen  one  of  the  consuls,  drew  his  province  as 
usual  by  lot.  This  officer  had  been  employed  in 
one  of  the  late  deputations  that  were  sent  into 
Greece ;  had  shown  his  ability  in  the  course  of 
negotiations  which  preceded  the  war ;  and  now, 
by  his  conduct  as  a  general,  broke  through  the 
line  by  which  the  king  had  endeavoured  to  secure 
the  passes  of  the  mountains,  and  to  cover  the 
Irontier  of  his  kingdom.  But,  when  he  had 
penetrated  into  Macedonia,  he  found  himself  at 
the  end  of  the  season,  and  for  want  of  proper  sup- 
plies of  provisions  on  that  side  of  the  mountains, 


'  Uv.  lib.  xliii.  c.  12.      2  Ibid.  c.  11. 


STD  TERMINATION  [Book  1. 

unable  to  pursue  the  advantage  he  had  gained 
Here,  therefore,  he  staid  only  to  deliver  his  army 
to  Emilius  Paul  us,  who  had  been  named  to  sue 
ceed  him.  This  was  the  son  uf  that  Paulus, 
who,  being  one  of  the  consuls  who  commanded 
the  Roman  army  at  Cannae,  threw  away  his  life 
rather  than  survive  that  defeat.  The.  son  was 
now  turned  of  sixty  ;3  and  by  the  length  of  his 
service,  and  the  variety  of  his  experience  in 
Liguria  and  Spam,  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  chances  of  war. 

Emilius  Paulus,  upon  his  election,  in  order 
that  he  might  not  be  liable  to  answer  for  the 
faults  of  his  predecessors,  moved,  that  deputies 
should  be  sent  into  Macedonia  to  review  the 
army,  and  to  make  a  report  of  its  state  before  he 
entered  upon  the  command.  His  speech  to  the 
people,  when  about  to  depart  for  his  province, 
carries  a  striking  allusion  to  the  petulant  freedom 
with  which,  it  seems,  unsuccessful  commanders 
were  censured,  or  traduced  in  the  popular  con- 
versations at  Rome,  and  carries  a  defiance  with 
which  he  proposed  to  silence  the  blame  that 
might  afterwards  be  cast  on  himself.  "  Let  such 
as  think  themselves  qualified  to  advise  the  gene- 
ral," he  said,  "  now  accompany  me  into  Mace- 
donia. They  shall  have  a  passage  on  board  my 
ship ;  and,  in  the  field,  be  welcome  to  a  place  in 
my  tent  and  at  my  table ;  but  if  they  now  decline 
this  offer,  let  them  not  afterwards  pretend  to 
judge  of  what  they  neither  see  nor  understand. 
"Nor  let  them  set  up  their  own  opinion  against 
that  of  a  fellow-citizen,  who  is  serving  the  pub- 
lic to  the  utmost  of  his  ability,  and  at  the  hazard 
of  his  life  and  of  his  honours." 

Emilius,  upon  his  arrival  in  Macedonia,  found 
the  king  entrenched  on  the  banks  of  the  Enipeus, 
with  his  right  and  left  covered  by  mountains,  on 
which  all  the  passes  were  secured. — After  some 
delay,  during  which  he  was  employed  in  observ- 
ing the  enemy's  disposition,  or  in  improving  the 
discipline  of  his  own  army,  he  sent  a  detachment 
to  dispossess  the  Macedonians  of  one  of  the  sta- 
tions which  they  occupied  on  the  heights,  with 
orders  to  the  officer  who  commanded  in  this  ser- 
vice, that,  if  he  succeeded  in  it,  he  should  fall 
down  on  the  plain  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy ;  he 
himself,  in  the  mean  time,  made  a  feint  to  attack 
them  in  front. 

The  post  on  the  heights  being  forced,  Perseus 
relinquished  his  present  disposition,  and  fell  back 
towards  Pydna  on  the  banks  of  the  Aliacmon. 
Here  it  became  necessary  for  him,  either  to 
hazard  a  battle,  or.  on  account  of  the  nature  of 
the  country  behind  him,  to  separate  his  forces. 

He  preferred  the  first,  and  made  choice  of  a 
plain  that  was  fit  to  receive  the  phalanx,  and  was 
skirted  with  hills,  on  which  his  light  troops  could 
act  with  advantage. 

Here  too  the  Roman  consul  continued  to  press 
upon  him,  and  was  inclined  to  seize  the  first 
opportunity  of  deciding  the  war.  Both  armies, 
as  by  appointment,  presented  themselves  on  the 
plain  in  order  of  battle,  and  Emilius  Paulus 
seemed  eager  to  engage  ;  but,  as  he  himself  used 
to  confess,  having  never  beheld  an  appearance 
so  formidable  as  when  the  Macedonians  levelled 
their  spears,  he  thought  proper  to  halt.4  Though 
much  disconcerted,  he  endeavoured  to  preserve 
his  countenance,  and  would  not  recede  from  his 


3  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Emil.  p.  157. 

4  Tolyb.  Fragment,  vol.  iii.  p.  213. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


75 


^tound;  and  that  he  might  encamp  his  army 
Adhere  they  now  stood,  ordered  the  first  line  to 
/emain  under  arms,  and  ready  to  attack  the 
enemy,  while  those  who  were  behind  them  be- 
gan to  intrench  ;  having  in  this  manner  cast  up 
a  breast- work  of  considerable  strength,  he  re- 
tired behind  it,  and  under  that  cover  completed 
the  fortifications  of  a  camp  in  the  usual  form. 

In  this  position  he  waited  for  an  opportunity  to 
draw  on  an  engagement,  when  the  enemy  should 
be  less  prepared  to  receive  him,  or  not  have  time  to 
avail  themselves  so  much  of  that  formidable  order 
which  constituted  the  strength  of  the  phalanx. 

This  occasion  soon  afterwards  seemed  to  be 
offered  by  a  skirmish  which  happened  in  the 
fields  between  the  two  armies.  A  horse,  having 
broke  loose  from  the  camp  of  the  Romans,  fled 
towards  that  of  the  Macedonians,  was  followed 
by  the  soldiers  from  whom  he  escaped,  and  met 
by  their  enemy  from  the  opposite  camp.  These 
parties  engaged,  and  each  being  joined  by  num- 
bers from  their  respective  armies,  brought  on  at 
last  a  general  action.  The  ground  was  favour- 
able to  the  phalanx ;  and  the  Macedonians, 
though  hastily  formed,  still  possessed  against  the 
Romans  the  advantage  of  their  weapons,  and  of 
their  formidable  order.  They  filled  up  the  plain 
in  front,  and  could  not  be  flanked.  They  had 
only  to  maintain  their  ground,  and  had  no  oc- 
casion to  discompose  their  ranks,  in  time  of  the 
action,  by  any  change  of  position.  They  ac- 
cordingly withstood  with  ease  the  first  shock  of 
the  Roman  legions ;  but  were  broken  and  dis- 
jointed in  the  sequel  by  the  seemingly  irregular 
attacks  which  were  made  at  intervals  by  the 
manipules,  or  the  separate  divisions  of  the  Ro- 
man foot.  The  parts  of  the  phalanx  that  were 
attacked,  whether  they  were  pressed  in,  or  came 
forward  to  press  on  their  enemy,  could  not  keep 
in  an  exact  line  with  the  parts  that  were  not  at  - 
tacked.  Openings  were  made,  at  which  the 
Roman  soldier,  with  his  buckler  and  short  sword, 
could  easily  enter.  Emilius,  observing  this  ad- 
vantage, directed  his  attack  on  those  places  at 
which  the  front  of  the  phalanx  was  broken  ;  and 
the  legionary  soldier,  having  got  within  the  point 
of  his  antagonist's  spear,  pierced  to  the  heart  of 
the  column,  and  in  this  position  made  a  havoc 
which  soon  threw  the  whole  into  disorder  and 
general  route.5 

Twenty  thousand  of  the  Macedonians  were 
killed  in  the  field,  five  thousand  were  made  pri- 
soners in  their  flight;  and  six  thousand  that  shut 
themselves  up  in  the  town  of  Pydna  were  obliged 
to  surrender  at  discretion.6 

After  this  defeat,  the  king  of  Macedonia,  with 
a  few  attendants,  fled  to  Fella,  where,  having 
taken  up  his  children  and  the  remains  of  his 
treasure,  amounting  to  ten  thousand  talents,  or 
about  two  millions  of  pounds  sterling/  he  con- 
tinued his  flight  to  Ainphipolis,  and  from  thence 
to  Samothracia,  where  he  took  refuge  in  the 
famous  sanctuary  of  that  island. 

Emilius  pushed  on  to  Amphipoiis,  receiving  the 
submission  of  all  the  towns  and  districts  as  he 
passed.  The  prretor,  Octavius,  then  command- 
ing the  Roman  fleet,  beset  the  island  of  Samo- 
thracia with  his  ships  ;  and,  without  violating  the 
sanctuary,  took  measures  that  effectually  pre- 
vented the  king's  escape. 


5  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Emil.  p.  173. 

G  Li  v.  lib.  xliv.  c.  42.      V  Justin,  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  1. 


This  unfortunate  prince,  with  some  of  his 
children,  delivered  themselves  up  to  the  praetor, 
and  were  conducted  to  the  camp  of  Emilius. 
The  king  threw  himself  on  the  ground,  and 
would  have  embraced  the  victor's  knees,  when 
the  Roman  general,  with  a  condescension  that  is 
extolled  by  ancient  historians,  gave  him  his  hand, 
and  raised  him  from  the  ground,  but  reproached 
him  as  the  aggressor  in  the  late  contest  with  the 
Romans;  and  with  a  lesson  of  morality,  which 
tore  up  the  wounds  of  the  unfortunate  monarch, 
bid  the  young  men  who  were  present  look  on 
this  object  as  an  example  of  the  instability  of 
fortune,  and  of  the  vicissitude  of  human  affairs. 

While  the  war  in  Macedonia  was  coming  to 
this  issue,  that  in  Illyricum  had  a  like  termina- 
tion, and  ended  about  the  same  time  in  the  cap- 
tivity of  the  king. 

News  of  both  were  received  at  Rome  about 
the  same  time,  and  filled  the  temples,  as  usual, 
with  multitudes  who  crowded  to  perform  the 
public  rites  of  thanksgiving  that  were  ordered  by 
the  senate.  Soon  after  which,  embassies  arrived 
from  all  the  kings  and  states  of  the  then  known 
world,  with  addresses  of  congratulation  on  so 
great  an  event.  The  senate  proceeded  to  fonn  a 
plan  for  the  settlement  of  Macedonia. 

It  was  resolved  to  extinguish  the  monarchy, 
to  divide  its  territory  into  four  districts,  and  in 
each  to  establish  a  republican  government,  ad- 
ministered by  councils  and  magistrates  chosen  by 
the  people.  This  among  the  Greeks,  could  bear 
the  interpretation  of  bestowing  absolute  liberty. 
Ten  commissioners  were  named  to  carry  this 
plan  into  execution  in  Macedonia,  and  five  were 
appointed  for  a  similar  purpose  in  Illyricum. 
Emilius  was  continued  in  his  command,  and  the 
army  ordered  to  remain  in  Macedonia  until  the 
settlement  of  the  province  should  be  completed. 

The  commissioners,  agreeable  to  their  instruc- 
tions, fixed  the  limits  of  the  several  districts,  and, 
probably  to  perpetuate  the  separation  of  them,  or 
to  prevent  any  dangerous  communication  between 
their  inhabitants,  prohibited  them  to  intermarry, 
or  to  hold  any  commerce  in  the  property  of  land, 
from  one  division  to  another. 

To  some  other  restrictions,  which  had  more  a 
tendency  to  weaken  or  to  dismember  this  once 
powerful  monarchy,  than  to  confer  freedom  on 
the  people,  they  joined  an  act  of  favour,  in  con- 
siderably diminishing  their  former  burdens,  re- 
ducing their  tribute  to  one  half  of  what  they  had 
usually  paid  to  their  own  kings  ;  and,  to  facilitate 
or  to  secure  the  reception  of  the  republican  form 
which  was  devised  for  them,  they  ordered  all  the 
ancient  nobles,  and  all  the  retainers  of  the  late 
court,  as  being  irreconcileable  with  the  equality 
of  citizens  under  a  republic,  to  depart  from  the 
kingdom,  and  to  choose  places  of  residence  for 
themselves  in  Italy. 

A  like  plan  was  followed  with  respect  to  Illvri 
cum,  which  was  divided  into  three  districts;  and 
the  kings  both  of  Macedonia  and  of  this  country, 
with  many  other  captives,  were  conducted  to 
Rome  to  adorn  the  triumph  of  their  conquerors. 

Perseus  is  said  to  have  lived  as  a  prisoner  at. 
Alba,  about,  four  years  after  he  had  been  exhi- 
bited in  this  procession.  Alexander,  one  of  his 
sons,  had  an  education  calculated  merely  to  pro- 
cure him  subsistence,  and  was  afterwards,  as  a 
scribe  or  a  clerk,  employed  in  some  of  the  public 
offices  at  Rome. 

While  the  event  of  the  Macedonian  war  was 


76 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Eook  I. 


yet  undecided,  and  no  considerable  advantage, 
either  of  conduct  or  fortune,  appeared  on  the  side 
of  the  Romans ;  they  still  preserved  the  usual 
arrogance  of  their  manner,  and  interposed  with 
the  same  imperious  ascendant  in  the  affairs  of 
Greece,  Asia,  and  Africa,  that  they  could  have 
done  in  consequence  of  the  most  decisive  victory. 
It  was  at  this  time  that,  by  the  celebrated  message 
of  Popilius  Lamas,  they  put  a  stop  to  the  con- 
quests of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  in  Egypt.  This 
prince,  trusting  to  the  full  emp^ment  with 
which  the  Roman  forces  were  engaged,  had  ven- 
tured to  invade  this  kingdom,  and  was  in  posses- 
sion of  every  part  of  it,  except  the  city  of  Alexan- 
dria. He  was  occupied  in  the  siege  of  this  place 
when  Popilius  arrived  and  delivered  him  an  order 
of  the  senate  to  desist.  The  king  made  answer, 
That  he  would  consider  of  it.  "  Determine  be- 
fore you  pass  this  line,"  said  the  Roman,  tracing 
a  circle  with  the  rod  which  he  held  in  his  hand. 
This  people,  however,  had  occasion,  during  the 
dependence  of  the  Macedonian  war,  to  observe 
that  few  of  their  allies  were  willing  to  support 
them  in  the  extremes  to  which  they  seemed  to  be 
inclined.  The  Epirots  had  actually  declared  for 
the  king  of  Macedonia.  The  Rhodians  had 
offered  their  mediation  to  negotiate  a  peace,  and 
threatened  hostility  against  either  of  the  parties 
who  should  refuse  to  accept  of  it.  Even  Eumenes 
was  suspected  of  having  entered  into  a  secret  con- 
cert with  Perseus,  although  the  fall  of  that  prince 
prevented  any  open  effects  of  their  treaty. 

The  Romans,  nevertheless,  disguised  their  re- 
sentment of  these  several  provocations,  until  their 
principal  enemy,  the  king  of  Macedonia,  was 
subdued ;  after  they  had  accomplished  this  end, 
they  proceeded  against  every  other  party,  with  a 
severity  which  was  then  supposed  to  be  permitted 
in  the  law  of  nations,  and  no  more  than  propor- 
tioned to  their  supposed  offence.  They  gave 
orders  to  Emilius,  in  passing  through  Epirus,  to 
lay  that  country  under  military  execution.  Se- 
venty towns  were  accordingly  destroyed,  and  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  the  people  sold  for 
slaves. 

The  senate  refused  to  admit  the  ambassadors 
of  Rhodes,  who  came  to  congratulate  the  Roman 
people  on  their  victory  at  Pydna.  They  stripped 
those  islanders  of  the  provinces  which  had  been 
granted  to  them  on  the  continent  by  the  late 
treaty  with  Antiochus,  and  ordered  them  to  dis- 
continue some  duties  levied  from  ships  in  passing 
through  their  sound,  which  made  a  considerable 
part  of  their  revenue. 

While  Eumenes  was  coming  in  person  to  pay 
his  court  to  the  senate,  they  resolved  to  forbid  the 
concourse  of  kings  to  Rome.  Their  meaning, 
though  expressed  in  general  terms,  was  evidently 
levelled  at  this  prince  ;  and  they  ordered,  that 
when  he  should  arrive  at  Brundusium,  their  re- 
solution should  be  intimated  to  him,  to  prevent 
his  nearer  approach. 

They  in  reality,  from  this  time  forward,  though 
in  the  style  of  allies,  treated  the  Grecian  republics 
as  subjects. 

Such  was  the  rank  which  the  Romans  assumed 
among  nations;  while  their  statesmen  still  re- 
tained much  of  their  primeval  rusticity,  and  did 
not  consider  the  distinctions  of  fortune  and  equi- 
page as  the  appurtenances  of  power  or  of  high 
command.  Cato,  though  a  citizen  of  the  highest 
rank,  and  vested  successively  with  the  dignities 
of  consul  and  of  censor,  used  to  partake  in  the 


labour  of  his  own  slaves,  and  to  feed  with  them 
from  the  same  dish  at  their  meals.1  When  he 
commanded  the  armies  of  the  republic,  the  daily 
allowance  of  his  household  was  no  more  than 
three  medimni,  or  about  as  many  bushels  of 
wheat  for  his  family,  and  half  a  medimnus,  or 
half  a  bushel  of  barley  for  his  horses.  In  sur 
veying  his  province  he  usually  travelled  on  foot, 
attended  by  a  single  slave  who  carried  his  bag 
gage.2 

These  particulars  are  mentioned  perhaps  as 
peculiar  to  Cato;  but  such  singularities  in  the 
manners  of  a  person  placed  so  high  among  the 
people,  carry  some  general  intimation  of  the 
fashion  of  the  times. 

A  spirit  of  equality  yet  reigned  among  the 
members  of  the  commonwealth,  which  rejected 
the  distinctions  of  fortune,  and  checked  the  admi- 
ration of  private  wealth.  In  all  military  dona- 
tions the  centurion  had  no  more  than  double  the 
allowance  of  a  private  soldier,  and  no  military 
rank  was  indelible.  The  consul  and  commander- 
in-chief  of  one  year  served  not  only  in  the  ranks, 
but  even  as  a  tribune  or  inferior  officer  in  the 
next;  and  the  same  person  who  had  disphyed 
the  genius  and  ability  of  the  general,  still  valued 
himself  on  the  courage  and  address  of  a  legionary 
soldier. 

No  one  was  raised  above  the  glory  to  be  reaped 
from  the  exertion  of  mere  personal  courage  and 
bodily  strength.  Persons  of  the  highest  condition 
sent  or  accepted  a  defiance  to  fight  in  single  com- 
bat, in  presence  of  the  armies  to  which  they  be- 
longed. Marcus  Servilius,  a  person  of  consular 
rank,  in  order  to  enhance  the  authority  with 
which  he  spoke  when  he  pleaded  for  the  triumph 
of  Paulus  Emilius,  informed  the  people  that  he 
himself,  full  three  and  twenty  times,  had  fought 
singly  with  so  many  champions  of  the  enemy, 
and  that  in  each  of  these  encounters  he  had  slain 
and  stripped  his  antagonist.  A  combat  of  the 
same  kind  was  afterwards  fought  by  the  younger 
Scipio,  when  serving  in  Spain. 

The  sumptuary  laws  of  this  age  were  suited 
to  the  idea  of  citizens  who  were  determined  to 
contribute  their  utmost  to  the  grandeur  of  the 
state  ;  but  to  forego  the  means  of  luxury  or  per- 
sonal distinction.  Roman  ladies  were  restrained, 
except  in  religious  processions,  from  the  use  of 
carriages  any  where  within  the  city,  or  at  the  dis- 
tance of  less  than  a  mile  from  its  walls ;  and  yet 
the  space  over  which  they  were  to  preserve  their 
communications  extended  to  a  circuit  of  fourteen 
miles,  and  began  to  be  so  much  crowded  with 
buildings  or  cottages,  that,  even  before  the  reduc- 
tion of  Macedonia,  it  was  become  necessary  to 
restrain  private  persons  from  encroaching  on  the 
streets,  squares,  and  other  spaces  reserved  for 
public  conveniency.  In  a  place  of  this  magni- 
tude, and  so  stocked  with  inhabitants,  the  female 
sex  was  also  forbid  the  use  of  variegated  or  party- 
coloured  clothes,  or  of  more  than  half  an  ounce 
of  gold  in  the  ornament  of  their  persons.  This 
law  being  repealed,  contrary  to  the  sentiments  ot 
Cato,  this  citizen,  when  he  came,  in  the  capacity 
of  censor,  to  take  account  of  the  equipages,  clothes 
and  jewels  of  the  women,  taxed  each  of  them 
tenfold  for  whatever  was  found  in  her  wardrobe 
exceeding  the  value  of  one  thousand  five  hundred 
denarii,  or  about  fifty  pounds  sterling.3 

1  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Catonia,  p  330 

2  Ibid.  p.  335  and  338. 

3  Liv.  lib.  xxxiv.  c.  1—6. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


77 


The  attention  of  the  legislature  was  carried 
into  the  detail  of  entertainments  or  feasts.  In 
one  act  the  number  of  the  guests,  and  in  a  sub- 
sequent one  the  expense  of  their  meals,  were 
limited.  By  the  Lex  Tribonia,  enacted  about 
twenty  years  after  the  reduction  of  Macedonia, 
a  citizen  was  allowed,  on  certain  high  festivals, 
to  expend  three  hundred  ases,  or  about  twenty 
shillings  sterling ;  on  other  festivals  of  less  note, 
one  hundred  ases,  or  about  six  shillings  and 
eight  pence;  but  during  the  remainder  of  the 
year,  no  more  than  ten  ases,  or  about  eight 
pence ;  and  was  not  allowed  to  serve  up  more 
than  one  fowl,  and  this  with  a  proviso  that  it 
should  not  be  crammed  or  fatted.4 

Superstition  made  a  principal  article  in  the  cha- 
racter of  the  people.  It  subjected  them  continually 
to  be  occupied  or  alarmed  with  prodigies  and 
ominous  appearances,  of  which  they  endeavoured 
to  avert  the  effects  by  rites  and  expiations,  as 
strange  and  irrational  as  the  presages  on  which 
they  had  grounded  their  fears.  Great  part  of  their 
time  was  accordingly  taken  up  with  processions 
and  public  shows,  and  much  of  their  substance, 
even  to  the  whole  annual  produce  of  their  herds,5 
was  occasionally  expended  in  sacrifices,  or  in  the 
performance  of  puluic  vows.  The  first  officers 
of  state,  in  their  functions  of  the  priesthood,  per- 
formed the  part  of  the  cook  and  the  butcher ;  and, 
while  the  senate  was  deliberating  on  questions  of 
great  moment,  examined  the  entrails  of  a  victim, 
in  order  to  know  what  the  gods  had  determined. 
"  You  must  desist,"  said  the  Consul  Cornelius, 
entering  the  senate  with  a  countenance  pale  ■and 
marked  with  astonishment ;  "  I  myself  have  visit- 
ed the  boiler,  and  the  head  of  the  liver  is  con- 
sumed."6 

According  to  the  opinions  entertained  in  those 
times,  sorcery  was  a  principal  expedient  employed 
by  those  who  had  secret  designs  on  the  life  of  their 
neighbour.  It  was  supposed  to  make  a  part  in  the 
statutory  crime  of  poisoning;  and  the  same  imagi- 
nation which  admitted  the  charge  of  sorcery  as 
credible,  was,  in  particular  instances,  when  any 
person  was  accused,  easily  convinced  of  his  guilt ; 
insomuch  that  some  thousands  were  at  times  con- 
victed together  of  this  imaginary  crime.7 

The  manners  of  the  people  of  Italy  were  at 
times  subject  to  strange  disorders,  or  the  magis- 
trate gave  credit  to  wild  and  improbable  reports. 
The  story  of  the  Bacchanals,  dated  in  the  year 
of  Rome  five  hundred  and  sixty-six,  or  about 
twenty  years  before  the  conquest  of  Macedonia, 
may  be  considered  as  an  instance  of  one  or  the 
other.s  A  society,  under  the  name  of  Bacchanals, 
had  been  instituted,  on  the  suggestion  of  a  Greek 
pretender  to  divination.9  The  desire  of  being 
admitted  into  this  society  prevailed  throughout 
Italy,  and  the  sect  became  extremely  numerous. 
As  they  commonly  met  in  the  night,  they  were 
said  at  certain  hours  to  extinguish  their  lights, 
and  to  indulge  themselves  in  every  practice  of 
horror,  rape,  incest,  and  murder;  crimes  under 
which  no  sect  or  fraternity  could  possibly  subsist, 
but  which,  in  being  imputed  to  numbers  in  this 


4  Plin.  lib.  x.  c.  50. 

5  The  Ver  Sacrum  was  a  general  sacrifice  of  all  the 
young  of  their  herds  for  a  whole  year. 

6  Liv.  lib.  xli.  c.  15. 

7  Ibid.  lib.  xxxix.  c.  41.  8  Ibid.  c.  8.  and  sequen 
9  venincium. 


credulous  age,  gave  occasion  to  a  severe  inquisi- 
tion, and  proved  fatal  to  many  persons  at  Rome, 
and  throughout  Italy. 

The  extreme  superstition,  however,  of  those 
times,  in  some  of  its  effects,  vied  with  genuine 
religion ;  and,  by  the  regard  it  inspired,  more 
especially  for  the  obligation  of  oaths,  became  a 
principle  of  public  order  and  of  public  duty,  and 
in  many  instances  superseded  the  use  of  penal  or 
compulsory  laws. 

When  the  citizen  swore  that  he  would  obey 
the  call  of  the  magistrate  to  enlist  in  the  legions ; 
when  the  soldier  swore  that  he  would  not  desert 
his  colours,  disobey  his  commander,  or  fly  from 
his  enemy;  when  a  citizen,  at  the  call  of  the  cen- 
sor, reported  on  oath  the  amount  of  his  effects ; 
the  state,  in  all  those  instances,  with  perfect  con- 
fidence relied  on  the  good  faith  of  her  subjects, 
and  was  not  deceived. 

In  the  period  to  which  these  observations  refer, 
that  is,  in  the  sixth  century  of  the  Roman  state, 
the  first  dawning  of  literature  began  to  appear. 
It  has  been  mentioned  that  a  custom  prevailed 
among  the  primitive  Romans,  as  among  other 
rude  nations,  at  their  feasts  to  sing  or  rehearse 
heroic  ballads  which  recorded  their  own  deeds  or 
those  of  their  ancestors.10  This  practice  had  been 
some  time  discontinued,  and  the  compositions 
themselves  were  lost.  They  were  succeeded  by 
pretended  monuments  of  history  equally  falla- 
cious, the  orations  which,  having  been  pronounced 
at  funerals,  were,  like  titles  of  honour,  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  every  noble  house,  but  which 
were  rather  calculated  to  flatter  the  vanity  of 
families,  than  to  record  the  truth.11 

The  Romans  owed  the  earliest  compilations  of 
their  history  to  Greeks;  and  in  their  own  first 
attempts  to  relate  their  story  employed  the  lan- 
guage of  that  people.12  Naevius  and  Ennius, 
who  were  the  first  that  wrote  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  composed  their  relations  in  verse.  Livius 
Andronicus,  and  afterwards  Plautus  and  Te- 
rence, translated  the  Greek  fable,  and  exhibited 
in  the  streets  of  Rome,  not  the  Roman,  but  Gre- 
cian manners.  The  two  last  are  said  to  have 
been  persons  of  mean  condition  ;  the  one  to  have 
subsisted  by  turning  a  baker's  mill,  the  other  to 
have  been^  a  captive  and  a  slave.  Both  of  them 
had  probably  possessed  the  Greek  tongue  as  a 
vulgar  dialect,  which  was  yet  spoken  in  many 
parts  of  Italy,  and  from  this  circumstance,  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  elegant  compositions 
of  Philemon  and  Menander.15  Their  comedies 
were  acted  in  the  streets,  without  any  seats  or 
benches  for  the  reception  of  an  audience.  But 
a  nation  so  little  studious  of  ordinary  conveni- 
ences, and  contented  to  borrow  their  literary 
models  from  neighbours,  to  whom,  being  mere 
imitators,  they  continued  for  ages  inferior,  were, 
however,  in  their  political  and  military  character, 
superior  to  all  other  nations  whatever;  and,  at 
this  date,  had  extended  t  dominion, 
U.  C.  58G.  which  originally  consisted  of  a  poor 
village  on  the  Tiber,  to  more  empire 
and  territory  than  is  now  enjoyed  by  any  king- 
dom or  state  of  Europe. 

10  Cic.  de  Claris  Oratoribus,  c.  19. 

11  Ibid.  p.  394.      12  Dion.  Hal.  lib.  i.  p.  5. 

13  The  people  of  Cumte,  about  this  time,  applied  for 
leave  to  have  their  public  acts,  for  the  time,  expressed 
in  Latin. 


THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


OP  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK  II. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Scale,  Manners,  and  Policy  of  the  Times — Repeated  Complaints  from  Carthage — Hostile  Dispo- 
sition of  the  Romans — Resolution  to  remove  Carthage  from  the  Coast — Measures  taken  for  this 
Purpose — Carthage  besieged — Taken  and  destroyed— Revolt  of  the  Macedonians — Their 
Kingdom  reduced  to  the  Form  of  a  Roman  Province — Fate  of  the  Achcean  League — Opera- 
tions in  Spain — Conduct  of  Viriathus — State  of  Numantia — Blockade  of  Numanlia — Its  De- 
struction— Revolt  of  the  Slaves  in  Sicily — Legal  Establishments  and  Manners  of  the  City. 


THE  reduction  of  Macedonia  was  in  many 
respects  a  remarkable  era  in  the  history  of  Rome. 
Before  this  date  Roman  citizens  had  been  treated 
as  subjects,  and  permitted  themselves  to  be  taxed. 
They  were  required  at  every  census  to  make  a 
return  of  their  effects  upon  oath,  and,  besides 
other  stated  or  occasional  contributions  to  the 
public,  paid  a  certain  rate  on  the  whole  value  of 
their  property.  But  upon  this  event  they  assumed 
more  entirely  the  character  of  sovereigns;  and, 
having  a  treasury  replenished  with  the  spoils  of 
that  kingdom,  exempted  themselves  from  their 
former  burdens. 

The  accession  of  wealth,  said  to  have  put  them 
in  this  condition,  is  variously  reported.  Livy 
quotes  Valerius  Antias  as  stating  it  at  millies 
ducenties,  or  about  a  million  sterling;  Velleius 
Paterculus  states  it  at  double  this  sum,  and  Pliny 
at  somewhat  more.1  But  the  highest  of  these 
computations  scarcely  appears  adequate  to  the 
effect  supposed.  It  is  more  likely  that  the  ordi- 
nary income  of  the  treasury,  consisting  of  the 
sums  so  frequently  deposited  at  the  triumphs  of 
victorious  leaders,  the  tributes  received  from  Car- 
thage and  Syria,  the  rents  of  Campania,  the 
tithes  of  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  with  the  addition 
of  the  revenue  recently  constituted  in  Macedo- 
nia, put  the  Romans  at  last  in  condition  to  ex- 
empt themselves  from  taxation ;  an  effect  which 
no  perishing  capital  placed  at  once  in  their  cof- 
fers could  be  supposed  to  produce.  The  Roman 
treasury,  when  examined  about  ten  years  after 

1  Velleius,  lib.  1.  c.  9.    Plin.  lib.  xxxiii.  c  3. 

78 


this  date,  was  found  to  contain,  in  bars  of  gold 
and  silver,  and  in  coin,  not  much  more  than  half 
a  million  sterling  :2  a  sum  which,  without  a  pro- 
per and  regular  supply,  must  have  been  soon  ex- 
hausted. 

From  the  conclusion  of  the  war  with  Perseus, 
the  Romans  for  twenty  years,  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  engaged  with  any  considerable  enemy ; 
and  their  numerous  colonies,  now  dispersed  over 
Italy,  from  Aquileia  to  Rhegium,  probably  made 
great  advances,  during  this  period,  in  agriculture, 
commerce,  and  the  other  arts  of  peace.  Among 
their  public  works  are  mentioned,  not  only  tem- 
ples and  fortifications,  particulars  in  which  men 
attain  to  magnificence  even  in  rude  ages,  but 
likewise  aqueducts,  market-places,  pavements, 
highways,  and  other  conveniences,  the  preludes 
or  attendants  of  wealth  and  commerce. 

Cato,  in  pleading  against  the  repeated  election 
of  the  same  person  into  the  office  of  consul,  ex- 
claimed against  the  luxury  of  the  times,  and 
alleged,  that  so  many  citizens  could  not  support 
their  extravagance  by  any  other  means  than  that 
of  draining  the  provinces  by  virtue  of  their  re- 
peated appointments  to  command.  "Observe," 
he  said,  "their  villas,  how  curiously  built,  how 
richly  furnished  with  ivory  and  precious  wood. 
Their  very  floors  are  coloured  or  stained  in  the 
Punic  fashion."3 


2  Plin.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  3.  In  goUI  16,810  M.  in  silver 
22,070  JE.  and  in  coin  620,854,000  II.  P.  Arbutlmot 
on  Ancient  Coins. 

3  Vid.  Pompeium  Festuin. 


Chap.  !.] 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION,  &c. 


73 


The  Romans  had  formerly  made 
Lcz  Annate.     lawg  tQ  fix  ^  ^  ^  whkh  ^ 

zens  might  be  chosen  into  the  different  offices  of 
state.4  And  on  the  occasion  on  which  Cato  made 
this  speech,  they  excluded  the  same  person  from 
being  repeatedly  chosen.  They  likewise  made 
those  additions  to  former  sumptuary  laws  which 
have  been  already  mentioned.  The  census,  or 
enrolment  of  the  people,  began  to  be  made  with 
more  care  than  formerly  :  even  the  Latin  allies, 
though  migrating  to  Rome,  were  excluded  from 
the  rolls;5  and  the  people  generally  mustered 
from  three  to  four  hundred  thousand  men. 

While  the  Romans  had  no  war  to  maintain 
with  the  more  regular  and  formidable  rivals  of 
their  power,  they  still  employed  their  legions  on 
the  frontier  of  their  provinces  in  Spain,  Dalmatia, 
Liguria,  and  on  the  descents  of  the  Alps.  They 
opened,  for  the  first  time,  an  intercourse  with  the 
Transalpine  nations,  in  a  treaty  of  alliance  with 
the  republic  of  Marseilles;  in  consequence  of 
which,  they  protected  that  mercantile  settlement 
from  the  attacks  of  fierce  tribes,  who  infested  them 
from  the  maritime  extremities  of  the  Alps  and 
Appenines.  They  were  in  general  the  umpires 
in  the  differences  of  nations,  gave  audience  in  all 
their  complaints,  interposed  with  their  forces  as 
well  as  authority,  and  disposed  of  provinces  and 
kingdoms  at  their  pleasure.  They  kept  a  vigi- 
lant eye  on  the  conduct  and  policy  of  all  the  dif- 
ferent powers  with  whom  they  were  at  any  time 
likely  to  be  embroiled,  and  generally  conducted 
their  transactions  with  independent  nations  as 
they  adjusted  the  first  settlement  of  their  own 
acquisitions,  by  commission  and  deputations  sent 
from  the  senate  to  decide,  with  the  least  possible 
delay,  on  such  matters  as  might  arise  in  the  place 
to  which  their  deliberations  referred. 

The  number  of  commissioners  employed  in 
these  services,  for  the  most  part,  was  ten.  These 
took  informations,  formed  plans,  and  made  their 
reports  for  the  final  decision  of  the  senate,  and, 
by  the  frequency  of  these  appointments,  it  ap- 
pears that  the  members  of  the  senate,  in  rotation, 
had  an  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with 
that  world  which  they  were  destined  to  govern. 

The  senate  itself,  though,  from  its  numbers 
and  the  emulation  of  its  members,  likely  to  em- 
barrass affairs  by  debate,  delay,  and  the  rash  pub- 
lication of  all  its  designs,  in  reality  possessed  all 
the  advantages  of  decision,  secrecy,  and  despatch, 
that  could  be  obtained  in  the  most  select  execu- 
tive council.  This  numerous  assembly  of  Roman 
statesmen  appeared  to  have  maintained,  during  a 
long  period,  one  series  of  consistent  and  uniform 
design ;  and  kept  their  intentions  so  secret,  that 
their  resolutions,  for  the  most  part,  were  known 
only  by  the  execution.  The  king  of  Pergamus 
made  a  journey  to  Rome,  in  order  to  excite  the 
Romans  to  a  war  with  his  rival,  the  king  of  Ma- 
cedonia. He  preferred  his  complaints  in  the 
senate,  and  prevailed  on  this  body  to  resolve  on 
the  war;  but  no  part  of  the  transaction  was  pub- 
lic till  alter  the  king  of  Macedonia  was  a  prisoner 
at  Rome.6 


4  It  appears  that,  by  this  law,  beingquestors  at  thir- 
ty-one, they  might  rise  to  the  consulate  at  forty-three. 

5  P  utareh,  in  the  ii'e  of  Flamimniis,  mentions  a  law 
by  which  the  censors  were  obliged  to  enrol  every  free- 
man that  offered.  The  Latins  complained,  that  their 
towns  were  depopulated  by  emigrations  to  Rome.  Liv. 
lib  xh.  c  g.  6  Valet.  Maxim,  lib.  ii.  c.  2. 


During  the  present  respite  from  any  consider- 
able war,  the  Romans  balanced  the  kingdoms  of 
Pergamus,  Bithynia,  and  Cappadocia  against  each 
other,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  able,  at  plea- 
sure, to  oppress  any  of  those  powers  that  should 
become  refractory  or  formidable  to  their  interest. 

They  made  the  kingdom  of  Syria  devolve  on  a 
minor,  the  son  of  Antiochus;  and,  under  the 
pretence  of  this  minority,  sent  a  commission  to 
take  charge  of  the  kingdom.  But  their  commis- 
sioners were,  with  the  connivance  of  the  court, 
assaulted  in  a  riot  at  Antioch ;  some  of  them  were 
killed,  and  others  forced  to  fly  from  the  country. 

Demetrius,  the  son  of  Seleucus,  who  ought  to 
have  succeeded  to  his  father  in  the  monarchy  of 
Syria,  being,  at  the  death  of  that  prince,  a  hos- 
tage at  Rome,  had  been  supplanted  by  his  younger 
brother,  the  father  of  that  minor  prince  who  was 
now  acknowledged  by  the  Romans. 

Upon  the  insult  that  had  been  thus  offered  to 
the  Roman  commission  at  Antioch,  Demetrius 
thought  it  a  favourable  opportunity  to  urge  his 
claim,  and  to  prevail  on  the  senate  to  restore  him 
to  the  succession  of  his  father's  crown  :  but  these 
crafty  usurpers,  notwithstanding  the  offence  they 
had  received  from  those  who  were  in  possession 
of  the  monarchy,  preferred  the  advantages  which 
they  had  over  a  minor  king,  to  the  precarious 
aff  ection  or  gratitude  of  an  active  spirited  prince, 
educated  at  Rome,  and  taught  by  their  own  ex- 
ample to  know  his  interest ;  and  they  accordingly 
denied  his  request. 

Demetrius,  however,  made  his  escape  from 
Rome,  and,  by  the  death  of  the  minor  and  his 
tutor,  got  unrivalled  possession  of  the  kingdom  of 
Syria.  To  pay  his  court  to  the  Romans,  as  one 
of  the  first  acts  of  his  reign,  he  sent  the  murderer 
of  their  late  commissioner,  Octavius,  in  chains,  to  be 
punished  at  their  discretion.  But  the  senate  dis- 
dained to  wreck  their  public  wrongs  on  a  private 
criminal ;  or,  having  cause  of  complaint  against 
the  nation  itself,  were  not  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
punishment  of  a  single  person.  They  suffered 
the  prisoner,  as  beneath  their  attention,  to  depart. 

As  patrons  of  the  kingdom  of  Egypt,  they  pro 
moted  the  division  of  that  country  between  the  two 
brothers,  who  were  then  joined  in  the  sovereignty, 
and  rivals  for  the  sole  possession  of  the  throne 

During  the  dependence  of  these  transactions, 
the  senate  had  repeated  complaints  from  Africa, 
which  ended  in  a  war  that  proved  fatal  at  last  to 
the  ancient  rivals  of  their  power.  In  the  conduct 
of  this  war,  being  now  less  dependent  than  for- 
merly on  the  opinion  of  the  world,  they,  contrary 
to  their  usual  pretensions  to  national  generosity 
and  liberality,  sacrificed,  without  reserve,  cntiro 
nations  to  the  ambition,  or  to  the  meanest  jcal 
ousy,  of  their  own  republic.8 

The  province  of  Lmporiap,  a  district  lying  on 
the  coast,  and  the  richest  part  of  the  Carthaginian 
territory,  had  been  violently  seized  by  Gala  kin^ 
of  Numidia,  and  father  of  Massinissa.  It  had 
been  again  restored  by  Syphax,  when  he  sup- 
planted the  family  of  Gala  on  the  throne  of  that 
kingdom;  but  now  again  usurped  by  Massinissa 
on  recovering  the  crown  by  the  power  of  the  Ro- 
mans,  to  whose  favour  he  trusted ;  and  the  Car- 
thaginians, precluded  by  the  late  treaty  from 
making  war  on  any  ally  of  the  Romans,  had  re- 
course to  complaints  and  representations,  which 


7  Polyb.  Excerpts  Legal  iones.       8  Ibid  No.  142 


80 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


they  made  at  Rome,  both  before  and  after  the  re- 
duction of  Macedonia.  The  Roman  senate  had, 
for  five  and  twenty  years,  eluded  these  complaints, 
and,  during  this  time,  was  in  the  practice-  of 
sending  commissioners  into  Africa,  under  pre- 
tence of  hearing  the  parties  in  this  important 
dispute,  but  with  instructions  or  dispositions  to 
favour  Massinissa,  and  to  observe,  with  a  jealous 
eye,  the  condition  and  the  movements  of  their 
ancient  rival.1 

The  Carthaginians,  yet  possessed  of  ample  re- 
sources, and,  if  wealth  or  magnificence  could  con- 
stitute strength,  still  a  powerful  nation;  being 
weary  of  repeated  applications,  to  which  they 
could  obtain  no  satisfying  answer,  took  their  re- 
solution to  arm,  and  to  assert  by  force  their  claim 
to  the  territory  in  question. 

They  were  met  in  the  field  by  the  army  of 
Massinissa,  commanded  by  himself,  though  now 
about  ninety  years  of  age,  and  were  defeated.3 

This  unfortunate  event  disappointed  their 
hopes,  and  exposed  them  to  the  resentment  of  the 
Romans,  who  considered  the  attempt  they  had 
made  to  do  themselves  justice,  as  a  contravention 
of  the  late  treaty,  and  a  departure  from  the  arti- 
cles of  peace  between  the  two  nations. 

The  expediency  of  a  war  with  Carthage  had 
been  for  some  time  a  subject  of  debate  in  the  Ro- 
man senate.  Deputies  had  been  sent  into  Africa, 
to  procure  the  information  that  was  necessary  to 
determine  this  question.  Among  these,  Cato, 
being  struck  with  the  greatness,  wealth,  and 
populousness  of  that  republic,  and  with  the 
amazing  fertility  of  its  territory,  when  he  made 
his  report  in  the  senate,  carried  in  his  lap  a  par- 
cel of  figs  which  he  had  brought  from  thence. 
"  These,"  he  said,  "are  the  produce  of  a  land  that 
is  but  three  days'  sail  from  Rome.  Judge  what 
Italy  may  have  to  fear  from  a  country  whose 
produce  is  so  much  superior  to  its  own.  That 
country  is  now  in  arms ;  the  sword  is  drawn 
against  Massinissa ;  but  when  thrust  in  his  side, 
will  penetrate  to  you.  Your  boasted  victories  have 
not  subdued  the  Carthaginians,  but  given  them 
experience,  taught  them  caution,  and  instructed 
them  how  to  disguise,  under  the  semblance  of 
peace,  a  war  which  you  will  find  marshalled 
against  you  in  their  docks  and  in  their  arsenals." 
This,  and  every  other  speech  on  this  subject, 
Cato  concluded  with  his  famous  saying,  "  That 
Carthage  should  be  destroyed."3 

Scipio  Nasica,  another  speaker  in  this  debate, 
contended  for  peace.  He  represented  the  forces 
of  Carthage  as  not  sufficient  to  alarm  the  Ro- 
mans ;  or,  if  really  greater  than  there  was  any 
reason  to  suppose  them,  no  more  than  were  re- 
quisite to  exercise  the  virtues  of  a  people  already, 
for  want  of  proper  exertion,  begun  to  suffer  some 
abatement  in  their  vigilance,  discipline,  and  valour. 

In  this  diversity  of  opinions,  it  appeared  soon 
after,  that  the  senate  took  a  middle  course ;  re- 
solved not  to  destroy,  but  to  remove  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Carthage  to  a  new  situation,  at  least  ten 
miles  from  the  sea.4 

The  Carthaginians,  after  their  late  unfortunate 
adventure  with  Massinissa,  were  willing  to  pre- 


1  Polyb.  Excerpt.  Legat.  c.  118.    Liv.  lib.  xl.  c.  17. 

2  Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  xlviii.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Panic, 
p.  38.  3  Delenda  est  Carthago. 

4  Appian  in  Pnnicis.  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Catonis.  Zo- 
naras,  lib.  ix.  c.  2i>.  Oros.  lib.  iv.  c.  22.  Velleius,  lib. 
i.  c.  12.    1'olyb.  ExoerpUe  Legationcs,  No.  142. 


serve  their  effects,  and  to  purchase  tranquillity  by 
the  lowest  concessions.  But  as  the  measure  now 
proposed  by  the  Roman  senate  amounted  to  a  depri- 
vation of  all  that  property  which  is  vested  in  houses 
or  public  edifices,  and  an  entire  suppression  of  all 
those  local  means  of  subsistence  which  could  not 
be  easily  transferred,  it  was  not  supposed  that  their 
consent  could  be  easily  obtained,  and  it  was  ac- 
cordingly resolved  to  keep  the  design  a  secret,  until 
effectual  means  were  prepared  for  its  execution. 

The  consuls,  without  any  declaration  of  war, 
were  instructed  to  arm,  and  to  pass  with  their 
forces  into  Sicily.  As  their  arrival  on  that  island, 
which  was  then  in  a  state  of  profound  peace,  evi- 
dently implied  a  design  upon  Africa,  the  people 
of  Utica,  that  they  might  have  the  merit  of  an 
early  declaration  in  favour  of  the  Romans,  sent  a 
deputation  to  make  them  a  tender  of  their  port 
and  town,  as  a  harbour  and  place  of  arms  for  the 
accommodation  of  their  forces.  The  Carthagi- 
nians were  distracted  with  opposite  counsels. 
They  laid  the  blame  of  the  war  with  Massinissa 
on  Hasdrubal  and  his  abettors,  whom  they  or- 
dered into  exile;  but,  without  coming  to  any 
other  resolutions,  sent  a  deputation,  with  full 
powers  to  conclude  as  circumstances  might  seem 
to  require,  and  agree  to  whatever  they  should 
find  most  expedient  for  the  commonwealth.  These 
deputies,  on  their  arrival  at  Rome,  finding  no  dis- 
position in  the  senate  to  treat  with  them  upon  equal 
terms,  resolved  to  arrest,  by  the  most  implicit  sub- 
mission, the  sword  that  was  lifted  up  against  their 
country.  They  accordingly  confessed  the  impru- 
dence of  their  late  conduct,  and  implored  forgive- 
ness. They  quoted  the  sentence  of  banishment 
passed  upon  Hasdrubal  and  his  party,  as  an  evi- 
dence of  their  contrition  for  the  hostilities  lately 
offered  to  Massinissa ;  and  they  made  a  formal 
surrender  of  their  city  and  its  territory  to  be  dis- 
posed of  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Romans. 

In  return  to  this  act  of  submission,  they  were 
told,  that  the  Romans  approved  their  behaviour, 
and  meant  to  leave  them  in  possession  of  their 
freedom,  their  laws,  their  territory,  and  of  all  their 
effects,  whether  private  or  public :  but,  as  a  pledge 
of  their  compliance  with  the  measures  that  might 
be  necessary  to  prevent  the  return  of  former  dis- 
putes, they  demanded  three  hundred  hostages, 
the  children  of  senators,  and  of  the  first  families 
in  Carthage.  This  demand  being  reported  in 
the  city  gave  a  general  alarm ;  but  the  authors  of 
these  counsels  were  too  far  advanced  to  recede. 
They  tore  from  the  arms  of  their  parents  the 
children  of  thesfirst  families  in  the  commonwealth; 
and,  amidst  the  cries  of  affliction  and  despair,  em- 
barked those  hostages  for  Sicily.  Upon  this 
island  they  were  delivered  over  to  the  Roman 
consuls,  and  were  by  them  sent  forward  to  Rome. 

The  commanders  of  the  Roman  armament, 
without  explaining  themselves  any  further,  con- 
tinued their  voyage,  and,  by  their  appearance  on 
the  coast  of  Africa,  gave  a  fresh  alarm  at  Car- 
thage. Deputies  from  the  unfortunate  inhabit- 
ants of  that  place  went  to  receive  them  at  Utica, 
and  were  told,  that  they  must  deliver  up  all  their 
arms,  ships,  engines  of  warr  naval  and  military 
stores.  Even  these  alarming  commands  they 
received  as  the  strokes  of  fate,  which  could  not  be 
avoided.  "  We  do  not  mean,"  said  one  of  the 
deputies,  "to  dispute  your  commands;  but  we 
entreat  you  to  consider,  to  what  a  helpless  state 
you  are  about  to  reduce  an  unfortunate  people, 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


81 


who,  by  this  hard  condition,  will  be  rendered  i 
unable  to  preserve  peace  among  their  own  citi- 
zens at  home,  or  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
meanest  invader  from  abroad.  We  have  banished 
Hasdrubal  in  order  to  receive  you :  we  have  de- 
clared him  an  enemy  to  his  country,  that  you 
might  be  our  friends :  but  when  we  are  disarmed, 
who  can  prevent  this  exile  from  returning  to  oc- 
cupy the  city  of  Carthage  against  you  1  With 
twenty  thousand  men  that  follow  him,  if  he  comes 
into  the  direction  of  our  government,  he  will  soon 
oblige  us  to  make  war  on  you."5  In  answer  to 
this  piteous  expostulation,  the  Roman  generals 
undertook  the  protection  of  Carthage,  and  ordered 
commissaries  to  receive  the  several  articles  that 
were  to  be  delivered  up,  and  to  see  the  arsenals 
and  the  docks  destroyed. 

It  is  reported,  that  there  were  delivered  up 
to  these  commissaries  forty  thousand  suits  of 
urmour,  twenty  thousand  katapultae,  or  large 
engines  of  war,  with  a  plentiful  store  of  darts, 
arrows  and  other  missiles. 

So  far  the  Romans  proceeded  with  caution, 
well  knowing  the  veneration  which  mankind  en- 
tertain for  the  seats  and  tombs  of  their  ancestors, 
with  the  shrines  and  consecrated  temples  of  their 
gods ;  and  dreading  the  effects  of  despair,  as  soon 
as  the  Carthaginians  should  perceive  how  much 
they  were  to  be  affected  in  their  private  and  pub- 
lic property.  But  now,  thinking  their  object 
secure,  they  proceeded  to  declare  their  intentions. 
The  consul  called  the  Carthaginian  deputies  into 
his  presence,  and  beginning  with  an  exhortation, 
that  they  should  bear  with  equanimity  what  the 
necessity  of  their  fortune  imposed,  intimated,  the 
definitive  resolution  of  the  Roman  senate,  that 
the  people  of  Carthage  should  relinquish  their 
present  situation,  and  build  on  any  other  part  of 
their  territory,  not  less  than  eighty  stadia,  or 
about  ten  miles,  removed  from  the  sea.  The 
amazement  and  sorrow  with  which  these  orders 
were  received,  justified  the  precautions  which  the 
Romans  had  taken  to  secure  the  execution  of 
them.  The  deputies  threw  themselves  upon  the 
ground,  and  endeavoured,  from  motives  of  pity, 
or  of  reason,  to  obtain  a  revocation  of  this  cruel 
and  arbitrary  decree.  They  pleaded  the  merit 
of  their  implicit  submission,  their  weakness,  their 
inability  any  longer  to  alarm  the  jealousy  of 
Rome,  circumvented,  disarmed,  bound  to  their  j 
duty  by  hostages  the  most  precious  blood  of  their 
commonwealth.  They  pleaded  the  faith  which 
was  plighted  by  the  Romans,  the  hopes  of  pro- 
tection they  had  given,  and  the  reputation  they 
had  justly  acquired,  not  only  for  national  justice, 
but  for  clemency  and  generosity  to  all  who  sued 
for  mercy.  They  pleaded  the  respect  which  all 
nations  owed  to  the  shrines  and  the  consecrated 
temples  of  their  gods ;  the  deplorable  state  into 
which  numbers  of  their  people  must  be  reduced, 
expelled  from  their  habitations  and  immoveable 
possessions,  the  principal  articles  of  their  property, 
and  the  hopeless  condition  of  others,  who,  inured 
to  subsist  by  the  advantages  of  a  maritime  situation, 
were  entirely  disqualified  to  support  themselves 
or  their  children  at  a  distance  from  the  sea. 

The  Roman  consul  replied  by  repeating  the 
express  orders  of  the  senate,  and  bid  the  Cartha- 
ginians remember,  that  states  were  composed  of 
men,  not  of  ramparts  and  walls.    That  the  Ro- 


5  Polyb.  Excerpt.  Legat.  c.  142. 


|  man  senate  had  promised  to  spare  and  protect  the 
republic  of  Carthage  ;  and  that  they  had  fulfilled 
this  engagement  by  leaving  the  people  in  posses- 
sion of  their  freedom  and  their  laws.  That  the 
sacred  places  should  remain  untouched,  and  that 
the  shrines  of  the  gods  would  still  be  within  the 
reach  of  their  pious  visits.  That  the  distance  to 
which  it  was  proposed  to  remove  Carthage  from 
the  sea  was  not  so  great  as  the  distance  at  which 
Rome  herself  was  situated  from  it ;  and  that  the 
Romans  had  taken  their  resolution,  that  the  peo- 
ple of  Carthage  should  no  longer  have  under 
their  immediate  view  that  element  which  opened 
a  way  to  their  ambition,  had  tempted  them  first 
into  Sicily,  afterwards  into  Spain,  and  last  of  all 
into  Italy,  and  to  the  gates  of  Rome ;  and  which 
would  never  cease  to  suggest  projects  dangerous 
to  themselves,  and  inconsistent  with  the  peace  of 
mankind.  "  We  go,  then,"  said  the  deputies  of 
Carthage,  "to  certain  death,  which  we  have 
merited  by  having  persuaded  our  fellow-citizens 
to  resign  themselves  into  the  hands  of  the  Ro- 
mans. But  if  you  mean  to  have  your  commands 
obeyed,  you  must  be  ready  to  enforce  them;  and 
by  this  means  you  may  save  an  unfortunate  people 
from  exposing  themselves,  by  any  act  of  despair, 
to  worse  sufferings  than  they  have  yet  endured." 

The  deputies  accordingly,  being  followed  at  a 
distance  by  twenty  galleys  of  the  Roman  fleet, 
set  sail  for  Cartilage.  They  were  received  on 
the  shore  by  multitudes,  who  crowded  to  hear  the 
result  of  their  negotiations;  but  the  silence  they 
preserved,  under  pretence  that  it  was  necessary 
to  make  their  report  first  to  the  senate,  spread  a 
general  dismay.  In  the  senate  their  message  was 
received  with  cries  of  despair,  which  soon  con- 
veyed to  the  people  in  the  streets  a  knowledge  of 
the  conditions  imposed  upon  them.  And  this 
nation,  who,  about  forty  years  before,  had  con- 
sented to  betray  their  principal  citizen  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemy,  and  who  had  lately  resign- 
ed ail  the  honours  and  pretensions  of  a  free  state, 
now  kindled  into  rage  at  tiie  thoughts  of  beim* 
obliged  to  forego  so  great  a  part  of  their  wealth, 
and  to  remove  their  habitations.  They  burst  into 
the  place  where  the  senate  was  assembled,  and 
laid  violent  hands  on  all  the  members  who  had 
advised  or  borne  any  part  in  the  late  degrading 
submissions,  or  who  had  contributed  to  bring  the 
I  state  into  its  present  helpless  condition.  They 
took  vengeance,  as  is  common,  with  a  corrupted 
populace,  on  others,  for  faults  in  which  they  them- 
selves had  freely  concurred;  and,  as  awake  to 
new  sentiments  of  honour,  they  reviled  the  spirit 
of  their  own  commonwealth,  ever  ready  to  barter 
national  character  for  profit,  to  purchase  safety 
with  shameful  concessions,  and  to  remove  a  pre- 
sent danger,  by  giving  up  what  is  the  only  secu- 
rity of  nations  against  any  danger,  the  reputation 
of  their  vigour,  and  the  honour  of  their  arms. 

While  the  multitude  indulged  themselves  in 
every  species  of  riot,  a  few  bad  the  precaution  to 
shut  the  gates,  to  stretch  the  chain  which  pro- 
tected the  entrance  of  the  harbour,  and  to  make  a 
collection  of  stones  on  the  battlements,  these 
being  the  only  wca^ns  they  had  left  to  repel  the 
first  attacks  of  the  Romans.  The  remains  of 
the  senate,  too,  without  reflecting  on  the  desperate 
state  of  their  affairs,  resolved  on  war.  Despair 
and  frenzy  succeeded  in  every  breast  to  dejection 
and  meanness. 

Assemblies  were  called  to  reverse  the  sentence 


82 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


of  banishment  lately  pronounced  against  Hasdru- 
bal,  and  against  the  troops  under  his  command. 
These  exiles  were  entreated  to  hasten  their  return 
for  the  defence  of  a  city  bereft  of  arms,  ships, 
military  and  naval  stores.  The  people,  in  the 
mean  time,  with  an  ardour  which  reason,  and  the 
hopes  of  success  during  the  prosperity  of  the 
republic  could  not  have  inspired,  endeavoured  to 
replace  the  arms  and  the  stores  which  they  had 
so  shamefully  surrendered.  They  demolished 
their  houses  to  supply  the  docks  with  timber. 
They  opened  the  temples  and  other  public  build- 
ings to  accommodate  the  workmen  ;  and,  without 
distinction  of  sex,  condition,  or  age,  became 
labourers  in  the  public  works,  collected  materials, 
furnished  provisions,  or  bore  a  part  in  any  labour 
that  was  thought  necessary  to  put  the  city  in  a 
state  of  defence.  They  supplied  the  founders 
and  the  armourers  with  the  brass  and  iron  of  their 
domestic  utensils;  or,  where  these  metals  were 
deficient,  brought  what  they  could  furnish  of  sil- 
ver and  gold.  They  joined,  with  the  other  ma- 
terials which  were  used  in  the  roperies,  their  hair, 
to  be  spun  into  cordage  for  the  shipping,  and 
into  braces  for  their  engines  of  war. 

The  Roman  consuls,  apprised  of  what  was  in 
agitation,  willing  to  await  the  returns  of  reason, 
and  to  let  these  first  ebullitions  of  frenzy  subside, 
for  some  days  made  no  attempts  on  the  city. 
But,  hearing  of  the  approach  of  Hasdrubal,  they 
thought  it  necessary  to  endeavour,  before  his 
arrival,  to  possess  themselves  of  the  gates.  Hav- 
ing in  vain  attempted  to  scale  the  walls,  they 
were  obliged  to  undergo  the  labours  of  a  regular 
siege;  and,  though  the)7  made  a  breach,  were 
repulsed  in  attempting  to  force  the  city  by  storm. 

Hasdrubal  had  taken  post  on  the  creek  which 
separated  the  peninsula  of  Carthage  from  the 
continent,  maintained  his  communication  by 
water,  and  supplied  the  inhabitants  with  provi- 
sions and  arms.  The  Romans,  seeing  that  they 
could  not  reduce  the  city  while  Hasdrubal  retain- 
ed this  post,  endeavoured  to  dislodge  him,  but 
were  defeated,  and  obliged  to  raise  the  siege. 
They  had  already  spent  two  years  in  this  enter- 
prise, changed  their  commanders  twice,  but  with- 
out advancing  their  fortunes.  They  began  to 
incur  the  discredit  of  having  formed  against  a 
neighbouring  commonwealth  an  invidious  design 
which  they  could  not  accomplish.  Enemies  in 
every  quarter,  in  Greece,  Macedonia,  and  Spain, 
were  encouraged  to  declare  against  them ;  and 
even  Massinissa,  unwiliing  to  see  their  power 
substituted  for  that  of  Carthage,  and  jealous  of 
the  avidi'y  with  which  they  endeavoured  to  be- 
come masters  in  Africa,  and  to  snatch  from  his 
hands  a  prey  in  which  he  thought  himself  enti- 
tled to  share,  withdrew  his  forces,  and  left  them 
singly  to  contend  with  the  difficulties  in  which 
they  began  to  be  involved. 

But  the  Romans  were  animated  by  those  mor- 
tifications which  are  apt  to  discourage  other  na- 
tions. They  imputed  the  miscarriage  of  their 
troops  to  the  misconduct  of  their  generals ;  and 
they  clamoured  for  a  better  choice.  Scipio,  by 
birth  the  son  of  Emilius  Paul  us,  and  by  adoption 
the  grandson  of  Scipio  Africanus,  having  distin- 
guished himself  in  Spain  and  in  Africa,  and 
being  then  arrived  from  the  army  to  solicit  the 
office  of  edile,  was  thought  worthy  of  the  su- 
preme command ;  but  being  about  ten  years 
under  the  legal  age,  the  law  was  suspended  in 


his  favour,  and  his  appointment  to  the  province 
of  Africa,  in  preference  to  his  colleague,  was  de- 
clared without  the  usual  method  of  casting  lots. 

The  Carthaginians  were  now  reinstated  in 
their  consideration,  and  in  their  rank  among  na- 
tions, and  had  negotiations  with  the  neighbour- 
ing powers  of  Mauritania  and  Numidia,  whose 
aid  they  solicited  with  alarming  reflections  on  the 
boundless  ambition,  and  invidious  policy  of  the 
Romans.  They  even  conveyed  assurances  of 
support  to  the  Achseans,  to  the  pretended  Philip, 
an  impostor,  who,  about  this  time,  laid  claim  to 
the  throne  of  Macedonia ;  and  they  encouraged 
with  hopes  of  assistance  the  subjects  of  that 
kingdom,  who  were  at  this  time  in  arms  to  re- 
cover the  independence  of  their  monarchy. 

The  mere  change  of  the  commander,  and  bet- 
ter dicipline  in  the  Roman  army,  however,  soon 
altered  the  state  and  prospects  of  the  war.  The 
first  object  of  Scipio  was  to  cut  off  the  communi- 
cations of  the  Carthaginians  with  the  country, 
and  to  intercept  their  supply  of  provisions  and 
other  articles  necessary  to  withstand  a  siege. 

Carthage  was  situated  at  the  bottom  of  a  spa- 
cious bay,  covered  on  the  west  by  the  promontory 
of  Apollo,  on  the  east  by  that  of  Hermes,  01 
Mercury,  at  the  distance  of  about  fifteen  leagues 
from  each  other.  The  city  stood  on  a  peninsula 
joined  to  the  main  land  by  an  isthmus  aboui 
three  miles  in  breadth,  and  covering  a  bason  oi 
harbour,  in  which  their  docks  and  their  shipping 
were  secured  from  storms  and  hostile  attacks 
The  Byrsa,  or  citadel,  commanded  the  isthmus, 
and  presented  at  this  only  entrance  to  the  town 
by  land,  a  wall  thirty  feet  thick  and  sixty  feet 
high.  The  whole  circumference  of  the  place  was 
about  twenty  miles.1 

The  besiegers,  by  their  shipping,  had  access  to 
that  side  of  the  town  on  which  the  walls  were 
washed  by  the  sea ;  but  were  shut  out  from  the 
harbour  by  a  chain  which  was  stretched  across 
the  entrance.  Hasdrubal  had  taken  post  on  the 
bason  over  against  the  town,  and  by  these  means 
still  preserved  the  communication  of  the  city  with 
the  country.  Scipio,  to  dislodge  him  from  this 
post,  made  a  feint  at  a  distant  part  of  the  fortifi- 
cations to  scale  the  walls,  actually  gained  the 
battlements,  and  gave  an  alarm  which  obliged  the 
Carthaginian  general  to  throw  himself  into  the 
city.  Scipio,  satisfied  with  having  obtained  his 
end.  took  possession  of  the  post  which  the  other 
had  abandoned ;  and  being  now  master  of  the 
isthmus,  and  the  whole  continental  side  of  the 
harbour,  advanced  to  the  walls  of  the  Byrsa.  In 
his  camp  he  covered  himself  as  usual  with  double 
lines ;  one  facing  the  fortifications  of  the  enemy, 
consisting  of  a  curtain  twelve  feet  high,  with 
towers  at  proper  intervals,  of  which  one  in  the 
centre  was  high  enough  to  overlook  the  ramparts, 
and  to  afford  a  view  of  the  enemy's  works.  The 
other  line  secured  his  rear  from  surprise  on  the 
side  of  the  country ;  and  both  effectually  guarded 
the  isthmus,  and  obstructed  all  access  to  the  town 
by  land. 

The  besieged,  however,  still  received  some  sup- 
ply of  provisions  by  sea ;  their  victuallers  took  the 
benefit  of  every  wind  that  blew  fresh  and  right 
into  the  harbour,  to  pass  through  the  enemy's 
fleet,  who  durst  not  unmoor  to  pursue  them  ;  and 
Scipio,  to  cut  off  this  resource,  projected  a  mofe 


1  Orosius,  lib.  iv.  c.  22.   Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  li, 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


83 


from  the  main  land  to  the  point  of  the  peninsula 
across  the  entrance  of  the  harbour.  He  began 
to  throw  in  his  materials  on  a  foundation  of 
ninety  feet,  with  an  intention  to  contract  the 
mound  as  it  rose  to  twenty-four  feet  at  the  top. 
The  work,  when  first  observed  from  Carthage, 
was  considered  as  a  vain  undertaking  ;  but  when 
it  appeared  to  advance  with  a  sensible  progress, 
gave  a  serious  alarm. 

The  Carthaginians,  to  provide  against  the  evils 
which  they  began  to  foresee  from  this  obstruction 
at  the  entrance  of  their  harbour,  undertook  a 
work  more  difficult,  and  more  vast  than  even  that 
of  the  besiegers,  to  cut  across  the  peninsula  within 
their  wails,  and  to  open  a  new  passage  to  the  sea; 
and  this  they  had  actualby  accomplished  by  the 
time  that  the  other  passage  was  shut.  Notwith- 
standing the  late  surrender  of  all  their  shipping 
and  stores,  they  had  at  the  same  time,  by  incredi- 
ble efforts,  assembled  or  constructed  a  navy  of 
sixty  gallics.  With  this  force  they  were  ready  to 
appear  in  the  bay,  while  the  Roman  ships  lay 
unmanned  and  unrigged,  secure  against  any  dan- 
ger from  an  enemy  whom  they  supposed  shut  up 
by  impenetrable  bars ;  and  in  these  circumstances, 
if  they  had  availed  themselves  of  the  surprise  with 
which  they  might  have  attacked  their  enemy, 
must  have  done  great  execution  on  the  Roman 
fleet.  But  having  spent  no  less  than  two  days  in 
clearing  their  new  passage  after  it  was  known  to 
be  open,  and  in  preparing  for  action,  they  gave 
the  enemy  likewise  full  time  to  prepare.  On  the 
third  they  engaged,  fought  for  the  whole  day 
without  gaining  any  advantage;  and,  in  their 
retreat  at  night,  suffered  greatly  from  the  enemy, 
who  pressed  on-'their  rear. 

"While  the  besiegers  endeavoured  to  obstruct 
this  new  communication  with  the  sea,  the  be- 
sieged made  a  desperate  attempt  on  their  works 
by  land.  A  numerous  body  of  men,  devoting  their 
lives  for  the  defence  of  their  country,  without  any 
arms,  and  provided  only  with  matches,  crossed 
the  harbour,  and,  exposing  themselves  to  certain 
death,  set  fire  to  the  engines  and  towers  of  the 
besiegers ;  and,  while  they  were  surrounded  and 
put  to  the  sword,  willingly  perished  in  the  execu- 
tion of  their  purpose. 

In  such  operations  the  summer  elapsed ;  and 
Seipio,  with  the  loss  of  his  engines,  and  a  renewal 
of  all  the  difficulties  which  he  had  formerly  to 
encounter  at  sea,  contenting  himself  with  a  block- 
ade for  the  winter,  discontinued  the  siege. 

His  command  being  prolonged  for  another 
year,  he  resumed  his  attack  in  the  spring ;  and 
finding  the  place  greatly  reduced  by  despair  and 
famine,  he  forced  his  way  by  one  of  the  docks, 
where  he  observed  that  the  battlements  were  low 
and  unguarded.  His  arrival  in  the  streets  did  not 
put  him  in  possession  of  the  town.  The  inhabit- 
ants, during  six  days,  disputed  every  house  and 
every  passage,  and  successively  set  fire  to  the 
buildings  whenever  they  were  obliged  to  abandon 
them.  Above  fifty  thousand  persons  of  different 
sexes,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  citadel,  at  last 
accepted  of  quarter,  and  were  led  captive  from 
thence  in  two  separate  divisions,  one  of  twenty- 
five  thousand  women,  and  another  of  thirty  thou- 
sand men. 

Nine  hundred  deserters,  who  had  left  the  Ro- 
man army  during  the  siege,  having  been  refused 
the  quarter  which  was  granted  to  the  others,  took 
post  in  a  temple  which  stood  on  an  eminence, 


with  a  resolution  to  die  with  swords  in  their 
hands,  and  with  the  greatest  effusion  of  blood  to 
their  enemies.  To  these  Hasdrubal,  followed  by 
his  wife  and  his  children,  joined  himself;  but  net 
having  the  courage  to  persist  in  the  same  purpose 
with  these  deserters,  he  left  the  temple,  and  ac- 
cepted of  quarter.  His  wife,  in  the  mean  time, 
with  more  ferocity  or  magnanimity  than  her  hus- 
band, laid  violent  hands  on  her  children,  and, 
together  with  the  dead  bodies,  threw  herself  into 
the  flame  of  a  burning  ruin.  The  deserters,  too, 
impatient  of  the  dreadful  expectations  which  they 
felt,  in  order  to  hasten  their  own  fate,  set  fire  to 
the  temple  in  which  they  had  sought  a  temporary 
cover,  and  perished  in  the  flames. 

The  city  continued  to  burn  during  seventeen 
days ;  and  all  this  time  the  soldiers  were  allowed 
to  seize  whatever  they  could  save  from  the  flames, 
or  wrest  from  the  hands  of  the  dying  inhabitants, 
who  were  still  dangerous  to  those  who  approached 
them.  Scipio,  in  beholding  this  melancholy  scene, 
is  said  to  have  repeated  from  Homer  two  lines 
containing  a  prophecy  of  the  fall  of  Troy.  "  To 
whom  do  you  now  apply  this  prediction  ?"  said 
Polybius,  who  happened  to  be  near  him;  "To 
my  own  country,"  he  said,  "  for  her  too  1  dread 
in  her  turn  the  reverses  of  human  fate.'"2 

Scipio's  letter  to  the  senate  is  said  to  have  con- 
tained no  more  than  these  words :  "  Carthage  is 
taken.  The  army  waits  for  your  further  orders." 
The  tidings  were  received  at  Rome  with  uncom- 
mon demonstrations  of  joy.  The  victors,  recol- 
lecting all  the  passages  of  their  former  wars,  the 
alarms  that  had  been  given  by  Hannibal,  and  the 
irreconcilable  antipathy  of  the  two  nations,  gave 
orders  to  raze  the  fortifications  of  Carthage,  and 
even  to  destroy  the  materials  of  which  they  were 
built. 

A  commission  was  granted  by  the  senate  to 
ten  of  its  members  to  take  possession  of  territories 
which  were  thus  deprived  of  their  sovereign,  to 
model  the  form  of  this  new  province,  and  to  pre- 
pare it  for  the  reception  of  a  Roman  governor. 
And  thus  Carthage,  the  only  instance  in  which 
the  human  genius  ever  appeared  greatly  distin- 
guished in  Attica  ;  the  model  of  magnificence,  the 
repository  of  wealth,  and  one  of  the  principal 
states  of  the  ancient  world,  was  no  more.  The 
Romans,  incited  by  national  animosity,  and  an 
excess  of  jealousy,  formed  a  design  more  cruel 
towards  their  rival  than  at  first  view  it  appeared 
to  be,  and  in  the  execution  of  it  became  actors  in 
the  scene  of  horror  far  beyond  their  original  in- 
tention. By  the  milder  law  and  practice  of  modern 
nations,  we  are  happily  exempted  from  the  dan- 
ger of  ever  seeing  such  horrid  examples  repeated, 
at  least  in  any  part  of  the  western  world. 

While  theevent  of  this  mighty  siege  was  still 
in  dependence,  the  Romans  had  other  wars  to 
maintain  on  the  side  of  Macedonia  and  Greece, 
where  the  natural  progress  of  their  policy,  suited 
to  the  measures  which  they  had  taken  with  other 
nations,  now  ended  in  the  open  and  avowed 
usurpation  of  a  sovereignty  which  they  had  long 
disguised  under  the  specious  titles  of  alliance  and 
protection. 

Macedonia  being  ill  fitted  to  retain  the  repub- 
lican form  into  which  it  had  been  cast  by  the 
Romans,  after  some  years  of  distraction,  and  an 


'2  For  tho  history  of  the  destruction  of  Cart!;  i  . 
the  authors  above  cited,  p.  80. 


84 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


attempt  at  last  in  favour  of  a  pretended  son  of 
i  lie  late  king,  to  recover  its  independence  and  its 
monarchy,  underwent  a  second  conquest. 

Andriscus,  an  African  of  uncertain  extraction, 
being  observed  to  resemble  the  royal  family  of 
Macedonia,  had  the  courage,  under  the  name  of 
Philip,  to  personate  a  son  of  that  unfortunate 
monarch,  and  to  make  pretensions  to  the  crown. 
With  this  object  in  view  he  went  into  Syria  to 
solicit  the  aid  of  Demetrius,  but  was,  by  this 
prince,  taken  into  custody,  and  transported  in 
chains  to  Rome.  The  Romans  paid  little  regard 
to  so  contemptible  an  enemy,  and  even  allowed 
him  to  escape.  After  this  adventure,  the  same 
impostor  appeared  a  second  time  in  Macedonia, 
and,  with  better  fortune  than  he  had  in  the  first 
attempt,  drew  to  his  standard  many  natives  of 
that  country  and  of  Thrace.  In  his  first  encounter 
he  even  defeated  Juventius  the  Roman  praetor, 
and  was  acknowledged  king ;  but  soon  after  fell  a 
prey  to  Metellus,  and  furnished  the  Romans  with 
an  obvious  pretence  for  reducing  the  kingdom  of 
Macedonia  to  the  ordinary  form  of  a  province. 

The  states  of  the  Achasan  league,  at  the  same 
time,  being  already  on  the  decline,  hastened,  by 
the  temerity  and  distraction  of  their  own  councils, 
the  career  of  their  fortunes  to  the  same  termination. 

The  Romans,  even  while  they  suffered  this 
famous  republic  to  retain  the  show  of  its  inde- 
pendence, had  treated  its  members  in  many  par- 
ticulars as  subjects.  At  the  close  of  the  war  with 
Perseus,  they  had  cited  to  appear  at  Rome,  or 
taken  into  custody  as  criminals  of  state,  many 
citizens  of  Achaia,  who  had,  in  that  contest,  ap- 
peared to  be  disaffected  to  the  Roman  cause.  Of 
these  they  had  detained  about  a  thousand  in  dif- 
ferent prisons  of  Italy,  until,  after  a  period  of 
seventeen  years,  about  three  hundred  of  them, 
who  survived  their  confinement,  were  set  at 
liberty,  as  having  already  suffered  enough ;  or  as 
being  no  longer  in  condition  to  give  any  umbrage 
to  Rome.1  Poly bi us  being  of  this  number,  ac- 
quired, during  his  stay  in  Italy,  that  knowledge 
of  Roman  affairs  which  appears  so  conspicuous 
in  the  remains  of  his  history.  When  at  liberty, 
he  attached  himself  to  Scipio,  the  son  of  Etnilius, 
and  being  well  versed  in  the  active  scenes  which 
had  recently  passed  in  his  own  country,  and  being 
entirely  occupied  with  reflections  on  matters  of 
state  and  of  war,  no  doubt  contributed  by  his  in- 
structions in  preparing  this  young  man  for  the 
eminent  services  which  he  afterwards  performed. 

The  Romans,  while  they  detained  so  many 
Greek  prisoners  in  Italy,  in  a  great  measure 
assumed  the  administration  of  affairs  in  Greece, 
disposed  of  every  distinction,  whether  of  fortune 
or  power,  and  confined  these  advantages  to  the 
advocates  of  their  own  cause,  and  to  the  tools  of 
their  own  ambition.2  They  received  appeals  from 
the  judgments  of  the  Achsean  council,  and  en- 
couraged its  members,  contrary  to  the  express 
conditions  of  their  league,  to  send  separate  em- 
bassies to  Rome.  The  steps  which  followed  are 
but  imperfectly  marked  in  the  fragments  of  his- 
tory which  relate  to  this  period.  It  appears  that 
the  Spartans,  having  been  forced  into  the  Achaean 
confederacy,  continued  refractory  in  most  of  its 
councils.  By  some  of  their  complaints  at  Rome, 
they  obtained  a  deputation,  as  usual,  from  the 


senate  to  hear  parties  on  the  spot,  and  to  adjust 
their  differences.  The  Achsean  council,  incensed 
at  this  insult  which  was  offered  to  their  authority 
without  waiting  the  arrival  of  the  Roman  depu- 
ties, proceeded  to  enforce  their  own  decrees  against 
the  republic  of  Sparta,  marched  an  army  into 
Laconia,  and  defeated,  with  some  slaughter,  at  the 
gates  of  Lacedemon,  the  inhabitants  of  that  city 
who  ventured  to  oppose  them.  The  Roman  com- 
missioners arriving  after  these  hostilities  had  com- 
menced, summoned  the  parties  to  assemble  at 
Corinth,  and,  in  name  of  the  senate,  gave  sen- 
tence, that  Lacedemon,  Corinth,  Argos,  Heraclea, 
and  Orchomenos,  not  having  been  original  mem- 
bers of  the  Achaean  confederacy,  should  now  be 
disjoined  from  it;  and  that  all  the  cities  which 
had  been  rescued  from  the  dominion  of  Philip, 
should  be  left  in  full  possession  of  their  freedom 
and  independency. 

Multitudes  from  all  the  different  states  of  the 
league  being  on  this  occasion  assembled  at  Co- 
rinth, a  great  riot  ensued.  The  Roman  deputies 
were  insulted  and  obliged  to  leave  the  place ;  and 
in  this  manner  commenced  a  war  in  which  the 
Romans,  because  they  hoped  to  establish  their 
sovereignty  in  Greece  without  any  convulsion, 
and  had  full  employment  for  their  forces  in  Africa, 
Spain,  and  Macedonia,  engaged  with  great  re- 
luctance. They  renewed  their  commission,  and 
named  other  deputies  to  terminate  the  disputes  in 
Achaia;  but  the  states  of  the  Achaean  league, 
imputing  their  conduct  in  this  particular  to  fear, 
and  to  the  ill  state  of  their  affairs  in  Africa,  while 
Carthage  was  likely  to  repel  their  attack,  thought 
that  they  had  found  an  opportunity  to  exclude  for 
ever  from  their  councils  the  overbearing  influence 
of  this  arrogant  nation.3  They  were  encouraged 
with  hopes  of  support  from  Thebes,  Euboea,  and 
other  districts  of  Greece,  where  the  people  were 
averse  to  the  dominion  of  the  Romans ;  and  they 
therefore  assembled  an  army  to  assert  their  com- 
mon rights,  and  to  enforce  their  authority  over  the 
several  members  of  their  own  confederacy. 

Unfortunately  for  their  cause,  Metellus  had 
then  prevailed  in  Macedonia,  and  was  at  leisure 
to  turn  his  forces  against  them.  He  accordingly 
moved  towards  the  Peloponnesus,  still  giving  the 
Achseans  an  option  to  avert  the  calamities  of  war, 
by  submitting  to  the  mandates  of  the  Roman 
senate.  These,  he  said,  were  no  more,  than  that 
they  should  desist  from  their  pretensions  on 
Sparta,  and  the  other  cantons  who  applied  foi 
the  protection  of  Rome. 

But  the  Achseans  thought  it  safer  to  resist,  than 
to  be  disarmed  under  these  stale  pretences ;  they 
took  the  field,  passed  through  the  isthmus  of 
Corinth,  and,  being  joined  by  the  Thebans, 
marched  to  Thermopylae  with  a  view  to  defend 
this  entry  into  Greece.  In  this,  however,  they 
were  disappointed,  being  either  prevented  from 
seizing  the  pass,  or  driven  from  thence  by  Metel- 
lus. They  were  afterwards  intercepted  in  theii 
retreat  through  Phocis,  where  they  lost  their 
leader  Critolaus,  with  a  great  part  of  his  army.4 
Diaeus,  who  succeeded  him  as  head  of  the  con- 
federacy, assembled  a  new  force,  consisting  of 
fourteen  thousand  foot  and  six  thousand  horse, 
took  post  on  the  isthmus  of  Corinth,  and  sen* 
four  thousand  men  for  the  defence  of  Megara,  a 


1  Pauaniasin  Achaicis. 

2  Polyb.  Excerpt  Legal,  c.  103. 


3  Polyb.  Excerpt.  Legat.  c.  144. 

4  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  3.   Pausanias  in  Achaicis. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


b5 


place  which  still  made  a  part  in  the  expiring  con- 
federacy of  independent  Greeks. 

Metellus,  who  after  his  victory  had  made  him- 
self master  of  Thebes,  advanced  to  Megara,  dis- 
lodged the  Achaeans  from  thence,  and  continued 
his  march  to  the  isthmus.  Here  he  was  super- 
seded by  Mummius,  the  consul  of  the  present 
year,  who,  with  the  new  levies  from  Rome,  made 
up  an  army  of  twenty-three  thousand  foot  and 
three  thousand  five  hundred  horse.  The  enemy, 
having  gained  an  advantage  over  his  advanced 
guard,  were  encouraged  to  hazard  a  battle  under 
the  walls  of  Corinth,  and  were  defeated.  The 
greater  part  fled  into  the  town,  but  afterwards  in 
the  night  withdrew  from  that  place.  Their  general 
Disus  fled  from  the  field  of  battle  to  Migalopolis, 
whither  he  had  sent  his  family ;  having  killed  his 
wife,  to  prevent  her  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
t.nemv,  he  himself  took  poison,  and  died. 

Such  are  the  imperfect  accounts  which  remain 
of  the  last  efforts  made  by  the  Greeks  to  preserve 
a  freedom,  in  the  exercise  of  which  they  had 
acted  so  distinguished  a  part.  As  they  never 
were  surpassed  by  any  race  of  men  in  the  vigour 
with  which  they  supported  their  republican  esta- 
blishments, so  they  appeared  to  retain  their  inge- 
nuity and  their  skill  in  many  arts,  after  they  had 
lost  the  military  and  political  spirit  which  con- 
stitutes the  strength  and  security  of  nations ;  and 
in  this  latter  period,  which  preceded  their  extinc- 
tion, as  the  Achaean  league  was  dissolved  on 
having  incurred  the  resentment  of  the  Romans, 
so  the  unhappy  remnant  of  the  Spartan  republic 
perished  in  having  accepted  their  protection.  The 
enmity  and  the  friendship  of  the  Romans  being 
equally  fatal,  these  and  every  other  state  or  re- 
public of  Greece,  from  this  time  forward,  ceased 
to  be  numbered  among  nations,  having  fallen  a 
prey  to  a  power,  whose  force  nothing  could  equal 
but  the  ability  and  the  cunning  with  which  it 
was  exerted. 

Such,  at  least,  is  the  comment,  which  we  are 
tempted,  by  the  conduct  of  the  Romans,  on  the 
present  occasion,  to  make  on  that  policy,  with 
which  about  fifty  years  before  this  date,  Fla- 
mininus,  to  detach  the  Grecian  cities  from  Philip, 
proclaimed,  with  so  much  ostentation  at  the  isth- 
mus of  Corinth,  general  independence,  and  the 
free  exercise  of  their  own  laws  to  all  the  republics 
of  Greece.  That  people,  when  they  meant  to  in- 
gratiate themselves,  surpassed  every  state  in  gene- 
rosity to  their  allies,  they  gained  entire  confidence, 
and  taught  nations,  who  were  otherwise  in  con- 
dition to  maintain  their  own  independence,  to 
rely  for  protection  on  that  very  power  from  which 
they  had  most  to  fear  for  their  liberties ;  and  in 
the  end,  under  some  pretence  of  ingratitude  or 
affront,  stripped  of  every  right  those  very  states 
who  had  most  plentifully  shared  in  their  bounty. 
In  this  policy  there  were  some  appearances  of  a 
concerted  design,  which  was  at  one  time  liberal 
and  generous  beyond  example,  at  another  time 
cruel  and  implacable  in  the  opposite  extreme, 
equally  calculated  to  gain  or  to  terrify,  in  the 
cases  to  which  either  species  of  policy  was  suited. 
It  is,  however,  probable,  that  they  were  led  by  the 
changing  state  of  their  interests,  and  followed  the 
conjuncture  without  any  previous  design.  In 
this  sort  of  conduct  the  passions  are  wonderfully 
ready  to  act  in  support  of  the  judgment ;  and  we 
may  venture  to  admit,  that  the  Romans  some- 
times felt  the  generosity  which  they  professed  to 


employ,  and  of  which  the  belief  was  so  favourable 
to  the  success  of  their  affairs.  In  a  different  con- 
juncture, in  which  they  were  no  longer  equally 
obliged  to  manage  the  temper  of  their  allies,  they 
became  more  impatient  of  contradiction,  and 
gave  way  to  their  resentment  on  any  the  slightest 
occasions,  or  to  their  ambition  without  control. 
Their  maxim,  to  spare  the  submissive,  and  to  re- 
duce the  proud,5  whether  founded  in  sentiment 
or  cunning,  was  a  principle  productive  of  the  ex- 
tremes of  generosity  and  arrogance  observed  in 
their  conduct ;  it  led  them  by  degrees  to  assume 
a  superiority  in  every  transaction,  and  as  their 
power  increased,  rendered  this  power  propor- 
tionably  dangerous  to  other  nations. 

On  the  third  day  after  the  action  which  hap- 
pened in  the  isthmus  of  Corinth,  the  victorious 
general  entered  the  city ;  and  considering  that 
the  inhabitants  had  a  principal  part  in  the  late 
insult  offered  to  the  Roman  commissioners,  de- 
termined to  strike  a  general  terror  into  all  the 
members  of  the  league  by  the  severities  to  be  exe- 
cuted against  this  people.  Mummius,  though, 
with  the  rest  of  his  countrymen  of  this  age,  ill 
qualified  to  distinguish  the  elegant  workmanship 
of  the  Grecian  artists,  6  of  which  great  collections 
had  been  made  at  Corinth,  ordered  all  the  statues 
and  pictures  to  be  set  apart  for  his  triumph;  and, 
with  this  reserve,  gave  the  town,  abounding  in  all 
the  accommodations  and  ornaments  of  a  wealthy 
metropolis,  to  be  pillaged  by  the  soldiers.  He 
razed  the  walls,  and  reduced  the  city  to  ashes. 

Thus  Corinth  perished  in  the  same  year  with 
Carthage.  The  fortifications  of  Thebes,  and  of 
some  other  towns  disafiected  to  the  Romans, 
were  at  the  same  time  demolished  ;  and  the  ar- 
rangements to  be  made  in  t  he  country  of  Greece 
were  committed  to  deputies  from  the  Roman 
senate.  By  their  order,  the  Achaean  league  was 
dissolved,  and  all  its  conventions  annulled.  The 
states  which  had  composed  it  were  deprived  of 
their  sovereignty,  subjected  to  pay  a  tribute,  and 
placed  under  the  government  of  a  person  annually 
sent  from  Rome  with  the  title  of  the  Praetor  of 
Achaia.7 

The  Romans  now  appeared  openly,  perhaps 
for  the  first  time,  in  the  capacity  of  conquerors. 
The  acquisition  of  revenue  in  Macedonia,  which, 
about  twenty  years  before  this  date,  had  firs/ 
taught  them  to  exempt  themselves  from  taxatio; 
excited  from  thenceforward  an  insatiable  thirst  of 
dominion  :  and  their  future  progress  is  marked 
by  the  detail  of  wars  which  they  maintained  on 
their  frontier,  not  in  defence  of  the  empire,  but 
for  the  enlargement  of  possessions  already  too 
great. 

In  Spain,  where  they  still  met  with  resistance, 
they  had  acted  in  all  the  different  periods  of  their 
wars,  either  on  the  offensive  or  defensive,  accord- 
ing as  the  state  was,  or  was  not,  at  leisure  fro* 
the  pressure  of  their  enemies,  or  according  as  tto 
generals  she  employed  were  ambitious  or  pacific 

On  the  conclusion  of  the  peace  with  Philij 
the  Roman  territory  in  Spain  had  been  divided 
into  two  provinces,  and  furnished  the  stations  of 
two  separate  commanders  annually  sent  from 


5  Parcere  subjectis,  et  debellare  superbos. 

6  He  delivered  them  to  the  masters  of  ship*,  with 
his  famous  threat,  that  if  any  of  these  curiosities  were 
lost,  they  should  be  obliged  to  replace  them. 

7  Pausanias,  lib.  vii.c  16.  Polyb  Excerphedo  Vir 
tutibus  et  Vitiis. 


8G 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


Rome.  On  the  renewal  of  the  war  in  Macedo- 
nia, and  during  the  continuance  of  it,  three  pro- 
vinces were  again  united  under  one  government. 
But  upon  the  defeat  of  Perseus,  and  the  reduction 
of  Macedonia,  they  were  separated  for  ever. 

From  that  time  the  ambition  of  the  Romans 
seems  to  have  operated  in  Spain  with  the  same 
effect  as  in  other  parts  on  the  boundaries  of  their 
empire.  They  pressed  upon  the  natives,  not 
merely  to  secure  their  own  territory  from  inroad 
and  depredation,  but  to  gain  new  accessions  of 
dominion  and  wealth.  They  advanced  to  the 
Tagus,  endeavoured  to  penetrate  the  mountains 
beyond  the  sources  of  that  river;  and  on  that  side 
involved  themselves  in  a  continual  struggle  of 
many  years'  duration,  with  the  Lusitaniahs,  Gal- 
licians,  and  Celtiberi. 

In  these  wars,  the  Roman  officers  were  actu- 
ated by  their  avarice,  as  well  as  by  their  ambition, 
and  were  glad  of  occasions  to  quarrel  with  an 
enemy,  amongst  whom  the  produce  of  rich  mines 
of  silver  and  of  gold  were  known  to  abound,  and 
where  plentiful  spoils  were  so  likely  to  reward 
their  services. 

The  theatre  of  the  war  in  Spain  was  not  so 
conspicuous,  nor  the  conduct  of  generals  so  strictly 
observed,  as  they  were  in  Africa,  Asia,  or  Greece  ; 
and  such  as  were  employed  in  that  service, 
therefore,  the  more  to  hasten  their  conquests, 
ventured  upon  acts  of  treachery  or  breach  of 
faith  with  the  cantons  around  them,  which  the 
senate  did  not  commonly  avow;  and  they  also 
ventured  upon  acts  of  extortion  and  peculation  in 
their  own  governments,  which  gave  occasion  to 
the  first  complaints  of  this  sort  that  were  brought 
to  Rome. 

The  proconsul  Lucullus,  having  accepted  of 
the  surrender  of  a  town,  and  being  received  into 
it  in  consequence  of  a  capitulation,  nevertheless 
put  the  inhabitants  to  the  sword  and  carried  off 
their  effects.  Galba,  commanding  in  Lusitania, 
or  the  western  province  of  Spain,  soon  afterwards 
circumvented,  by  a  like  act  of  perfidy  and  cruelty, 
some  of  the  inhabitants  whom  he  could  not  other- 
wise reduce.  These  examples  probably  retarded, 
instead  of  forwarding,  the  progress  of  the  Roman 
arms,  and  confirmed  that  obstinate  valour  with 
which  the  natives  of  Spain  disputed  every  post  in 
defence  of  their  country ;  and  with  which  they 
maintained  the  contest  against  a  succession  oif 
Roman  generals,  prators,  or  consuls,  who  were 
employed  to  subdue  them.  This  contest  they 
continued  or  renewed,  at  short  intervals,  with 
various  success,  from  the  first  expedition  of  the 
Scipios  to  the  last  of  Augustus. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  war  with  Car- 
thage, the  Lusitanians,  incensed  by  the  act  of 
treachery  which  was  committed  by  the  Roman 
general  Galba,  reassembled  in  numerous  parties 
under  Viriathus,  who  had  himself  escaped  from 
the  massacre  on  that  occasion,  and  who  enter- 
tained an  implacable  resentment  to  the  authors 
of  it.  This  leader,  according  to  the  Roman  his- 
torians, had  been  originally  a  herdsman,  after- 
wards a  chief  of  banditti,  and  last  of  all  the  com- 
mander of  an  army  which  had  often  defeated  the 
legions  of  Rome,  and  threatened  their  expulsion 
from  Spain.  He  seems  to  have  known  how  to 
employ  the  impetuous  valour  of  a  rude  people 
against  troops  not  less  valiant  than  his  own 
countrymen,  though  more  depending  on  disci- 
pline ;  and  to  have  possessed  what  the  Spaniards 


retained,  even  down  to  the  days  of  Caesar,  the 
faculty  of  turning  the  want  of  order  to  account 
against  an  enemy  so  much  accustomed  to  order, 
as,  in  a  great  measure,  to  rely  upon  it  in  most  of 
their  operations.  With  him  an  apparent  rout 
and  dispersion  of  his  followers  was  the  ordinary 
prelude  to  a  violent  attack;  and  he  commonly 
endeavoured,  by  pretended  llights  and  disorderly 
movements,  to  draw  the  enemy  into  rash  pursuits 
or  precipitant  marches,  and  seized  every  advan- 
tage which  they  gave  him  with  irresistible  ad- 
dress and  valour.  He  continued  about  ten  year* 
to  baffle  all  the  attempts  which  the  Romans  made 
to  reduce  Lusitania.  He  had  projected  a  league 
and  defensive  confederacy  with  the  other  free  na- 
tions of  Spain,  when  he  was  assassinated,  as  he 
lay  asleep  on  the  ground,  by  two  of  his  own  fol- 
lowers, supposed  to  be  in  concert  with  the  Roman 
general. 

The  Romans,  upon  this  event,  found  the 
western  and  northern  parts  of  Spain  open  to 
their  inroads.  In  little  more  than  a  year  after- 
wards, a  Roman  army  under  Brutus  passed  the 
Duero,1  and  penetrated  quite  to  the  coast  of  Gal- 
licia,  from  which  they  reported,  with  more  than 
the  embellishments  and  exaggerations  of  tra- 
vellers, that  the  sun  was  seen  from  this  distant 
region,  when  he  set  in  the  evening,  to  sink  and 
extinguish  himself  with  a  mighty  noise  in  the 
Western  Ocean. 

The  natives  of  this  country,  however,  did  not 
think  themselves  subdued  by  being  thus  overrun. 
They  retired,  with  their  cattle  and  effects,  into 
places  of  strength  ;  and,  when  required  to  pay 
contributions,  replied,  That  their  ancestors  had 
left  them  swords  to  defend  their  possessions,  but 
not  any  gold  to  redeem  them. 

Such  were  the  occupations  of  the  Roman  arms 
in  the  western  division  of  Spain,  while  they 
were  equally  engaged  in  the  eastern  province, 
under  Cato  the  elder,  Tiberius  Gracchus,  and 
others,  who  endeavoured  to  secure  what  the  state 
had  already  acquired,  or  to  extend  its  limits. — 
These  generals  obtained  their  several  triumphs, 
and  joined  to  the  Roman  possessions  on  the  coast 
considerable  acquisitions  in  the  inland  part  of  the 
country.  Their  progress,  however,  on  this  side 
had  been  greatly  retarded  by  the  obstinate  valour 
of  the  Numantians,  and  other  cantons  of  the 
Celtiberi,  who  had  maintained  the  contest  during 
fifty  years,  and  at  last  had  formed  a  general  con- 
federacy of  all  the  interior  nations  of  Spain,  to  be 
conducted  by  Viriathus,  when  their  measures  were 
broken  by  the  death  of  that  formidable  leader. 

Numantia  was  the  principal  strong  hold,  or, 
as  we  may  conceive  it,  the  capital  of  a  small  na- 
tion. Their  lodgment,  or  township,  was  con- 
tained within  a  circumference  of  about  three  miles, 
situated  among  the  mountains  of  Celtibcria,  or 
Old  Castile,  and  at  the  confluence  of  the  Durius 
with  another  river,  both  of  which  having  steep 
banks,  rendered  the  place,  on  two  of  its  sides,  of 
very  difficult  access.  It  was  fortified  on  the  third 
side  with  a  rampart  and  ditch. 

The  people  could  muster  no  more  than  eight 
or  ten  thousand  men  ;  but  these  were  greatly  dis- 
tinguished by  their  valour,  reputed  superior  in 
horsemanship  to  every  other  nation  of  Spain,  and 
equal  to  the  Romans  in  the  use  of  the  shield  and 
the  stabbing  sword.    They  had  already  gained 


1  Durius. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


87 


many  victories  over  the  Roman  armies  which  had 
been  employed  to  reduce  them.  They  had  obliged 
Pompey,  one  of  the  Roman  generals,  contrary  to 
the  practice  of  his  country,  to  accept  of  a  treaty, 
while  the  advantage  of  fortune  was  against  him. 
They  obliged  the  consul  Mancinus  to  save  his 
army  by  a  capitulation.2  Neither  of  those  trea- 
ties indeed  were  ratified  by  the  Roman  senate. 
To  expiate  the  breach  of  the  last,  the  consul  Man- 
cinus, who  concluded  it,  together  with  Tiberius 
Gracchus,  his  questor,  were  ordered  to  be  deli- 
vered up  to  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  to  suffer 
in  their  own  persons  for  the  failure  of  engage- 
ments which  they  could  not  fulfil.  Tiberius 
Gracchus  appealed  to  the  people,  was  saved  by 
their  favour,  and  from  this  time  is  supposed  to 
have  received  that  bias  which  he  followed  in  the 
subsequent  part  of  his  political  conduct.  Man- 
cinus acquiesced  in  the  sentence  of  the  senate, 
was  presented  naked  and  in  fetters  at  the  gates  of 
Numantii,  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  resentment  of  that 
nation,  for  the  breach  of  a  treaty  which  the  Ro- 
mans determined  not  to  ohserve.  But  the  victim 
was  nobly  rejected,  and  the  Numantians  insisted 
on  the  conditions  they  had  stipulated,  saying, 
that,  a  public  breach  of  faith  could  net  be  expiated 
by  the  suffering  of  a  private  man.3 

These  transactions  passed  about  ten  years  af- 
ter the  destruction  of  Carthage,  and  the  Romans, 
mortified  with  the  length  and  ill-success  of  the 
war  with  Numantia,  had  recourse  again  to  the 
services  of  Scipio. 

They  had  formerly  dispensed,  in  his  favour, 
with  the  law  that  required  a  certain  age  as  a 
qualification  for  the  office  of  consul ;  and  now,  in 
order  to  employ  him  a  second  time,  they  were 
obliged  to  suspend  another  law,  which  prohibited 
the  re-election  of  the  same  person  into  that  office. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  Scipio  in  Spain,  it  is  said 
that  he  found  the  Roman  army,  discouraged  by 
repeated  defeats,  withdrawn  into  fortified  stations 
at  a  distance  from  the  enemy,  detesting  the  hard- 
ships of  a  military  camp,  indulging  themselves 
in  all  the  vices  of  a  disorderly  town,  and  subject 
to  panics  on  the  slightest  alarm.  It  is  said  that 
the  cries,  the  aspect,  the  painted  visage,  and  the 
long  hair  of  the  Spaniard  were  become  objects 
of  terror.4 

Among  the  reformations  which  Scipio  made 
to  restore  the  vigour  of  the  army,  he  cleared  the 
camp  of  its  unnecessary  followers,  amongst  whom 
are  mentioned  women,  merchants,  and  fortune- 
tellers ;  he  restricted  the  quantity  of  baggage,  re- 
duced the  furniture  of  the  kitchen  to  the  spit  and 
the  pan ;  and  the  tables  of  officers  to  plain  food, 
roasted  or  boiled.  IJe  prohibited  the  use  of  bed- 
steads in  camp,  and  set  the  example  himself  of 
sleeping  on  a  straw  mat;  likewise  restrained  the 
infantry  from  the  use  of  horses  on  the  march, 
and  obliged  them  to  carry  their  own  baggage. 

Though  possessed  of  superior  numbers  he  de- 
clined a  battle,  and  avoided  every  route  on  which 
the  enemy  were  prepared  to  receive  him ;  took 
advantage  of  a  superior  address  in  managing  his 
resources,  and  damped  the  ardour  of  a  fierce  peo- 
ple by  slow  operations ;  he  laid  waste  the  country 
around  them,  and  by  degrees  obliged  them  to  re- 
tire within  their  own  ramparts,  and  to  consume 
what  was  raised  or  provided  within  the  circuit  of 
their  walls. 

2  Euiropius,  lib.  iv.  c.  8. 

3  Appian  tie  Bell.  Hispan.  p.  302.  4  Florus. 


Scipio  had  been  joined  on  his  march  to  Nu- 
mantia by  Jugurtha,  the  grandson  of  Massinissa, 
who,  on  their  service,  made  his  first  acquaintance 
with  the  Romans,  and  brought  a  reinforcement 
of  twelve  elephants,  with  a  considerable  body  of 
horse,  of  archers  and  slingers.  At  its  arrival  the 
army  amounted  to  sixty  thousand  men.  But 
Scipio  did  not  attempt  to  storm  the  town  ;  he  took 
a  number  of  posts  which  he  successively  fortified, 
and,  by  joining  them  together,  completed  a  double 
line  cf  circumvallation,  equal  in  strength  to  the 
walls  which  were  opposed  to  him.  He  had  his 
curtains,  his  towers,  his  places  of  arms  correspond- 
ing to  those  of  the  place ;  and  he  established  an 
order  of  service  and  a  set  of  signals,  in  case  of 
alarm  by  day  or  by  night,  which  resembled  more 
the  precautions  of  an  army  on  its  defence,  than 
the  operations  of  a  siege.  His  intention  was  to 
reduce  the  Numantians  by  famine,  an  operation 
of  time,  during  which,  from  so  warlike  a  nation, 
he  might  be  exposed  to  surprise,  or  to  the  effects 
of  despair. 

The  place  besieged  being  at  the  confluence  of 
rivers  navigable  with  small  vessels,  which  de- 
scended with  gnat  rapidity  on  the  stream,  or 
which  could,  with  the  favour  of  proper  winds, 
even  remount  in  the  sight  of  the  enemy,  the  peo- 
ple, for  a  while,  procured  some  supplies  by  water. 
Numbers  of  them  swimming  with  great  address, 
and  diving  at  proper  places,  to  avoid  being  seen 
by  the  besiegers,  still  passed  through  the  lines, 
and  preserved  a  communication  with  the  country, 
until  the  rivers  also  were  barn  d  across  their  chan- 
nels by  timbers,  that  were  armed  with  sword- 
blades  and  spikes  of  iron. 

The  Numantians  were  still  in  hopes  of  suc- 
cour from  their  allies.  Five  aged  warriors  un- 
dertook, each  with  his  son  for  a  second,  to  pass 
through  the  lines  of  the  enemy,  and  to  sue  for 
relief  from  the  neighbouring  nations.  They  suc- 
ceeded by  night  in  the  first  part  of  their  attempt, 
cut  down  the  Roman  guard,  threw  the  camp  into 
some  confusion,  and  escaped  before  the  oecasion 
of  the  alarm  was  known.  But  their  cause  was 
become  desperate,  and  too  likely  to  involve  in  cer- 
tain ruin  any  friend  who  embraced  it.  Their 
suit,  nevertheless,  was  attended  to  at  Lutia,  the 
head  of  a  small  canton,  forty  miles  from  Nu- 
mantia. 

The  young  men  of  this  place  took  their  reso- 
lution in  favour  of  the  injured  Numantians;  but 
Scipio  had  notice  of  their  intention  time  enough 
to  prevent  its  effect.  He  hastened  to  the  place, 
and  having  accomplished  this  march  of  forty 
miles  in  eight  hours,  surprised  the  inhabitants, 
had  four  hundred  young  men  delivered  up  to  him, 
and  ordered  their  right  arms  to  be  struck  off. 
By  this  dreadful  act  of  severity,  he  secured  him- 
self from  any  danger  on  that  quarter,  and  im- 
pressed the  other  states  of  that  neighbourhood 
with  terror. 

The  Numantians,  in  the  mean  time,  were 
pressed  with  famine,  and  having  no  hopes  of  re- 
lief, sent  a  deputation  to  try  the  clemency  of  the  ir 
enemy.  "What  was  once  a  happy  state,"  they 
said,  "content  with  its  own  possessions,  and  se- 
cure in  the  valour  of  its  citizens,  is  now  reduced 
to  great  distress,  for  no  other  crime  than  that  of 
having  maintained  their  freedom,  and  of  having 
defended  their  wives  and  their  children. 

"  For  yon,"  they  continued,  addressing  them- 
selves to  Scipio,  "  who  yourself  are  said  to  possess 


88 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


so  many  virtues,  it  would  become  you  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  this  injured  nation,  and  procure  to 
them  terms  which  they  could  with  honour  pre- 
fer to  their  present  distresses.  Their  expecta- 
tions are  moderate,  for  they  have  felt  the  reverses 
of  fortune.  It  is  now  in  your  power  to  receive 
their  submission  under  any  tolerable  conditions, 
or  to  see  them  perish  in  some  act  of  despair, 
which  may  prove  fatal  to  many  of  their  enemies, 
as  well  as  to  themselves." 

Scipio  replied,  That  he  could  not  grant  them 
any  terms ;  that  they  must  surrender  at  discretion. 

Upon  the  return  of  this  answer  they  resumed 
their  former  obstinacy,  and  held  out  until  they 
had  consumed  every  article  of  provision  within 
their  walls ;  endeavoured  to  turn  their  shields 
and  other  utensils  of  leather  into  food,  devoured 
the  dead  bodies,  and  even  preyed  on  each  other. 

The  end  of  this  piteous  scene  is  variously  re- 
ported. By  some  it  is  said,  that,  in  the  last  stage 
of  despair,  the  Numantians  sallied  forth  to  pur- 
chase death  by  the  slaughter  of  their  enemies ; 
that,  in  the  execution  of  this  purpose,  they  for 
some  time  exposed  themselves  with  the  most 
frantic  rage,  till  the  greater  part  being  slain,  a  few 
returned  into  the  town,  set  fire  to  the  houses,  and, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  perished  in  the 
flames.1 

By  others  it  is  said,  that  they  agreed  to  surren- 
der on  a  certain  day,  but  that  when  this  day 
came  they  begged  for  another;  alleging,  that  many 
of  their  people,  yet  fond  of  liberty,  had  deter- 
mined to  die,  and  wished  for  one  day  more,  that 
they  might  the  more  deliberately  execute  their 
purpose.  Such  was  the  aversion  to  surrender  at 
discretion,  which  the  fear  of  captivity,  and  that 
of  its  ordinary  consequences  among  ancient  na- 
tions, had  inspired.  The  few  of  this  high-minded 
people  who  survived  the  effects  of  despair,  falling 
into  the  enemy's  hands,  were  stripped  of  their 
arms.  Fifty  were  reserved,  as  a  specimen  of  the 
whole,  to  adorn  the  victor's  triumph.  The  re- 
mainder were  sold  for  slaves,  and  the  walls  of 
their  strong  hold  were  levelled  with  the  ground. 
The  prisoners,  even  after  they  had  laid  down 
their  arms  and  submitted  to  mercy,  retained  the 
ferocity  of  their  looks,  and  cast  on  their  victors 
such  glances  of  indignation  and  rage,  as  still  kept 
the  animosity  of  enemies  awake,  and  prevented 
the  returns  of  pity.  As  these  particulars  strongly 
mark  the  defects  which  still  subsisted  in  the  sup- 
posed law  of  war  among  ancient  nations,  the 
reader  will  probably  bear  with  the  shock  that  is 
given  to  his  feelings  of  compassion,  for  the  sake 
of  the  picture  which  it  is  necessary  to  give  of  the 
manners  of  the  times. 

If  we  judge  of  Numantia  from  the  resistance 
it  made  to  the  Roman  arms,  it  having  been  one 
of  their  most  difficult  conquests,  we  must  consi- 
der it  as  a  state  of  considerable  power.  Its  reduc- 
tion gave  immediate  respite  from  war  in  Spain. 
Scipio  and  Brutus  returned  nearly  together  from 
their  provinces  in  that  country,  and  had  their 
separate  triumphs  in  the  same  year. 

These  operations  against  Numantia,  Carthage, 
Macedonia,  and  Greece,  were  accompanied  with 
a  revolt  of  the  slaves  in  Sicily,  and  with  a  num- 
ber of  other  wars  less  considerable  in  Illyricum, 
Thrace,  and  Gaul.  Of  these  the  revolt  of  the 
slaves  merits  the  greater  attention,  on  account  of 

1  Orosius.  lib.  v.  c  7.    Florus,  Jib.  ii.  c.  18. 


the  view  it  gives  of  the  state  of  the  countries  now 
under  the  immediate  jurisdiction  of  Rome.  The 
island  of  Sicily  having  been  the  first  acquisition 
which  the  Romans  made  beyond  the  limits  of 
Italy,  had  been  for  some  time  in  a  state  of  domes- 
tic tranquillity,  and  undisturbed  by  any  foreign 
enemy.  Its  lands  were  become  the  property  of 
Roman  citizens,  who  here,  as  on  their  estates  in 
Italy,  cultivated  plantations  to  supply  with  corn, 
wine,  and  oil,  the  markets  and  granaries  of  Rome. 
The  labour  was  performed  by  slaves.  These 
were  led  in  chains  to  the  fields,  or  confined  in 
vaults  and  fortified  workhouses  at  the  several 
tasks  they  were  employed  to  perform.  As  the 
proprietors  of  land  had  many  reasons  to  prefer 
the  labour  of  slaves  to  that  of  freemen,  who  were 
distracted  by  their  political  engagements,  and 
subject  to  be  called  upon  or  pressed  into  the  mili- 
tary service,  the  number  of  slaves  continually  in- 
creased. They  were,  for  the  most  part,  prisoners 
of  war ;  and  some  of  them  being  of  high  rank, 
unused  to  submission,  and  animated  with  fierce 
passions  of  indignation  and  scorn,  were  ready, 
upon  every  favourable  opportunity,  to  take  arms 
against  their  masters,  and  often  to  shake  the  state 
itself  with  a  storm  which  was  not  foreseen  until 
it  actually  burst. 

About  ten  years  after  the  destruction  of  Car- 
thage, and  four  years  before  that,  of  Numantia, 
this  injured  class  of  men  were  incited  to  revolt  in 
Sicily  by  Eunus,  a  Syrian  slave ;  who,  at  first 
under  pretence  of  religion,  and  by  the  fame  of 
miracles  he  was  supposed  to  perform,  tempted 
many  to  break  from  their  bondage ;  traversed  the 
country,  broke  open  the  vaults  and  prisons  in 
which  his  fellow-sufferers  were  confined,  and 
actually  assembled  an  army  of  seventy  thousand 
men.  With  this  force,  in  four  successive  cam- 
paigns, he  made  a  prosperous  war  on  the  Roman 
praetors,  and  often  stormed  the  entrenchments  of 
the  Roman  camp. 

This  leader,  however,  being  ill-qualified  to  im- 
prove his  victories,  and  having  no  concerted  plan 
for  the  government  or  subsistence  of  his  followers, 
in  a  country  that  was  gradually  ruined  by  theii 
own  devastations,  was  at  length,  by  the  caution, 
and  superior  conduct  of  Perperna,  or  Publius 
Rutilius,  gradually  circumscribed  in  his  depreda- 
tions, defeated,  and  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  En- 
na,  a  fortified  place,  where  about  twenty  thou- 
sand of  his  followers  were  put  to  the  sword,  and 
the  remainder,  as  an  example,  to  deter  slaves  from 
the  commission  of  a  similar  offence,  were  nailed 
to  the  cross,  near  the  most  frequented  highways, 
and  in  the  most  conspicuous  parts  of  the  island. 

"While  the  Roman  armies  were  thus  employed 
in  the  provinces,  or  on  the  frontier  of  their  exten- 
sive conquests,  Italy  itself  had  long  enjoyed  a 
perfect  security,  the  lands  were  cultivated,  and 
the  country  stocked  with  people,  whether  aliens 
or  citizens,  freemen  or  slaves.  From  about  three 
hundred  thousand,2  which,  in  this  period,  were 
the  ordinary  return  of  the  census,  the  citizens 
soon  after  augmented  to  above  four  hundred 
thousand  ;3  and  Scipio,  under  whose  inspection 
as  censor  this  return  was  made,  hearing  the  crier 
repeat  the  prayer  which  was  usual  at  the  closing 
of  the  rolls,  "  That  the  republic  might  increase 


2  Three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 

3  Four  hundred  arid  twenty-eight  thousand  threa 
hundred  and  forty-two. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


89 


in  the  numbers  of  its  people,  and  in  the  extent  of 
its  territory ;"  bid  him  pray  that  it  might  be  pre- 
served, for  it  was  already  great  enough.  It  is 
probable  that,  in  the  view  of  this  sagacious  ob- 
server, the  marks  of  corruption  already  began  to 
appear  in  the  capital;  and  a  tree,  which  still  con- 
tinued for  a  century  to  make  such  vigorous  shoots 
from  its  branches,  already  bore  some  marks  of 
decay  in  its  trunk. 

The  offices  of  state,  and  the  government  of 
provinces,  to  which  those  who  had  filled  them 
succeeded,  began  to  be  coveted  from  avarice,  as 
well  as  from  ambition.  Complaints  of  peculation 
and  extortion,  which  were  received  about  this 
time  from  Spain  and  Macedonia,  pointed  out  the 
necessity  of  restraining  such  oppressions,  and 
suggested  some  penal  laws,  which  were  often, 
and  in  vain,  amended  and  revived. 

An  action  was  instituted  in  favour  of  the  pro- 
vinces, against  governors,  or  their  attendants,  who 
should  be  accused  of  levying  money  without  the 
aut  hority  of  the  state,  and  an  ordinary  jurisdiction 
was  granted  to  one  of  the  praetors,  to  hear  com- 
plaints on  this  subject.  The  penalty  at  first  was  no 
more  than  restitution,  and  a  pecuniary  fine ;  it  was 
gradually  extended  to  degradation,  and  exile. 

These  reformations  are  dated  in 

No.  604.  the  time  of  the  last  war  with  Car- 
n^adeRe^  tnaSe>  anu<  are  ascribed  to  the  motion 
lamdis.  ^  °f  Culpurnius  Piso,  then  one  of  the 
Questiones  tribunes.  Before  this  time  all  juris- 
perpetucs.  diction  in  criminal  matters  belonged 
to  the  tribunal  of  the  people,  and 
was  exercised  by  themselves  in  their  collective 
capacity,  or  occasionally  delegated  to  a  special 
commission.  Few  crimes  were  yet  defined  by 
statute,  and  ordinary  courts  of  justice  for  the  trial 
of  them  were  not  yet  established.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances criminals  of  state  had  an  opportunity 
not  only  to  defend  themselves  after  a  prosecution 
was  commenced,  but  likewise  to  employ  intrigue, 
or  exert  their  credit  with  the  people,  to  prevent 
or  evade  a  trial. 

To  supply  these  defects,  a  list  of  statutory 
crimes  now  began  to  be  made,  and  an  ordinary 
jurisdiction  was  established.  Besides  extortion 
in  the  provinces,  which  had  been  defined  by  the 
»aw  of  Culpurnius,4  murder,  breach  of  faith,  rob- 
bery, assault,  poisoning,  incest,  adultery,  bribery, 
false  judgment,  fraud,  .perjury,  &c.  were  succes- 
sively joined  to  the  list;  and  an  ordinary  juris- 
diction for  the  trial  of  such  criznes  was  vested  in 
a  jury  of  senators,  over  whom  the  praetor,  with 
the  title  of  quaesitor,  presided. 

The  number  of  prsotors,  corresponding  to  this 
and  other  growing  exigencies  of  the  state,  was 
now  augmented  to  six  ;  and  these  officers,  though 
destined,  as  well  as  the  consuls,  to  the  command 
of  armies  and  the  government  of  provinces,  began, 
during  the  term  of  their  magistracy,  to  have  full 
occupation  in  the  city.  On  this  account  it  was 
not  till  after  the  expiration  of  the  year  for  which 
they  had  been  elected,  that  they  drew  lots  for  a 
province,  A  like  policy  was  soon  after  adopted 
in  the  destination  of  consuls,  and  all  the  other 
officers  of  state,  who,  being  supposed  to  have  suf- 
ficient occupation  in  Italy  and  Rome  during  the 
year  of  their  appointment,  were  not  destined  to 
any  foreign  service  till  that  year  was  expired. 

4  Parricidium,  vis  publica,  latrocinium,  injuria,  ve- 
nificium,  incestus,  ndultcrium.capUE  pecuniae  corrupti, 
judicii  falsi,  perjurium. 

M 


With  these  establishments,  calculated  to  se- 
cure the  functions  of  office,  the  use  of  the  ballot 
was  introduced,  first  in  elections,  and  afterwards 
in  collecting  opinions  of  judges  in  the  courts  of 
justice  :5  a  dangerous  form  of  proceeding  in  con- 
stitutions tending  to  popular  license,  and  where 
justice  is  more  likely  to  suffer  from  the  unawed 
passions  of  the  lower  people,  than  from  any  im- 
proper influence  of  superior  rank ;  and  where  the 
authority  of  the  wise,  and  the  sense  of  public 
shame,  were  so  much  required,  as  principal  sup-  • 
ports  of  government. 

An  occasion  for  the  commission  of  new  crimes 
is  frequently  taken  from  the  precautions  which 
are  employed  against  the  old.  From  the  facility 
with  which  criminal  accusations  now  began  to  be 
received,  a  new  species  of  crime  accordingly  arose. 
Calumny  and  vexatious  prosecutions  commenced 
by  disappointed  competitors  against  persons  in 
public  trust,  became  so  frequent  as  to  require  the 
interposition  of  laws.  On  this  account  it  was 
enacted,  upon  the  motion  of  Meramius,  that  all 
persons  in  office,  or  appointed  to  command  in  the 
provinces,  might  decline  answering  a  criminal 
charge  until  the  expiration  of  their  term,  or  until 
their  return  from  the  service  to  which  they  were 
destined  ;6  and  persons  of  any  denomination  might 
have  an  action  of  calumny  against  the  author  of 
a  false  or  groundless  prosecution.  Whoever  was 
convicted  of  this  offence  was  to  be  branded  in  the 
face  with  the  initials  of  his  crime. 

By  these  establishments  the  city  of  Rome,  long 
resembling  a  mere  military  station,  made  some 
progress  in  completing  the  system  and  applica- 
tion of  her  laws.  Literary  productions,  in  some 
of  their  forms,  particularly  in  the  form  of  dramatic 
compositions,  as  hath  been  already  observed,  be- 
gan to  be  known.  The  representation  of  fables 
was  first  introduced  under  pretence  of  religion, 
and  practised  as  a  sacred  rite  to  avert  the  plague 
or  some  public  calamity.  This  entertainment 
was  fondly  received  by  the  people,  and  therefore 
frequently  presented  to  them  by  the  cdiles,  who 
had  the  charge  of  such  matters.  Literature,  how- 
ever, in  some  of  its  less  popular  forms,  was 
checked,  as  a  source  of  corruption. 
U.  C.  592.  In  the  year  of  Rome  five  hundred 
and  ninety-two,  that  is,  about  ei<;ht 
years  after  the  reduction  of  Macedonia,  the  Ro- 
man senate,  upon  a  report  from  M.  Pomponius, 
the  praetor,  tliat  the  city  was  frequented  by  phi- 
losophers and  rhetoricians,  resolved,  that  this 
officer,  agreeably  to  his  duty  to  the  republic,  should 
take  care  to  remove  all  such  persons  in  the  man- 
ner his  own  judgment  should  direct;7  and,  in 
about  six  years  after  this  date,  an  embassy  having 
come  from  Athens,  composed  of  schofars  and 
rhetoricians,  who  drew  the  attention  of  the  youth 
by  the  display  of  their  talents,  an  uncommon 
despatch  was  given  to  their  business,  that  they 
might  not  have  any  pretence  for  remaining  too 
long  in  the  city. 

A  proposal  which  was  made  during  this  pe- 
riod, to  erect  a  theatre  for  the  accommodation  of 
the  spectators  at.  their  public  shows,  was  rejected 
with  great  indignation,  as  an  attempt  to  corrupt 
the  manners  of  the  people.  The  materials  which 
had  been  collected  for  this  work  were  publicly 
sold,  and  an  edict,  at  the  same  time,  was  pub- 

5  LexGabinia  Tabell.iria. 

6  Lex  Memmia  de  reis  postulandis.    Lex  Cassia 
I  Tabetlaria.  7  A.  Gu.lius,  lib.  ,\v.  c.  11 


90 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


lished,  that  no  one  should  ever  resume  this  design, 
or  attempt  to  place  any  bench  or  seat  for  the  ac- 
commodation of  the  spectators  at  any  theatrical 
entertainment  in  the  city,  or  within  a  mile  of  its 
walls.1  It  was  thought,  an  act  of  effeminacy,  it 
seems,  for  the  Roman  people  to  be  seated ;  and 
it  is  undoubtedly  wise,  in  matters  of  small  mo- 
ment, however  innocent,  to  forbid  what  is  consi- 
dered as  an  evil,  and,  in  remitting  established 
severities,  to  let  the  opinion  of  innocence  at  least 
precede  the  indulgence. 

The  sumptuary  laws  already  mentioned,  re- 
specting entertainments  and  household  expenses, 
were,  under  the  name  of  Didius,  the  person  who 
proposed  the  renewal  of  them,  revived;2  and, 
with  some  alterations,  extended  to  all  the  Roman 
citizens  dispersed  over  Italy. 

Such  was  the  antidote  which  the  policy  of 
that  age  provided,  in  the  capital  of  a  great  empire, 
against  luxury  and  the  ostentation  of  wealth ; 
distempers  incident  to  prosperity  itself,  and  not 


to  be  cured  by  partial  remedies.  They  were  by 
the  Romans  (who  knew  better  how  to  accomplish 
the  celebrated  problem  of  Themistocles,  in  mak- 
ing a  small  state  a  great  one,  than  they  knew 
how  to  explain  the  effects  of  its  greatness)  com- 
monly imputed  to  some  particular  circumstance, 
or  accidental  event.  To  the  spoils  of  Tarentum, 
they  said,  and  of  Asia,3  to  the  destruction  of  our 
principal  rivals,  the  Carthaginians ;  to  the  mighty 
show  of  statues,  pictures,  and  costly  furniture, 
which  were  brought  by  Mummius  from  Corinth, 
we  owe  this  admiration  of  finery,  and  so  prevailing 
a  passion  for  private  as  well  as  for  public  wealth. 

In  this  manner  they  explained  the  effects  of  a 
progress  which  they  themselves  had  made  in  the 
acquisition  of  so  many  provinces ;  in  the  growing 
security  and  riches  of  a  mighty  city,  from  which 
all  foreign  alarms  were  far  removed  ;  and  to  which 
the  wealth  of  a  great  empire,  either  in  the  form 
of  private  fortune  or  of  public  treasure,  began  to 
flow  with  a  continued  and  increasing  stream.4 


CHAPTER  II. 


Extent  of  the  Roman  Empire — Political  Character  of  its  Head — Facility  with  which  it  continued 
to  advance — Change  of  Character,  Political  as  well  as  Moral — Character  of  the  People  or  Com- 
mons — Dangerous  Humours  likely  to  breakout — Appearance  of  Tiberius  Gracchus — His  project 
to  revive  the  Laic  of  Licinius — Intercession  of  the  Tribune  Octavius — The  Republic  divided — 
Disputes  in  the  Comitia — Deposition  of  the  Tribune  Octavius — Commissioners  appointed for  the 
Division  of  Lands — Tiberius  Gracchus  sues  to  be  re-elected  Tribune — His  Death — Immediate 
Consequences — Proceedings  of  Carbo — Embassy  of  Scipio — Foreign  Affairs — Violence  of  the 
Commissioners —  Domestic  Affairs. 


IN  the  manner  that  has  been  summarily  stated 
in  the  preceding  chapters,  the  Romans  completed 
their  political  establishment,  and  made  their  first 
and  their  greatest  advances  to  empire,  without  de- 
parting from  the  policy  by  which  they  had  been 
preserved  in  the  infancy  of  their  power.  They 
were  become  sovereigns  of  Macedonia,  Greece, 
Italy,  part  of  Afiica,  Lusitania,  and  Spain ;  yet, 
even  in  this  pitch  of  greatness,  made  no  distinc- 
tion between  the  civil  and  military  departments, 
nor  gave  to  any  citizen  an  exemption  from  the 
public  service.  They  did  not  despise  any  enemy, 
neither  in  the  measures  they  took,  nor  in  the  ex- 
ertions they  made  to  resist  him :  and  as  the  fatal 
effects  which  they  and  all  the  other  nations  of 
the  ancient  world  were  long  accustomed  to  ex- 
pect from  defeats,  were  no  less  than  servitude  or 
death,  they  did  not  submit  to  any  enemy  in  con- 
sequence of  any  event,  nor  under  the  pressure  of 
any  calamity  whatever. 

Other  nations  were  accustomed  to  rise  on  vic- 
tories, and  to  sink  under  defeats ;  to  become  in- 
solent or  mean  with  the  tide  of  their  fortunes. 
The  Romans  alone  were  moderate  in  prosperity, 
and  arrogant  when  their  enemies  expected  to 
force  their  submission. 

Other  nations,  when  in  distress,  could  weigh 
their  sufferings  against  the  concessions  which 
they  were  required  to  make  ;  and,  among  the 
evils  to  which  they  were  exposed,  preferred  what 
appeared  to  be  the  least.  The  Romans  alone 
spurned  the  advances  of  a  victorious  enemy  ; 
were  not  to  be  moved  by  sufferings ;  and,  though 
they  cautiously  avoided  difficulties  that  were 

t  Val.  Maxim,  lib.  ii.  c.  4.  2  Lex  Didia. 


likely  to  surpass  their  strength,  did  not  allow  it 
to  be  supposed  that  they  were  governed  by  fear 
in  any  case  whatever.  They  willingly  treated 
with  the  vanquished,  and  were  ready  to  grant  the 
most  liberal  terms  when  the  concession  could  not 
be  imputed  to  weakness  or  fear.  By  such  free 
and  unforced  concession,  indeed,  they  established 
a  reputation  for  generosity,  which  contributed,  no 
less  than  their  valour,  to  secure  the  dominion 
they  acquired. 

With  the  same  insinuating  titles  of  allies  or 
protectors,  by  which  they  had,  in  the  infant  state 
of  their  policy,  brought  all  the  cantons  of  Latium 
to  follow  their  standard ;  they  continued  to  take 
the  ascendant  over  nations  whom  they  could  not 
have  otherwise  subdued.  But  as  they  were  liberal 
in  their  friendships,  so,  after  repeated  provocations 
seemed  to  justify  a  different  conduct,  they  were  ter- 
rible in  their  resentments,  and  took  ample  compen- 
sation for  the  favours  they  had  formerly  bestowed. 

By  their  famous  maxim  in  war,  already  men- 
tioned, That  the  submissive  were  to  be  spared, 
and  the  proud  to  be  humbled,  it  became  necessary 
for  them,  in  every  quarrel,  to  conquer  or  to  perish  ; 
and,  when  these  were  the  alternatives  proposed 
by  them,  other  nations  were  entitled  to  consider 
them  as  common  enemies.  No  state  has  a  right 
to  make  the  submission  of  mankind  a  necessary 
condition  to  its  own  preservation ;  nor  are  many 
states  qualified  to  support  such  pretensions.  Some 
part  of  this  political  character,  however,  is  neces- 
sary to  the  safety,  as  well  as  to  the  advancement, 


3  Asia  primum  devicta  luxuriam  misit  in  Italiam. 
Plin.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  11. 

4  Liv.  lib.  xxxix.  c.  6.    Plin.  lib.  xxxvii.  c  t. 


Chap.  I!.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


* 

91 


of  nations.  No  free  state  or  republic  is  safe  under 
any  other  government  or  defence  than  that  of  its 
own  citizens.  No  nation  is  safe  that  permits  any 
ally  to  sufler  by  having  espoused  its  cause,  or 
that  allows  itself  to  be  driven,  by  defeats  or  mis- 
fortunes, into  a  surrender  of  any  material  part  of 
its  rights. 

The  measure  of  the  Roman  conquests,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventh  century  of  Rome,  though 
great,  was  yet  far  from  being  full ;  and  the  people 
had  not  hitherto  relaxed  the  industry,  nor  cooled 
in  the  ardour  with  which  prosperous  nations  ad- 
vance, but  which  they  frequently  remit  in  the 
height  of  their  attainments  and  of  their  power. 

The  constitution  of  the  commonwealth  still 
afforded  a  plentiful  nursery  of  men  for  both  the 
civil  and  military  departments ;  and  this  people 
accordingly  continued  for  some  time  to  advance 
with  a  quick  pace  in  the  career  of  their  conquests. 
They  subdued  mighty  kingdoms  with  as  great,  or 
greater  facility,  than  that  with  which  they  had 
formerly  conquered  villages  and  single  fields. 

But  the  enlargement  of  their  territory,  and  the 
success  of  their  arms  abroad,  became  the  sources 
of  a  ruinous  corruption  at  home.  The  wealth  of 
provinces  began  to  flow  into  the  city,  and  filled 
the  coffers  of  private  citizens,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  commonwealth.  The  offices  of  state  and  the 
command  of  armies  were  become  lucrative  as  well 
as  honourable,  and  were  coveted  on  the  former 
account.  In  the  state  itself  the  governing  and  the 
governed  felt  separate  interests,  and  were  at  vari- 
ance, from  motives  of  avarice,  as  well  as  ambition ; 
and,  instead  of  the  parties  who  formerly  strove  for 
distinction,  and  for  the  palm  of  merit  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  commonwealth,  factions  arose,  who 
contended  for  the  greatest  share  of  its  spoils,  and 
who  sacrificed  the  public  to  their  party-attach- 
ments and  animosities. 

Two  hundred  and  thirty  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  animosities  of  patrician  and  plebeian 
were  extinguished  by  the  equal  participation  of 
public  honours.  This  distinction*  itself  was  in  a 
great  measure  obliterated,  and  gave  way  to  a  new 
one,  which,  under  the  denomination  of  nobles  and 
commons,  or  illustrious  and  obscure,  without  in- 
volving any  legal  disparity  of  privileges,  gave  rise 
to  an  aristocracy,  which  was  partly  hereditary, 
founded  in  the  repeated  succession  to  honour-;  in 
the  same  family;  and  partly  personal,  founded  in 
the  habits  of  high  station,  and  in  the  advantages  of 
education,  such  as  never  fail  to  distinguish  the  con- 
ditions of  men  in  every  great  and  prosperous  state. 

These  circumstances  conferred  a  power  on  the 
nobles,  which,  though  less  invidious,  was  not  less 
real  than  that  which  had  been  possessed  by  the 
ancient  patricians.  The  exercise  of  this  power 
was  lodged  with  the  senate,  a  body  which,  though 
by  the  emulation  of  its  members  too  much  dis- 
posed to  war,  and  ambitious  of  conquest,  was  pro- 
bably never  surpassed  in  magnanimity,  ability,  or 
in  steadiness,  by  any  council  of  state  whatever. 

The  people  had  submitted  to  the  senate,  as 
possessed  of  an  authority  which  was  founded  in 
the  prevailing  opinion  of  their  superior  worth; 
and  even  the  •  most  aspiring  of  the  commons  al- 
lowed themselves  to  be  governed  by  an  order  of 
men,  amongst  whom  they  themselves,  by  proper 
efforts  and  suitable  merit,  might  hope  to  ascend. 
The  examples  of  preferment,  and  the  rise  of  in- 
dividuals, from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  ranks  of 
the  commonwealth,  though  for  the  most  part  re- 


ceived with  some  degree  of  jealousy  by  those  who 
were  already  in  possession  of  the  higher  condition, 
were  nevertheless  frequent,  and  extinguished  all 
appearance  of  an  exclusive  pretension  to  the  ho- 
nours of  the  state  in  any  order  or  class  of  the  people. 

The  knights,  or  the  equestrian  order,  being 
persons  possessed  of  estates  or  effects  of  a  c  ertain 
valuation,1  formed  between  the  senate  and  the 
people  an  intermediate  rank,  who,  in  consequence 
of  their  having  a  capital,  and  being  less  engaged 
than  the  senators  in  affairs  of  state,  became 
traders,  contractors,  farmers  of  the  revenue,  and 
constituted  a  species  of  moneyed  interest  in  the. 
city,  and  in  the  provinces. 

Such,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  period  of 
which  the  events  have  been  already  related,  was 
the  distribution  of  rank  in  this  commonwealth. 
But  circumstances  which  appear  to  be  fixed  in 
the  political  state  of  nations,  are  often  no  more 
than  a  passage  in  the  shifting  of  scenes,  or  a  transi- 
tion from  that  which  a  people  have  been,  to  what 
they  are  about  to  become.  The  nobles  began  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  high  authority  and  ad- 
vantages of  their  station,  and  to  accumulate  pro- 
perty as  well  as  honours.  The  country  began  to 
be  occupied  with  their  plantations  and  their  slaves. 
The  number  of  great  landed  estates,  and  the 
multiplication  of  slaves,  kept  pace  together.  This 
manner  of  stocking  plantations  was  necessary  or 
expedient  in  the  circumstances  of  the  Romans : 
for  if  the  Roman  citizen,  who  possessed  so  much 
consequence  in  his  military  and  political  capacity, 
had  been  willing  to  become  a  hireling  and  a  ser- 
vant, yet  it  was  not  the  interest  of  masters  to 
entrust  their  affairs  to  persons  who  were  liable  to 
be  pressed  into  the  legions,  or  who  were  so  often 
called  away  to  the  comitia  and  assemblies  of  the 
people. 

Citizens  contended  for  offices  in  the  state  as  the 
road  to  lucrative  appointments  abroad  ;  and  when 
they  had  obtained  this  end,  and  had  reigned  for  a 
while  in  some  province,  they  brought  back  from 
their  governments  a  profusion  of  wealth  ill  ac- 
quired, and  the  habit  of  arbitrary  and  uncontrolled 
command.  When  disappointed  in  the  pursuits  of 
fortune  abroad,  they  became  the  leaders  of  dan- 
gerous factions  at  home ;  or  when  suddenly  pos- 
sessed of  great  wealth,  they  became  the  agents  of 
corruption  to  disseminate  idleness,  and  the  love  of 
ruinous  amusements,  in  the  minds  of  the  people. 

The  seclusion  of  the  equestrian  order  from  the 
pursuit  of  political  emolument  or  honour,  and  the 
opportunities  they  had,  by  contracts  and  by  farm- 
ing the  revenue,  to  improve  their  fortunes  in  a 
different  way,  confirmed  them  in  the  habits  of 
trade,  and  the  attention  to  lucrative  considerations. 

The  city  was  gradually  crowded  with  a  popu- 
lace, who,  tempted  with  the  cheap  or  gratuitous 
distribution  of  corn,  by  the  frequency  of  public 
shows,  by  the  consequence  they  enjoyed  as  mem- 
bers of  the  popular  assemblies,  or  perhaps  dis- 
lodged from  the  country  by  the  engrossers  of  land, 
and  the  preference  which  was  given  to  the  labour 
of  slaves  over  that  of  freemen,  flocked  from  the 
colonies  and  municipal  towns  to  reside  at  Rome. 
There,  they  were  corrupted  by  idleness  and  indi- 
gence, and  the  order  itself  was  continually  debased 
by  the  frequent  accession  of  emancipated  slaves. 

The  Romans,  who  were  become  so  jealous  of 
t  heir  prerogative  as  citizens,  had  no  other  way  of 

1  400:000  Roman  money,  or  about  3,000/. 


92 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


disposing  of  a  slave,  who  had  obtained  his  free- 
dom, than  by  placing  him  on  the  rolls  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  from  this  quarter  accordingly  the  numbers 
of  the  people  were  chiefly  recruited.  The  emanci- 
pated slave  took  the  name  of  his  master,  became  a 
client,  and  a  retainer  of  his  family ;  and  at  fune- 
rals and  other  solemnities,  where  the  pomp  was 
distinguished  by  the  number  of  attendants,  made 
a  part  of  the  retinue.  This  class  of  men  accord- 
ingly received  continual  additions,  from  the  vanity 
or  weakness  of  those  who  chose  to  ehange  their 
slaves  into  dependent  citizens;  and  numbers  who 
had  been  conducted  to  Rome  as  captives,  or  who 
had  been  purchased  in  Asia  or  Greece,  at  a  price 
proportioned  to  the  pleasurable  arts  they  possessed, 
became  an  accession  to  that  turbulent  populace, 
who,  in  the  quality  of  Roman  citizens,  tyrannized 
in  their  turn  over  the  masters  of  the  world,  and 
wrecked  on  the  conquerors  of  so  many  nations 
the  evils  which  they  themselves  had  so  freely  in- 
flicted on  mankind.1 

Citizens  of  this  extraction  could  not  for  ages 
arrive  at  any  places  of  trust,  in  which  they  could, 
by  their  personal  defects,  injure  the  common- 
wealth ;  but  they  increased,  by  their  numbers  and 
their  vices,  the  weight  of  that  dreg,  which,  in 
great  and  prosperous  cities,  ever  sinks,  by  the 
tendency  of  vice  and  misconduct,  to  the  lowest 
condition.  They  became  a  pail  of  that  faction 
who  are  ever  actuated  by  envy  to  their  superiors, 
by  mercenary  views,  or  by  abject  fear ;  who  are 
ever  ready  to  espouse  the  cause  of  any  leader 
against  the  restraints  of  public  order ;  disposed  to 
vilify  the  more  respectable  ranks  of  men  ;  and  by 
their  indifference  on  the  subjects  of  justice  or 
honour,  to  frustrate  every  principle  that  may  be 
employed  for  the  government  of  mankind,  besides 
fear  and  compulsion. 

Although  citizens  of  this  description  were  yet 
far  from  being  the  majority  at  Rome,  yet  it  is 
probable  that  they  were  in  numbers  sufficient  to 
contaminate  the  whole  body  of  the  people ;  and, 
if  enrolled  promiscuously  in  all  the  tribes,  might 
have  had  great  weight  in  turning  the  scale  of 
political  councils.  This  effect,  however,  was  hap- 
pily prevented  by  the  wise  precaution  which  the 
censors  had  taken  to  confine  all  citizens  of  mean 
or  slavish  extraction  to  four  of  the  tribes.  These 
were  called  the  tribes  of  the  city,  and  formed  but 
a  small  proportion  of  the  whole.2 

Notwithstanding  this  precaution,  we  must  sup- 
pose them  to  have  been  very  improper  parties  in 
the  participation  of  sovereignty,  and  likely  enough 
to  disturb  the  place  of  assembly  with  disorders 
and  tumults. 

While  the  state  was  advancing  to  the  sove- 
reignty of  Italy,  and  while  the  territories  succes- 
sively acquired  were  cleared  for  the  reception  of 
Roman  citizens,  by  the  reduction  and  captivity 
of  the  natives,  there  was  an  outlet  for  the  redun- 
dancy of  this  growing  populace,  and  its  overflow- 
ings were  accordingly  dispersed  over  Italy,  from 
Rhegium  to  Aquileia,  in  about  seventy  colonies. 
But  the  country  being  now  completely  settled, 
and  the  property  of  its  inhabitants  established,  it 
was  no  longer  possible  to  provide  for  the  indigent 


1  Velleius,  lib.  ii.  c.  4. 

2  Liv.  lib.  ix.  c.  46.  When  this  precaution  was  taken 
by  Fabiu?  Maximus,  the  tribes  amounted  to  thirty-one. 
See  the  successive  additions  by  which  the  tribes  were 
brought  up  to  this  number,  Liv.  lib.  vi.  c.  5.  lib.  vii.  c. 
15.  lib.  viii.  c.  17.  lib.  ix.  c.  21). 


citizens  in  this  manner ;  and  the  practice  of  set- 
tling new  colonies,  which  had  been  so  useful  in 
planting,  and  securing  the  conquests  which  were 
made  in  Italy,  had  not  yet  been  extended  beyond 
this  county,  nor  employed  as  the  means  of  secur- 
ing any  of  the  provinces  lately  acquired.  Mere 
colonization,  indeed,  would  have  been  an  improper 
and  inadequate  measure  for  this  purpose;  and  in 
time  of  the  republic  never  was,  in  any  consider- 
able degree,  extended  beyond  sea.  The  provinces 
were  placed  under  military  government,  and  were 
to  be  retained  in  submission  by  bodies  of  regular 
troops.  Roman  citizens  had  little  inclination  to  re- 
move their  habitations  beyond  the  limits  of  Italy ; 
and  if  they  had,  would  have  been  unable,  in  the 
mere  capacity  of  civil  corporations  and  pacific  set- 
tlements, to  carry  into  execution  the  exactions  of 
a  government  which  they  themselves,  now  become 
inhabitants  and  proprietors  of  land  in  those  pro- 
vinces, would  have  soon  been  interested  to  oppose : 
for  these  reasons,  although  the  Roman  territory 
was  greatly  extended,  the  resources  of  the  poorer 
citizens  were  diminished.  The  former  discharge 
for  many 'dangerous  humours  that  were  found  to 
arise  among  them,  was  in  some  measure  shut  up, 
and  these  humours  began  to  regorge  on  the  state. 

While  the  inferior  people  at  Rome  sunk  in 
their  characters,  or  were  debased  by  the  circum- 
stances we  have  mentioned,  the  superior  ranks, 
by  their  application  to  affairs  of  state,  by  their 
education,  by  the  ideas  of  high  birth  and  family- 
distinction,  by  the  superiority  of  fortune,  began  to 
rise  in  their  estimation,  in  their  pretensions,  and 
in  their  power ;  and  they  entertained  some  degree 
of  contempt  for  persons,  whom  the  laws  still  re- 
quired them  to  admit  as  their  fellow-citizens  and 
equals. 

In  this  disposition  of  parties  so  dangerous  in  a 
commonwealth,  and  amidst  materials  so  likely  to 
catch  the  flame,  some  sparks  were  thrown  that 
soon  kindled  up  anew  all  the  popular  animosities 
which  seemed  \o  have  been  so  long  extinguished. 
We  have  been  carried,  in  the  preceding  narration, 
by  the  series  of  events,  somewhat  beyond  the  date 
of  transactions  that  come  now  to  be  related. 
While  Scipio  was  employed  in  the  siege  of 
Numantia,  and  while  the  Roman  officers  in  Sicily 
were  yet  unable  to  reduce  the  revolted  slaves, 
Tiberius  Gracchus,  born  of  a  plebeian  family,  but 
ennobled  by  the  honours  of  his  father,  by  his  de- 
scent on  the  side  of  his  mother  from  the  first 
Scipio  Africanus,  and  by  his  alliance  with  the 
second  Scipio,  who  had  married  his  sister,  being 
now  tribune  of  the  people,  and  possessed  of  all  the 
accomplishments  required  in  a  popular  leader, 
great  ardour,  resolution,  and  eloquence,  formed  a 
project  in  itself  extremely  alarming,  and  in  its  con- 
sequences dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  republic. 

Like  other  young  men  of  high  pretensions  at 
Rome,  Tiberius  Gracchus  had  begun  his  military 
service  at  the  usual  age,  had  served  with  reputa- 
tion under  his  brother-in-law,  Scipio,  at  the  siege 
of  Carthage,  afterwards  as  questor,  under  Man- 
cinus  in  Spain,  where  the  credit  of  his  father, 
well  known  in  that  province,  pointed  him  out  to 
the  natives  as  the  only  person  with  whom  they 
would  negotiate  in  the  treaty  that  ensued.  The 
disgrace  he  incurred  in  this  transaction  gave  him 
a  distaste  to  the  military  service,  and  to  foreign 
affairs.  When  he  was  called  to  account  for  it,  the 
severity  he  experienced  from  the  senate,  and  the 
protection  he  obtained  from  the  people,  filled  his 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


♦ 

93 


breast  with  an  animosity  to  the  one,  and  a  pre- 
possession in  favour  of  the  other.3 

Actuated  by  these  dispositions,  or  by  an  idea 
not  uncommon  to  enthusiastic  minds,  that  the 
unequal  distribution  of  property,  so  favourable  to 
the  rich,  is  an  injury  to  the  poor  ;  he  now  pro- 
posed in  part  to  remedy  or  to  mitigate  this  sup- 
posed evil,  by  reviving  the  celebrated  law  of 
Licinius,  by  which  Roman  citizens  had  been  re- 
strained from  accumulating  estates  in  land  above 
the  value  of  five  hundred  jugera,4  or  from  having 
more  than  one  hundred  of  the  larger  cattle,  and 
five  hundred  of  the  lesser. 

In  his  travels  through  Italy,  he  said,  he  had 
observed  that  the  property  of  land  was  beginning 
to  be  engrossed  by  a  few  of  the  nobles,  and  that 
the  country  was  entirely  occupied  by  slaves,  to 
the  exclusion  of  freemen  :  that  the  race  of  Ro- 
man citizens  would  soon  be  extinct,s  if  proper 
settlements  were  not  provided  to  enable  the  poor 
to  support  their  families,  and  to  educate  their 
children ;  and  he  alleged,  that  if  estates  in  land 
were  reduced  to  the  measure  prescribed  by  law, 
the  surplus  left  would  then  be  sufficient  for  this 
purpose. 

Being  determined,  however,  as  much  as  possi- 
ble, to  prevent  the  opposition  of  the  nobles,  and 
to  reconcile  the  interest  of  both  parties  to  his 
scheme,  he  proposed  to  make  some  abatements  in 
the  rigour  of  the  Licinian  law,  allowing  every 
family  holding  five  hundred  jugera  in  right  of 
the  father,  to  hold  half  as  much  in  the  right  of 
every  unemancipated  son ;  and  proposed,  that 
every  person  who  should  suffer  any  diminution 
of  his  property  in  consequence  of  the  intended  re- 
form, should  have  compensation  made  to  him ; 
and  that  the  sum  necessary  for  this  purpose  should 
be  issued  from  the  treasury. 

In  this  manner  he  set  out  with  an  appearance 
of  moderation,  acting  in  concert  with  some  lead- 
ing men  in  the  state  and  members  of  the  senate, 
such  as  Appius  Claudius,  whose  daughter  he 
had  married,  a  senator  of  the  family  of  Crassus, 
who  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  priesthood,  and 
Mutius  Scaevola,  consul. 

To  complete  the  intended  reformation,  and  to 
prevent  for  the  future  the  accumulation  of  estates 
in  land,  the  sale  or  commerce  of  land  was  from 
thenceforward  to  be  prohibited ;  and  three  com- 
missioners were  to  be  annually  named,  to  ensure 
the  execution  and  regular  observance  of  this  law. 

This  project,  however  plausible,  it  is  probable, 
was  extremely  unseasonable,  and  ill  suited  to  the 
state  of  the  commonwealth.  The  law  of  Licinius 
had  passed  in  the  year  of  Rome  three  hundred 
and  seventy-seven,  no  more  than  fourteen  years 
after  the  city  was  restored  from  its  destruction  by 
the  Gauls,  and  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before  this  date  ;  and  though  properly  suited  to  a 
small  republic,  and  even  necessary  to  preserve  a 
democracy,  was,  in  that  condition  of  the  people, 
received  with  difficulty,  and  was  soon  trespassed 
upon  even  by  the  person  himself  on  whose  sug- 
gestion it  had  been  moved  and  obtained :  that  it 
was  become  obsolete,  and  gone  into  disuse,  ap- 
peared from  the  abuses  which  were  now  com- 
plained of,  and  to  which  its  renewal  was  proposed 
as  a  remedy.    It  was  become  in  a  great  measure 


3  <  Jicero  de  (Maris  Orn tori  1ms,  c.  27. 

4  Little  more  than  half  as  many  acres. 
;»  Plutarch,  in  Tib.  Oacch. 


impracticable,  and  even  dangerous  in  the  present 
state  of  the  republic.  The  distinctions  of  poor 
and  rich  are  as  necessary  in  states  of  considerable 
extent,  as  labour  and  good  government.  The 
poor  are  destined  to  laboar,  and  the  rich,  by  the 
advantages  of  education,  independence,  and  lei- 
sure, are  qualified  for  superior  stations.  The 
empire  was  now  greatly  extended,  and  owed  its 
safety  and  the  order  of  its  government  to  a  re- 
spectable aristocracy,  founded  on  the  possession 
of  fortune,  as  well  as  personal  qualities  and  public 
honours.  The  rich  were  not,  without  some 
violent  convulsion,  to  be  stript  of  estates  which 
they  themselves  had  bought,  or  which  they  had 
inherited  from  their  ancestors.  The  poor  were 
not  qualified  at  once  to  be  raised  to  a  state  of 
equality  with  persons  inured  to  a  better  condition. 
The  project  seemed  to  be  as  ruinous  to  govern- 
ment as  it  was  to  the  security  of  property,  and 
tended  to  place  the  members  of  the  common- 
wealth, by  one  rash  and  precipitate  step,  in  situa- 
tions in  which  they  were  not  at  all  qualified  to  act. 

For  these  reasons,  as  well  as  from  motives  of 
private  interest  affecting  the  majority  of  the  no- 
bles, the  project  of  Tiberius  was  strenuously  op- 
posed by  the  senate;  and  from  motives  of  envy, 
interest,  or  mistaken  zeal  for  justice,  as  warmly 
supported  by  the  opposite  party.  At  the  several 
assemblies  of  the  people  which  were  called  to  de- 
liberate on  this  subject,  Tiberius,  exalting  the 
characters  of  freemen  contrasted  with  slaves,  dis- 
played the  copious  and  pathetic  eloquence  in 
which  he  excelled.  All  the  free  inhabitants  of 
Italy  were  Romans,  or  nearly  allied  to  this  people. 
He  observed  how  much,  being  supplanted  by  the 
slaves  of  the  rich,  they  were  diminished  in  their 
numbers.  He  inveighed  against  the  practice  of 
employing  slaves,  a  class  of  men  that  bring  per- 
petual danger,  without  any  addition  of  strength 
to  the  public,  and  who  are  ever  ready  to  break 
forth  in  desperate  insurrections,  as  they  had  then 
actually  done  in  Sicily,  where  they  still  occupied 
the  Roman  arms  in  a  tedious  and  ruinous  war.6 

In  declaiming  on  the  mortifications  and  hard- 
ships of  the  indigent  citizen,  he  hail  recourse  to 
the  arguments  commonly  advanced  to  explode 
the  inequalities  of  mankind.  "  Every  wild  beast," 
he  said,  "  in  this  happy  land  has  a  cover  or  place 
of  retreat.  But  many  valiant  and  respectable 
citizens,  who  have  exposed  their  lives,  and  who 
have  shed  their  blood  in  the  service  of  their 
country,  have  not  a  home  to  which  they  may  re- 
tire. They  wander  with  their  wives  and  their 
children,  stripped  of  every  possession,  but  that  of 
the  air  and  the  light.  To  such  men  the  com- 
mon military  exhortation,  to  fight  for  the  tombs 
of  their  fathers,  and  for  the  altars  of  their  house- 
hold gods,  is  a  mockery  and  a  lie.  They  have 
no  altars  ;  they  have  no  monuments.  They  light 
and  they  die  to  augment  the  estates,  and  to  pam- 
per the  luxury  of  a  few  wealthy  citizens,  who 
have  engrossed  all  the  riches  of  the  common- 
wealth. As  citizens  of  Rome,  they  are  entitled 
the  masters  of  the  world,  but  possess  not  a  toot 
of  earth  on  which  they  may  rest."7 

He  asked,  whether  it  were  not  reasonable  to 
apply  what  was  public  to  public  uses  ?  whether 
a  freeman  were  not  preferable  to  a  slave,  a  brave 
man  to  a  coward,  and  a  fellow-citizen  to  a  stranger  J 


*"  6  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ. 

7  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Tib.  Gracch. 


9-1 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


He  expatiated  on  the  fortune,  and  stated  the  future 
rospects  of  the  republic.  Much,  he  said,  she 
ad  acquired,  and  had  yet  more  to  acquire  ;  that 
the  people,  by  their  decision  in  the  present  ques- 
tion, were  to  determine,  whether  they  were,  by 
multiplying  their  numbers,  to  increase  their 
strength,  and  be  in  a  condition  to  conquer  what 
yet  remained  of  the  world  ?-  or,  by  suffering  the 
resources  of  the  whole  people  to  get  into  the 
hands  of  a  few,  they  were,  to  permit  their  num- 
bers to  decline,  and  to  become  unable,  against 
nations  envious  and  jealous  of  their  power,  even 
to  maintain  the  ground  they  already  had  gained  1 
He  exhorted  the  present  proprietors  of  land, 
whom  the  law  of  division  might  affect,  not  to 
withhold,  for  the  sake  of  a  trifling  interest  to 
themselves,  so  great  an  advantage  from  their 
country.  He  bade  them  consider  whether  they 
would  not,  by  the  secure  possession  of  five  hun- 
dred jugera,  and  of  half  as  much  to  each  of  their 
children,  be  sufficiently  rewarded  for  the  con- 
cessions now  required  in  behalf  of  the  public; 
put  them  in  mind  that  riches  were  merely  com- 
parative ;  and  that,  in  respect  to  this  advantage, 
they  were  still  to  remain  in  the  first  rank  of  their 
fellow  citizens.1 

By  these  and  similar  arguments  he  endeavoured 
to  obtain  the  consent  of  one  party,  and  to  inflame 
the  zeal  of  the  other.  But  when  he  came  to  pro- 
ose,  that  the  law  should  be  read,  he  found  that 
is  opponents  had  availed  themselves  of  their 
usual  defence;  had  procured  M.  Octavius,  one 
of  his  own  colleagues,  to  interpose  with  his  nega- 
tive, and  to  forbid  any  farther  proceeding  in  the 
business.  Here,  according  to  the  forms  of  the 
constitution,  this  matter  should  have  dropped. 
The  tribunes  were  instituted  to  defend  their  own 
party,  not  to  attack  their  opponents ;  and  to  pre- 
vent not  to  promote  innovations.  Every  single 
tribune  had  a  negative  on  the  whole.  But  Tibe- 
rius, thus  suddenly  stopped  in  his  career,  became 
the  more  impetuous  and  confirmed  in  his  purpose. 
Having  adjourned  the  assembly  to  another  day,  he 
prepared  a  motion  more  violent  than  the  former,  in 
which  he  erased  all  the  clauses  by  which  he  had 
endeavoured  to  soften  the  hardships  likely  to  fall 
on  the  rich.  He  proposed,  that,  without  ex- 
pecting any  compensation,  they  should  absolutely 
cede  the  surplus  of  their  possessions,  as  being  ob- 
tained by  fraud  and  injustice. 

In  this  time  of  suspense,  the  controversy  be- 
gan to  divide  the  colonies  and  free  cities  of  Italy, 
and  was  warmly  agitated  wherever  the  citizens 
had  extended  their  property.  The  rich  and  the 
poor  took  opposite  sides.  They  collected  their 
arguments,  and  they  mustered  their  strength.  The 
first  had  recourse  to  the  topics  which  are  com- 
monly employed  on  the  side  of  prescription, 
urging  that,  in  some  cases,  they  had  possessed 
their  estates  from  time  immemorial ;  and  that  the 
lands  they  possessed  were  become  valuable,  only 
in  consequence  of  the  industry  and  labour  which 
they  themselves  had  employed  to  improve  them  : 
that,  in  other  cases,  they  had  actually  bought 
their  estates  :  that  the  public  faith,  under  which 
they  were  suffered  to  purchase,  was  now  engaged 
to  protect  and  secure  their  possession  :  that,  in 
reliance  on  this  faith,  they  had  erected,  on  these 
lands,  the  sepulchres  of  their  fathers ;  they  had 
pledged  them  for  the  dowries  of  their  wives  and 


J  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ 


the  portions  of  their  children,  and  mortgaged  them 
as  security  for  the  debts  they  had  contracted  :  that 
a  law  regulating  or  limiting  the  farther  increase 
or  accumulation  of  property  might  be  suffered ; 
but  that  a  law,  having  a  retrospect,  and  operating 
in  violation  of  the  rights,  and  to  the  ruin  of  so 
many  families,  was  altogether  unjust,  and  even 
impracticable  in  the  execution. 

The  poor,  on  the  contrary,  pleaded  their  own 
indigence  and  their  merits  ;  urged  that  they  were 
no  longer  in  a  capacity  to  fill  the  station  of  Ro- 
man citizens  or  of  freemen,  nor  in  a  condition  to 
settle  families  or  to  rear  children,  the  future  hopes 
of  the  commonwealth :  that  no  private  person 
could  plead  immemorial  possession  of  lands  which 
had  been  acquired  for  the  public.  They  enu- 
merated the  wars  which  they  themselves,  or  their 
ancestors,  had  maintained  in  the  conquest  of  those 
lands.  They  concluded,  that  every  citizen  was 
entitled  to  his  share  of  the  public  conquests  ;  and 
that  the  arguments  which  were  urged  to  support 
the  possessions  of  the  nobles,  only  tended  to  show- 
how  presumptuous  and  insolent  such  usurpations, 
if  suffered  to  remain,  were  likely  to  become. 

This  mode  of  reasoning  appears  plausible  ;  but 
it  is  dangerous  to  adopt  by  halves  even  reason 
itself.  If  it  were  reasonable  that  every  Roman 
citizen  should  have  an  equal  share  of  the  con- 
quered lands,  it  was  still  more  reasonable,  that 
the  original  proprietors,  from  whom  those  lands 
had  been  unjustly  taken,  should  have  them  re- 
stored. If,  in  this,  the  maxims  of  reason  and  jus- 
tice had  been  observed,  Rome  would  have  still 
been  a  small  community,  and  might  have  acted 
with  safety  on  the  principles  of  equality  which 
are  suited  to  a  small  republic.  But  the  Romans, 
becoming  sovereigns  of  a  great  and  extensive  ter- 
ritory, must  adopt  the  disparities,  and  submit  to 
the  subordinations,  which  mankind  universally 
have  found  natural,  and  even  necessary,  to  their 
government  in  such  situations. 

Multitudes  of  people  from  all  parts  of  Italy, 
some  earnestly  desirous  to  have  the  law  enacted, 
others  to  have  it  set  aside,  crowded  to  Rome  to 
attend  the  decision  of  the  question;  and  Gracchus, 
without  dropping  his  intention,  as  usual,  upon 
the  negative  of  his  colleague,  only  bethought  him- 
self how  he  might  surmount,  or  remove  this  ob- 
struction. 

Having  hitherto  lived  in  personal  intimacy  with 
Octavius,  he  tried  to  gain  him  in  private  ;  and 
having  failed  in  this  attempt,  he  entered  into  ex 
postulations  with  him,  in  presence  of  the  public 
assembly ;  desired  to  know,  whether  he  feared  to 
have  his  own  estate  impaired  by  the  effects  of  the 
law ;  for  if  so,  he  offered  to  indemnify  him  fully 
in  whatever  he  might  suffer  by  the  execution  of 
it :  and  being  still  unable  to  shake  his  colleague, 
who  was  supported  by  the  countenance  of  the 
senate  and  the  higher  ranks  of  men  in  the  state, 
he  determined  to  try  the  force  of  his  tribunitiar 
powers  to  compel  him,  laid  the  state  itself  under 
a  general  interdict,  sealed  up  the  doors  of  the 
treasury,  suspended  the  proceedings  in  the  courts 
of  the  prretors,  and  put  a  stop  to  all  the  functions 
of  office  in  the  city. 

All  the  nobility  and  superior  class  of  the  people 
went  into  mourning.  Tiberius,  in  his  turn,  en- 
deavoured to  alarm  the  passions  of  his  party ;  and 
believing,  or  pretending  to  believe,  that  he  himself 
was  in  danger  of  being  assassinated,  had  a  num- 
ber of  persons  with  arms  to  defend  his  person. 


CH.vr.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


95 


While  the  city  was  in  this  state  of  suspense 
and  confusion,  the  tribes  were  again  assembled, 
and  Tiberius,  in  defiance  of  the  negative  of  his 
colleague,  was  proceeding  to  call  the  votes,  when 
many  of  the  people,  alarmed  by  this  intended  vio- 
lation of  the  sacred  law,  crowded  in  before  the 
tribe  that  was  moving  to  ballot,  and  seized  the 
urns.  A  great  tumult  was  likely  to  arise.  The 
popular  party,  being  most  numerous,  were  crowd- 
ing around  their  leader,  when  two  senators,  Man- 
lius  and  Fulvius,  both  of  consular  dignity,  fell  at 
his  feet,  embraced  his  knees,  and  beseeched  him 
not  to  proceed.  Overcome  with  the  respect  that 
was  due  to  persons  of  this  rank,  and  with  the 
sense  of  some  impending  calamity,  he  asked, 
"  What  they  would  have  him  to  do?"  "  The  case,"' 
they  said,  "is  too  arduous  for  us  to  decide;  refer 
it  to  the  senate,  and  await  their  decree." 

Proceedings  were  accordingly  suspended  until 
the  senate  had  met,  and  declared  a  resolution  not 
to  confirm  the  law.  Gracchus  resumed  the  subject 
with  the  people,  being  determined  either  to  remove, 
or  to  slight  the  negative  of  his  colleague.  He  pro- 
posed, that  either  the  refractory  tribune,  or  him- 
self, should  be  immediately  stripped  of  his  dignity. 
He  desired  that  Octavius  should  put  the  question 
first,  Whether  Tiberius  Gracchus  should  be  de- 
graded? This  being  declined  as  irregular  and 
vain,  he  declared  his  intention  to  move  in  the  as- 
sembly, on  the  following  day,  That  Octavius 
should  be  divested  of  the  character  of  tribune. 

Hitherto  all  parties  had  proceeded  agreeably  to 
the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  commonwealth ; 
but  this  motion,  to  degrade  a  tribune,  by  whatever 
authority,  was  equally  subversive  of  both.  The 
person  and  dignity  of  tribunes,  in  order  that  they 
might  be  secure  from  violence,  whether  offered  by 
any  private  person,  public  magistrate,  or  even  by 
the  people  themselves,  were  guarded  by  the  most 
sacred  vows.  Their  persons,  therefore,  during 
the  continuance  of  their  office,  were  sacred;  so 
long  their  character  was  indelible,  and,  without, 
their  own  consent,  they  could  not  be  removed  by 
any  power  whatever. 

The  assembly,  however,  being  met  in  conse- 
quence of  this  alarming  adjournment,  Tiberius 
renewed  his  prayer  to  Octavius  to  withdraw  his 
negative ;  but  not  prevailing  in  this  request,  the 
tribes  were  directed  to  proceed.  The  votes  of 
seventeen  were  already  given  to  degrade.  In  taking 
those  of  the  eighteenth,  which  would  have  made 
a  majority,  the  tribunes  mado  a  pause,  while  Ti- 
berius embraced  his  colleague,  and,  with  a  voice  to 
be  heard  by  the  multitude  of  the  people,  beseeched 
him  to  spare  himself  the  indignity,  and  others  the 
regret,  of  so  severe,  though  necessary,  a  measure. 
Octavius  shook:  but,  observing  the  senators  who 
were  present,  recovered  his  resolution,  and  bid 
Tiberius  proceed  as  he  thought  proper.  The 
votes  of  the  majority  were  accordingly  declared, 
and  Octavius,  reduced  to  a  private  station,  was 
dragged  from  the  tribunes'  bench,  and  exposed  to 
the  rage  of  the  populace.  Attempts  were  made  on 
his  life,  and  a  faithful  slave,  that  endeavoured  to 
save  him,  was  dangerously  wounded;  but  a  num- 
ber of  the  more  respectable  citizens  interposed,  and 
Tiberius  himself  was  arrive  in  favouring  his  escape. 

This  obstacle  being  removed, 
Let  Stmprnnia.  the  act  so  long  depending,  for 
making  a  more  equal  division 
of  lands,  was  passed;  and  three  commissioners,  Ti- 
berius Gracchus,  Appius  Claudius,  his  father-in-  ' 


law,  and  his  brother  Caius  Gracchus,  then  a  youth 
serving  under  Publius  Scipio  at  the  siege  of  Nu- 
mantia,  were  named  to  carry  the  law  into  execution. 

This  act,  as  it  concerned  the  interest  of  almost 
every  inhabitant  of  Italy,  immediately  raised  a 
great  ferment  in  every  part  of  the  country.  Per- 
sons holding  considerable  estates  in  land  were 
alarmed  for  their  property.  The  poor  were  elated 
with  the  hopes  of  becoming  suddenly  rich.  If 
there  was  a  middling  class  not  to  be  greatly  aflect- 
ed  in  their  own  situation,  they  still  trembled  for 
the  effects  of  a  contest  between  such  parties.  The 
senate  endeavoured  to  delay  the  execution  of  the 
law,  withheld  the  usual  aids  and  appointments 
given  to  the  commissioners  of  the  people  in  the  or- 
dinary administration  of  public  trusts,  and  waited 
for  a  fit  opportunity  to  suppress  entirely  this  ha- 
zardous project.  Parties  looked  on  each  other 
with  a  gloomy  and  suspicious  silence.  A  person, 
who  had  been  active  in  procuring  the  Agrarian 
law,  having  died  in  this  critical  juncture,  his  death 
was  alleged  to  be  the  effect  of  poison  administered 
by  the  opposite  party,  lumbers  of  the  people, 
to  countenance  a  report  to  this  purpose,  went  into 
mourning  ;  even  Gracchus,  affecting  to  believe  a 
like  design  to  be  forming  against  himself,  appear- 
ed, with  his  children  and  their  mother,  as  sup- 
pliants in  the  streets,  and  implored  the  protection 
of  the  people.  Still  more  to  interest  their  passions 
in  his  safety,  he  published  a  list  of  the  acts  which 
he  then  had  in  view,  all  tending  to  gratify  the 
people,  or  to  mortify  the  senate.  Attalus,  king  of 
Pergamus,  having,  about  this  time,  bequeathed 
his  dominions  and  his  treasure  to  the  Romans, 
Gracchus  procured  an  act  to  transfer  the  admin- 
istration of  this  inheritance  from  the  senate  to  the 
people;  and  to  distribute  the  money  found  in  the 
treasury  of  Pergamus  to  the  poorer  citizens,  the 
better  to  enable  them  to  cultivate  and  to  stock  the 
lands  which  were  now  to  be  given  them.  He  ob- 
tained another  act  to  circumscribe  the  power  of 
the  senate,  by  joining  the  equestrian  order  with 
the  senators  in  the  nomination  to  juries,  or  in 
forming  the  occasional  tribunals  of  justice. 

These,  with  the  preceding  attempts  to  abolish 
or  to  weaken  the  aristocratical  part  of  the  go- 
vernment, were  justly  alarming  to  every  person 
who  was  anxious  for  the  preservation  of  the  state. 
As  the  policy  of  this  tribune  tended  to  substitute 
popular  tumults  for  sober  councils  and  a  regular 
magistracy,  it  gave  an  immediate  prospect  of  an- 
archy, which  threatened  to  produce  some  violent 
usurpation.  The  sacred  office  which  he  so  much 
abused,  had  served,  on  occasions,  to  check  the 
caprice  of  the  people,  as  well  as  to  restrain  the 
abuse  of  the  executive  power.  The  late  violation 
it  had  suffered,  was  likely  to  render  it  entirely 
unfit  for  the  first  of  these  purposes,  and  to  make 
the  tribune  an  instrument  to  execute  the  momen- 
tary will  of  the  people,  or  to  make  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  trust  depend  upon  his  willingness 
to  serve  this  purpose.  Tiberius  heard  himself  ar- 
raigned in  the  forum,  and  in  every  public  assem- 
bly, for  the  violation  of  the  sacred  law.  "  If  any 
of  your  colleagues,"  said  Titus  Annius  (whom 
he  prosecuted  for  a  speech  in  the  senate,)  "should 
interpose  in  my  behalf,  would  you  have  him  also 
degraded  ?" 

The  people  in  general  began  to  be  sensible  of 
the  enormity  they  themselves  had  committed,  and 
Tiberius  found  himself  under  a  necessity  of 
pleading  for  the  measure  he  hail  taken,  after  it 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Boox  II. 


had  been  carried  into  execution.  The  person  of 
the  tribune,  he  observed,  was  sacred ;  because  it 
was  consecrated  by  the  people,  whom  the  tribunes 
represented;  but  if  the  tribune,  inconsistent  with 
his  character,  should  injure  where  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  protect,  should  weaken  a  claim  he  was 
appointed  to  enforce,  and  withhold  from  the  peo- 
ple that  right  of  decision  which  he  was  appointed 
to  guard,  the  tribune,  not  the  people,  was  to 
blame  for  the  consequences. 

"  Other  crimes,"  he  said,  "  may  be  enormous, 
yet  may  not  destroy  the  essence  of  the  tribunitian 
character.  An  attempt  to  demolish  the  capitol, 
or  to  burn  the  fleets  of  the  republic,  might  excite 
a  universal"  and  just  indignation,  without  render- 
ing the  person  of  the  tribune  who  should  be  ac- 
cused of  them  less  sacred.  But  an  attempt  to  take 
away  the  power  by  which  his  own  office  subsists, 
and  which  is  centred  in  himself  only  for  the  bet- 
ter exertion  of  that  power,  is  a  voluntary  and 
criminal  abdication  of  the  trust.  What  is  the  tri- 
bune but  the  officer  of  the  people?  Strange !  that 
this  officer  may,  by  virtue  of  authority  derived 
from  the  people,  drag  even  the  consul  himself  to 
prison,  and  yet  that  the  people  themselves  cannot 
depose  their  own  officer,  when  he  is  about  to  an- 
nul the  authority  by  which  he  himself  is  appointed. 

"  Was  ever  authority  more  sacred  than  that  of 
king?  It  involved  in  itself  the  prerogatives  of  every 
magistrate,  and  was  likewise  consecrated  by  hold- 
ing the  priesthood  of  the  immortal  gods.  Yet  did 
not  the  people  banish  Tarquin?  and  thus,  for  the 
offence  of  one  man,  abolish  the  primitive  govern- 
ment, under  the  auspices  of  which  the  founda- 
tions of  this  city  were  laid. 

^ "  What  more  sacred  at  Rome  than  the  persons 
of  the  vestal  virgins,  who  have  the  custody  of  the 
holy  fire?  Yet  are  they  not  for  slight  offences 
sometimes  buried  alive  ?  Impiety  to  the  gods  being 
supposed  to  cancel  a  title  which  reverence  to  the 
gods  had  conferred,  must  not  injuries  to  the  peo- 
ple suppress  an  authority  which  a  regard  to  the 
people  has  constituted  ? 

"  That  person  must  fall,  who  himself  removes 
the  base  on  which  he  is  supported.  A  majority 
of  the  tribes  creates  a  tribune  ;  cannot  the  whole 
depose  ?  What  more  sacred  than  the  things  which 
are  dedicated  at  the  shrines  of  the  immortal  gods  ? 
yet  these  the  people  may  employ  or  remove  at 
pleasure.  Why  not  transfer  the  tribunate,  as  a 
consecrated  title,  from  one  person  to  another? 
May  not  the  whole  people,  by  their  sovereign  au- 
thority, do  what  every  person  in  this  sacred  office 
is  permitted  to  do,  when  he  resigns  or  abdicates 
his  power  by  a  simple  expression  of  his  will  ?" 

These  specious  arguments  tended  to  introduce 
the  plea  of  necessity  where  there  was  no  founda- 
tion for  it,  and  to  set  the  sovereign  power,  in 
every  species  of  government,  loose  from  the  rules 
which  itself  had  enacted.  Such  arguments  ac- 
cordingly had  no  effect  where  the  interest  of  the 
parties  did  not  concur  to  enforce  them.  Tiberius 
saw  his  credit  on  the  decline.  He  was  publicly 
menaced  with  impeachment,  and  had  given  suf- 
ficient provocation  to  make  him  apprehend  that, 
upon  the  expiration  of  his  office,  some  violence 
might  be  offered  to  himself.1  His  person  was 
guarded  only  by  the  sacred  character  of  the  tri- 
bune. The  first  step  he  should  make  in  the  new 
character  he  was  to  assume,  as  commissioner  for 


1  Orosius,  lib.  v.  e.  8. 


the  division  of  lands,  was  likely  to  terminate  his 
life.  He  resolved,  if  possible,  to  take  shelter  in 
the  tribunate  another  year,  and,  to  procure  this 
favour  from  the  people,  gave  further  expectations 
of  popular  acts ;  of  one  to  shorten  the  term  of 
military  service,  and  of  another  to  grant  an  ap- 
peal to  the  people  from  the  courts  of  justice  lately 
established. 

The  senate,  and  every  citizen  who  professed  a 
regard  to  the  constitution,  were  alarmed.  This 
attempt,  they  said,  to  perpetuate  the  tribunitian 
power  in  the  same  person,  tends  directly  to  ty- 
ranny. The  usurper,  with  the  lawless  multitude 
that  supports  him,  must  soon  expel  from  the  pub- 
lic assemblies  every  citizen  who  is  inclined  to  mo- 
deration ;  and,  together  with  the  property  of  our 
lands,  to  which  they  already  aspire,  make  them- 
selves master  of  the  state.  Their  leader,  it  seems, 
like  every  other  tyrant,  already  thinks  that  his 
safety  depends  upon  the  continuance  of  his  power. 

In  this  feverish  state  of  suspense  and  anxiety, 
great  efforts  were  made  to  determine  the  elections. 
The  time  of  choosing  the  tribunes  was  now  fast 
approaching :  Roman  citizens,  dispersed  on  their 
lands  throughout  Italy,  were  engaged  in  the  har- 
vest, and  could  not  repair  to  the  city.  On  the  day 
of  election  the  assembly  was  ill  attended,  espe- 
cially by  those  who  were  likely  to  favour  Tibe- 
rius. He  being  rejected  by  the  first  tribes  that 
moved  to  the  ballot,  his  friends  endeavoured  to 
amuse  the  assembly  with  forms,  and  to  protract 
the  debates,  till  observing  that  the  field  did  not 
fill,  nor  the  appearance  change  for  the  better, 
they  moved  to  adjourn  to  the  following  day. 

In  this  recess  Tiberius  put  on  mourning,  went 
forth  to  the  streets  with  his  children,  and,  in  be- 
half of  hapless  infants,  that  might  already  be  con- 
sidered as  orphans,  on  the  eve  of  losing  their  pa- 
rent in  the  cause  of  freedom,  implored  the  pro- 
tection of  the  people;  gave  out  that  the  party  of 
the  rich,  to  hinder  his  being  re-elected,  had  deter- 
mined to  force  their  way  into  his  house  in  the 
night,  and  to  murder  him.  Numbers  were  af- 
fected by  these  dismal  representations  :  a  multi- 
tude crowded  to  his  doors,  and  watched  all  night 
in  the  streets. 

On  the  arrival  of  morning  and  the  approach  of 
the  assembly,  the  declining  appearance  of  his  af- 
fairs suggested  presages ;  and  the  superstition  of 
the  times  has  furnished  history  with  the  omens, 
by  which  himself  and  his  friends  were  greatly 
dismayed.  He,  nevertheless,  with  a  crowd  of  his 
partizans,  took  his  way  to  the  capitol,  where  the 
people  had  been  appointed  to  assemble.  His  at- 
tendants multiplied,  and  numbers  from  the  assem- 
bly descended  the  steps  to  meet  him.  Upon  his 
entry  a  shout  was  raised,  and  his  party  appeared 
sufficiently  strong,  if  not  to  prevail  in  their  choice, 
perhaps  by  their  violence  to  deter  every  citizen  of 
a  different  mind  from  attending  the  election. 

A  chosen  body  took  post  round  the  person  of 
Tiberius,  with  direction  to  suffer  no  stranger  to 
approach  him.  A  signal  was  agreed  upon,  in  case 
it  were  necessary  to  employ  force.  Mean  time 
the  senators,  on  their  part,  were  hastily  assembled 
in  the  temple  of  faith,  in  anxious  deliberations  on 
the  measures  to  be  followed. 

When  the  first  tribe  delivered  their  votes,  a 
confusion  arose  among  the  people.  Numbers 
from  the  more  distant  parts  of  the.  assembly  be- 
gan to  press  forward  to  the  centre.  Among 
others,  Fulvius,  Flaccus  a  senator,  yet  attached  to 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


97 


Tiberius  being  too  far  off  to  be  heard,  beckoned 
with  his  hand  that  he  would  speak  with  the  tri- 
bunes. Having  made  his  way  through  the  mul- 
titude, he  informed  Tiberius,  that  a  resolution 
was  taken  in  the  senate  to  resist  him  by  force ; 
and  that  a  party  of  senators,  with  their  clients  and 
slaves,  was  arming  against  his  life.  All  who  were 
near  enough  to  hear  this  information,  took  the 
alarm,  snatched  the  staves  from  the  officers  that 
attended  the  tribunes,  and  tucked  up  their  robes 
as  for  immediate  violence.  The  alarm  spread 
through  the  assembly,  and  many  called  out  to 
know  the  cause,  but  no  distinet  account  could  be 
heard.  Tiberius  having  in  vain  attempted  to 
speak,  made  a  sign,  by  waving  his  hand  round  his 
head,  that  his  life  was  in  danger.  This  sign,  to- 
gether with  the  hostile  and  menacing  appearances 
that  gave  rise  to  it,  being  instantly  reported  in  the 
senate,  and  interpreted  as  a  hint  given  to  the  peo- 
ple, that  it  was  necessary  he  should  be  crowned, 
or  that  he  should  assume  the  sovereignty,  the  sen- 
ate immediately  resolved,  in  a  form  that  was  usual 
on  alarming  occasions,  that  the  consul  should  pro- 
vide for  the  safety  of  the  state.  This  resolution 
was  supposed  to  confer  a  dictatorial  power,  and 
was  generally  given  when  immediate  execution  or 
summary  proceedings  were  deemed  to  be  neces- 
sary, without  even  sufficient  time  for  the  formali- 
ties observed  in  naming  a  dictator.  The  consul 
Mucius  Sca^vola,  who  had  been  in  concert  with 
Tiberius,  in  drawing  up  the  first  frame  of  his  law, 
but  who  probably  had  left  him  in  the  extremes 
to  which  he  afterwards  proceeded;  on  the  pre- 
esnt  occasion,  however,,  declined  to  employ  force 
against  a  tribune  of  the  people,  or  to  disturb  the 
tribes  in  the  midst  of  their  legal  assembly.  "  If 
they  shall  come,"  he  said,  "  to  any  violent  or  il- 
legal determination,  I  will  employ  the  whole  force 
of  my  authority  to  prevent  its  effects." 

In  this  expression  of  the  consul  there  did  not 
appear  to  the  audience  a  proper  disposition  for 
the  present  occasion.  The  laws  were  violated  : 
a  desperate  party  was  prepared  for  any  extremes : 
all  sober  citizens,  and  even  many  of  the  tribunes, 
had  fled  from  the  tumult :  the  priests  of  Jupiter 
had  shut  the  gates  of  their  temple ;  the  laws,  it 
was  said,  ought  to  govern ;  but  the  laws  cannot 
be  pleaded  by  those  who  have  set  them  aside,  and 
they  are  no  longer  of  any  avail,  unless  they  are  re- 
stored by  some  exertion  of  vigour,  fit  to  counteract 
the  violence  that  has  been  offered  them.  "  The 
consul,"  said  Scipio  Nasica,  "deserts  the  repub- 
lic ;  let  those  who  wish  to  preserve  it,  follow  me." 
The  senators  instantly  arose,  and  moving  in  a 
body,  which  increased  as  they  went,  by  the  con- 
course of  their  clients,  then  seized  the  shafts  of 
the  fasces,  or  tore  up  the  benches  in  their  way, 
and,  with  their  robes  wound  up,  in  place  of 
shields,  on  their  left  arm,  broke  into  the  midst  of 
the  assembly  of  the  people. 

Tiberius,  surrounded  by  a  numerous  multi- 
tude, found  his  party  unable  to  resist  the  awe 
with  which  they  were  struck  by  the  presence  of 
the  senate  and  nobles.  The  few  who  resisted 
were  beat  to  the  ground.  He  himself,  while  he 
fled,  being  seized  by  the  robe,  slipped  it  from  his 
shoulders  and  continued  to  fly  ;  but  he  stumbled 
in  the  crowd,  and  while  he  attempted  to  recover 
himself,  was  slain  with  repeated  blows.  His 
body,  as  being  that  of  a  tyrant,  together  with 
the  killed  of  his  party,  amounting  to  about  three 
hundred,  as  accomplices  in  a  treasonable  design 


against  the  republic,  were  denied  the  honours  of 
burial,  and  thrown  into  the  river.  Some  of  the 
most  active  of  his  partisans  that  escaped,  were 
afterwards  cited  to  appear,  and  were  outlawed  or 
condemned. 

Thus,  in  the  heats  of  this  unhappy  dispute, 
both  the  senate  and  the  people  had  been  carried 
to  acts  of  violence  that  insulted  the  laws  and  con- 
stitution of  their  country.  This  constitution  was 
by  no  means  too  strict  and  formal  to  contend 
with  such  evils ;  for,  besides  admitting  a  general 
latitude  of  conduct  scarcely  known  under  any 
other  political  establishment,  it  had  provided  ex- 
pedients for  great  and  dangerous  occasions,  which 
were  sufficient  to  extricate  the  commonwealth 
from  greater  extremities  than  those  to  which  it 
had  been  reduced  in  the  course  of  this  unfortu- 
nate contest. 

The  people,  when  restrained  from  their  object 
by  the  negative  of  one  of  their  tribunes,  had  only 
to  wait  for  the  expiration  of  his  office,  when,  by  a 
new  election,  they  might  so  model  the  college  as 
to  be  secure  of  its  unanimous  consent  in  the  par- 
ticular measures  to  which  they  were  then  in- 
clined. The  precipitant  violation  of  the  sacred 
law,  a  precedent  which,  if  followed,  must  have 
rendered  the  tribunes  mere  instruments  of  popu- 
lar violence,  not  bars  to  restrain  oppression,  filled 
the  minds  of  the  people  with  remorse  and  horror, 
and  gave  to  the  senate  and  nobles  a  dreadful  ap- 
prehension of  what  they  were  to  expect  from  a 
party  capable  of  such  a  profane  and  violent  ex- 
treme. 

The  policy  of  Tiberius  Gracchus  on  the  other 
hand,  the  laws  he  had  obtained,  his  own  re-elec- 
tion to  secure  the  execution,  and  the  sequel  of 
his  plan,  seemed  to  threaten  the  republic  with 
distraction  and  anarchy,  likely  to  end  in  his  own 
usurpation,  or  in  that  of  some  more  artful  dema- 
gogue. But  even  under  those  gloomy  expecta- 
tions the  senate  could,  by  naming  a  dictator,  or 
by  the  commission  which  they  actually  gave  to 
the  consul,  have  recourse  to  a  legal  preventive, 
and  might  have  repelled  the  impending  evil  by 
measures  equally  decisive  and  powerful,  though 
more  legal  than  those  they  employed.  But  the 
consul,  it  seems,  was  suspected  of  connivance 
with  the  opposite  party,  had  received  his  own 
commission  coldly,  and  could  not  be  entrusted 
with  the  choice  of  a  dictator! 

In  these  extremities,  the  violent  resolution  that 
was  taken  by  the  senate  appears  to  have  been 
necessary ;  and  probably  for  the  present  saved 
the  republic  ;  preserved  it  indeed,  not  in  a  sound, 
but  in  a  sickly  state,  and  in  a  fever,  which,  with 
some  intermissions,  at  every  return  of  similar 
disorders,  threatened  it  with  the  dissolution  and 
ruin  of  its  whole  constitution. 

The  disorders  that  arise  in  free  states  which 
are  beginning  to  corrupt,  generally  furnish  very 
difficult  questions  in  the  casuistry  of  politicians. 
Even  the  struggles  of  virtuous  citizens,  because 
they  do  not  prevent,  are  sometimes  supposed  to 
hasten  the  ruin  of  their  country.  The  violence 
of  the  senate,  on  this  occasion,  was  by  many  con- 
sidered with  aversion  and  horror.  The  subver- 
sion of  government,  that  was  likely  to  have  fol- 
lowed the  policy  of  Gracchus,  because  it  did  not 
take  place,  was  overlooked ;  and  the  restitution 
of  order,  effected  by  the  senate,  appeared  to  be  a 
tyranny  established  in  blood.  The  senators  them- 
selves were  struck  with  some  degree  of  remorse, 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  11. 


and,  what  is  dangerous  in  politics,  took  a  middle 
course  between  the  extremes.  They  were  cau- 
tious not  to  inflame  animosities,  by  any  immode- 
rate use  of  their  late  victory,  nor  by  any  imme- 
diate opposition  to  the  execution  of  the  popular 
law.  They  wished  to  atone  for  the  violences 
lately  committed  against  the  person  of  its  author ; 
they  permitted  Fulvius  Flaccus  and  Papirius 
Carbo,  two  of  the  most  daring  leaders  of  the 
popular  faction,  to  be  elected  commissioners  for 
the  execution  of  the  Agrarian  law,  in  the  room 
of  Tiberius  and  Appius  Claudius,  of  whom  the 
latter  also  died  about  this  time ;  and,  in  order 
to  stifle  animosities  and  resentments,  consented 
that,  under  pretence  of  an  embassy  to  Pergamus, 
Scipio  Nasica  should  be  removed  from  Rome. 
In  consequence  of  this  commission,  this  illus- 
trious citizen,  the  lineal  descendant  of  one  of  the 
Scipios  who  perished  in  Spain  in  the  time  of  the 
second  Punic  war,  himself  an  ornament  to  the 
republic,  died  in  a  species  of  exile,  though  under 
an  honourable  title. 

In  the  midst  of  such  agitations,  foreign  affairs 
were  likely  to  be  much  overlooked.  They  pro- 
ceeded, however,  under  the  conduct  of  the  officers 
to  whom  they  were  entrusted,  with  the  usual 
success;  and  the  senate,  having  the  reports  made 
nearly  about  the  same  time,  of  the  pacification  of 
Lusitania,  the  destruction  of  Numantia,  and  the 
reduction  and  punishment  of  the  slaves  in  Sicily, 
named  commissioners  to  act  in  conjunction  with 
the  generals  commanding  in  those  several  ser- 
vices, in  order  to  settle  their  provinces. 

Brutus  and  Scipio  had  their  several  triumphs ; 
one  with  the  title  of  Galaicus,  for  having  reduced 
the  Gallicians ;  the  other,  still  preferring  the  title 
of  Africanus  to  that  of  Numantinus,  which  was 
offered  to  him  for  the  sack  of  Numantia. 

The  arrival  of  this  respectable  citizen  was 
anxiously  looked  for  by  all  parties,  more  to  know 
what  judgment  he  might  pass  on  the  late  opera- 
tions at  Rome,  than  on  account  of  the  triumph 
he  obtained  over  enemies  once  formidable  to  his 
country.  He  was  the  near  relation  of  Gracchus, 
and  might,  under  pretence  of  revenging  the  death 
of  that  demagogue,  have  put  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  formidable  party.  He  was  himself  personally 
respected  and  beloved  by  numbers  of  the  citizens, 
who  had  carried  arms  under  his  command,  who 
were  recently  arrived  in  Italy  crowned  with  vic- 
tory, and  who  might  possibly,  under  pretence  of 
vindicating  the  rights  of  the  people,  employ  their 
arms  against  the  republic.  But  the  time  of  such 
criminal  views  on  the  commonwealth  was  not  yet 
arrived.  Scipio  already,  upon  hearing  the  fate 
of  Gracchus,  had  expressed,  in  some  words  that 
escaped  him,  his  approbation  of  the  senate's  con- 
duct. "  So  may  every  person  perish,"  he  said, 
"  who  shall  dare  to  commit  such  crimes."1  Soon 
after  his  arrival  from  Spain,  Papirius  Carbo,  the 
tribune,  called  upon  him  aloud,  in  the  assembly 
of  the  people,  to  declare  what  he  thought  of  the 
death  of  Gracchus.  "I  must  think,"  he  said, 
"that  if  Gracchus  meant  to  overturn  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country,  his  death  was  fully  merited." 
This  declaration  the  multitude  interrupted  with 
murmurs  of  aversion  and  rage.  Upon  which 
Scipio,  raising  his  tone,  expressed  the  contempt 
under  which  it  seems  that  the  populace  of  Rome 
had  already  fallen.    "I  have  been  accustomed," 


1  Plutarch,  In  Vit.  Tiberii  Gracchi 


he  said,  "to  the  shout  of  warlike  enemies,  and 
cannot  be  affected  by  your  dastardly  cries."  Then, 
alluding  to  the  number  of  enfranchised  slaves 
that  were  enrolled  with  the  tribes  of  the  city, 
upon  a  second  cry  of  displeasure,  he  continued, 
"  Peace,  ye  aliens  and  step-children  of  Italy.2 
You  are  now  free,  but  many  of  you  I  have 
brought  to  this  place  in  fetters,  and  sold  at  the  hal- 
bert  for  slaves."  Some  were  abashed  by  the  truth, 
and  all  by  the  boldness  of  this  contemptuous  re- 
proach, and  showed  that  popular  assemblies, 
though  vested  with  supreme  authority,  may  be 
sometimes  insulted,  as  well  as  courted,  with 
success. 

The  part  which  Scipio  took  on  this  occasion 
was  the  more  remarkable,  that  he  himself  was 
to  be  reckoned  among  the  poorer  citizens,  and 
might  have  been  a  gainer  by  the  rigorous  execu- 
tion of  the  Licinian  law.  His  whole  inherit- 
ance, according  to  Pliny,  amounted  to  thirty-two 
pounds,  or  three  hundred  and  twenty  ounces  of 
silver,  which  might  be  now  valued  at  about  two 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds  sterling. 

Papirius  Carbo  spent  the  year  of  his  tribunate 
in  fomenting  the  animosity  of  the 
Lex  Papina  people  against  the  senate,  and  in  pro- 
Tabeiiaria  moting  dangerous  innovations.  He 
Tenia.  obtained  a  law,  by  which  the  votes 
of  the  people,  in  questions  of  legisla 
lation  as  well  as  election,3  and  the  opinions  of  the 
judges  in  determining  causes,  were  to  be  taken 
by  ballot. 

He  was  less  successful  in  the  motion  he  madt 
for  a  law  to  enable  the  same  person  to  be  repeat 
edly  chosen  into  the  office  of  tribune.  He  was 
supported  in  this  motion  by  Caius  Gracchus; 
opposed  by  Scipio,  Laslius,  and  the  whole  autho- 
rity of  the  senate,4  who  dreaded  the  perpetuating 
in  any  one  person  a  power,  which  the  sacredness 
of  the  character,  and  the  attachment  of  the  popu- 
lace, rendered  almost  sovereign  and  irresistible. 

While  the  interests  of  party  were  exerted  in 
these  several  questions  at  home,  the  state  was 
laying  the  foundation  of  new  quarrels  abroad, 
and  opening  a  scene  of  depredation  and  conquest 
in  what  was  then  the  wealthiest  part  of  the 
known  world.  Soon  after  the  death  of  Attalus, 
king  of  Pergamus,  who  had  bequeathed  his  king- 
dom to  the  Romans,  Aristonicus,  his  natural 
brother,  being  the  illegitimate  son  of  Eumenes, 
made  pretensions  to  the  throne  of  Pergamus,  and 
was  supported  by  a  powerful  party  among  the 
people.    The  Romans  did  not  fail  to  maintain 

their  right :  Crassus,  one  of  the  con- 
U.  C.  622.    suls  of  the  preceding  year,  had  been 

sent  with  an  army  into  Asia  for 
that  purpose,  but  in  his  first  encounter  with 
Aristonicus,  was  defeated  and  taken.  He  was 
afterwards  killed  while  a  captive  in  the  hands  of 
the  enemy ;  having  intentionally  provoked  one 
of  his  guards  to  lay  violent  hands  on  him,  and 
thus  ended  a  life  which  he  thought  was  dis- 
honoured by  his  preceding  defeat. 

The  following  year,  the  consul  Perpenna  being 
sent  on  this  service,  and  having,  with  better  for- 
tune than  Crassus,  defeated  and  taken  Aristoni- 
cus, got  possession  of  the  treasure  and  kingdom 
of  Attalus,  but  died  in  his  command  at  Perga- 
mus. From  this  time  the  Romans  took  a  more 


2  Velleius  Paterculus,  lib.  ii.  c.  4. 

3  Cic.  rte  Le?ibus  lib  iii.      4  Cic-  de  Amicitia. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


99 


particular  concern  than  formerly  in  the  affairs  of 
Asia.  They  employed  Scipio  Emilianus,  with 
Sp.  Mummius,  and  L.  Metellus,  on  a  commis- 
sion of  observation  to  that  country.  We  are  told 
that  the  equipage  of  Scipio  upon  this  occasion 
consisted  of  seven  slaves ;  and  this,  as  a  mark  or 
characteristic  of  the  times,  is  perhaps  more  inte- 
resting than  any  thing  else  we  could  be  told  of 
the  embassy.  The  object  of  the  commission 
appears  to  have  related  to  Egypt  as  well  as 
to  Asia,5  though  there  was  not  any  power  in 
either  that  seemed  to  be  in  condition  to  alarm  the 
Romans.  Ptolemy  Euergetes  had  succeeded  to 
the  throne  of  Egypt,  but  was  expelled  by  the 
people  of  Alexandria.  Antiochus,  king  of  Syria, 
had  been  recently  engaged  in  a  very  unsuccessful 
war  with  the  Parthians;  and  it  had  not  yet  ap- 
peared how  far  it  concerned  the  Romans  to  ob- 
serve the  king  of  Pontus,  or  to  consider  of  the 
measures  to  be  taken  against  him  for  the  security 
of  their  possessions  in  Asia. 

In  whatever  degree  the  Roman  embassy  found 
worthy  objects  of  attention  in  the  state  of  the 
Asiatic  powers,  matters  were  hastening  in  Italy 
to  a  state  of  great  distraction  and  ferment,  on  ac- 
count of  the  violence  with  which  the  Agrarian 
law  was  put  in  execution  by  Papirius  Carbo, 
Fulvius  Flaccus,  and  Caius  Gracchus,  the  com- 
missioners appointed  for  this  purpose.  As  the 
law  authorized  them  to  call  upon  all  persons  pos- 
sessed of  public  lands  to  evacuate  them,  and  sub- 
mit to  a  legal  division ;  they,  under  this  pretence, 
brought  into  question  all  the  rights  of  property 
throughout  Italy,  and  took  from  one  and  gave  to 
another  as  suited  their  pleasure;  some  suffered 
the  diminution  of  their  estates  with  silent  rage ; 
others  complained  that  they  were  violently  re- 
moved from  lands  which  they  had  cultivated,  to 
barren  and  inhospitable  situations ;  even  they  who 
were  supposed  to  be  favoured,  complained  of  the 
lots  they  received.  Many  were  aggrieved,  none 
were  satisfied. 

Moved  by  the  representations  which  were  made 
of  these  abuses,  Scipio,  at  his  return  from  Asia, 
made  an  harangue  in  the  senate,  by  which  he 
drew  upon  himself  an  invective  from  Fulvius, 
one  of  the  commissioners.  l  ie  did  not  propose 
to  repeal  the  law,  but  that  the  execution  of  it 
should  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  so  pernicious 
a  faction,  and  committed  to  the  Consul  Sernpro- 
nius  Tuditanus,  who  remained  in  the  administra- 
tion of  affairs  in  Italy,  while  his  colleague  Aqui- 
lius  had  gone  to  Asia  to  finish  the  transaction  in 
the  conduct  of  which  Perpenna  died. 

It  is  mentioned  that  Scipio,  in  this  speech  to 
the  senate,  complained  of  insults  and  threats  to 
his  own  person,  which  induced  all  the  members, 
with  a  great  body  of  the  more  respectable  citizens, 
to  attend  him  in  procession  to  his  own 
Q.  C.  624.  house.  Next  morning  he  was  found 
dead  in  his  bed  ;6  and,  notwithstand- 
ing the  suspicions  of  violence  transmitted  by  dif- 
ferent authors,  nothing  certain  appears  upon  re- 
cord ;  and  no  inquest  was  ever  made  to  discover 
the  truth  of  these  reports.  This  illustrious  citi- 
zen, notwithstanding  his  services,  had  incurred 
so  much  the  displeasure  of  the  people,  that  he 
had  not  the  honours  of  a  public  funeral.  If  he  had 
not  died  at  this  critical  time,  the  senate,  it  was 
supposed,  meant  to  have  named  him  dictator,  for 


5  Val.  Max.  lib.  iv  c.  3.         6  Cic.de  Amfcitia. 


the  purpose  of  purging  the  state  of  the  evils;  with 
which  it  was  now  oppressed. 

The  occasion,  however,  was  not  sufficient  to 
make  the  senate  persist  in  their  intention  to  name 
a  dictator ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  material  record- 
ed as  having  happened  during  a  few  of  the  fol- 
lowing years,  duintus  Caicilius  Metellus  Ma- 
cedonicus,  and  duintus  Pompeius,  were  censors; 
both  of  plebeian  extraction;  of  which  this  is 
recorded  as  the  first  example.  Metellus,  at  the 
census,  made  a  memorable  speech,  in  which  he 
recommended  marriage,  the  establishment  of  fa- 
milies, and  the  rearing  of  children.  This  speech 
being  preserved,  will  recur  to  our  notice  again, 
being  read  by  Augustus  in  the  senate,  as  a  lesson 
equally  applicable  to  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 

The  people  who  were  fit  to  carry  arms,  as  ap- 
peared at  their  enrolment,  amounted  to  three 
hundred  and  seventeen  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  twenty-three.  But  what  is  most  memorable 
in  the  transactions  of  this  muster,  was  the  dis- 
grace of  Caius  Attinius  Labeo,  who,  being  struck 
off  the  rolls  of  the  senate  by  Metellus,  afterwards 
became  tribune  of  the  people ;  and,  by  the  diffi- 
culty with  which  the  effect  of  his  unjust  revenge 
came  to  be  prevented,  showed  the  folly  of  making 
the  will  of  any  officer  sacred,  in  order  to  restrain 
the  commission  of  wrongs. 

Metellus,  in  returning  from  the  country,  about 
noon,  while  the  market-place  was  thin  ol  people, 
found  himself  suddenly  apprehended  by  this  vin- 
dictive tribune,  and  ordered  to  be  thrown  imme- 
diately from  the  Tarpcian  rock.  The  people 
assembled  in  crowds,  were  sensible  of  the  tri- 
bune's breach  of  the  sacred  trust  reposed  in  him ; 
and,  accosting  Metellus  by  the  name  of  father, 
lamented  his  fate;  but,  unless  another  tribune 
could  be  found  to  interpose  in  his  favour,  there 
was  no  other  power  in  the  commonwealth  that 
could,  without  supposed  profanation,  interrupt  a 
tribune  even  in  the  commission  of  a  crime.  Me- 
tellus struggled  to  obtain  a  delay,  was  overpow- 
ered and  dragged  through  the  streets,  while  the 
violence  he  suffered  made  the  blood  to  spring  from 
his  nostrils.  A  tribune  was  with  difficulty  found 
in  time  to  save  his  life;  but  Attinius  having, 
with  a  lighted  lire  and  other  forms  of  consecra- 
tion, devoted  his  estate  to  sacred  uses,  it  is  alleged 
that  he  never  recovered  it.7 

Such  was  the  weak  state  to  which  the  govern- 
ment was  reduced  by  the  late  popular  encroach- 
ments, that  this  outrageous  abuse  of  power  was 
never  punished;  and  such  the  moderation  of  this 
great  man's  family,  that  though  he  himself  lived 
fifteen  years  in  high  credit  after  this  accident, 
saw  his  family  raised  to  the  highest  dignities,  and 
was  carried  to  his  grave  by  four  sons,  of  whom 
one  had  been  censor,  two  had  triumphed,  three 
had  been  consuls,  and  the  fourth,  then  prator, 
was  candidate  for  the  consulate,  which  he  obtain- 
ed in  the  following  year;  yet  no  one  of  this  pow- 
erful family  chose  to  increase  the  disturbances  of 
the  commonwealth,  by  attempting  to  revenge  the 
outrage  which  their  father  had  suffered.8 

Caius  Attinius  is  mentioned  as 
LexJlttinia.   being  the  person  who  obtained  the 
admission  of  the  tribunes,  in  right  of 
their  office  a.s  members  of  the  senate.9 


7  Kin.  Hb.  vii.  c.  44.  Cicero,  in  pleadine  to  have  his 
house  Festered  to  him,  though  devoted  to  sacred  use>, 
states  the  form  of  consecration  in  the  case  of  Mete  II  ir- 
but  denies  the  effect  at  it.   Pro  domn  sua,  c.  47. 

c"  Plin  lib  vii.  r  44.      0  A.  Gellius,  lib  xiv.  c.  8. 


100 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


The  Consul  Sempronius,  though  authorized 
by  the  senate  to  restrain  the  violence  of  the  com- 
missioners who  were  employed  in  the  Agrarian 
law,  declined  that  hazardous  business,  and  chose 
rather  to  encounter  the  enemy  in  the  province  of 
1  stria,  where  he  made  some  conquests  and  ob- 
tained a  triumph. 

In  the  same  turbulent  times  lived  Pacuvius. 
the  tragic  poet,  and  Lucilius,  inventor  of  the  sa- 
tire. The  latter,  if  we  suppose  him  to  be  the 
•oame  whose  name  is  found  in  the  list  of  questors, 


was  a  person  of  rank,  and  moved  in  the  line  of 
political  preferment. 

Historians  mention  a  dreadful  eruption  of 
Mount  Etna,  the  effect  of  subterraneous  fires, 
which,  shaking  the  foundations  of  Sicily  and 
the  neighbouring  islands,  gave  explosions  of 
flame,  not  only  from  the  crater  of  the  mountain, 
but  likewise  from  below  the  waters  of  the  sea, 
and  forced  sudden  and  great  inundations  over 
the  islands  of  Lapare  and  the  neighbouring 
coasts. 


CHAPTER  III. 

State  of  the  Italian  Allies,  and  the  Views  which  now  began  to  be  conceived  by  them — Appearance 
of  Caius  Gracchus — Resolution  to  purge  the  City  of  Aliens — Consulate  and  factious  Notions  of 
Fulvius  Flaccus — Conspiracy  of  Fregellaz  suppressed — Caius  Gracchus  returns  to  Rome — 
Offers  himself  Candidate  for  the  Tribunate — Address  of  Cornelia — Tribunate  and  Acts  of  Caius 
Gracchus — Re-election — Proposal  to  admit  the  Inhabitants  of  Italy  on  the  Rolls  of  Roman 
Citizens — Popular  Acts  of  Gracchus  and  Livius — The  Senate  begin  to  prevail — Death  of 
Caius  Gracchus  and  Fulvius. 


THE  eruption  of  Mount  Etna,  and  the  other 
particulars  relating  to  the  natural  history  of  Italy, 
with  the  mention  of  which  we  concluded  our  last 
chapter,  were  considered  as  prodigies,  and  as  the 
presages  of  evils  which  were  yet  to  afflict  the  re- 
public. At  this  time  indeed  the  state  of  Italy 
seemed  to  have  received  the  seeds  of  much  trou- 
ble, and  to  contain  ample  materials  of  civil  com- 
bustion. The  citizens,  for  whom  no 
U.  C.  627.  provision  had  been  made  at  their  re- 
turn from  military  service,  or  who 
thought  themselves  partially  dealt  with  in  the 
colonies,  the  leaders  of  tumult  and  faction  in  the 
city,  were  now  taught  to  consider  the  land-pro- 
perty of  Italy  as  their  joint  inheritance.  They 
were,  in  imagination,  distributing  their  lots,  and 
selecting  their  shares. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  inhabitants  of  the  mu- 
nicipia,  or  free  towns,  and  their  districts,  who, 
not  being  citizens,  served  the  state  as  allies,  had 
reason  to  dread  the  rapacity  of  such  needy  and 
powerful  masters.  They  themselves  likewise 
began  to  repine  under  the  inequality  of  their 
condition.  They  observed,  that  while  they  were 
scarcely  allowed  to  retain  the  possessions  of  their 
ancestors,  Rome,  aided  by  their  arms,  had  gained 
that  extensive  dominion,  and  obtained  that  terri- 
tory, about  which  the  poor  and  the  rich  were 
now  likely  to  quarrel  among  themselves.  "The 
Italian  allies,"  they  said,  "must  bleed  in  this 
contest,  no  less  than  they  had  done  in  the  foreign 
or  more  distant  wars  of  the  commonwealth." — 
They  had  been  made,  by  the  professions  of  Ti- 
berius Gracchus,  to  entertain  hopes  that  every 
distinction  in  Italy  would  soon  be  removed,  that 
every  freeman  in  the  country  would  be  enrolled, 
as  a  citizen  of  Rome,  and  be  admitted  to  all  the 
powers  and  pretensions  implied  in  that  designa- 
tion. The  consideration  of  this  subject,  therefore, 
could  not  be  long  delayed,  and  the  Roman  senate, 
already  struggling  with  attacks  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,  had  an  immediate  storm  to  apprehend 
from  the  allies. 

The  revolutions  of  the  state  had  been  so  fre- 
quent, and  its  progress  from  small  beginnings  to 
a  great  empire  had  been  so  rapid,  that  the  changes 


to  which  men  are  exposed,  and  the  exertions  of 
which  they  are  capable,  no  where  appear  so  con- 
spicuous, or  are  so  distinctly  marked. 

In  the  first  ages  the  political  importance  of  a 
Roman  citizen  appears  not  to  have  been  felt  or 
understood.  Conquered  enemies  were  removed 
to  Rome,  and  their  captivity  consisted  in  being 
forced  to  be  Romans,  to  which  they  submitted 
with  great  reluctance.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that  every  foreigner  was  welcome  to  take  his 
place  as  a  Roman  citizen  in  the  assembly  of  the 
people,  that  many  were  admitted  into  the  senate,1 
and  some  even  on  the  throne.2  It  is  likely,  also, 
that  the  first  colonies  considered  themselves  as  de- 
tached from  the  city  of  Rome,  and  as  forming  can- 
tons apart ;  for  we  find  them,  like  the  other  states 
of  Italy,  occasionally  at  war  with  the  Romans. 

But  when  the  sovereignty  of  Italy  came  to  be 
established  at  Rome,  and  was  there  actually  ex- 
ercised by  the  collective  body  of  the  people,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  colonies,  it  is  probable,  laid 
claim  to  their  votes  in  elections,  and  presented 
themselves  to  be  enrolled  in  the  tribes.  They  felt 
their  consequence  and  their  superiority  over  the 
municipia,  or  free  towns  in  their  neighbourhood, 
to  whom,  as  a  mark  of  distinction  and  an  act  of 
munificence,  some  remains  of  independence  had 
been  left.  Even  in  this  state,  the  rolls  of  the 
people  had  been  very  negligently  compiled,  or 
preserved.  The  kings,  the  consuls,  the  censors, 
who  were  the  officers,  in  different  ages  of  the 
state,  entrusted  with  the  musters,  admitted  on  the 
rolls  such  as  presented  themselves,  or  such  as  they 
chose  to  receive.  One  consul  invited  all  the  free 
inhabitants  of  Latium  to  poll  in  the  assemblies 
of  the  people ;  another  rejected  them,  and  in  time 
of  elections  forbid  them  the  city. — But  notwith- 
standing this  prohibition,  aliens  that  were  brought 
to  Rome  on  a  foot  of  captivity,  were  suffered  by 
degrees  to  mix  with  the  citizens.3  The  inhabit- 
ants of  the  free  towns,  removing  to  Rome  upon  any 


1  The  Claudian  family  were  aliena. 

2  Tarquinius  Priscus  was  of  Greek  extraction  and 
an  alien    om  Tarqiiinii. 

3  This  happened  particularly  in  the  case  of  the  Cam- 
panian 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


101 


creditable  footing,  found  easy  admission  on  the 
rolls  of  some  tribe.  The  towns  complained  they 
were  depopulated.  The  Romans  endeavoured 
to  shut  the  gates  of  their  city  by  repeated  scruti- 
nies, and  the  prohibition  of  surreptitious  enrol- 
ments :  but  in  vain.  The  practice  still  continued, 
and  the  growing  privilege,  distinction,  and  emi- 
nence of  a  Roman  citizen,  made  that  title  become 
the  great  object  of  individuals,  and  of  entire  can- 
tons. It  had  already  been  bestowed  upon  districts 
whose  inhabitants  were  not  distinguished  by  any 
singular  merit  with  the  Roman  state.  In  this 
respect  all  the  allies  were  nearly  equal ;  they  had 
regularly  composed  at  least  one-half  in  every 
Roman  army,  and  had  borne  an  equal  share  in 
all  the  dangers  and  troubles  of  the  common- 
wealth; and,  from  having  valued  themselves  of 
old  on  their  separate  titles  and  national  distinc- 
tions, they  began  now  to  aspire  to  a  share  in  the 
sovereignty  of  the  empire,  and  wished  to  sink  for 
ever  their  provincial  designations  under  the  gene- 
ral title  of  Romans. 

Not  only  the  great  power  that  was  enjoyed  in 
the  assembly  of  the  people,  and  the  serious  privi- 
leges that  were  bestowed  by  the  Porcian  law,  but 
even  the  title  of  citizen  in  Italy,  of  legionary  sol- 
dier in  the  field,  and  the  permission  of  wearing 
the  Roman  gown,  were  now  ardently  coveted  as 
marks  of  dignity  and  honour.  The  city  was  fre- 
quented by  persons  who  hoped  separately  to  be 
admitted  in  the  tribes,  and  by  numbers  who 
crowded  from  the  neighbouring  cantons,  on  every 
remarkable  day  of  assembly,  still  flattering  them- 
selves, that  the  expectations  which  Gracchus  had 
raised  on  this  important  subject  might  soon  be 
fulfilled. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  the  senate 
U.  C.  G27.  authorized  Junius  Pennus,  one  of 
Consuls  ■  M  tne  tr'Dunes>  to  move  the  people  for 
Emilius  Le-  an  edict  to  prohibit,  on  days  of  elec- 
yidus.L.Au-  tion  or  public  assembly,  this  con- 
relius  Ores-  course  of  aliens,  and  requiring  all  the 
tes-  country  towns  to  lay  claim  to  their 

denizens,  who  had  left  their  own  corporations 
to  act  the  part  of  citizens  at  Rome. 

On  this  occasion,  Caius  Gracchus,  the  brother 
of  the  late  unfortunate  tribune,  stood  forth,  and 
made  one  of  the  first  appearances,  in  which  he 
showed  the  extent  of  his  talents,  as  well  as  the 
party  he  was  likely  to  espouse  in  the  common- 
wealth. This  young  man,  being  about  twenty 
years  of  age  when  the  troubles  raised  by  his  elder 
brother  had  so  much  disturbed  the  republic,  and 
when  they  ended  so  fatally  for  himself,  had  re- 
tired upon  that  catastrophe  from  the  public  view, 
and  made  it  uncertain  whether  the  fate  of  Tibe- 
rius might  not  deter  him,  not  only  from  embracing 
like  dangerous  counsels,  but  even  from  entering 
at  all  on  the  line  of  political  affairs.  His  retire- 
ment, however,  he  spent  in  such  studies  as  were 
then  come  into  repute,  on  account  of  their  impor- 
tance, as  a  preparation  for  the  business  of  courts 
of  justice,  of  the  senate,  and  of  the  popular  assem- 
blies ;  and  the  first  appearance  he  made  gave  evi- 
dence of  the  talents  he  had  acquired  for  these 
several  departments.  His  parts  seemed  to  be 
quicker,  and  his  spirit  more  ardent,  than  that  of 
his  elder  brother ;  ami  the  people  conceived  hopes 
of  having  their  pretensions  revived,  and  more 
successfully  conducted,  than  under  their  former 
leader.  The  cause  of  the  country  towns,  in 
which  he  now  engaged,  was  specious,  and  tended 


to  form  a  new,  a  numerous,  and  a  formidable 
party  in  Italy,  likely  to  join  in  every  factious  at- 
tempt which  might  throw  the  public  into  disorder, 
and  make  way  for  the  promiscuous,  admission  of 
aliens  on  the  rolls  of  the  people.  This  cause, 
however,  was  fraught  with  so  much  confusion  to 
the  state,  and  tended  so  much  to  lessen  the  po- 
litical consequence  of  those  who  were  already 
citizens,  that  the  argument  in  favour  of  the  reso- 
lution to  purge  the  city  of  aliens  prevailed,  and 
an  act  to  that  purpose  accordingly  was  passed4  in 
the  assembly  of  the  people. 

It  deserves  to  be  recorded,  that  amidst  the  in- 
quiries set  on  foot  in  consequence  of  this  edict,  or 
about  this  time,  Perpenna,  the  father  of  a  late 
consul,5  was  claimed  by  one  of  the  Italian  corpo- 
rations, and  found  not  to  have  been  a  citizen  of 
Rome.  His  son,  whom  we  have  already  men- 
tioned, having  vanquished  and  taken  Aristonicus, 
the  pretended  heir  of  Attalus,  died  in  his  com- 
mand at  Pergamus ;  and  he  is  accordingly  said 
to  have  been  a  rare  example  of  the  caprice  of  for- 
tune, in  having  been  a  Roman  consul,  though 
not  a  Roman  citizen.  This  example  may  con- 
firm what  has  been  observed  of  the  latitude  which 
officers  took  in  conducting  the  census. 

The  fires  of  sedition  which  had  sometime  preyed 
on  the  commonwealth  were  likely  to  break  out. 

with  increasing  force  upon  the  pro- 
U.  C.  G28.  motion  of  Fuhius  Flaccus  to  the 
dignity  of  first  magistrate.  This 
M.  Plautius  factious  citizen  had  blown  up  the 
Fultius  Fi™  flame  with  Tiberius  Gracchus,  and 
cusVlUS  a°  having  succeeded  him  in  the  com- 
mission for  executing  the  Agrarian 
law,  never  failed  to  carry  the  torch  wherever 
matter  of  inflammation  or  general  combustion 
could  be  found.  By  his  merit  with  the  popular 
party  he  had  attained  his  present  eminence,  and 
was  determined  to  preserve  it  by 
Leges  Fulvia.  continuing  his  services.  He  be- 
gan the  functions  of  his  office  by 
proposing  a  law  to  communicate  the  right  of  citi- 
zens to  the  allies  or  free  inhabitants  of  Italy ;  a 
measure  which  tended  to  weaken  the  power  of 
the  senate,  and  to  increase  the  number  of  citizens 
greatly  beyond  what  could  be  assembled  in  one 
collective  body.  Having  failed  in  this  attempt, 
he  substituted  a  proposal  in  appearance  more 
moderate,  but  equally  dangerous,  that  whoever 
claimed  the  right  of  citizen,  in  case  of  being  cast 
by  the  censors,  who  were  the  proper  judges, 
might  appeal  to  the  people.6  This  would  have 
conferred  the  power  of  naturalization  on  the  popu- 
lar leaders ;  and  the  danger  of  such  a  measure 
called  upon  the  senate  to  exert  its  authority  and 
influence  in  having  this  motion  also  rejected. 

When  the  consul  appeared  to  be  fairly  entered 
on  his  career,  and,  by  uniting  the  power  of  the 
supreme  magistracy  with  that  of  a  commissioner 
for  dividing  the  property  of  lands,  was  likely  to 
break  through  all  the  forms  which  hail  hitherto 
retarded  the  execution  of  the  Agrarian  law,  he 
was  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  assemble  the 
senate,  and  to  take  his  place.  The  whole  body 
joined  in  representations  against  these  dangerous 
measures,  and  in  a  request  that  he  would  with- 
draw his  motions.   To  these  applications  he  made 

4  Sextus  Pompeius  Festus  in  voce  Repitblica.  Cicero 
in  Bruto  in  Officii*,  lib.  iii. 

5  Valerius  Maximus,  lib.  iii.  c.  4. 

6  Appiau.  ile  Bell  Civ  lib.  i. 


102 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


no  reply  ,x  but  an  occasion  soon  offered,  by  which 
the  senate  was  enabled  to  divert  him  from  his 
purpose.  A  deputation  arrived  from  Marseilles, 
then  in  alliance  with  Rome,  to  intreat  the  sup- 
port of  the  republic  against  the  Salyii,  a  neigh- 
bouring nation,  who  had  invaded  their  territories. 
The  senate  gladly  embraced  this  opportunity  to 
find  a  foreign  employment  for  the  consul,  decreed 
a  speedy  aid  to  the  city  of  Marseilles,  and  ap- 
pointed M.  Fulvius  Flaccus  to  that  service.  Al- 
though this  incident  marred  or  interrupted  for 
the  present  his  political  designs,  yet  he  was  in- 
duced, by  the  hopes  of  a  triumph,  to  accept  of  the 
command  which  now  offered,  and,  by  his  absence, 
to  relieve  the  city  for  a  while  from  the  alarms 
which  he  had  given.  Caius  Gracchus,  too,  was 
gone  in  the  capacit}^  of  proquestor  to  Sardinia ; 
and  the  senate,  if  they  could  by  any  pretences 
have  kept  those  unquiet  spirits  at  a  distance,  had 
hopes  of  restoring  the  former  order  of  the  com- 
monwealth. 

In  this  interval  some  laws  are  said  to  have 
passed  respecting  the  office  and  conduct  of  the 
censors.  The  particulars  are  not  mentioned  ;  but 
the  object  probably  was,  to  render  the  magistrate 
more  circumspect  in  the  admission  of  those  who 
claimed  to  be  numbered  as  citizens.  Such  was 
likely  to  be  the  policy  of  the  senate,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  demagogues,  who,  by  proposing  to  admit 
the  allies  on  the  rolls  of  the  people,  had  awakened 
dangerous  pretensions  in  every  corner  of  Italy. 
It  soon  appeared  how  seriously  these  pretensions 
were  adopted  by  the  country  towns ;  for  the  in- 
habitants already  bestirred  themselves,  and  were 
beginning  to  devise  how  they  might  extort  by 
force  what  they  were  not  likely  to  obtain  with 
consent  of  the  original  denizens  of  Rome.  A 
suspicion  having  arisen  of  such  treasonable  con- 
certs forming  at  Fregelte,  the  praetor  Opimius 
had  a  special  commission  to  inquire  into  the  mat- 
ter, and  to  proceed  as  he  should  find  the  occasion 
required.  Having  summoned  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  the  place  to  appear  before  him,  he  received, 
upon  a  promise  of  doing  no  violence  to  his  per- 
son, full  information  of  the  combinations  that  had 
been  forming  against  the  government  of  Rome. 
So  instructed,  he  assembled  such  a  force  as  was 
necessary  to  support  him  in  asserting  the  authority 
of  the  state ;  and  thinking  it  necessary  to  give  a 
striking  example  in  a  matter  of  so  dangerous 
and  infectious  a  nature,  he  ordered  the  place  to 
be  razed  to  the  ground.2 

By  this  act  of  severity,  the  de- 
U.  C.  629.  signs  of  the  allies  were  for  a  while 
C.  Cassius  suspended,  and  might  have  been 
Longinus,  entirely  suppressed,  if  the  factions 
C.  Sextius  at  Rome  had  not  given  them  fresh 
Calvmus.  encouragement,  and  hopes  of  suc- 
cess or  impunity.  This  transaction  was  scarcely 
past,  when  Caius  Gracchus  appeared  in  the  city 
to  solicit  the  office  of  tribune ;  and,  by  his  pre- 
sence revived  the  hopes  of  the  allies.  Having 
observed,  that  the  proconsul  Aurelius  Cotta,  un- 
der whom  he  served  as  proquestor  in  Sardinia, 
instead  of  being  recalled,  was  continued  in  his 
command,  and  furnished  with  reinforcements  and 
supplies  of  every  sort,  as  for  a  service  of  long  du- 
ration; and  suspecting  that  this  measure  was 


1  Val.  Max.  lib.  ix.  c.  5. 

2  Liv.  lib.  Ix.  Velleius  Obsequens.  Cic.  lib.  ii.  De 
Lnveutione;  De  Finibus  v.  Ibid     Rhetorius,  lib.  iv. 


pointed  at  himself,  and  proceeded  from  a  design 
to  keep  him  at  a  distance  from  the  popular  assem- 
blies, he  quitted  his  station  in  Sardinia,  and  re- 
turned without  leave.  He  was  called  to  account 
by  the  censors  for  deserting  his  duty;  but  de- 
fended himself  with  such  ability  and  force,  as 
greatly  raised  the  expectations  which  had  already 
been  entertained  by  his  party.3 

The  law,  he  said,  required  him  only  to  carry 
arms  ten  years,  he  had  actually  carried  them 
twelve  years;  although  he  might  legally  have 
quitted  his  station  of  questor  at  the  expiration  of 
one  year,  yet  he  had  remained  in  it  three  years. 
However  willing  the  censors  may  have  been  to 
remove  this  pest  from  the  commonwealth,  they 
were  too  weak  to  attempt  any  censure  in  this 
state  of  his  cause,  and  in  the  present  humour 
of  the  people.  They  endeavoured,  in  vain,  to 
load  him  with  a  share  in  the  plot  of  Fregellse ; 
he  still  exculpated  himself :  and,  if  he  had  pos- 
sessed every  virtue  of  a  citizen,  in  proportion  to 
his  resolution,  application,  eloquence,  and  even 
severity  of  manners,  he  might  have  been  a  power- 
ful support  to  the  state.  In  a  speech  to  the  peo- 
ple, on  his  return  from  Sardinia,  he  concluded 
with  the  following  remarkable  words :  "  The 
purse  which  I  carried  full  to  the  province,  I  have 
brought  empty  back.  Others  empty  the  wine 
casks  which  they  carry  from  Italy,  and  bring 
them  from  the  provinces  replenished  with  silver 
and  gold."4 

In  declaring  himself  a  candidate  for  the  office 
of  tribune,  Caius  Gracchus  professed  his  inten- 
tion to  propose  many  popular  laws.  The  senate 
exerted  all  their  influence  to  disappoint  his  views; 
but  such  were  the  expectations  of  the  popular 
party  throughout  all  Italy,  that  they  crowded  to 
the  election  in  greater  numbers  than  could  find 
place  in  the  public  square.  They  handed  and 
reached  out  their  ballots  at  the  windows  and  ovei 
the  battlements  ;  and  Gracchus,  though  elected, 
was,  in  consequence  of  the  opposition  given  to 
him,  only  fourth  in  the  list.5 

Cornelia,  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  who,  ever 
since  the  death  of  her  son  Tiberius,  lived  in  re- 
tirement in  Campania,  upon  hearing  of  the  career 
which  her  son,  Caius,  was  likely  to  run,  alarmed 
at  the  renewal  of  a  scene  which  had  already  oc- 
casioned her  so  much  sorrow,  expostulated  with 
him  on  the  course  he  was  taking;  and,  in  an 
unaffected  and  passionate  address,  spoke  that  ar- 
dent zeal  for  the  republic,  by  which  the  citizens 
of  Rome  had  been  long  distinguished. 

This  high-minded  woman,  on  whom  the  en- 
tire care  of  her  family  had  devolved  by  the  death 
of  her  husband,  whilst  the  children  were  yet  in 
their  infancy,  or  under  age,  took  care,  with  un- 
usual attention,  to  have  them  educated  lor  the  rank 
they  were  to  hold  in  the  state,  and  did  not  tail 
even  to  excite  their  ambition.  When  Tiberius, 
after  the  disgrace  of  Mancinus,  appeared  to  with- 
draw from  the  road  of  preferments  and  honours, 
"  How  long,"  she  said,  "shall  I  be  distinguished 
as  the  mother-in-law  of  Scipio,  not  as  the  mother 
of  the  Gracchi  ?"  This  latter  distinction,  how- 
ever, she  came  to  possess ;  and  it  has  remained 
with  her  name,  but  from  circumstances  and  events 
which  this  respectable  personage  by  no  means  ap- 


3  Plutarch,  in  C.  Graccho. 

4  A.  Gellius,  lib.  xv.  c.  12. 

5  Plutarch,  Appian,  Orosius,  Eutrop.  Obsoquons. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


103 


peared  to  desire.  In  one  fragment  of  her  letters 
to  Caius,  which  is  still  preserved,  "You  will  tell 
me,"  she  said,  "that  it  is  glorious  to  be  revenged 
of  our  enemies.  No  one  thinks  so  more  than  1, 
if  v/e  can  be  revenged  without  hurt  to  the  repub- 
lic; but  if  not,  often  may  our  enemies  escape. 
Long  may  they  be  safe,  if  the  good  of  the  com- 
monwealth requires  their  safety."  In  another 
letter,  which  appears  to  be  written  after  his  in- 
tention of  suing  for  the  tribunate  was  declared, 
she  accosts  him  to  the  following  purpose:  "1 
take  the  gods  to  witness,  that,  except  the  persons 
who  killed  my  son  Tiberius,  no  one  ever  gave  me 
so  much  affliction  as  you  do  in  this  matter.  You, 
from  whom  I  might  have  expected  some  consola- 
tion in  my  age,  and  who,  surely,  of  all  my  chil- 
dren, ought  to  be  most  careful  not  to  distress  me ! 
I  have  not  many  years  to  live.  Spare  the  repub- 
lic so  long  for  my  sake.  Shall  1  never  see  the 
madness  of  my  family  at  an  end?  When  I  am 
dead,  you  will  think  to  honour  me  with  a  parent's 
rites:  but  what  honour  can  my  memory  receive 
from  you,  by  whom  I  am  abandoned  and  disho- 
noured while  I  live?  But,  may  the  gods  forbid 
you  should  persist!  if  you  do,  I  fear  the  course 
you  are  taking  leads  to  remorse  and  distraction 
which  will  end  only  with  your  life."  6 

These  remonstrances  do  not  appear  to  have 
had  any  effect.  Caius,  upon  his  accession  to  the 
tribunate,  proceeded  to  fulfil  the  expectations  of 
his  party.  The  Agrarian  law,  though  still  in 
force,  had  met  with  continued  interruption  and 
delay  in  the  execution.  It  was  even  falling  into 
neglect.  Caius  thought  proper,  as 
Lex  Scmpro-  the  first  act  of  his  magistracy,  to 
niaagraria.  move  a  renewal  and  confirmation  of 
it,  with  express  injunctions,  that 
there  should  be  an  annual  distribution  of  land  to 
the  poorer  citizens.7  To  this  he  subjoined,  in  the 
first  year  of  his  office,  a  variety  of  regulations 
tending  either  to  increase  his  popu- 
Lcxfrumen-  larity,  or  to  distinguish  his  adminis- 
taria.  tration.    Upon  his  motion,  public 

granaries  were  erected,  and  a  law 
was  made,  that  the  corn  should  be  issued  from 
thence  monthly  to  the  people,  two  parts  in  twelve 
under  the  prime  or  original  cost.8 

This  act  gave  a  check  to  industry,  which  is  the 
best  guardian  of  manners  in  populous  cities,  or 
wherever  multitudes  of  men  are  crowded  together. 

Caius  likewise  obtained  a  decree,  by  which  the 
estates  of  Attalus,  king  of  Pergamus,  lately  be- 
queathed to  the  Romans,  should  be  let  in  the 
manner  of  other  lands  under  the  inspection  of  the 
censors;  but  the  rents,  instead  of  being  made 
part  of  the  public  revenue,  should  be  allotted  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  poorer  citizens.9 

Another,  by  which  any  person  deposed  from  an 
office  of  magistracy  by  the  people,  was  to  be  deem- 
ed for  ever  disqualified  to  serve  the  republic  in  any 
other  capacity.10  This  act  was  intended  to  operate 
against  Octavius,  who,  by  the  influence  of  Ti- 
berius, had  been  degraded  from  the  office  of  tri- 
bune; and  the  act  took  its  title  from  the  name  of 
the  person  against,  whom  it  was  framed. 

6  Fragmenta  Corn.  Ncpotis  ab  Andrea  Scotto  col- 
iecta,  edlta  cum  scriplis  (Join.  Nepotis. 

7  Li  v.  lib.  lx.  Vetlejus,  lib.  ii.  Hygin.ua  de  Limiti- 
mis.    Appian,  de  Viris  Illustrious. 

8  Semisse  et  tricenti,  for  a  half  and  a  third,  &c.  Lrv. 
Plutarch.  Appian.  ibid. 

9  Floras,  lib.  iii.c.  15.   Cicer.  in  Verrem. 

10  Privilegium  in  Octpvjum. 


An  act  to  regulate  the  conditions  of  the  military 
service,"  by  which  no  one  was  obliged  to  enter 
before  seventeen  years  of  age,  and  by  w  hich  Ro- 
man soldiers  were  to  receive  clothing  as  well  as 
pay;12  possibly  the  first  introduction  of  a  uniform 
into  the  Roman  legions  :  a  circumstance  which,  in 
modern  times,  is  thought  so  essential  to  the  cha- 
racter of  troops,  and  the  appearance  of  an  army. 

By  the  celebrated  law  of  Porcius,  which  allow- 
ed of  an  appeal  to  the  people,  every  citizen  had  a 
remedy  against  any  oppressive  sentence  or  pro- 
ceeding of  the  executive  magistrate;  but  this  did 
not  appear  to  Gracchus  a  sufficient  restrain*  on 
the  officers  of  state.  He  proposed  to  have  it 
enacted,  that  no  person,  under  pain  of  a  capital 
punishment,  should  at  all  proceed  against  a  citi- 
zen without  a  special  commission  or  warrant  from 
the  people  to  that  effect.  And  he  proposed  to  give 
this  law  a  retrospect,  in  order  to  comprehend  Po- 
pilius  Laenas13  who,  being  consul  in  the  year  after 
the  troubles  occasioned  by  Tiberius  Gracchus,  had, 
under  the  authority  of  the  senate  alone,  proceeded 
to  try  and  condemn  such  as  were  accessary  to  that 
sedition.  Lamas  perceived  the  storm  that  was 
gathering  against  him,  and  chose  to  avoid  it  by  a 
voluntary  exile.  This  act  was  indeed  almost  an 
entire  abolition  of  government,  and  a  bar  to  the 
exercise  of  such  ordinary  powers  as  were  neces- 
sary to  the  peace  of  the  commonwealth.  A  popu- 
lar faction  could  withhold  every  power,  which,  in 
their  apprehension,  might  be  employed  against 
themselves  ;  and  in  their  most  pernicious  designs 
had  no  interruption  to  fear  from  the  dictator 
named  by  the  senate  and  consuls,  nor  from  the 
consul  armed  with  the  authority  of  the  senate  for 
the  suppression  of  disorders;  a  resource  to  which 
the  republic  had  frequently  owed  its  preservation. 
As  we  find  no  change  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
state  upon  this  new  regulation,  it  is  probable  that 
the  absurdity  of  the  law  prevented  its  effect. 

While  Gracchus  thus  proposed  to  make  all  the 
powers  of  the  state  depend  for  their  existence  on 
the  occasional  will  of  the  people,  he  meant  to  ren- 
der the  assemblies  of  the  people  themselves  more 
democratical,  by  stripping  the  higher  classes  of 
the  prerogative,  precedence,  or  influence  they  pos- 
sessed, in  leading  the  public  decisions.  The  cen- 
turies being  hitherto  called  to  vote  in  the  order  of 
their  classes,  those  of  the  first  or  highest  class,  by 
voting  first,  set  an  example  which  was  often  fol- 
lowed by  the  whole,  n  By  the  statute  of  Grac- 
chus, the  centuries  were  required,  in  every  ques- 
tion, to  draw  lots  lor  the  prerogative,  and  ga\e 
their  votes  in  the  order  they  had  drawn. 

Under  this  active  tribune,  much  public  busi- 
ness, that  used  to  pass  through  the  senate,  was 
engrossed  by  the  |K>pular  assemblies.  Even  in  the 
form  of  these  assemblies,  all  appearance  of  re- 
spect to  the  senate  waf  laid  aside.  The  rostra,  or 
platform  on  which  the  presiding  magistrate  stood, 
was  placed  in  the  middle  of  an  area,  of  which  one 
part  was  the  market-place,  surrounded  with  stalls 
and  booths  for  merchandize,  and  the  courts  of  jus- 
tice; the  other  part,  called  the  comituun,  was 
open  to  receive  the  people  in  their  public  assem- 
blies; and  on  one  side  of  it,  fronting  the  rostra,  or 
bench  of  the  magistrates,  stood  the  curia,  or  sen- 
ate-house. The  people,  when  anyone  wasspcak- 
11  De  militant  OOHUnodis. 

n  Plutarch,  in  (J.  Grace  ho— Lex  Scmpronia  <lc 
bertate  civiuin. 

13  Cicer.  in  Cluentjo;  pro  Rabino;  pro  domo  si 

14  Tha  first  century  was  called  the  prerogative 


101 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


ing,  stood  partly  in  the  rnarket-place,  and  partly 
in  the  comitium.  The  speakers  directed  their 
voice  to  the  comitium,  so  as  to  be  heard  in  the 
senate.  This  disposition,  Gracchus  reversed ;  and 
directing  his  voice  to  the  forum,  or  market-place, 
seemed  to  displace  the  senate,  and  deprive  that 
body  of  their  office  as  watchmen  and  guardians 
of  the  public  order  in  matters  that  came  before 
the  popular  assemblies.1 

At  the  time  that  the  tribune  Caius  Gracchus 
engaged  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries,  and  fur- 
nished history  chiefly  with  these  effects  of  his  fac- 
tious and  turbulent  spirit,  it  is  observed,  that  he 
himself  executed  works  of  general  utility ;  bridges, 
highways,  and  other  public  accommodations 
through  Italy.  And  that  the  state  having  carried 
its  arms,  for  the  first  time,  over  the  Alps,  happily 
terminated  the  war  with  the  Salyii,  a  nation  of 
Gaul,  whose  territory  became  the  first  province  of 
Rome  in  that  country.  And  that  Caius  Sextius, 
consul  of  the  preceding  year,  was  authorized  to 
place  a  colony  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  hot 
springs,  which,  from  his  name,  were  called  the 
Aquae  Sextise,  and  are  still  known  by  a  corruption 
of  the  same  appellation.2 

From  Asia,  at  the  same  time,  it  was  reported, 
that  Ariarathes,  the  king  of  Cappadocia,  and  ally 
of  the  Romans,  was  murdered,  at  the  instigation 
of  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus,  whose  sister  he- 
had  married ;  that  he  had  left  a  son  for  whom 
Mithridates  affected  to  secure  the  kingdom  ;  but 
that  the  widowed  queen  having  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  Nicomedes,  king  of  Bithynia,  this  prince, 
in  her  right,  had  taken  possession  of  Cappadocia, 
while  Mithridates,  in  name  of  his  nephew,  was 
hastening  to  remove  him  from  thence.  On  this 
subject  a  resolution  was  declared  in  the  assembly 
of  the  people  at  Rome,  that  both  Nicomedes  and 
Mithridates  should  be  required  immediately  to 
evacuate  Cappadocia,  and  to  withdraw  their 
troops.  This  resolution  Caius  Gracchus  opposed 
with  all  his  eloquence  and  his  credit,  charging  his 
antagonist  aloud  with  corruption,  and  a  clandes- 
tine correspondence  with  the  agents,  who,  on  dif- 
ferent sides,  were  now  employed  at  Rome  in  so- 
liciting this  affair.  "  None  of  us,"  he  said,  "  stand 
forth  in  this  place  for  nothing.  Even  [,  who  de- 
sire you  to  put  money  in  your  own  coffers,  and  to 
consult  the  interest  of  the  state,  mean  to  be  paid, 
not  with  money  indeed,  but  with  your  favour  and 
a  good  name.  They  who  oppose  this  resolution 
likewise  covet,  not  honours  from  you,  but  money 
from  Nicomedes;  and  they  who  support  it,  expect 
to  be  paid  by  Mithridates,  not  by  you.  As  for 
those  who  are  silent,  they,  I  believe>  understand 
the  market  best  of  all.  They  have  heard  the  story 
of  the  poet,  who  being  vain  that  he  had  got  a 
great  sum  of  money  for  rehearsing  a  tragedy,  was 
told  by  another,  that  it  wag  not  wonderf  ul  he  had 
got  so  much  for  talking,  when  I,  said  the  other, 
who  it  seems  knew  more  than  he  was  wished  to 
declare,  have  got  ten  times  as  much  for  holding  my 
tongue.  There  is  nothing  that  a  king  will  buy 
at  so  great  a  priee,  on  occasion,  as  silence."3 

Such,  at  times,  was  the  style  in  which  this  po- 
pular orator  chose  to  address  his  audience,  in- 
dividuals are  won  by  flattery,  the  multitude  by 
buffoonery  and  satire.  From  the  tendency  of  this 


1  M.  Varro  de  Re  Rustic.*),  lib.  i.  c.  2.  Cic.  de  Atni- 
citia.    Plutavch.  in  vit.  Caii  Gracchi. 

2  At  Aix,  in  Provence.      3  A.  Gellius,  lib.  ii.  c.  10. 


speech,  it  appears  to  have  been  the  opinion  of 
Gracchus,  not  that  the  Romans  should  sequester 
the  kingdom  of  Cappadocia  for  the  heirs  of  Ari- 
arathes, but  that  they  should  seize  it  for  them- 
selves. The  question,  however,  which  now  arose 
relating  to  the  succession  to  this  kingdom,  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  tedious  and  bloody  war,  of  which 
the  operations  and  events  will  occur  in  their  place. 

Gracchus,  on  the  approach  of  the 
U.  C.  639.  election  of  consuls,  employed  all 
C.  Fannius,  his  credit  and  influence  to  support 
Cn.  Domitius  Caius  Fannius,  in  opposition  to 
Ahenobarbus.  Opimius,  who,  by  his  vigilance  and 
activity  in  suppressing  tlje  treason- 
able designs  of  the  allies  at  Fregellss,  had  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  the  popular  party ;  and  Fannius 
being  accordingly  chosen,  together  with  Cn.  Do- 
mitius Ahenobarbus,  Gracchus  proceeded  to  offer 
himself  as  a  candidate  to  be  re-elected  into  the 
office  of  tribune.  In  this  he  followed  the  example 
of  his  brother  Tiberius  in  a  step,  which,  being 
reckoned  illegal  as  well  as  alarming,  was  that 
which  hastened  his  ruin.  An  attempt  had  been 
since  made  by  Papirius  Carbo  to  have  the  legality 
of  such  re-elections  acknowledged  ;  but  this 
having  failed,  Caius  Gracchus,  with  great  ad- 
dress, inserted  in  one  of  his  popular  edicts,  a  clause 
declaring  it  competent  for  the  people  to  re-elect  a 
tribune,  in  case  he  should  need  a  continuation  of 
his  power  in  order  to  fulfil  his  public  engage- 
ments. To  avail  himself  of  this  clause,  he  now 
declared,  that  his  views  in  behalf  of  the  people 
were  far  from  being  accomplished.  Under  this 
pretence  he  obtained  a  preference  to  one  of  the 
new  candidates,  and  greatly  strengthened  the  tri- 
bunitian  power  by  the  prospect  of  its  repeated  re- 
newals, and  duration  for  an  indefinite  time. 

Upon  his  re-election,  Caius,  continuing  his  ad- 
ministration upon  the  same  plan  of  animosity  to 
the  senate,  obtained  a  law  to  deprive  that  body  of 
the  share  which  his  brother  had  left  them  in  the 
courts  of  justice ;  and  ordaining,  that  the  judges, 
for  the  future,  should  be  draughted  from  the 
equestrian  order  alone,  a  class  of  men,  who,  being 
left  out  of  the  senate,  and  of  course  not  compre- 
hended in  the  laws  that  prohibited 
Lex  Scmpro-  commerce,  had  betaken  themselves, 
nia  Judicia-  as  has  been  observed,4  to  lucrative 
ria'  professions,  were  the  farmers  of  the 

revenue,  the  contractors  for  the  army, 
and,  in  general,  the  merchants  who  conducted  the 
whole  trade  of  the  republic,  Though  they  might 
be  considered  as  neutral  in  the  disputes  of  the 
senate  and  people,  and  therefore  impartial  where 
the  other  orders  were  biassed,  there  was  no  class 
of  men  more  likely  to  prostitute  the  character  of 
judges  for  interest  or  actual  hire.  This  revolution 
in  the  courts  of  justice  accordingly  may  have 
contributed  greatly  to  hasten  the  approaching 
corruption  of  manners,  and  the  disorders  of  the 
government. 

The  next  ordinance  prepared  by 
Lex  de  Pro-  Gracchus,  or  ascribed  to  him,  re- 
vinciis  ordi-  lated  to  the  nomination  of  officers  to 
nandis.  govern  the  provinces  ;  and,  if  it  had 
been  strictly  observed,  might  have- 
made  some  compensation  for  the  former.  The 
power  of  naming  such  officers  was  committed  to 
the  senate,  and  the  arrangements  were  to  be  an- 
nually made  before  the  election  of  consuls.  This 

4  Page  91. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


105 


continued  to  be  law,  but  was  often  overruled  by 
the  people.5 

In  the  same  year,  the  boldest  and  most  dan- 
gerous project  that  had  ever  been  formed  by  any 
of  the  popular  leaders,  that  for  admitting  the 
Italian  allies  upon  the  rolls  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple, already  attempted  by  Fulvius  Flaccus,  was 
again  renewed  by  Caius  Gracchus;  and,  upon 
the  utmost  exertion  of  the  vigilance  and  authority 
of  the  senate,  with  great  difficulty  prevented. 

The  rumour  of  this  project  having  brought 
multitudes  to  Rome,  the  senate  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  give  the  consuls  in  charge  to  clear  the 
city,  on  the  day  that  this  important  question  was 
expected  to  come  on,  of  all  strangers,  and  not  to 
suffer  any  aliens  to  remain  within  four  miles  of 
the  walls.  During  the  dependence  of  this  ques- 
tion. Gracchus  flattered  the  poorer  citizens  with 
the  prospect  of  advantageous  settlements,  in  cer- 
tain new  colonies,  of  six  thousand  men  each, 
which  he  proposed  to  plant  in  the  districts  of  Cam- 

iiania  and  Tarentum,  the  most  cultivated  parts  of 
taly,  and  in  colonies,  which  he  likewise  proposed 
to  send  abroad  into  some  of  the  richest  provinces. 
Such  settlements  had  been  formerly  made  to  oc- 
cupy and  secure  recent  conquest ;  they  were  now 
calculated  to  serve  as  baits  to  popular  favour,  and 
as  a  provision  made  by  the  leaders  of  faction,  for 
their  own  friends  and  adherents. 

The  senate,  attacked  by  such  popular  arts,  re- 
solved to  retort  on  their  adversaries ;  and  for  this 
purpose  instructed  Marcus  Livius,  another  of  the 
tribunes,  to  take  such  measures  as  should,  if  pos- 
sible, supplant  Gracchus  in  the  favour  of  the 
people.  Livius,  professing  to  act  in  concert  with 
the  senate,  proposed  a  number  of  acts :  one  to 
conciliate  the  minds  of  the  allies,  by  giving  them, 
while  they  served  in  the  army,  the  same  exemp- 
tion from  corporeal  punishment  which  the  Ro- 
man citizens  had  enjoyed. 

Another,  for  the  establishment  of 
Lex  Livia  de  twelve  different  colonies,  each  of 
Tergo  Civi-  three  thousand  citizens.  But  what, 
urn  Latini  possibly,  had  the  greatest  effect,  be- 
JYomims.  cause  it  appeared  to  exceed  in  muni- 
ficence all  the  edicts  of  Gracchus, 
was  an  exemption  of  all  those  lands,  which  should 
be  distributed  in  terms  of  the  late  Sempronian 
law,  from  all  quit-rents  and  public  burdens,  which 
had  hitherto,  in  general,  been  laid  on  all  posses- 
sions that  were  held  from  the  public.6  It  was 
proposed  to  name  ten  commissioners  to  distribute 
lands  thus  unincumbered  to  the  people ;  and 
three  colonies  are  mentioned,  Syllaceum,  Taren- 
tum, and  Neptunia,  as  having  been  actually  sent 
abroad  this  year,  and  probably  on  these  terms. 

About  the  same  time  it  was  de- 
Lex  Rubria.  creed,  that  the  city  of  Carthage  might 
be  rebuilt  for  the  reception  of  a  colony 
of  six  thousand  Roman  citizens.  This  decree 
bears  the  name,  not  of  Sempronius  or  of  Livius, 
but  of  Rubrius,  another  tribune  of  the  same  year. 

The  senate  readily  agreed  to  the  settlement  of 
these  colonies,  as  likely  to  carry  off  a  number  of 
the  more  factious  citizens,  and  to  furnish  an  op- 
portunity likewise  of  removing  from  the  city,  for 
some  time,  the  popular  leaders  themselves,  under 
pretence  of  employing  them  to  conduct  and  to 


5  Florus,  lib.  iv.  c.  13.  Sallust.  de  Bell.  Jugurth.  No. 
621.   Cicero  de  Provinciis  Consularibus. 

6  riutarch.  Paulus  Minutius  de  Legibus  Romanis. 

o 


settle  the  families  destined  to  form  those  esta- 
blishments. Accordingly,  Caius  Gracchus,  and 
Fulvius  Flaccus,  late  consul,  and  now  deeply 
engaged  in  all  these  factious  measures,  were 
destined  to  take  charge  of  the  new  colonists,  and 
to  superintend  their  settlement.7 

In  the  mean  time,  the  senate,  in 
U.  C.  632.  the  election  of  Opimius  to  the  con- 
sulship of  the  following  year,  carried 
Con.  L.  Opi-  an  important  object  to  the  reputation 
Q?Fa6.  Max-  ana"  interest  of  their  party,  and  con- 
imus.  '  ceived  hopes  of  being  able,  by  the 
authority  of  this  magistrate,  to  com- 
bat the  designs  of  Gracchus  more  effectually  than 
they  had  hitherto  done.  He  was  accordingly  re- 
tained in  the  administration  of  affairs  in  Italy, 
while  his  colleague,  Fabius,  was  appointed  to 
command  in  Gaul.  Caius  Gracchus,  having  the 
presumption  to  offer  himself  a  third  time  candi- 
date for  the  office  of  tribune,  was  rejected,  and 
had  the  mortification  to  find,  that  the  authority 
of  the  senate  began  to  prevail ;  and,  as  they  had 
credit  enough  to  procure  his  exclusion  from  any 
share  in  the  magistracy,  so  they  might  be  able  to 
frustrate  or  reverse  many  of  the  acts  he  had  ob- 
tained in  favour  of  his  party. 

By  the  repulse  of  Gracchus  and  his  associates, 
the  aristoeratical  party  came  to  have  a  majority, 
even  in  the  college  of  tribunes.  Questions  of 
legislation  were  now  likely  to  be  determined  in 
the  assembly  of  the  centuries;  and  this  circum- 
stance alone,  while  the  senate  was  able  to  retain 
it,  was  equal  to  an  entire  revolution  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  centuries,  under  the  leading  of  an 
active  consul,  were  likely  to  annul  former  reso- 
lutions with  the  same  decision  and  rapidity  with 
which  they  had  been  passed.  Much  violence  was 
expected,  and  the  different  parties,  recollecting 
what  had  happened  in  the  case  of  Tiberius 
Gracchus,  took  measures  not  to  be  surprised  by 
their  antagonists;  for  the  most  part  came  to  the 
place  of  assembly  in  bands,  even  under  arms, 
and  endeavoured  to  possess  the  advantage  of  the 
ground  as  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy. 

Minucius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  in  consequence 
of  a  resolution  of  the  senate,  pretending  that  he 
was  moved  by  some  unfavourable  presages,  pro- 
posed a  repeal  or  amendment  of  some  of  the  late 
popular  acts;  and  particularly,  to  change  the 
destination  of  the  colony'  intended  for  Carthage, 
to  some  other  place.  This  motion  was  strenu- 
ously opposed  by  Fulvius  Flaccus,  and  by  Caius 
Gracchus,  who  treated  the  report  of  presages 
from  Africa  as  a  mere  fiction,  and  the  whole  de- 
sign as  proceeding  from  the  inveterate  hatred  of 
the  nobles  to  the  people.  Before  the  assembly 
met,  in  which  this  question  was  to  be  decided, 
these  popular  leaders  attempted  to  seize  the  capi- 
tol,  but  found  themselves  prevented  by  the  con- 
sul, who  had  already  with  an  armed  force  secured 
that  station. 

In  the  morning  after  they  had  received  this 
disappointment,  the  people  being  assembled,  and 
the  consul  being  employed  in  offering  up  the  cus- 
tomary sacrifices,  Gracchus,  with  his  partv,  came 
to  their  place  in  the  comitium.  One  of  the  at- 
tendants of  the  consul,  who  was  carrying  away 
the  entrails  of  the  victim,  reproached  Gracchus, 
as  he  passed,  with  sedition,  and  bid  him  desist 
from  his  machinations  against  the  government 


7  Plutarch.  Appian.  Orosius. 


106 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


of  the  commonwealth.  On  this  provocation,  one 
of  the  party  of  Gracchus  struck  the  consul's  offi- 
cer with  his  dagger,  and  killed  him  on  ths  spot. 
The  cry  of  murder  ran  through  the  multitude, 
and  the  assembly  began  to  break  up.  Gracchus 
endeavoured  to  speak,  but  could  not  be  heard  for 
the  tumult;  and  all  thoughts  of  business  were 
laid  aside.  The  consul  immediately  summoned 
the  senate  to  meet;  and  having  reported  what 
had  happened  in  the  comitium,  and  what  appear- 
ed to  him  the  first  act  of  hostility  in  a  war,  which 
the  popular  faction  had  prepared  against  the 
state,  he  received  the  charge  that  was  usual  on 
perilous  occasions,  to  provide,  in  the  manner 
which  his  own  prudence  should  direct,  for  the 
safety  of  the  commonwealth.  Thus  authorized, 
he  commanded  the  senators  and  the  knights  to 
arm,  and  made  proper  dispositions  to  secure  the 
principal  streets.  Being  master  of  the  capitol  and 
forum,  he  adjourned  the  assembly  of  the  people 
to  the  usual  place  on  the  following  day,  and  cited 
the  persons  accused  of  the  murder  to  answer  for 
the  crime  which  was  laid  to  their  charge. 

In  consequence  of  this  adjournment,  and  the 
consul's  instructions,  numbers  in  arms,  repaired 
to  the  comitium  at  the  hour  of  assembly,  and 
were  ready  to  execute  such  orders  as  they  might 
receive  for  the  public  safety.  Gracchus  and  Ful- 
vius refused  to  answer  the  citation,  and  the  capi- 
tol being  secured  against  them,  they  took  post, 
with  a  numerous  party  in  arms>  on  the  Aventine 
hill,  which  was  opposite  to  the  capitol,  and  from 
which  they  equally  looked  down  on  the  forum 
and  place  of  assembly.  Being  again  cited  to  ap- 
pear at  the  tribunal  of  the  Roman  people,  they 
sent  a  young  man,  one  of  the  sons  of  Fulvius,  to 
capitulate  with  the  consul,  and  to  settle  the  terms 
on  which  they  were  to  surrender  themselves. 
Upon  this  message  they  were  told,  in  return,  that 
they  must  answer  at  the  bar  of  the  assembly,  as 


criminals,  not  pretend  to  negotiate  with  the  re- 
public, as  equals ;  that  no  party,  however  nume- 
rous, was  entitled  to  parley  with  the  people  of 
Rome:  and  to  this  answer  the  messenger  was 
forbid,  at  his  peril,  to  bring  any  reply.  The  party, 
however,  still  hoped  to  gain  time,  or  to  divide 
their  enemies;  and  they  ventured  to  employ  young 
Fulvius  again  to  repeat  their  message.  He  was 
seized  by  the  consul's  orders.  Gracchus  and  Ful- 
vius, with  their  adherents,  were  declared  public 
enemies ;  and  a  l'eward  was  offered  to  the  person 
who  should  kill  or  secure  them.  They  were 
instantly  attacked,  and  after  a  little  resistance, 
forced  from  their  ground.  Gracchus  fled  by  the 
wooden  bridge  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  river, 
and  was  there  slain,  either  by  his  own  hand,  or 
by  that  of  a  faithful  servant,  who  had  undertaken 
the  task  of  saving  him  in  his  last  extremity  from 
falling  into  the  power  of  his  enemies.  Fulvius 
was  dragged  to  execution  from  a  bath  where  he 
attempted  to  conceal  himself.  The  heads  of  both 
were  carried  to  the  consul,  and  exchanged  for  the 
promised  reward. 

In  this  fray  the  party  of  the  senate  being  re- 
gularly armed  and  prepared  for  slaughter,  cut  oft' 
the  adherents  of  Caius  Gracchus  and  Fulvius 
in  greater  numbers  than  they  had  done  those  of 
Tiberius ;  they  killed  about  three  thousand  two 
hundred  and  fifty  in  the  streets,  and  confined 
great  numbers,  who  were  afterwards  strangled 
m  the  prisons.  The  bodies  of  the  slain,  as  the 
law  ordained,  in  the  case  of  treason,  being  denied 
the  forms  of  a  funeral,  were  cast  into  the  river, 
and  their  estates  confiscated.1 

The  house  of  Fulvius  was  razed  to  the  ground, 
the  area  laid  open  for  public  uses;  and,  from 
these,  beginnings,  it  appeared  that  the  Romans, 
who,  in  the  pursuit  of  their  foreign  conquests, 
had  so  liberally  shed  the  blood  of  other  nations, 
might  become  equally  lavish  of  their  own. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

State  of  Order  and  Tranquillity  which  followed  the  Suppression  of  the  late  Tumults — Appear- 
ance of  Caius  Marius — Foreign  Wars — Complaints  against  Jugurtha — Appearance  of  the 
Cimbri — War  with  Jugurtha — Campaign  and  Treaty  of  Piso — Jugurtha  comes  to  Rome 
with  a  Safe- Conduct — Obliged  to  retire  from  thence — Campaign  of  Metellus — Of  Marius — 
Jugurtha  betrayed  by  Bocchus — His  Death,  after  the  Triumph  of  Marius —  This  General  re- 
elected, in  order  to  command  against  the  Cimbri. 


THE  popular  party  had,  in  the  late  tumults, 
carried  their  violence  to  such  extremes,  as  dis- 
gusted and  alarmed  every  person  who  had  any 
desire  of  domestic  peace ;  and  in  their  ill-advised 
recourse  to  arms,  but  too  well  justified  the  mea- 
sures which  had  been  taken  against  them.  By  this 
exertion  of  vigour,  the  senate  and  ordinary  ma- 
gistrates, recovered  their  former  authority ;  affairs 
returned  to  their  usual  channel,  and  the  most  per- 
fect order  seemed  to  arise  from  the  late  confu- 
sions. OvUestions  of  legislation  were  allowed  to 
take  their  rise  in  tie  senate,  and  were  not  car- 
ried to  the  people,  without  the  sanction  of  the 
senate's  authority.  The  legislative  power  was 
exercised  in  a»e  rasembly  of  the  centuries,  and 
the  prohibitory  <j?  defensive  function  of  the  tri- 
bunes, or  reprmi  atives  of  the  people,  was  such, 
ts  to  preveiu  s»  LDuses  of  the  executive  power 


in  the  hands  of  the  aristocracy,  without  stopping 
the  proceedings  of  government,  or  substituting  a 
democratical  usurpation  in  its  place.  Even  the 
judicative  power,  vested  in  the  equestrian  order, 
promised  to  have  a  salutary  effect,  by  keeping  a 
balance  between  the  different  ranks  and  distinc- 
tions of  men  in  the  republic. 

The  aristocratical  party,  notwithstanding  the 
ascendant  they  had  recently  gained,  did  not  at- 
tempt to  rescind  any  of  the  regular  institutions 
of  Gracchus;  they  were  contented  with  inflict- 
ing punishments  on  those  who  had  been  acces- 
sary to  the  late  sedition,  and  with  re-establish- 
ing such  of  the  nobles  as  had  suffered  by  the 
violence  of  the  popular  faction.  Popilius  Laenas, 


1  Appian.  Plutarch.  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  12.  Florus, 
lib.  iii.  c.  15.   Auctor  de  Viris  Illustribus,  c.  65. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


107 


driven  into  exile  by  one  of  the  edicts  of  Grac- 
chus, or  by  the  persecution  to  which  it  exposed 
him,  was  now  recalled  upon  the  motion  of  Cal- 
purnius  Piso,  one  of  the  tribunes.2 

As  the  state  of  parties  was  in  some  measure 

reversed,  Papirius  Carbo  thought 
U.  C.  633.    proper  to  withdraw  from  the  po- 

pular^Side;  and,  by  the  credit  of 
tiush™ndT'(J  those  now  in  possession  of  the  go- 
Papirils  Carbo.  vernment,  was  promoted  to  the  sta- 
tion of  consul,  and  yielded  the  first 
fruits  of  his  conversion  by  defending  the  cause  of 
his  predecessor  Opimius,  who,  at  the  expiration 
of  his  consulate,  was  brought  to  trial  for  having 
put  Roman  citizens  to  death  without  the  forms 
of  law.  Carbo,  though  himself  connected  with 
those  who  suffered,  now  pleaded  the  justice  and 
necessity  of  the  late  military  executions;  and, 
upon  this  plea,  obtained  the  acquittal  of  his  client. 

This  merit  on  the  part  of  Carbo,  however,  did 
not  so  far  cancel  his  former  offences  as  to  prevent 
his  being  tried  and  condemned  in  the  following 
year,  as  an  accomplice  in  the  sedition  of  Gracchus. 
He  was  supposed  to  have  been  accessary  to  the 
death  of  Scipio  ;  and  his  cause  not  being  warmly 
espoused  by  any  party,  he  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the 
imputation  of  his  heinous  crime.  It  is  said,  that, 
upon  hearing  his  sentence,  he  killed  himself.3 
Octavius,  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  present 

year,  moved  an  amendment  of  the 
LexOctavia  law  obtained  by  Gracchus,  re- 
Frumentaria.    specting  the  distribution  of  corn 

from  the  public  granaries,  probably 
to  ease  the  treasury  in  part  of  that  burden  ;  but 
the  particulars  are  unknown. 

About  this  time  the  celebrated  Caius  Marius 
began  to  appear  in  the  public  assemblies  of  the 
people.  He  was  a  person  of  obscure  birth,  and 
rustic  manners,  formed  amidst  the  occupations  of 
a  peasant,4  and  the  hardships  of  a  legionary  sol- 
dier, but  of  a  resolute  spirit,  and  insatiable  ambi- 
tion. He  was  a  native  of  Arpinum,  and  without 
any  other  apparent  title  than  that  of  being  a 
denizen  of  Rome,  laid  claim  to  the  honours  of  the 
state.  He  is  remarkable  for  having  suffered  more 
repulses  in  his  first  attempts  to  be  elected  into 
office,  and  for  having  succeeded  more  frequently 
afterwards,  than  any  other  Roman  citizen  during 
the  existence  of  the  commonwealth. 

Marius,  after  being  disappointed  in  his  first 
canvass  for  the  office  of  tribune,  succeeded  in  the 
following  year.  The  acts  which  were  passed 
under  his  tribunate,  and  which  bear  his  name,  do 
not  carry  any  violent  expressions  of  party-spirit, 
nor  give  intimation  of  that  insatiate  ambition  with 
which  he  afterwards  distressed  his  country  ;  the 

first  related  to  the  conduct  of  elec- 
Lex  Maria  de  tions,  and  provided  some  remedy 
Suffrages.       for  an  evil  which  was  complained 

of  in  the  manner  of  soliciting  votes. 
The  space  between  the  rails,  by  which  the  citi- 
zens passed  to  give  in  their  ballots,  was  so  broad 
as  to  admit,  not  only  those  who  came  to  vote,  but 
the  candidates  likewise,  with  their  adherents  and 
friends,  who  came  to  importune  and  to  overawe 
the  people  in  the  very  act  of  delivering  their  votes. 
Marius  proposed  to  put  an  end  to  this  practice, 
and  to  provide  for  the  entire  freedom  of  the  people, 
by  narrowing  the  entrance,  so  that  only  the  voters 

2  Cicero  in  Bruto. 

3  Valerius  Max.  lib.  iii.  c.  7.   Cicero  in  Bruto. 

4  Juvenal.  Sat.  viii.    Plin.  lib.  xxxiii.  c.  11. 


could  pass.  A  party  of  the  nobles,  with  Aure- 
lius  Cotta  the  consul  at  their  head,  not  knowing 
with  what  a  resolute  spirit  they  were  about  to 
contend,  being  averse  to  this  reformation,  prevailed 
on  the  senate  to  withhold  its  authority,  without 
which  any  regular  question  on  this  subject  could 
not  be  put  to  the  people.  But  Marius,  in  the 
character  of  tribune,  threatened  the  consul  with 
immediate  imprisonment,  if  he  did  not  move  to 
recall  this  vote  of  the  senate.  The  matter  being 
reconsidered,  Lucius  Metcllus,  who  was  first  on 
the  rolls,  having  given  his  voice  for  affirming  the 
first  decree,  was  ordered  by  Marius  into  custody ; 
and  there  being  no  tribune  to  intercede  for  him, 
must  have  gone  to  prison,  if  the  dispute  had  not 
terminated  by  the  majority  agreeing  to  have  the 
matter  carried  to  the  people,  as  Marius  pro- 
posed, with  the  sanction  of  the  senate's  authority. 

In  another  of  the  acts  of  Marius,  the  republic 
was  still  more  indebted  to  his  wisdom  and  courage, 
in  withstanding  an  attempt  of  one  of  his  col- 
leagues to  flatter  the  indigent  citizens  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  public  treasury,  by  repealing  the 
recent  regulation  of  Octavius,  and  lowering  the 
terms  on  which  corn  was  distributed  from  the 
granaries.  This  was  an  ordinary  expedient  of 
tribunitian  faction.  Marius  opposed  it  as  of  dan- 
gerous consequence.  And  his  conduct  in  this 
matter  marked  him  out  as  one  not  to  be  awed  by 
any  party,  and  a  person  who,  into  whatever  party 
he  should  be  admitted,  was  destined  to  govern. 
The  times  indeed  were  likely  to  give  more  im- 
portance to  his  character  as  a  soldier  than  a  citi- 
zen ;  and  in  that  he  was  still  farther  raised  above 
the  malice  of  those  who  were  inclined  to  revile 
or  undervalue  what  were  called  his  upstart  pre- 
tensions.* 

From  the  time  that  the  Romans  first  passed 
into  the  Transalpine  Gaul,  as  auxiliaries  to  the 
republic  of  Marseilles,  they  had  kept  on  foot  in 
that  neighbourhood  a  military  force ;  and,  by 
planting  colonies  at  convenient  stations,  showed 
their  intention  of  maintaining  possessions  on  that 
side  of  the  Alps.  Betultus,  or  Betultich,  a  prince 
of  the  country,  who  was  supposed  able  to  raise  a 
force  of  two  hundred  thousand  men,  attempted  to 
expel  these  intruders,  but  was  defeated,  first  by 
the  proconsul  Fabius,  afterwards  by  Domitius 
Ahcnobarbus,  and  furnished  these  generals  with 
the  subjects  of  their  respective  triumphs.  This 
prince  himself  became  a  captive  to  Domitius,  and 
was  carried  to  Rome,  where  he  was  led  in  pro- 
cession, distinguished  by  his  painted  arms  and 
his  chariot  of  silver,  the  equipage  in  which  it  was 
said  he  usually  led  his  army  to  battle.6 

It  appears  that  the  Romans  had 
U.  C.  633.  employed  elephants  in  the  first  wars 
they  made  in  Gaul ;  for  the  victory 
of  Domitius  is  attributed  to  the  effect  that  was 
produced  by  these  animals.7  ^ 

Ctuintus  Marcus  succeeded  Domitius  m  the 
command  of  the  forces  which  were  employed  in 
Gaul ;  and  continued  to  gain  ground  on  trie  na- 
tives, who  appeared  from  different  cantons  suc- 
cessively to  resist  his  arms.  He  planted  a  colony 
at  Narbo,  to  strengthen  the  frontier  of  the  newly- 
acquired  province  on  one  side ;  and  as  the  Ro- 
mans had  hitherto  always  passed  by  sea  into 

5  Plutarch,  in  Mario. 

6  Velleius  Pater.  Ammianus  Marcell.  lib.  xv.  fine 
Padionusin  Verrinam  Secundain.  Val.  Max.  lib.  v.  c.  9 

7  Suetonius  in  Vita  Neronis. 


108 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  (L 


that  country,  he  endeavoured  to  open  a  passage 
by  the  Alps  in  order  to  have  a  communication  by 
land  with  Italy  on  the  other.  In  the  course  of 
these  operations  the  Stsni,  an  Alpine  nation  that 
opposed  him,  were  entirely  cut  off. 

About  this  time  the  Roman  generals  obtained 
their  triumphs  on  different  quarters,  in  the  Ba- 
leares  and  in  Dalmatia,  as  well  as  in  Gaul ;  and 
the  republic  did  not  meet  for  some  years  with  an 
enemy  able  to  resist  her  power,  except  on  the 
side  pf  Thrace  and  the  Danube,  where  the  pro- 
consul Cato  was  defeated ;  and  where  a  resistance 
was  for  some  years  kept  up  by  the  natives. 

But  of  the  foreign  affairs  which  occupied  the 
attention  of  the  Romans,  the  most  memorable 
was  the  contest  of  pretenders  to  the  crown  of 
Numidia,  which,  by  the  death  of  Micipsa,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Massinissa,  came  to  be  dis- 
posed of  about  this  time.  The  late  king  had  two 
sons,  Adherbal  and  Hiempsal.  He  had  likewise 
adopted  Jugurtha,  the  natural  son  of  his  brother 
Manastabal,  whom  he  had  employed  at  the  head 
of  his  armies,  thinking  it  safer  to  gain  him  by 
good  offices,  than  to  provoke  him  by  a  total  ex- 
clusion from  favour.  He  had  formed  a  project, 
frequent  among  barbarous  and  despotic  sovereigns, 
but  always  ruinous,  to  divide  his  territories ;  and 
he  hoped  that,  while  he  provided  for  his  own 
sons,  he  should  secure  to  them,  from  motives  of 
gratitude,  the  protection  and  good  offices  of  Ju- 
gurtha, whom  he  admitted  to  an  equal  share  with 
them  in  the  partition  of  his  kingdom.  The  con- 
sequences of"  this  mistaken  arrangement  soon 
appeared  in  the  distractions  that  followed,  and 
which  arose  from  the  ambition  of  Jugurtha,  to 
make  himself  master  of  the  whole.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  formed  a  secret  design  against  the  lives  of 
both  the  brothers,  of  whom  the  younger,  Hiemp- 
sal, fell  into  his  snare,  and  was  assassinated. 
Adherbal,  being  more  cautious,  obliged  his  crafty 
enemy  to  declare  himself  openly,  took  the  field 
against  him  with  all  the  forces  he  could  raise,  but 
was  defeated,  and  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  the 
Roman  province,  and  from  thence  thought  proper 
to  pass  into  Italy,  in  order  to  lay  his  complaints 
before  the  senate  and  people  of  Rome. 

Massinissa,  the  grandfather  of  this  injured 
prince,  had  given  effectual  aid  to  the  Romans  in 
their  wars  with  Carthage  ;  and,  upon  the  final 
reduction  of  that  republic,  was  rewarded  with  a 
considerable  part  of  its  spoils.  From  this  time 
forward  the  Romans  expected,  and  the  king  of 
Numidia  paid  to  them,  a  deference  like  that  of  a 
vassal  or  tributary  prince  to  his  sovereign  lord. 
Upon  the  faith  of  this  connection,  Adherbal  now 
carried  his  complaints  to  Rome ;  and  Jugurtha, 
knowing  how  ready  the  Romans  were,  in  the 
character  of  arbitrators,  to  consider  themselves  as 
the  sovereigns  of  other  nations,  thought  proper  to 
send  deputies  on  his  part,  to  counteract  the  repre- 
sentations of  his  rival. 

This  crafty  adventurer  had  served  under  Scipio 
at  the  siege  of  Numantia,  where  he  had  an  op- 
portunity of  observing  the  manners  and  dis- 
cipline of  the  Romans,  and  accommodated  him- 
self to  both.  He  was  equally  distinguished  by 
his  implicit  submission  to  command,  as  by  his 
impetuous  courage,  and  by  the  ability  of  his  con- 
duct in  every  service.  He  had  even  then  probably 
directed  his  views  to  the  succession  of  Numidia, 
and  saw  of  what  consequence  the  Romans  might 
prove  in  deciding  his  fortunes.    He  had  studied 


their  character,  and  had  already  marked  out  tht 
line  he  was  to  follow  in  conducting  his  affairs, 
with  that  people.  They  appeared  to  be  a  num 
ber  of  sovereigns  assembled  together,  able  in 
council  and  formidable  in  the  field  ;  but,  in  com- 
parison to  the  Africans  in  general,  undesigning 
and  simple.  "With  the  pride  of  monarchs  they 
began,  he  imagined,  to  feefflie  indigence  of  cour- 
tiers, and  were  to  be  moved  by  considerations  of 
interest  rather  than  force.  His  commissioners 
were  now  accordingly  furnished  with  ample  pre- 
sents, and  with  the  means  of  gratifying  the  prin- 
cipal persons  at  Rome  in  a  manner  that  was 
suited  to  their  respective  ranks  and  to  their  in- 
fluence in  the  commonwealth. 

In  the  choice  of  this  plan  Jugurtha,  like  most 
politicians  that  refine  too  much,  had  formed  a 
system  with  great  ingenuity,  and  spoke  of  it  with 
a  specious  witj  but  had  not  taken  into  his  ac- 
count the  whole  circumstances  of  the  case  in 
which  he  engaged.  Rome,  he  supposed,  was  a 
city  to  be  sold.  He  forgot  that,  though  many 
Romans  could  be  bought,  no  treasure  was  suffi- 
cient to  buy  the  republic;  that  to  buy  a  few, 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  buy  many  more ; 
that  as  he  raised  expectations,  the  number  of  ex- 
pectants increased  without  limit ;  that  the  more 
he  gave,  the  more  he  was  still  expected  to  give  ; 
that  in  a  state  which  was  broke  into  parties,  if  he 
gained  one  by  his  gifts,  that  alone  was  sufficient 
to  rouse  the  other  against  him.  And  accordingly, 
after  lavishing  his  money  to  influence  the  coun- 
cils of  Rome,  he  was  obliged  to  have  recourse'  to 
arms  at  last,  and  to  contend  with  the  forces  of  the 
republic,  after  he  had  exhausted  his  treasure  in 
attempting  to  corrupt  her  virtue. 

Although  Jugurtha  had  many  partizans  at 
Rome,  such  was  the  injustice  of  his  cause,  or  the 
suspicion  of  corruption  in  those  who  espoused  it, 
that  they  durst  not  openly  avow  their  wishes. 
They  endeavoured  to  suspend  the  resolutions 
which  were  in  agitation  against  him,  and  had  the 
matter  referred  to  ten  commissioners  who  should 
go  into  Africa,  and  in  presence  of  the  parties 
settle  the  differences  which  subsisted  between 
them.  There  indeed  he  practised  his  art  on  the 
Roman  commissioners  with  better  success  than 
he  had  experienced  with  the  senate  and  people. 
He  prevailed  upon  them  to  divide  the  kingdom, 
and  to  favour  him  in  the  lot  which  should  be  as- 
signed to  himself :  knowing  that  force  must  ulti- 
mately decide  every  controversy  which  should 
arise  on  the  subject,  he  made  choice,  not  of  the 
richest,  but  of  the  most  warlike  division;  and 
indeed  had  already  determined  that,  as  soon  as 
the  Romans  left  Africa,  he  should  make  an  end 
of  the  contest  by  the  death  of  Adherbal ;  trusting 
that,  by  continuing  to  use  the  specific  which  it 
was  said  he  had  already  applied,  he  might  prevail 
on  the  Romans  to  overlook  what  they  would  not, 
on  a  previous  request,  have  permitted. 

He  accordingly,  soon  after  the  departure  of  the 
Roman  commissioners,  marched  into  the  territo- 
ries of  Adherbal,  shut  him  up  in  the  town  of 
Cirta  ;  and,  while  the  Romans  sent  him  repeated 
messages  to  desist,  still  continued  the  blockade, 
until  the  mercenaries  of  Adherbal,  tired  of  the 
hardships  they  were  made  to  endure,  advised, 
and,  by  their  appearing  ready  to  desert,  forced 
him  to  commit  himself  to  the  mercy  of  Jugurtha, 
by  whom  he  was  immediately  put  to  death. 

By  these  events,  in  about  seven  years  from  the 


Chap.  TV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


109 


death  of  Micipsa,  Jugurtha  had  attained  to  the 
object  of  his  highest  desires;  but  the  arts  which 
procured  him  a  crown,  likewise  rendered  his  state 
insecure.  He  was  disappointed  in  his  expecta- 
tion to  pacify  the  Romans.  The  money  he  dealt 
went  into  the  coffers  only  of  a  few,  but  his  crimes 
roused  the  indignation  of  the  whole  people.  Prac- 
tised statesmen  or  politician?;  are  seldom  roused 
by  mere  feelings  of  indignation  on  the  subject  of 
private  wrongs.  They  have,  or  pretend  to  have, 
reasons  of  state  to  suppress  the  consideration  of 
individuals.  The  greater  part  of  the  Roman  senate 
accordingly,  whether  acting  on  maxims  of  policy, 
or  won  by  the  presents  of  Jugurtha,  received  the 
complaints  which  were  lodged  against  him  with 
indifference;  but  the  assembly  of  the  people, 
moved  by  the  cries  of  perfidy  and  murder  which 
were  raised  by  the  tribunes,  received  the  repre- 
sentations of  his  conduct  with  indignation  and 
rage.  These  passions  were  inflamed  by  opposi- 
tion to  the  nobles,  who  were  supposed  to  favour 
the  murderer.  Neither  the  most  deliberate  states- 
man nor  the  most  determined  partizan  of  Jugur- 
tha durst  appear  in  his  cause,  nor  propose  to  de- 
cline a  war  with  that  prince,  although  it  was 
likely  to  be  attended  with  considerable  difficulties ; 
and  was  to  be  undertaken  at  a  time  when  a  cloud 
hung  over  Italy  on  the  side  of  Gaul,  a  quarter 
from  which  the  Romans  always  expected,  and 
often  experienced,  the  most  terrible  storms. 

About  the  time  that  Adherbal 
U.  C.  640.  laid  his  complaints  against  Jugur- 
tha before  the  senate  of  Rome,  a 
new  enemy  had  appeared.  The  north  of  Europe, 
or  of  Asia,  had  cast  off  a  swarm,  which,  migrat- 
ing to  the  south  and  to  the  west,  was  first  descried 
by  the  Romans  on  the  frontier  of  Illyricum,  and 
presently  drew  their  attention  to  that  side.  The 
horde  was  said  to  consist  of  three  hundred  thou- 
sand fighting  men,  conducting  their  families  of 
women  and  children,  and  covering  the  plains 
with  their  cattle.  The  consul  Papirius  Carbo 
was  ordered  to  take  post  in  Illyricum,  to  observe 
the  motions  of  this  tremendous  host.  Pie  was 
alarmed  with  their  seeming  to  point  towards  the 
district  of  Aquileia;  and  putting  himself,  with 
too  little  precaution,  in  their  way,  could  not  with- 
stand their  numbers,  and  was  overwhelmed  as  by 
a  tempest. 

This  migrating  nation  the  Romans  have  called 
by  the  name  of  Cimbri,  without  determining  from 
whence  they  came.  It  is  said  that  their  cavalry 
amounted  to  no  more  than  fifteen  thousand  ;  that 
it  was  their  practice  to  despise  horses,  as  well  as 
the  other  spoils  of  their  enemies,  which  they 
generally  destroyed  :  and  from  this  circumstance 
it  may  be  argued,  that  they  were  not  of  Scythian 
extraction,  nor  sprung  from  those  mighty  plains 
in  the  northern  parts  of  Asia,  where  military 
force  has  from  time  immemorial  consisted  of 
cavalry,  where  horses  were  valued  above  every 
other  species  of  acquisition  or  property ;  and  that 
they  must  have  been  bred  amongst  mountains 
and  woods,  where  this  animal  is  not  equally  use- 
ful. On  their  helmets,  which  were  crested  with 
plumes  of  feathers,  they  carried  the  gaping  jaws 
of  wild  beasts.  On  their  bodies  they  wore  breast- 
plates of  iron,  had  shields  painted  of  a  conspicu- 
ous colour ;  and  carried  two  missile  javelins  or 
darts,  and  a  heavy  sword.  They  collected  their 
fighting  men,  for  the  most  part,  into  a  solid 
square,  equally  extending  every  way  :  in  one  of 


their  battles  it  was  reported  that  the  sides  of  this 
square  extended  thirty  stadia,  or  between  three 
and  four  miles.  The  men  of  the  foremost  ranks 
were  fastened  together  with  chains  locked  to  their 
girdles,  which  made  them  impenetrable  to  every 
attack,  and  gave  them  the  force  of  a  torrent,  in 
sweeping  obstructions  before  them.  Such  were 
the  accounts  with  which  the  Romans  were 
alarmed  on  the  approach  of  this  tremendous 
enemy. 

Although,  by  the  defeat  of  Carbo,  Italy  lay 
open  to  their  devastations,  yet  they  turned  away 
to  the  north  and  westward,  and  keeping  the  Alps 
on  their  left,  made  their  appearance  again  on  the 
frontier  of  the  Roman  province  in  Narbonne 
Gaul,  and  from  thence  passed  into  Spain,  where 
they  continued  to  alarm  Roman  settlements,  and 
kept  Rome  itself  in  suspense,  by  the  uncertainty 
of  the  tract  they  might  afterwards  choose  to  pursue. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs, 
U.  C.  642.  when  the  popular  cry  and  generous 
indignation  of  the  Roman  people 
Pub.  Corne-  forced  the  state  into  a  war  with 
Nas£iPi°  Jugurtha.  The  consul  Piso  was 
L.  Calpur-  appointed  to  command  in  Numi- 
vius,  Piso,  dia.  The  necessary  levies  and  sup- 
Bestia.  plies  for  this  service  were  ordered, 

and  Jugurtha  could  no  longer 
doubt  that  the  force  of  the  Roman  republic  was 
to  be  employed  against  him ;  yet,  in  hopes  to 
avert  the  storm,  he  sent  his  son  with  two  proper 
assistants,  in  the  quality  of  ambassadors  to  Rome, 
chiefly  trusting  to  the  arts  of  insinuation  he  had 
hitherto  practised,  and  to  the  distribution  of  pre- 
sents and  of  money.  Their  arrival  being  reported 
to  the  senate,  a  resolution  of  this  body  passed, 
that  unless  they  brought  an  offer  from  Jugurtha 
to  surrender  his  person  and  his  kingdom  at  dis- 
cretion, they  should  be  required  in  ten  days  to 
depart  from  Italy. 

This  answer  being  delivered  to  the  son  of  Ju- 
gurtha, he  presently  withdrew,  and  was  followed 
by  a  Roman  annv,  which  was  prepared  to  em- 
bark for  Africa.  The  war  was  conducted  at  first 
with  great  vivacity  and  success :  but  Jugurtha, 
by  offering  great  public  concessions  or  private 
gratifications,  prevailed  on  the  consul  to  negotiate. 
It  was  agreed,  that,  upon  receiving  a  proper 
hostage  on  the  part  of  the  Romans,  the  king  him- 
self should  repair  to  their  camp,  in  order  to  con- 
clude the  treaty.  In  the  articles  that  were  made 
public,  the  king  agreed  to  surrender  himself  at 
discretion,  and  to  pay  a  large  contribution  in 
horses,  corn,  elephants,  and  money  ;  but  in  secret 
articles,  which  were  drawn  up  at  the  same  time, 
the  consul  engaged  that  the  person  of  the  king 
should  be  safe,  and  that  the  kingdom  of  Numidia 
should  be  secured  to  him. 

During  these  transactions  the  time  of  the  ex- 
piration of  Piso's  command  drew  near,  and  he 
himself  was  called  into  Italy  to  preside  at  the  ap- 
proaching elections.  His  report  of  the  treaty 
with  Jugurtha  was  received  with  suspicion,  and 
the  cry  of  corruption  resumed  by  the  popular 

Sarty.  "  Where  is  this  captive  V  said  the  tribune 
lemmius ;  "  if  he  have  surrendered  himself,  he 
will  obey  your  commands ;  send  for  him ;  ques- 
tion him  in  respect  to  what  is  past.  If  he  refuse 
to  come,  we  shall  know  what  to  think  of  a  treaty 
which  brings  impunity  to  Jugurtha,  princely  for- 
tunes to  a  tew  private  persons,  ruin  and  infamv 
to  the  Roman  republic."    Upon  this  motion  the 


110 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


praetor  Cassius  Longinus,  a  person  of  approved 
merit  and  unshaken  integrity,  was  hastened  into 
Africa,  with  positive  instructions  to  bring  the 
king  of  Numidia  to  Rome.  By  the  safe  conduct 
which  Cassius  brought  on  the  part  of  the  repub- 
lic, and  by  his  own  assurances  of  protection,  Ju- 
gurtha  was  prevailed  on  to  commit  himself  to  the 
faith  of  the  Romans.  He  laid  aside  his  kingly 
state  and  attendants,  set  out  for  Italy,  and  deter- 
mined to  appear  as  a  suppliant  at  Rome.  Upon 
his  arrival,  being  called  into  the  public  assembly, 
Memmius  proposed  to  interrogate  him  on  the 
subject  of  his  supposed  secret  transaction  with 
certain  members  of  the  senate ;  but  here  Bebius, 
another  of  the  tribunes,  interposed  his  negative; 
a  nd,  notwithstanding  that  the  people  exclaimed, 
and  even  menaced,  this  tribune  persisted.  And 
before  this  bar  to  the  farther  examination  of  Ju- 
gurtha  could  be  removed,  an  incident  took  place, 
which  occasioned  his  sudden  departure  from  Italy. 

Massiva,  the  son  of  Gulussa,  being  the  grand- 
son and  natural  representative  of  Massinissa,  and 
the  only  person  besides  Jugurtha  who  remained 
of  the  royal  line  of  Numidia,  had  been  persuaded 
by  Albinus,  the  consul  elected  for  the  ensuing 
year,  to  state  his  pretensions  before  the  Roman 
senate,  and  to  lay  claim  to  the  crown.  Jugurtha, 
though  at  Rome,  and  in  the  power  of  those  who 
were  likely  to  resent  his  crimes,  gave  a  specimen 
of  the  bold  and  sanguinary  counsels  to  which  he 
was  inclined,  employed  against  this  competitor 
the  ordinary  arts  of  his  court,  and  had  him  assas- 
sinated. The  crime  was  traced  to  its  author,  but 
the  safe  conduct  he  had  received  could  not  be 
violated ;  and  he  was  only  commanded,  without 
delay,  to  depart  from  Italy.  On  this  occasion  he 
left  Rome  with  that  memorable  saying  ;  "  Here 
is  a  city  to  be  sold,  if  any  buyer  could  be  found." 

The  consul  Albinus  soon  fol- 
U.  C.  643.  lowed  Jugurtha,  to  take  the  com- 
M  Mnucius  mand  of  the  Roman  army  in  Afri- 
Rufus  Post-  ca ;  and  being  eager  to  perform 
hum.  Albinus.  some  notable  action  before  the  ex- 
piration of  his  year,  which  was  fast  approaching, 
he  urged  the  king  of  Numidia,  with  all  the  forces 
he  could  assemble  in  the  province ;  but  found  that 
he  had  to  do  with  an  enemy  who  had  the  art  to 
elude  his  impetuosity,  and  from  whose  apparent 
conduct  no  judgment  could  be  formed  of  his  real 
designs.  This  artful  warrior  often  advanced  with 
a  seeming  intention  to  hazard  a  battle,  when  he 
was  most  resolved  to  decline  it ;  or  he  precipitantly 
fled,  when  he  meant  to  return  upon  his  enemy, 
and  take  advantage  of  any  disorder  he  might  incur 
in  a  too  eager  pursuit.  His  offers  of  submission, 
or  his  threats,  were  equally  fallacious ;  and  he 
used,  perhaps  in  common  with  other  African 
princes,  means  to  mislead  his  enemy,  which  Eu- 
ropeans, ancient  as  well  as  modern,  have  in  gene- 
ral condemned.  He  made  solemn  capitulations 
and  treaties  with  a  view  to  break  them,  and  con- 
sidered breach  of  faith,  like  a  feint  or  an  ambush, 
as  a  stratagem  licensed  in  war.  The  Europeans 
have  always  termed  it  perfidy  to  break  the  faith 
of  a  treaty,  the  Africans  held  it  stupidity  to  be 
caught  in  the  snare. 

By  the  artifices  of  Jugurtha,  accordingly,  or  by 
the  remissness  of  his  antagonist,  the  war  was 
protracted  for  another  year,  and  the  consul,  as 
the  time  of  the  election  drew  near,  was  recalled, 
as  usual,  to  preside  in  the  choice  of  his  successor. 
At  his  arrival  the  city  was  in  great  agitation. 


The  cry  of  corruption,  which  had  been  raised 
against  many  of  the  nobles,  on  account  of  their 
supposed  correspondence  with  Jugurtha,  gave  an 
advantage  to  the  popular  party,  and  they  deter- 
mined to  improve  it,  by  raising  prosecutions  to 
the  ruin  of  persons,  either  odious  to  the  people,  or 
obnoxious  to  the  equestrian  order,  who  then  had 
the  power  of  judicature  in  their  hands.1  Three 
inquisitors  were  accordingly  named  by  special 
commission  to  take  cognizance  of  all  complaints 
of  corruption  that  should  be  brought  before  them ; 
and  this  commission  was  instantly  employed  to 
harass  the  nobility,  and  to  revenge  the  blood 
which  had  been  shed  in  the  late  popular  tumults. 
Lucius  Calpurnius,  Piso,  Bestia,  C.  Cato,  Spu- 
rius  Albinus,  and  L.  Opimius,  all  of  consular 
dignity,  fell  a  sacrifice  on  this  occasion  to  the 
popular  resentment.  The  tribune  Mamilius, 
upon  whose  motion  this  tribunal  had  been  erected, 
with  his  associates,  apprehending  that,  upon  the 
expiration  of  their  trust,  the  heat  of  the  prosecu- 
tions might  abate,  moved  the  people  that  they 
might  be  continued  in  their  office;  and,  upon 
finding  themselves  opposed  by  the  influence  of 
the  senate  and  all  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  state, 
they  suspended,  by  virtue  of  their  tribunitian 
power,  the  election  of  consuls,  and  for  a  whole  year 
kept  the  republic  in  a  state  of  absolute  anarchy. 

In  this  interval  Aulus  Albinus,  left  by  his 
brother,  the  late  consul,  in  the  command  of  the 
army  in  Africa,  determined  to  improve  the  occa- 
sion by  some  honourable  action.  He  left  his 
quarters  in  the  winter,  and  marched  far  into  the 
country,  hoping  that  by  force  or  surprise  he  might 
possess  himself  of  the  Numidian  treasures  or 
magazines.  Jugurtha  encouraged  him  in  this 
design,  affected  fear,  retired  with  precipitation 
wherever  the  Romans  presented  themselves ;  and, 
to' increase  the  presumption  of  their  general,  sent 
frequent  messages  to  implore  his  pity.  He  at 
the  same  time  endeavoured  to  open  a  correspon- 
dence with  the  Thracians  and  other  foreigners, 
then  serving  in  the  Roman  camp.  Some  of 
these  he  corrupted ;  and  when  he  had  drawn  the 
Roman  army  into  difficult  situations,  and  pre- 
pared his  plan  for  execution,  he  suddenly  ad- 
vanced in  the  night  to  the  Roman  station ;  and 
the  avenues  being  entrusted,  as  he  expected,  to 
the  Thracians  and  Ligurians  whom  he  had  cor- 
rupted, and  by  whom  he  was  suffered  to  pass,  he 
surprised  the  Romans  in  their  camp,  and  drove 
them  from  thence  in  great  confusion  to  a  neigh- 
bouring height,  where  they  enjoyed,  during 
night,  some  respite  from  the  enemy ;  but  without 
any  resource  for  subsistence,  or  hopes  of  recover- 
ing their  baggage. 

In  the  morning  Jugurtha  desired  to  confer 
with  the  praetor;  and  representing  how  much 
the  Romans,  stripped  of  their  provision  and  equi- 
page, were  then  in  his  power,  made  a  merit  of 
offering  them  quarter,  on  condition  that  they 
would  conclude  a  treaty  of  peace,  and  in  ten  days 
evacuate  his  kingdom. 

These  terms  were  accordingly  accepted  :  but 
the  capitulation,  when  known  at  Rome,  gave  oc- 
casion to  much  indignation  and  clamour.  It  was 
voted  by  the  senate  not  to  be  binding,  and  the 
consul  Albinus,  in  order  to  repair  the  loss  of  the 
public,  and  to  restore  the  credit  of  his  own  family, 
made  hasty  levies,  with  which  he  proposed  to  re- 


1  Cicero de  Claris  Oratoribus.  SaUust.  in  Bell.  Jugurth 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


Ill 


new  the  war  in  Numidia,  but  not  having  the 
consent  of  the  tribunes  to  this  measure,  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  his  forces  behind  him  in  Italy, 
and  joined  the  army  without  being  able  to  bring 
any  reinforcement.  He  found  it  in  no  condition 
to  face  the  enemy,  and  was  contented  to  remain 
in  the  province  till  a  successor  should  be  named. 

Resentment  of  the  disgraces  in- 
U.  C.  GU.  curred  in  Africa,  and  fear  of  inva- 
sion from  the  Cimbri,  who,  having 
Q.  Gecilius  traversed  Spain  and  Gaul,  were 
Met  alius  gtill  on  tiieir  march,  appear  to  have 
MUJut7uT  e^med  for  a  little  time  the  ani- 
Silanus.  mosity  ■  of  domestic   factions  at 

Rome.  The  consular  elections 
were  suffered  to  proceed,  and  the  choice  of  the 
people  fell  on  Gtuintus  Caecilius  Metellus  and  M. 
Junius  Silanus ;  the  first  was  appointed  to  the 
command  of  the  army  in  Numidia,  the  second  to 
observe  the  motions  of  the  Cimbri  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  Gaul,  and  to  turn  them  aside,  if  possible, 
from  the  territory  of  Rome.  About  this  time 
those  wandering  nations  had  sent  a  formal  mes- 
sage to  the  Romans,  desiring  to  have  it  under- 
stood on  what  lands  they  might  settle,2  or  rather, 
over  what  lands  they  might  pass  in  migration 
with  their  herds.  This  request  being  refused  by 
the  senate,  they  opened  a  passage  by  force,  over- 
came in  battle  the  consul  Silanus,  and,  probably 
without  intending  to  retain  any  conquest,  con- 
tinued to  move  wherever  the  aspect  of  the  country 
tempted  their  choice. 

Metellus  proceeded  to  Africa  with  a  consider- 
able reinforcement ;  and,  having  spent  some  time 
in  restoring  the  discipline  of  the  army  which  had 
been  greatly  neglected,  and  in  training  his  new 
levies  to  the  duties  and  hardships  of  the  service, 
he  directed  his  march  to  the  enemy's  country, 
and  in  his  way,  had  frequent  messages  from  Ju- 
gurtha,  with  professions  of  submission  and  of  a 
pacific  disposition. 

When  the  Roman  army  entered  on  the  territo- 
ry of  Numidia,  they  accordingly  found  the  coun- 
try prepared  to  receive  them  in  a  friendly  manner ; 
the  people  in  tranquillity,  the  gates  of  every  city 
left  open,  and  the  markets  ready  to  supply  them 
with  necessaries. 

These  appearances,  with  the  known  character 
of  Jugurtha,  creating  distrust,  only  excited  the 
vigilance  of  Metellus.  They  even  provoked  him 
to  retort  on  the  Numidian  his  own  insidious  arts. 
He  tampered  with  Bomilcar,  and  the  other  mes- 
sengers of  Jugurtha  to  betray  their  master,  and 
promised  them  great  rewards  if  they  would  de- 
liver him  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  cither 
living  or  dead. 

Jugurtha,  not  considering  that  his  known  cha- 
racter for  falsehood  must  have  destroyed  the  cre- 
dit of  all  his  professions,  even  if  he  should  at  any 
time  think  proper  to  make  them  sincere,  and  trust- 
ing to  the  effect  of  his  submissive  messages  in  ren- 
dering the  enemy  secure,  made  a  disposition  to 
profit  by  any  errors  they  should  commit,  and  hoped 
to  circumvent  and  destroy  them  on  their  march. 
For  this  purpose  he  waited  for  them  on  the  de- 
scents of  a  high  mountain,  over  which  they  were 
to  pass  in  their  way  to  the  Muthul,  a  river  which 
helped  to  form  the  situation  of  which  he  was  to 
avail  himself.  He  accordingly  lay  concealed  by 
its  banks,  until  the  enemy  actually  fell  into  the 


2  Floras,  lib.  i#.   Liv.  lib.  lxv. 


snare  he  had  laid  for  them.  With  the  advantage 
of  the  ground  and  of  numbers,  he  maintained, 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  day,  a  contest  with 
troops  who  possessed,  against  his  irregulars,  a 
great  superiority  of  order,  discipline,  and  cou- 
rage ;  but  not  having  found  the  Remans,  as  he 
expected,  in  any  degree  off  their  guard,  he  was, 
in  the  event  of  that  day's  action,  obliged  to  fly 
with  a  few  horse  to  a  remote  part  of  his  kingdom. 

This  victory  obtained  over  Jugurtha  appeared 
to  be  an  end  of  the  war.  His  army  was  dispersed, 
and  he  was  left  with  a  few  horsemen,  who  at- 
tended his  person,  to  find  a  place  of  retreat,  and 
to  choose  a  station  at  which  to  assemble  new 
forces,  if  he  meant  to  continue  the  war. 

The  Numidians  were  inured  to  action.  The 
frequent  wars  of  that  continent,  the  wild  and  un- 
settled state  of  their  own  country,  made  the  use 
of  horses  and  of  arms  familiar :  but  so  void  was 
the  nation  of  military  policy,  and  its  people  so 
ignorant  of  order,  that  it  was  scarcely  possible 
for  the  king  to  fight  two  battles  with  the  same 
army.  If  victorious,  they  withdrew  with  their 
plunder;  if  defeated,  they  supposed  all  military 
obligations  at  an  end :  and  in  either  case,  after 
an  action,  every  one  fled  where  he  expected  to  be 
soonest  in  safety. 

Metellus,  after  the  late  engagement,  finding  no 
enemy  in  the  field,  was  for  some  time  uncertain 
to  what  part  of  the  kingdom  Jugurtha  had  di- 
rected his  flight.  But  having  intelligence  that 
he  was  in  a  new  situation  assembling  an  army, 
and  likely  to  form  one  still  more  numerous  than 
any  he  had  yet  brought  into  the  field,  tired  of 
pursuing  an  enemy  on  whom  defeats  had  so  little 
effects,  he  turned  away  to  the  richer  and  more 
cultivated  parts  of  the  kingdom.  Here  the  plun- 
der of  the  country  might  better  repay  his  labour, 
and  the  enemy,  if  he  ventured  to  defend  his  ter- 
ritory, might  more  sensibly  feel  his  defeats.  Ju- 
gurtha perceiving  his  intention,  drew  his  forces 
towards  the  same  quarter,  and  soon  appeared  in 
his  rear. 

While  Metellus  was  endeavouring  to  force  the 
city  of  Zama,  Jugurtha  pierced  into  his  camp, 
and,  though  repulsed  from  thence,  took  a  post, 
by  which  nc  made  the  situation  of  the  Romans, 
between  the  town  and  his  own  army,  so  uneasy, 
as  to  oblige  them  to  raise  the  siege. 

This  the  Numidian  prince  thought  a  proper 
opportunity  to  gain  some  credit  to  his  pacific 
professions.  He  made  an  oiler  accordingly  to 
surrender  at  discretion,  and  actually  delivered  up 
great  part  of  his  arms  and  military  stores ;  but 
this  purpose,  if  ever  sincere,  he  retracted,  and 
again  had  recourse  to  arms. 

The  victory  which  had  been  olv- 
U.  C.  645.    tained  in  Africa,  flattered  the  vanity 
of  the  Roman  people,  and  procured 

SSSo2£, to  Metellus> in  the       i  pr°- 

Q.  Horten-  consul,  a  continuation  of  his  former 
sius  JVepes,  command.  The  troops  he  had  post- 
Marcus  Jtu-  C(]  m  Vacca  being  cut  off  by  the  in- 
relms  Scan-  habitants>  he  made  hasty  marches 
in  the  night,  surprised  the  place, 
and,  without  having  allowed  the  authors  of  that 
outrage  more  than  two  days  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
their  perfidy,  amply  revenged  the  wrong  they  had 
done  to  the  Roman  garrison. 

But  the  success  of  Metellus  did  not  hasten  the 
ruin  of  Jugurtha  so  fast  as  his  own  misconduct, 
in  the  jealous  and  sanguinary  measures  which  he 


112 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  11. 


took  to  suppress  plots  and  conspiracies,  either  real 
or  supposed  to  be  formed  against  his  life,  by  per- 
sons the  most  in  his  confidence. 

Bomilcar,  still  carrying  in  his  mind  the  offers 
which  had  been  made  by  Metellus,  and  willing 
to  have  some  merit  with  the  Romans,  into  whose 
hands  he  and  all  the  subjects  of  Jugurtha  were 
likely  soon  to  fall,  formed  a  design  against  his 
master,  and  drew  Nabdalsa,  a  principal  officer  in 
the  Numidian  armies,  to  take  part  in  the  plot. 
They  were  discovered  in  time  to  prevent  the  exe- 
cution of  their  design,  but  they  made  Jugurtha 
from  thenceforward  consider  the  camp  of  his  own 
army  as  a  place  of  danger  to  himself,  rendered 
him  distrustful,  timorous,  and  unquiet ;  frequently 
changing  his  company  and  his  quarters,  his 
guards  and  his  bed.  Under  these  apprehensions, 
by  which  his  mind  was  considerably  disordered 
and  weakened,  he  endeavoured,  by  continual  and 
rapid  motions,  to  make  it  uncertain  where  he 
should  be  found ;  and  he  experienced  at  last,  that 
private  assassination  and  breach  of  faith,  although 
they  appear  to  abridge  the  toils  of  ambition,  are 
not  expedient  even  in  war ;  that  they  render  hu- 
man life  itself,  for  the  advantages  of  which  war  is 
undertaken,  no  longer  eligible  or  worthy  of  being 
preserved.  Weary  of  his  anxious  state,  he  ven- 
tured once  more  to  face  Metellus  in  the  field,  and 
being  again  defeated,  fled  to  Thala,  where  he  had 
left  his  children  and  the  most  valuable  part  of 
his  treasure.  This  city  too,  finding  Metellus  had 
followed  him,  he  was  obliged  to  abandon,  and, 
with  his  children  and  his  remaining  effects,  fled 
from  Numidia,  first  to  the  country  of  the  Getuli, 
barbarous  nations,  that  lived  among  the  moun- 
tains of  Atlas  south  of  Numidia,  and  whom  he 
endeavoured  to  arm  in  his  cause.  Prom  thence 
he  fled  to  Bocchus,  king  of  Mauritania,  whose 
daughter  he  had  married ;  and  having  persuaded 
this  prince  to  consider  his  quarrel  with  the  Ro- 
mans as  the  common  cause  of  all  monarchies, 
who  were  likely  in  succession  to  become  the  prey 
of  this  arrogant  and  insatiable  power,  he  prevailed 
on  the  Mauritanian  to  assemble  his  army,  and  to 
attempt  the  relief  of  Numidia. 

Jugurtha,  in  conjunction  with  his  new  ally, 
directed  his  march  to  Cirta,  and  Metellus  per- 
ceiving his  intention,  took  post  to  cover  that  place. 
But  while  he  was  endeavouring,  by  threats  or 
persuasions,  to  detach  the  king  of  Mauritania 
from  Jugurtha,  he  received  information  from 
Rome  that  he  was  superseded  in  the  command 
of  the  army ;  and  from  thenceforward  protracted 
the  war,  under  pretence  of  messages  and  nego- 
tiations, and  possibly  inclined  to  leave  it  with  all 
its  difficulties  entire  to  his  successor. 

Marius,  having  served  under  Metellus,  had 
with  great  difficulty,  and  not  without  some  ex- 
pressions of  scorn  on  the  part  of  his  general,  ob- 
tained leave  to  depart  for  Rome,  where  he  meant 
to  stand  for  the  consulship.  He  accordingly  ap- 
peared in  the  capacity  of  candidate  for  this  honour, 
and  by  vaunting,  instead  of  concealing,  the  ob- 
scurity of  his  ancestors ;  by  inveighing  against 
the  whole  order  of  nobility,  their  dress,  their  city 
manners,  their  Greek  learning,  their  family 
images,  the  stress  they  laid  on  the  virtue  of  their 
forefathers  to  compensate  the  want  of  it  in  them- 
selves; but  more  especially  by  arraigning  the 
dilatory  conduct  of  Metellus,  and  by  promising  a 
speedy  issue  to  the  war,  if  it  should  be  entrusted 
to  himself;  a  promise,  to  which  the  force  and 


ability  he  had  shown  in  all  the  stations  he  had 
hitherto  filled,  procured  him  some  credit ;  he  so 
far  won  upon  the  people,  that  he  was  chosen  con- 
sul, in  opposition  to  the  interest  of  the  nobles,  and 
to  the  influence  of  all  the  leading  men  of  the 
senate.  His  promotion  was  in  a  particular  man- 
ner galling  to  Metellus,  whose  reputation  he  had 
attacked,  and  to  whose  station  in  Africa,  by  an 
express  order  of  the  people,  in  contempt  of  the 
arrangement  which  had  been  made  by  the  senate, 
he  was  now  to  succeed. 

Upon  the  nomination  of  Marius, 
U.  C.  626.  the  party  who  had  opposed  his  pre- 
ferment did  not  attempt  to  withhold 
Lon^inuT  ^e  reinforcements  which  he  asked 
C  Marius.  f°r  the  service  in  which  he  was  to 
command.  They  even  hoped  to  in- 
crease his  difficulties  by  suffering  him  to  increase 
the  establishment  of  his  province.  The  wealthier 
class  of  the  people  alone  were  yet  admitted  into 
the  legions;  and  being  averse  to  such  distant 
services,  were  likely  to  conceive  a  dislike  to  the 
persons  by  whom  they  were  forced  to  enlist. 
Marius  in  this  capacity  might  lose  some  part  of 
the  popular  favour  which  he  now  enjoyed,  and 
become  less  formidable  to  his  rivals  in  the  state. 
But  this  crafty  and  daring  politician,  by  slighting 
the  laws  which  excluded  the  necessitous  citizens 
from  serving  in  the  legions,  found  in  this  class  of 
the  people  a  numerous  and  willing  supply.  They 
crowded  to  his  standard,  and  filled  up  his  army 
without  delay,  and  even  without  offence  to  those 
of  a  better  condition,  who  were  pleased  with  re- 
lief from  this  part  of  their  public  burdens. 

This  was  a  remarkable  and  dangerous  innova- 
tion in  the  Roman  state,  and  may  be  mentioned 
among  the  steps  which  hastened  the  ruin  of  the 
commonwealth.  From  this  time  forward  the 
sword  began  to  pass  from  the  hands  of  those  who 
were  interested  in  the  preservation  of  the  republic, 
into  the  hands  of  others  who  were  willing  to  make 
it  a  prey.  The  circumstances  of  the  times  were 
such,  indeed,  as  to  give  warning  of  the  change. 
The  service  of  a  legionary  soldier  was  become  too 
severe  for  the  le»i  $  indigent  order  of  citizens,  and 
now  opened  to  tlf«  necessitous  the  principal  road 
to  profit,  as  well  *  i  honour.  Marius,  to  facilitate 
his  levies,  was  inHing  to  gratify  both ;  and  thus 
gave  beginning  tc  the  formation  of  armies  who 
were  ready  to  fig\  \  for  or  against  the  laws  of 
their  country,  and  vho,  in  the  sequel,  substituted 
battles  for  the  bloo  Mess  contests  which  hitherto 
had  arisen  from  the  .^visions  of  party. 

The  new  consul,  \  nrivalled  in  the  favour  of 
the  people,  obtained  \*\atever  he  required;  and, 
being  completely  provide  for  the  service  to  which 
he  was  destined,  embs,  ked  for  Africa  with  a 
great  reinforcement,  and  in  a  few  days  arrived  at 
Utica.  Upon  his  arriva«,  the  operations  of  the 
war  were  resumed,  and  cai-i**!  into  the  wealthiest 
provinces  of  Numidia,  where  ke  encouraged  his 
army  with  the  hopes  of  spoil.  The  new  levies, 
though  composed  of  persons  i-kherto  excluded 
from  the  military  service,  were  fc-med  by  the 
example  of  the  legions  already  in  tta  field,  and 
who  were  now  well  apprised  of  then  jwn  supe- 
riority to  the  African  armies.  Bocchu*»  and  Ju- 
gurtha, upon  the  approach  of  this  enemy,  thought 
proper  to  separate,  and  took  different  routes  into 
places  of  safety  in  the  more  difficult  and  inacces- 
sible parts  of  the  country. 
I     This  separation  was  made  at  the  suggestion  of 


Chap.  1V.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


113 


Jugurtha,  who  alleged  that,  upon  their  appear- 
ing to  despair,  and  to  discontinue  all  offensive 
operations,  the  Roman  general  would  become 
more  secure  and  more  open  to  surprise.  But 
Marius,  without  abating  his  vigilance,  pressed 
where  the  enemy  gave  way,  over-ran  the  coun- 
try, and  took  possession  of  the  towns  they  had 
left.  To  rival  the  glory  which  Metcllus  had 
gained  in  the  reduction  of  Thala,  he  ventured  on 
a  like  enterprise,  in  the  face  of  similar  difficulties, 
by  attacking  Thapsa,  a  place  surrounded  with 
deserts,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  land  destitiA  of 
water,  and  of  every  resource  for  an  army.  /  Ha- 
ving succeeded  in  this  design,  he  ventured,  in 
his  return,  to  attack  another  fortress,  in  which,  it 
being  supposed  impregnable,  the  royal  treasures 
were  lodged.  This  strong  hold  was  situated  on 
a  rock,  which  was  every  where,  except  at  one 
path  that  was  fortified  with  ramparts  and  towers, 
faced  with  steep  and  inaccessible  cliffs.  The 
garrison  permitted  the  first  approaches  of  the  Ro- 
mans with  perfect  security,  and  even  derision. 
After  some  fruitless  attacks,  Marius,  with  some 
imputation  of  folly  in  having  made  the  attempt, 
was  about  to  desist  from  the  enterprise,  when  a 
Ligurian,  who  had  been  used  to  pick  snails  on 
the  cliffs  over  which  this  fortress  was  situated, 
found  himself,  in  search  of  his  prey,  and  by  the 
growing  facility  of  the  ascent,  led  to  a  height 
from  which  he  began  to  have  hopes  of  reaching 
the  summit.  He  accordingly  surmounted  all  the 
difficulties  in  his  way;  and  the  garrison  being 
then  intent  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  fortress  to 
which  the  attack  was  directed,  he  returned  un- 
observed. This  intelligence  he  carried  to  Marius, 
who  without  delay  oraV~ed  a  detachment  of  cho- 
sen men,  with  an  unniual  number  of  trumpets 
and  instruments  of  alarm,  to  follow  the  dim  tion 
of  this  guide.  He  himself,  to  divert  the  attention 
of  the  besieged,  and  to  be  ready,  on  receiving  the 
proposed  signal  from  within,  to  make  a  vigorous 
and  decisive  assault,  advanced  to  the  walls.  The 
Ligurian,  with  much  difficulty,  endeavoured  to 
effect  his  intentions.  The  soldiers  who  followed 
him  were  obliged  to  untie  their  sandals  and  their 
helmets,  to  sling  their  shields  and  their  swords, 
and,  at  difficult  parts  of  the  rock,  could  not  be  per- 
suaded to  advance  until  their  guide  had  repeat- 
edly passed  and  repassed  in  their  sight,  or  had 
found  stumps  and  points  of*  the  stone  at  which 
they  could  fasten  cords  to  aid  their  ascent.  The 
summit  was  to  be  gained  at  last  by  the  branches 
of  a  tree  which,  being  rooted  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock, 
grew  up  to  the  edge  of  the  precipice.  By  the 
branches  of  this  tree  the  whole  party  passed,  and, 
climbing  near  to  its  top,  landed  at  last  on  the 
summit.  They  instantly  sounded  their  trumpets 
and  gave  a  sudden  alarm.  The  besieged,  who 
had  been  drawn  to  the  walls  to  resist  the  enemy 
who  attacked  them  in  front,  were  astonished  with 
this  sound  in  their  rear,  and  soon  after,  greatly 
terrified  with  the  confused  flight  from  behind 
them  of  women,  children,  and  men  unarmed,  and 
being  at  the  same  time  vigorously  attacked  at 
their  gates,  were  no  longer  able  to  resist,  suffered 
the  Romans  to  force  their  way  at  this  entrance, 
and  in  the  end  to  become  masters  of  the  fort. 

Whilst  Marius  was  engaged  in  the  siege  of 
this  place  he  was  joined  by  the  qucstor  Sylla,  who 
had  been  left  in  Italy  to  bring  up  the  cavalry, 
which  were  not  ready  to  embark  at  the  departure 
of  the  consul.    This  young  man  was  of  a  pa- 


trician  and  noble  family,  but  which  had  not,  for 
some  generations,  borne  any  of  the  higher  offices 
of  state.  He  himself  partook  in  the  learning 
which  then  spread  into  Italy,  from  a  communi- 
cation with  the  Greeks,  and  had  passed  the  early 
part  of  his  life  in  town-dissipation  or  in  literary 
studies,  of  which  the  last  were  considered  at  this 
time  at  Rome  as  a  species  of  corruption  almost 
equal  to  the  first.  He  was  yet  a  novice  in  war, 
but  having  an  enterprising  genius,  soon  became 
an  object  of  respect  to  the  soldiers,  and  of  jealousy 
to  his  general,  with  whom  he  now  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  a  quarrel  more  fatal  to  the  commonwealth 
than  that  which  had  subsisted  between  the  pre- 
sent and  preceding  commander  in  this  service. 

The  king  of  Numidia,  stung  by  the  sense  of 
what  he  had  already  lost,  and  expecting  no  ad- 
vantage from  any  further  delays,  determined,  in 
conjunction  with  Bocchus,  to  make  a  vigorous 
effort,  and  to  oblige  Marius,  who  was  then  mov- 
ing to  his  winter  quarters,  yet  to  hazard  a  battle 
for  the  preservation  of  what  he  had  acquired  in 
the  preceding  campaign.  The  king  of  Maurita- 
nia had  been  inclined  to  remain  neutral,  or  to 
enter  on  a  separate  treaty  with  the  Romans ;  but 
being  promised  a  third  part  of  the  kingdom  of 
Numidia,  in  case  the  Romans  were  expelled 
from  thence,  and  the  war  should  l>e  brought  to  a 
happy  conclusion,  he  once  more  brought  for- 
ward his  army,  and  joined  Jugurtha. 

The  prosperous  state  of  the  Romans,  undis- 
turbed for  some  time  by  the  opposition  of  any 
enemy  in  the  field,  inspired  them  with  some  de- 
gree of  negligence  or  security,  by  which  they 
were  exposed  to  surprise.  About  an  hour  before 
the  setting  of  the  sun,  their  march  was  interrupt- 
ed by  the  attack  of  numerous  parties,  who,  with- 
out any  settled  order,  occupied  the  fields  through 
which  they  were  to  pass,  and  seemed  to  intend,  by 
assailing  them  on  every  side,  to  begin  the  night 
with  a  scene  of  confusion,  of  which  they  might 
afterwards  more  effectually  avail  themselves  in  the 
dark.  In  an  action  begun  under  these  disadvan- 
tages, it  was  supposed, that  the  Roman  army  might 
be  entirely  defeated,  and  in  a  country  with  which 
they  were  not  acquainted,  and  in  circumstances 
for  which  they  were  not  at  all  prepared,  being 
unable  to  effect  a  retreat,  surrender  at  discretion. 

Jugurtha,  with  his  usual  intrepidity  and  con- 
duct, profited  by  every  circumstance  which  pre- 
sented itself  in  his  favour.  He  brought  the 
troops,  of  which  his  army  was  composed,  whether 
Getulians  or  Nuinidians,  horse  or  foot,  to  harass 
the  enemy  in  their  different  ways  of  lighting,  and 
where  they  could  easiest  make  their  attacks. 
Wherover  a  party  was  repulsed,  he  took  care  to 
replace  it;  and  sometimes  atlected  to  remit  his 
ardour,  or  to  fly  with  every  appearance  of  panic, 
in  order  to  tempt  the  Romans  to  break  from  their 
ranks.  Marius,  notwithstanding,  with  great 
dexterity  and  presence  of  mind,  maintained  the 
form  of  his  march ;  and,  Iwforc  night,  got  pos- 
session of  some  heights  on  which  he  could  secure 
his  army.  He  himself,  with  the  infantry,  chose 
that  which  had  the  steepest  ascent,  and  order.'.] 
Sylla,  with  the  cavalry,  to  take  his  post  on  a 
smaller  eminence  below.  That  his  pos  tion  might 
not  be  known  to  the  enemy,  he  prohibited  the 
lighting  of  fires,  and  the  usual  sounding  of  I  rum 
pets  at  the  different  watches  of  the  night.  The 
Numidians  had  halted  on  the  plain  where  night 
overtook  them,  and  were  observed  at  the  break 


114 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


of  day,  reposing  in  great  security,  and  without 
any  seeming  apprehension  of  danger  from  an 
enemy,  who  was  supposed  to  be  flying,  and  who, 
on  the  preceding  day,  had,  with  some  difficulty, 
escaped  from  their  hands.  Marius  resolved  to 
attack  them  in  this  situation,  and  gave  orders, 
which  were  communicated  through  the  army, 
that  at  a  general  sound  of  the  trumpets,  every 
man  should  stand  to  his  arms,  and  with  a  great 
shout,  and  beating  on  his  shield,  make  an  impe- 
tuous attack  on  the  enemy.  The  design,  ac- 
cordingly, succeeded.  The  Nuinidians,  who  had 
often  a^ected  to  fly,  were  driven  into  an  actual 
rout.  Great  numbers  fell  in  the  flight,  and 
many  ensigns  and  trophies  were  taken. 

After  this  victory,  Marius  with  his  usual  pre- 
cautions, and  without  remitting  his  vigilance,  on 
a  supposition  that  the  enemy  was  dispersed,  di- 
rected his  march  to  the  towns  on  the  coast,  where 
he  intended  to  fix  his  quarters  for  the  winter. 
Jugurtha,  well  apprised  of  his  route,  proposed 
again  to  surprise  him  before  he  should  reach  the 
end  of  his  journey  ;  and,  for  this  purpose,  avoided 
giving  him  any  premature  or  unnecessary  cause 
of  alarm.  ,  He  prepared  to  attack  the  Roman 
army  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cirta,  which  was 
to  be  the  end  of  their  labours,  and  near  to  which 
he  supposed  that  they  would  think  themselves 
secure  from  any  further  attempts  of  their  enemy. 
In  the  execution  of  this  design,  he,  with  the 
greatest  ability,  conducted  his  troops  to  the  place 
of  action,  and  there  too  made  everyeffort  of  con- 
duct and  resolution.  But  the  match  being  un- 
equal, he  was  obliged  to  give  up  the  contest-; 
and,  with  his  sword  and  armour  all  bathed  in 
blood,  and  almost  alone,  is  said  to  have  left  the 
field,  in  which,  for  the  first  time,  he  had  taken  no 
precautions  for  re-assembling  his  army,  and  on 
which  his  Numidians  were  accordingly  routed, 
to  rally  no  more ! 

Upon  these  repeated  defeats,  Bocchus  des- 
paired of  the  fortunes  of  Jugurtha, 
U.  C.  617.  and  sent  a  deputation  to  Marius,  re- 
questing a  conference  with  himself, 
C  Attilius  or  with  some  of  his  officers.  He 
%uintxr-S'  0Dtamed  an  interview  with  Sylla  and 
Seroilius  Manlius ;  but,  upon  their  arrival,  had 
Crntico.  taken  no  fixed  resolution,  and  was 
still  kept  in  suspense,  by  the  persua- 
sion of  those  of  his  court  who  favoured  the  in- 
terest of  Jugurtha.  Marius,  being  continued  in 
his  command,  resumed  the  operations  of  the  war, 
and  was  about  to  attack  the  only  place  which  yet 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  When 
the  king  of  Mauritaiiia,  alarmed  by  this  circum- 
stance, took  his  resolution  to  sue  for  peace,  he 
sent  a  deputation  of  five  chosen  persons,  first  to 
the  quarters  of  Marius,  and,  with  this  general's 
permission,  ordered  them  to  proceed  from  thence 
to  Rome.  These  deputies,  being  admitted  into 
the  senate,  made  offers  of  friendship  in  the  name 
of  their  master;  and  were  informed,  in  return, 
that  he  must  give  proofs  of  his  friendly  disposi- 
tion to  the  Romans,  before  they  could  believe  his 
professions,  or  listen  to  any  terms  of  peace. 
"V,rhen  this  answer  was  reported  to  Bocchus,  he 
w? not  at  a  loss  to  understand  that  the  Romans 
wished  him  to  deliver  up  the  king  of  Numidia 
into  their  hands ;  and  seems  to  have  conceived 
the  design  of  purchasing  peace,  even  on  these 
terms.  Sylla  being  already  personally  known  to 
him,  he  made  choice  of  this  officer  as  the  person 


with  whom  he  would  treat,  and  desired  he  might 
be  sent  to  his  quarters.  The  Roman  questoi 
accordingly  set  out  with  a  small  party.  On  the 
way  he  was  met  by  Volux,  the  son  of  the  king 
of  Mauritania,  with  a  thousand  horse  :  him  h6 
considered  as  of  doubtful  intention,  whether  com* 
as  a  friend  or  an  enemy ;  but  coming  with  pro- 
f;  ssions  of  friendship  from  the  king  his  father, 
and  with  orders  to  escort  the  Roman  questor, 
they  proceeded  together.  On  the  second  day 
after  this  junction,  Volux  came  in  haste  to  the 
quarters  of  Sylla,  and  informed  him,  that  the  ad- 
vanced party  had  discovered  Jugurtha  posted  on 
their  route,  with  a  considerable  force,  and  ear- 
nestly pressed  the  Romans  to  endeavour  to  make 
their  escape  in  the  night. 

Sylla  could  no  longer  command  his  suspicions, 
and,  sensible  that  he  had  imprudently,  without 
hostage  or  other  security,  ventured  too  far  on  the 
faith  of  an  African  prince,  proudly  refused  to  alter 
his  march ;  desired  that  the  Mauritanian  prince, 
if  he  thought  proper,  should  depart ;  but  inform- 
ing him  at  the  same  time,  that  the  Roman  people 
would  know  how  to  avenge  the  injury  done  to 
their  officers,  and  would  not  fail  to  punish  the 
perfidy  of  the  king  his  father.  Volux  made  pro- 
testations of  his  innocence;  and  as  the  Roman 
questor  could  not  be  prevailed  on  to  save  himself 
by  flight,  this  prince  insisted  to  remain,  and  to 
share  in  his  danger.  They  accordingly  kept  on 
their  way,  passed  through  the  troops  of  Jugurtha, 
who,  though  disposed  to  offer  violence  to  the  Ro- 
mans, had  yet  some  measures  to  observe  with  the 
king  of  Mauritania,  whose  son  was  in  the  com- 
pany ;  and  while,  contrary  to  his  usual  character, 
he  remained  undecided,  the  prey  escaped  him, 
and  got  out  of  his  reach. 

Jugurtha  sent  persons  of  confidence  immedi- 
ately to  counteract  the  negotiations  of  Sylla  at 
the  court  of  Bocchus ;  and  each  of  these  parties 
solicited  the  king  of  Mauritania  to  betray  the 
other.  The  Numidians  endeavoured  to  persuade 
him,  that,  with  such  a  hostage  as  Sylla  in  his 
hands,  he  might  still  expect  some  honourable 
terms  from  the  Romans ;  and  Sylla,  on  the  other 
part,  represented,  that,  as  the  king  of  Mauritania 
had  offended  the  Romans,  by  abetting  the  crimes 
of  Jugurtha,  he  must  now  expiate  his  guilt  by 
delivering  him  over  to  justice.  It  was  the  incli- 
nation of  this  prince  to  favour  jugurtha ;  but  it 
was  his  interest,  as  well  as  his  intention,  to  gain 
the  Romans.  While  he  was  still  in  suspense,  he 
gave  equal  encouragement  to  both  parties ;  and, 
without  being  finally  determined  what  he  should 
do,  appointed  the  Roman  questor  and  the  king 
of  Numidia  to  meet  him  without  any  escort,  or 
number  of  men  in  arms,  reserving  to  the  last  mo- 
ment the  power  of  determining  against  the  one 
or  the  other.  He  had  placed  a  body  of  his  own 
troops  in  ambush,  and,  soon  after  the  parties 
were  met,  gave  a  signal,  which  his  men  under- 
stood to  be  for  seizing  Jugurtha.  The  Numi- 
dians, who  attended  their  king,  were  slain ;  he 
himself  was  put  in  chains,  and  delivered  up  to 
the  Roman  questor.  Sylla  with  the  exultation 
of  a  hunter,  received  this  lion  in  his  toils ;  and, 
though  he  lived  to  perform  much  greater  actions, 
still  appears  to  have  valued  himself  most  on  the 
success  of  this  commission.  He  boasted  so  much 
of  his  prize,  that  he  became  from  that  moment, 
an  object  of  jealousy  to  Marius,  and  was  con- 
sidered as  a  nerson  advancing  too  fast  in  the 


3hap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


115 


» -ime  careerof  renown.'  It  was  understood  among 
v  le  Romans,  that  the  commander-in-chief,  upon 
any  service,  in  any  division  or  province  of  the 
empire,  enjoyed  the  triumph  for  victories  gained, 
even  in  his  absence,  by  his  lieutenants,  or  by 
those  who  served  under  his  command ;  and  Ma- 
rius  probably  thought  that  Sylla  took  more  to 
himself  than  was  due  upon  this  occasion.  The 
desire  of  being  the  person  who  put  the  finishing 
hand  to  any  service,  however  accomplished,  was 
not  peculiar  to  these  officers.  It  was  an  effect  of 
the  Roman  policy  in  making  the  rewards  of 
iionour  depend  so  much  on  events,  without  re- 
gard to  the  means  which  were  employed  to  pro- 
duce them.  From  this  circumstance,  the  citizens 
of  this  republic  were  as  desirous  of  having  the 
reputation  of  successful  adventures  affixed  to  their 
names,  as  courtiers  in  modern  Europe  are  de- 
sirous to  have  titles  of  nobility,  or  badges  of  their 
sovereign's  favour. 

The  war  being  thus  at  an  end,  Marius  ap- 
pointed a  thanksgiving;  and,  while  he  was  of- 
fering the  customary  sacrifices,  the  news  arrived 
from  Rome  that  the  people  had  dispensed  with 
the  law  in  his  favour,  and  again  had  made  choice 
of  him  for  consul1  of  the  following  year.  This 
choice  was  determined  by  the  great  alarm  which 
the  Romans  had  taken  on  the  approach  of  the 
barbarous  nations,  who,  like  a  meteor,  had,  for 
some  years,  traversed  the  regions  of  Europe,  and, 
with  uncertain  direction,  were  said  to  destroy 
wherever  they  moved.  The  Romans  had  re- 
peatedly stood  in  their  way,  and  had  provoked  a 
resentment,  which  these  barbarians  were  sup- 
posed, in  haste,  to  wreck  upon  Italy.  They 
were  at  first  heard  of  under  the  name  only  of 
Cimbri :  but  were  now  known  to  consist  of  many 
nations,  under  the  appellations  of  Ambrones, 
Teutones,  Tectosagi,  and  others;  and  had  gained 
accessions  of  force  by  the  junction  of  the  Tigu- 
rini,  and  other  Gaulish  nations,  who,  either  by 
choice  or  compulsion,  were  made  a  part  in  this 
mighty  host,  whose  movements  the  Romans  con- 
sidered as  chiefly  directed  against  themselves. 

Besides  the  armies  commanded  by  the  consuls 
Carbo  and  Silanus,  who  had  fallen  victims  to  this 
barbarous  enemy,  other  considerable 
TJ.  C.  G18.  hoclies,  under  Scaurus  and  Cassius, 
P  Rutilius  'lat'  Pe,'isnc(l  °y  tne^r  hands;  and 
Rufus,  On.  other  misfortunes,  from  the  same 
Mallius.  '  quarter,  were  coming  apace.  At  the 
time  that  Marius  had  finished  the 
war  with  Jugurtha,  Q,uintus  Servius  Ca:pio, 
having  the  former  year  commanded  in  Gaul, 
where  he  destroyed  or  pillaged  the  city  of  Tolosa, 
and  made  a  great  booty,  consisting,  according  to 
Justin,  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  weight 
of  gold,  and  one  million  five  hundred  thousand 
pounds  weight  of  silver,  was  now,  in  his  turn,  to 
meet  with  this  enemy;  the  consul  Mallius  or 
Manilius  had  orders  to  join  him ;  and  all  the 
troops  they  could  assemble  were  thought  neces- 
sary to  withstand  the  barbarians.  These  generals 
united  their  forces  on  the  Rhone,  but  without  a 
proper  disposition  to  act  in  concert ;  they  were 
accordingly  defeated  in  battle ;  eighty  thousand 
Romans,  amongst  whom  were  the  two  sons  of  the 
consul  Manilius,  were  killed  in  the  action  ;  forty 
thousand  attendants  of  the  army  were  massacred 
in  cold  blood.    Both  camps  were  taken. 


1  Plutarch,  in  Mario  et  in  Sylla. 


I  After  this  victory  the  lords  of  the  Cimbri,  be- 
ing assembled  in  council,  called  before  them  Au- 
relius  Scaurus,  formerly  a  Roman  consul,  lately 
second  in  command  to  one  of  the  vanquished  ar- 
mies, and  now  a  prisoner.  They  questioned  him 
with  respect  to  the  forces  in  Italy,  and  the  route 
to  be  taken  across  the  Alps  :  to  these  questions 
he  made  answer,  that  it  would  be  in  vain  for 
them  to  invade  that  country  :  that  the  Romans  on 
their  own  territory,  were  invincible.  And,  in  re- 
turn to  these  words,  it  is  said,  that  a  barbarian 
struck  the  prisoner  with  his  dagger  to  the  heart. 
It  is  further  said  of  this  barbarous  council,  that 
they  came  to  a  resolution  to  spare  no  prisoners,  to 
destroy  the  spoils  of  the  slain,  to  cast  all  the  trea- 
sures of  gold  and  silver  into  the  nearest  river,  to 
destroy  all  horses  with  their  saddles  and  furniture, 
and  to  save  no  booty  whatever ;  and  it  must  be 
confessed,  that  in  this  their  resolutions  were 
guided  by  a  policy  well  accommodated  to  the  man- 
ner of  life  they  chose  to  maintain.  Wealthy  posses- 
sions frequently  disqualify  even  settled  nations  for 
the  toils  of  war,  but  to  migrating  tribes,  they  would 
be  certain  impediments  and  the  means  of  ruin.2 

These  accounts  of  the  character  of  an  enemy, 
and  of  the  fate  of  Roman  armies  which  ventured 
to  encounter  them,  were  received  at  Rome  with 
amazement  and  terror.  The  citizens  changed 
their  dress  and  assumed  the  military  habit.  Ru- 
tilius, the  consul,  who  had  remained  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  affairs  in  Italy,  had  instructions 
from  the  senate  to  array  every  person  that  was  fit 
to  bear  arms.  No  one  who  had  attained  the  military 
age  was  exempted.  It  is  mentioned,  that  the  sun  of 
the  consul  himself  was  turned  into  the  ranks  of  a 
legion.  There  was  little  time  to  train  such  lev  ies  ; 
and  the  usual  way  was  thought  insufficient.  The 
fencing-masters,  employed  to  train  gladiators  for 
the  public  shows,  were  brought  forth,  and  distri- 
buted to  instruct  the  citizens  in  the  use  of  their 
weapons.3  But  the  expedient,  on  which  the  peo- 
ple chiefly  relied  for  deliverance  from  the  dangers 
which  threatened  them,  was  the  nomination  of 
Marius  to  command  against  this  terrible  enemy. 

This  officer,  upon  hearing  of  his  re-election,  set 
out  for  Italy,  and,  with  his  legions  anil  their  cap- 
tives, entered  Rome  in  triumph  ;  a  spectacle,  of 
which  Jugurtha,  in  chains,  with  his  unfortunate 
children,  were  the  principal  figures.  When  the 
procession  was  over,  the  captive  king  was  led  to  a 
dungeon,  under  orders  for  his  immediate  execu- 
tion. As  he  was  about  to  be  stripped  of  his  or- 
naments -and  robes,  the  executioner,  in  haste  to 
pluck  the  pendants  from  his  ears,  tore  away  the 
flesh,  and  thrust  him  naked  into  a  dungeon 
below  ground.  He  descended  into  this  place  with 
a  smile,  saying,  "  What  a  cold  hath  is  here  JM 
He  pined  about  six  days,  and  expired.  A  kind 
and  an  able  commander,  would,  in  such  a  situa- 
tion, have  been  an  object  of  respect  and  of  pity, 
if  we  did  not  recollect,  that  he  was  the  murderer 
of  Adherbal  and  Hiempsal,  the  innocent  children 
of  his  benefactor.  And  if  we  did  not  receive  some 
consolation  from  being  told,  that  his  own  chil- 
dren, who  were  likewise  innocent,  were  exempted 
from  the  lot  of  their  father,  and  honourably  en- 
tertained in  Italy. 

Marius,  in  this  triumph,  is  said  to  have  brought 
into  the  treasury   three  thousand  and  seven 


2  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  16.  Eutrop.  lib.  v. 
:i  Valer.  Max.  lib.  ii.  c.  3. 


116 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


pounds,  or  thirty  thousand  and  seventy  ounces  of 
gold,  and  fifty-seven  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  ounces  of  silver;  and  in  money,  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty-seven  thousand  denarii.1  He  en- 
tered the  senate,  contrary  to  custom,  in  his  trium- 
phal robes,  probably  to  insult  the  nobles,  who 
used  to  despise  him  as  a  person  of  obscure  ex- 
traction, born  in  a  country  town,  and  of  a  mean 
family  :  but  finding  that  this  was  considered  as  an 
act  of  petulance,  and  generally  condemned,  he 
withdrew  and  changed  his  dress. 

The  kingdom  of  Numidia  was  dismembered ; 
part  was  put  into  the  possession  of  Bocchus  as  a 
reward  for  his  late  services ;  and  part  reserved  for 
the  surviving  heirs  of  Massinissa. 

As  the  law  respecting  the  consulate  now  stood, 
no  one  could  be  elected  in  absence, 
U.  C.  649.  nor  re-elected  into  this  office,  till  af- 
Consuls  ■  C.  *er  an  interval  of  ten  years.  Both 
Marius  2do.  clauses  were  dispensed  with  in  fa- 
C.  Flavius  your  of  Marius,  under  pretence  of 
Fimbria.  continuing  him  at  the  head  of  the 
army,  but  as  he  might  still  have  re- 
mained at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  have  ren- 
dered the  same  services  to  the  state  in  the  quality 
of  proconsul,  his  re-election  may  be  ascribed  to 
his  own  ambition,  and  to  his  jealousy  of  other 
rising  men  in  the  state.  Being  considered  as  head 
of  the  popular  party,  his  elevation  was  an  object 
of  zeal  to  the  tribunes,  and  was  intended  to  mor- 
tify those  who  affected  the  distinctions  of  ancient 
family.  Contrary  to  the  usual  form,  and  without 
casting  lots,  he  was  preferred  to  his  colleague  in 
the  appointment  to  command  in  Gaul.  Having 
his  choice  of  all  the  armies  at  that  time  in  Italy, 
he  took  the  new  levies,  lately  assembled  and  dis- 
ciplined by  Rutilius,  in  preference  to  the  veterans, 
who  had  served  in  Africa  under  Metellus  and 


himself.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  determined  in 
this  choice,  more  by  desire  to  gratify  the  veterans 
who  wished  to  be  discharged,  than  by  the  consi- 
deration of  any  supposed  superiority  in  the  dis- 
cipline to  which  the  new  levies  had  been  trained.2 

Upon  the  arrival  of  Marius  in  his  province  it 
appeared,  that  the  alarm  taken  for  the  safety  of 
Italy  was  somewhat  premature.  The  barbarians 
in  their  battles  only  meant  to  maintain  the  repu- 
tation of  their  valour,  or  to  keep  open  the  tract  of 
their  migrations.  They  had  found  the  lands  from 
about  the  higher  parts  of  the  Danube  and  the 
Rhine,  through  Gaul  and  across  the  Pyrennees 
into  Spain,  and  to  the  ocean,  convenient  for  then* 
purpose,  and  sufficiently  extensive.  They  had  yet 
meditated  no  war  with  the  Romans,  or  any  other 
nation ;  but  did  not  decline  the  encounter  where 
they  met  with  resistance.  At  present  they  con- 
tinued their  migrations  to  the  westward,  without 
any  intention  to  cross  the  Alps,  or  to  visit  the  na- 
tions who  inhabited  within  those  mountains. 

We  have  nothing  recorded  in  history  concern- 
ing the  movements  of  these  wandering  nations, 
during  the  two  subsequent  years,  except  what  is 
related  of  their  adventure  with  Fulvius,  a  Roman 
praetor,  probably  in  Spain,  who,  in  return  for  hos- 
tilities committed  in  his  province,  having  made  a 
feint  to  draw  the  attention  of  their  warriors,  sur- 
prised and  sacked  their  camp.  Under  the  appre- 
hension, however,  of  their  return  towards  Gaul 
and  Italy,  Marius  continued  to  be  elected  consul, 
and  was  repeatedly  named  to  the  command  of  the 
army  that  was  destined  to  oppose  them.  His 
party  at  Rome  had,  at  this  time,  besides  the  exi- 
gency which  justified  their  choice,  many  other 
advantages  against  their  antagonists,  and  main- 
tained the  envious  quarrel  of  the  lower  people 
against  the  nobility  with  great  animosity  and  zeal, 


CHAPTER  V. 

Review  of  the  Circumstances  xohich  revived  the  popular  Party — Farther  Account  of  Laws  and 
Regulations  under  their  Administration — Stale  of  the  Empire — Fourth  Consulate  of  Marius — 
Continued  Migrations  of  the  Barbarous  Nations — Defeated  by  Marius  at  Aquae  Sextice—  By 
Marius  and  Catidus  in  Italy. 


THE  senate  had,  for  some  time  after  the  sup- 
pression of  the  troubles  which  were  raised  by  Ful- 
vius and  the  younger  Gracchus,  retained  its  au- 
thority, and  restrained  the  tribunes  of  the  people 
within  ordinary  bounds;  but  by  the  suspicions 
which  arose  against  them,  on  the  subject  of  their 
transactions  with  Jugurtha,  and  by  the  miscar- 
riages of  the  war  in  Numidia,  they  again  lost  their 
advantage.  It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  real 
grounds  of  these  suspicions.  Sallust  seems  to  ad- 
mit them  in  their  utmost  extent,  and  represents 
the  whole  order  of  nobility  as  mercenary  traders, 
disposed  to  sell  what  the  republic  entrusted  to 
their  honour.  That  the  presents  of  Jugurtha 
were  sometimes  accepted,  and  produced  some 
effect,  is  not  to  be  doubted  ;  but  that  the  aristo- 
cracy of  Rome,  during  its  short  reign,  was  so 
much  corrupted,  is  scarcely  to  be  credited.  Such 
a  measure  of  corruption  must  have  rendered  the 


state  a  prey  to  every  foreign  power  that  was  in  a 
condition  to  mislead  its  councils,  and  is  not  con- 
sistent with  that  superiority  which  the  Romans 
then  generally  possessed  in  their  negotiations,  as 
well  as  in  their  wars.  The  charge  itself  savours 
too  much  of  that  envy  with  which  the  lower  class 
of  the  people  at  all  times  interpret  the  conduct  of 
their  superiors,  and  which  was  greatly  coun- 
tenanced by  the  partizans  of  Caesar,  at  the  time 
when  Sallust  wrote,  in  order  to  vilify  and  reduce 
the  senate.  We  cannot,  however,  oppose  mere 
conjecture  to  the  positive  testimony  of  Sallust, 
corroborated  by  some  suspicious  circumstances  in 
the  transactions  of  the  times.  Among  these  we 
may  recollect  the  patronage  which  Jugurtha  met 
with  at  Rome,  contrary  to  the  professions  of  the 
Romans,  in  behalf  of  justice,  and  the  uncommon 
number  of  senators  degraded  at  that  time,  by  au- 
thority of  the  censors,  &.  Caacilius  Metellus  and 


i  About  10,0007. 


2  Frontius  de  Stragemat.  lib.  iv  c.  2. 


Chap.  V.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


117 


Cn.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,"  which  has  been  al- 
ready mentioned  in  its  place. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  real  occasion  of 
the  cry  then  subsisting  against  the  nobles,  we  have 
seen  that  the  popular  party,  availing  themselves  of 
it,  and  giving  it  all  manner  of  countenance,  found 
means  to  recover  great  part  of  their  lost  power. 
The  tribunes,  having  obtained  the  establishment 
of  a  special  commission  for  the  trial  of  all  those 
who  had  received  bribes  from  Jugurtha,  made  the 
people  consider  their  own  act  in  constituting  a 
court  of  inquiry,  as  sufficient  to  evince  the  reality 
of  the  crime.  The  prosecutions  which  continued 
to  be  carried  on  for  two  years,  upon  this  supposi- 
tion, served  more  than  the  subject  of  any  former, 
dispute  to  alienate  the  minds  of  men  from  each 
other,  and  from  the  public.  Questions  were 
more  of  a  private  than  of  a  public  nature,  and 
occupied  the  worst  of  the  human  passions,  envy, 
malice,  and  revenge.  One  party  learned  to  che- 
rish falsehood,  subordination,  and  perjury ;  the 
other  lived  in  continual  fear  of  having  such  en- 
gines employed  against  themselves. 

The  people,  in  their  zeal  to  attack  the  nobility 
under  any  pretence,  made  no  distinction  between 
errors  and  crimes ;  and,  contrary  to  the  noble 
spirit  of  their  ancestors,  treated  misfortune,  inca- 
pacity, or  treachery,  with  equal  rigour.  One  tri- 
bune had  extended  the  use  of  the  secret  ballot  to 
the  trial  of  lesser  crimes  ;4  another,  upon  this  oc- 
casion, took  away  all  distinctions,  and  introduced 
it  in  the  trial  of  capital  crimes  also  :5  so  that  the 
judge,  without  being  accountable,  indulged  his 
secret  malice  or  partial  favour.6 

Laws  were  made  to  promote  the  interest,  as 
well  as  to  gratify  the  animosity  of  the  lower  peo- 

f)le.  By  the  Agrarian  law  of  Gracchus,  certain 
imits  were  set  to  estates  in  land ;  but,  in  order 
to  render  the  excess  of  lands,  in  the  hands  of  any 
particular  person,  immediately  useful  to  the  peo- 
ple, it  was  permitted,  by  an  amendment  made 
during  the  low  state  of  the  aristocratical  party, 
that  persons  in  possession  of  more  than  the  legal 
measure  of  land,  might  retain  their  estates,  but 
subject  to  a  rent  to  be  collected  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poorer  citizens;  and  thus  it  was  proposed, 
that  without  any  trouble  in  taking  possession  of 
lands,  or  removing  from  the  city,  the  favourites 
of  the  party  should  be  accommodated,  and  reap 
the  fruits  of  sedition  and  idleness  unimpaired.7 
It  was  proposed  by  the  consul 
U.  C.  G17.  Servilius  Cajpio,  that  the  senate, 
Lex  Servilia  whose  members  were  personally 
de  Judiciis.  so  much  exposed  to  prosecutions, 
should  have  their  share  likewise  in 
composing  the  juries,  a  privilege  of  which,  by  the 
edict  of  Gracchus,  they  had  been  deprived.8  In 
whatever  degree  this  proposal  was  adopted,  it 
was  again  expressly  repealed  upon  the  motion 
of  Servilius  Glaucia.  And  Caipio  soon  after  ex- 
perienced, in  his  own  person,  the  animosity  of 
the  popular  faction,  being  tried  for  miscarriage  in 
his  battle  with  the  Cimbri.  He  was  condemned 
by  the  judges,  and  afterwards,  in  virtue  of  a  re- 
gulation obtained  by  Cassius,  one  of  the  tri- 


3  It  is  already  mentioned,  that  thirty-two  senators 
were  struck  oil"  the  rolls  by  these  magistrates. 

4  Lex  Cassia  Tabellaria. 

5  Lex  CiElia  Tabellaria. 

G  <  licer.  de  Legibua,  lib.  iii. 

7  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  i 

8  Valer  Max.  lib  v  c  9. 


i  bunes,  declared,  in  consequence  of  that  sentence, 
disqualified  to  hold  a  place  in  the  senate.9 

Besides  the  transactions  already  mentioned,  the 
following  particulars,  overlooked  in  the  hurry  of 
recording  military  operations  and  events,  may 
serve  still  farther  to  characterize  the  times.  JV1. 
Junius  Silanus  was  tried  for  misconduct  against 
the  enemy ;  M.  Emilius  Scaurus,  first  on  the 
roll  of  the  senate,  was  brought  to  trial  for  con- 
tempt of  religion ;  but  both  acquitted.  The 
ardour  for  these  prosecutions,  and  popular  regu- 
lations, continued  until  the  second  consulate  of 
Marius,  when  M.  Marcius  Philippus,  one  of  the 
tribunes,  moved  to  restore  the  law  of  Tiberius 
Gracchus,  respecting  the  division  of  estates  in 
land ;  and  in  his  speech  in  support  of  this  mo- 
tion, affirmed,  that  there  were  not  two  thousand 
families  in  Rome  possessed  of  any  property  in 
land  whatever.10  This  motion,  however,  was 
withdrawn. 

Among  the  crimes  which  the  populace  were 
now  so  eager  to  punish,  fortunately  that  of  pecu- 
lation or  extortion  in  the  provinces  was  one.  To 
facilitate  complaints  on  this  subject,  not  only  per- 
sons having  an  immediate  interest  in  the  case, 
but  all  to  whom  any  money  or  effects  injuriously 
taken  might  have  otherwise  come  by  inheritance, 
were  entitled  to  prosecute  for  this  offence  ;  and 
any  alien,  who  convicted  a  Roman  citizen  of  this 
crime,  so  as  to  have  him  struck  oft*  the  rolls  of 
the  people,  was  himself  to  be  inrolled  instead  of 
the  citizen  displaced.11 

Domitius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  attacked  the 
aristocratical  constitution  even  of  the  priesthood, 
and  endeavoured  to  transfer  the  right  of  election 
from  the  order  itself  to  the  people ;  but  supersti- 
tion, which  continues  to  influence  the  bulk  of 
mankind  after  reason  has  failed,  here  stood  in  his 
way.  The  custom  was  against  him ;  and,  in 
such  matters,  religion  and  custom 
Lex  Dom\tia  are  the  same.  The  people,  there- 
de  Sacerdctiis.  fore,  it  was  confessed,  could  not  in- 
terfere without  profanation  ;  but  a 
certain  part  of  the  people  might  judge  of  the  can- 
didates, and  instruct  the  college  of  priests  whom 
they  were  to  choose.12  The  same  artifice,  or  ver- 
bal evasion,  had  been  already  admitted  in  the 
form  of  electing  the  Pontifex  Maximus,  now 
chosen  by  seventeen  of  the  tribes  who  were  drawn 
by  lot.'3 

During  this  period,  a  just  alarm  was  taken  on 
the  subject  of  private  as  well  as  public  corruption. 
Liberty  was  conceived  to  imply  a  freedom  from 
every  restraint,  and  to  justify  licence  and  con- 
tempt of  the  laws.  The- aids  which  were  given 
to  the  people  to  enable  them  to  subsist  in  profu- 
sion and  idleness;  the  wealth  that  was  passing  to 
Rome  in  the  hands  of  traders,  contractors,  and 
farmers  of  the  revenue,  as  well  as  provincial  offi- 
cers, by  whom  the  profits  of  a  first  Appointment 
were  lavished  in  public  shows,  fights  of  gladiators, 
and  baiting  of  wild  beasts,  to  gain  the  people  in 
their  canvass  for  farther  preferments;  these  seve- 
ral circumstances  tended  in  the  highest  degree,  to 
corrupt  the  people,  and  to  render  them  unworthy 
of  that  sovereignty  which  they  actually  possessed 
in  the  prevalence  of  the  popular  faction. 


9  Asconius  Paedianns  in  Corneliana  Ciceronis. 

10  Cicer.  de.  Officiis,  lib.  ii.    II  Cicero  in  Bjilbiana 

12  Asconius  in  Corneliana  Ciceronis. 

13  Cicero  de  Lege  Agtaria. 


118 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  FL 


The  severities  which  were  practised  in  certain 
cases,  the  sumptuary  laws  which  were  provided 
to  restrain  luxury,  were  but  feeble  aids  to  step 
such  a  source  of  disorder.  It  is  mentioned,  as  an 
instance  of  such  severity,  that  some  vestals  were 
questioned  at  this  time  for  a  breach  of  that  sacred 
obligation  to  chastity,  under  which  they  were 
held  up  as  a  pattern  of  manners  to  the  Roman 
women ;  that  three  of  them  were  condemned, 
and,  together  with  Roman  knights,  the  supposed 
partners  in  their  crimes,  suffered  extreme  pu- 
nishment. A  temple  was  on  this  occasion  erect- 
ed to  the  goddess  Venus  under  a  new  title,  that 
of  the  Reformer  ;'  and  prayers  were  to  be  offered 
up  in  this  temple,  that  it  might  please  the  god- 
dess to  guard  the  chastity  of  Romen  women.2 

The  term  luxury  is  somewhat  ambiguous ;  it 
is  put  for  sensuality  or  excess  in  what  relates  to 
the  preservation  of  animal  life ;  and  for  the  effect 
of  vanity,  in  what  relates  to  the  decorations  of 
rank  and  fortune.  The  luxury  of  the  Romans, 
in  the  present  age,  was  probably  of  the  former 
kind,  and  sumptuary  laws  were  provided,  not  to 
restrain  vanity,  but  to  govern  the  appetites  for 
mere  debauch'  About  the  time  that  Jugurtha 
was  at  Rome,  the  sumptuary  law  of  Fannius  re- 
ceived an  addition,  by  which  Roman  citizens 
were  not  only  restricted  in  their  ordinary  ex- 
pense, but  the  legal  quantities  and  species  of  food 
were  prescribed  to  them.  The  whole  expense  of 
the  table  was  restricted  to  thirty  asses3  a  day, 
and  the  meat  to  be  served  up,  to  three  or  four 
pounds,  dried  or  salted.  There  was  no  restric- 
tion in  the  use  of  herbs  or  vegetables  of  any 
sort.4  According  to  A.  Gellius,  the  law  permit- 
ted, on  certain  days,  an  expense  of  a  hundred 
asses;  on  wedding  days,  two  hundred.  It  is 
remarkable,  that  this  law  continued  to  have  its 
effect  on  the  tables  of  Roman  citizens  after  Ci- 
cero was  a  man.5  The  epicures  of  this  time  were 
obliged  to  make  up,  in  the  cookery  of  their  vege- 
table diet,  what  was  defective  in  that  species  of 
food. 

About  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  the 
Numidian  war,  the  people,  according  to  the  cen- 
sus, amounted  to  four  hundred  and  three  thou- 
sand four  hundred  and  thirty-six  citizens,  fit  to 
carry  arms.  At  this  time  it  was  that  the  censors, 
tluintus  .Cecilius  Metellus,  and  Cn.  Domitius 
Ahenobarbus.  expelled  thirty-two  members  from 
the  senate. 

While  the  Romans  were  intent  on  the  war 
which  subsisted  in  Africa,  they  were  assailed  by 
enemies  in  some  of  the  other  provinces.  In 
Spain,  hostilities,  at  intervals,  were  still  renewed, 
in  endeavouring  to  quell  one  of  the  revolts  of  the 
natives,  the  Roman  praetor  was  killed ;  in  another 
encounter,  the  forces  employed  against  them  were 
cut.  off;  and  a  fresh  army  was  transported  from 
Italy  to  secure  the  Roman  possessions. 

Hostilities  were  likewise  continued  on  the 
frontier  of  Macedonia,  by  the  Scordbci,  Triballi, 
and  other  Thracian  nations  ;  and  the  proconsul 
Rufus,  by  his  victories  in  this  quarter,  obtained  a 
triumph. 

During  this  period,  in  the  consulship  of  Atti- 
lius  Serranus,  and  <X.  Servilius  Caepio,  the  year 

1  Venus  Verticordia. 

2  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  K>.  Jul.  Obsequens.  Ovid. 
Fast  lib  v.         3  About  two  shillings. 

4  M'acrobius  Satur.  lib.  ii.  c.  17. 

5  Epist.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  vii.  ad  Galium. 


after  the  first  consulship  of  Marius,  were  born 
two  illustrious  citizens,  M.  Tullius  Cicero,  and 
Cneius  Pompeius  Strabo,  afterwards  distinguish- 
ed by  the  appellation  of  Pompey  the  Great.  And 
we  are  now  to  open  the  scene  in  which  the  per- 
sons on  whom  the  fate  of  the  Roman  empire  was 
to  depend,  made  their  several  entries  into  life,  or 
into  public  business,  and  began  to  pass  through 
an  infancy  or  a  youth  of  danger,  to  an  old  age  or 
extreme  trouble,  which  closed  with  the  subver- 
sion of  that  constitution  to  which  they  were  born. 

Marius  having,  without  any  me- 
U.  C.  650.  morable  event,  passed  the  year  of 
his  second  consulship  on  the  fron- 
Caius  Marius  tier  of  Narbonne  Gaul,  was,  by  the 
3/io,  L.  Jlnre-  people,  still  under  the  same  appre- 
lius  Orestes.  hension  of  the  Cimbric  invasion, 
re-elected  into  the  same  offer,  and 
destined  "for  his  former  station.  Thb  year  like- 
wise the  barbarians  turned  aside  from  his  pro- 
vince, and  left  the  republic  at  leisure  to  contend 
with  enemies  of  less  consideration,  w  ho  appeared 
in  a  different  quarter.  Athenio,  a  slave  in  Sicily, 
having  murdered  his  master,  and  broken  open 
the  prisons  or  yards  in  which  slaves  were  com- 
monly confined  at  work,  assembled  a  number 
together,  and  being  clothed  in  a  purple  robe,  with 
a  crown  and  a  sceptre,  affected  a  species  of  roy- 
alty, invited  all  the  slaves  of  the  island  to  assume 
their  freedom  under  his  protection.  He  acquired 
strength  sufficient  to  cope  with  Servilius  Casca, 
the  Roman  praetor,  and  actually  forced  him  in 
his  camp.  He  likewise  defeated  the  succeeding 
praetor,  Licinius  Luculus  ;6  and  was  in  the  third 
year  of  the  insurrection,  with  great  difficulty,  re- 
duced by  the  consul  Aquilius.  This  revolt  was  at 
its  height  in  this  year  of  the  third  consulship  of 
Marius,  and  it  was  quelled  in  the  second  year  after 
it,  the  rebels  being  surrounded  in  their  strong 
holds,  and  obliged  to  surrender  for  want  of  pro- 
visions.7 The  whole  is  mentioned  now,  that  it 
may  not  recur  hereafter  to  interrupt  matters  of 
more  moment. 

About  the  same  time  the  Romans  had  been 
obliged  to  equip  a  naval  armament  under  Marcus 
Antonius,  known  by  the  appellation  of  the  ora- 
tor, against  the  Cilician  pirates,  who  had  lately 
infested  the  seas.  All  that  we  know  of  this  ser- 
vice is,  in  general,  that  it  was  performed  with 
ability  and  success.8 

From  Macedonia,  Calpurnius  Piso  reported, 
that  the  victory  he  had  gained  over  the  Thra- 
cians  had  enabled  him  to  penetrate  to  the  moun- 
tains of  Rhodope  and  Caucasus. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  empire  when  Caius 
Marius  returned  from  his  province  in  Gaul,  to 
preside  at  the  election  of  consuls.  Pie  was  again, 
by  the  voice  of  the  people,  called  upon  to  resume 
his  former  trust ;  but  he  affected,  from  modesty, 
to  decline  the  honour.  Plis  partizans  were  pre- 
pared for  acting  this  part,  and  were  accordingly, 
by  their  importunities,  to  force  him  into  an  office 
which  he  so  modestly  seemed  to  decline.  Among 
these,  Apuleius  Saturninus,  at  this  time  himself 
candidate  for  the  office  of  tribune,  charged  Ma- 
rius with  treachery  to  his  country  in  proposing  to 
desert  the  republic  in  times  of  so  much  danger  • 
and  with  his  reproaches  prevailed  so  far  as  to 
render  him  passive  to  the  will  of  his  fellow-citi 


6  Florus,  lib.  iii.  c.  19.  7  Floras,  lib.  iv.  c.  19. 
I     8  Ibid.  lib.  iii.  c.  (i.    Cicero  de  Orator,  lib.  i. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


119 


zens,  who  wished  to  replace  him9  again  in  his 
former  station. 

In  this  fourth  consulate,  the 
U  C  651.      courage  and  military  skill  of  Ma- 

rius  came  to  be  actually  exerted  in 
Caius  Marias  this  province.  The  barbarous  na- 
Ato,  L.  Luta-  tions,  after  their  return  from  Spain, 
tiua  Catulus.     began  to  appear  in  separate  bodies, 

each  forming  a  numerous  and  for- 
midable army.  In  one  division  the  Cimbri  and 
Tectosages  had  passed  through  the  whole  length 
of  Gaul  to  the  Rhine,  and  from  thence-  proceeded 
by  the  Danube  to  Noricum  or  Austria,  and  were 
pointing  towards  Italy  by  the  valley  of  Trent. 
The  Consul  Lutatius  Catulus  was  stationed  near 
the  descent  of  the  Alps  to  observe  the  motions  of 
this  body. 

In  another  division,  the  Ambrones  and  the 
Teutones  hung  on  the  frontier  of  the  R.oman 
province  in  Gaul,  between  the  Garonne  and  the 
Rhone,  and  gave  out,  that  they  meant,  by  the 
most  ordinary  route  of  the  mountains,  to  join 
their  allies  in  Italy. 

Upon  the  approach  of  this  formidable  enemy, 
jMarius  took  post  on  the  Rhone  at  the  confluence 
of  that  river  with  the  Isere,  and  fortified  his  catnp 
in  the  most  effectual  manner.  The  barbarians 
reproaching  him  with  cowardice  for  having  taken 
these  precautions,  sent,  agreeably  to  their  own 
notions  of  war,  a  formal  challenge  to  meet  them 
in  battle;  and  having  had  for  answer  from  Ma- 
rius,  That  the  Romans  did  not  consult  their  ene- 
mies to  know  when  it  was  proper  to  tight,  they 
were  confirmed  in  the  contempt  which  they 
already  entertained  of  his  army,  ventured  to  leave 
them  behind,  and  proceeded  in  separate  divisions 
towards  Italy.  Marius  followed  ;  and.  with  rapid 
marches,  overtook  them  as  they  passed  over  the 
country  without  any  precaution;  some  of  them 
near  to  the  Roman  colony  of  Scxtius,10  and  far 
removed  from  each  other.  Having  found  them 
under  such  disadvantage,  and  in  such  confusion 
as  exposed  them  to  slaughter,  with  scarcely  any 
power  of  resistance,  he  put  the  greater  part  to 
the  sword.  Thus  part  of  the  hordes,  who  had 
for  many  years  been  so  formidable  to  the  Romans, 
were  now  entirely  cut  oil!  Ninety  thousand  pri- 
soners, with  Teutoboehus,  one  of  their  kings, 
were  taken,  and  two  hundred  thousand  were  said 
to  be  slain  in  the  field." 

The  news  of  this  victory  arriving  at  Rome, 
while  it  was  known  that  another  division  of  the 
same  enemy,  not  less  formidable,  was  still  in  tin; 
field,  it  was  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  command 
and  office  of  consul  would  be  continued  to  Marius. 
The  populace,  incited  by  some  of  the  factious  tri- 
bunes, joined,  with  the  other  usual  marks  of  their 
attachment  to  his  person,  that  of  disrespect  and 
insolence  to  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  his 
opponents  and  rivals.  Of  these,  Metelius  Nu- 
midieus,  whom  he  had  supplanted  in  the  com- 
mand of  the  army  against.  Jugurtiia,  was  the 
chief.  This  respectable  citizen,  being  now  in 
the  office  of  censor,  one  Equitius,  an  impostor  of 
obscure  and  slavish  extraction,  offered  himself  to 
be  enrolled  as  a  citizen,  under  the  popular  designa- 
tion and  name  of  Caius  Gracchus,  the  son  of 
i'ibenus.    The  censor,  doubling  his  title,  called 


t)  Plutarch  in  Mario.      10  Now  Aix,  in  Provence. 
11  Plutarch  in  Mario.  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  16.  Floras, 
Ub.  iii  c  '.i.  Velleius  Eutropius. 


upon  Sempronia,  the  sister  of  Gracchus,  to  testify 
what  she  knew  of  this  pretended  relation ;  and, 
upon  her  giving  evidence  against  him,  rejected  his 
claim.  The  populace,  ill-disposed  to  Metelius, 
on  account  of  his  supposed  difference  with  Ma- 
rius, took  this  opportunity  to  insult  him  in  the 
discharge  of  his  office ;  attacked  his  house,  and 
obliged  him  to  take  refuge  in  the  capitol.  Even  there 
the  tribune  Saturninus  would  have  laid  violent 
hands  on  his  person,  if  he  had  not  been  protected 
by  a  body  of  the  Roman  knights,  who  had  assem- 
bled in  arms  to  defend  him.  This  tumult  was 
suppressed,  but  not  without  bloodshed. 

While  the  popular  faction  were 
U.  C.  G53.    indulging  in  these  marks  of  their 

.  dislike  to  Metelius,  they  proceeded 

rUslto  t0  bestow  t!ie  honours  which  they 

M.Aquilius.  intended  for  Marius.  and  chose  him 
for  a  fifth  time  consul,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  M.  Aquilius.  His  late  splendid  suc- 
cess against  one  division  of  the  wandering  barba- 
rians justified  this  choice,  and  pointed  him  out  as 
the  fittest  person  to  combat  the  other,  which  was 
still  expected  from  the  side  of  Noricum  to  attempt 
the  invasion  of  Italy.  Catulus,  the  late  colleague 
of  Marius,  commanding  the  troops  that  were  sta- 
tioned on  the  Athesis,  to  cover  the  access  to  Italy 
from  the  valley  of  Trent,  was  destined  to  act  in 
subordination  to  the  consul,  who  had  given  or- 
ders to  hasten  the  march  of  his  victorious  army 
from  the  Rhone. 

Catulus  had  taken  post  above  Verona,  thrown 
a  bridge  over  the  Athesis,  and,  in  order  to  com- 
mand the  passage  of  that  river,  had  fortified  sta- 
tions on  both  its  banks.  While  he  was  in  this 
posture,  and  before  the  junction  of  Marius,  the 
enemy  arrived  in  his  neighbourhood.  The  amazing 
works  which  they  performed  fully  served  to  con- 
firm the  report  of  their  numbers.  They  obstructed 
with  mounds  of  timber  and  earth  the  channel  of 
the  river,  so  as  to  force  it  to  change  its  course ; 
and  thus,  instead  of  passing  the  river,  they  threw 
it  behind  them  in  their  march.  They  continued 
to  float  such  quantities  of  wood  on  the  stream 
above  the  bridge  which  Catulus  had  built,  that 
the  passage  of  the  water  being  stopped,  the  bridge, 
with  all  the  timber  which  was  accumulated  be- 
fore it,  was  entirely  carried  off.  The  Roman 
army,  on  seeing  such  evidence  of  the  numbers 
and  strength  of  their  enemy,  were  seized  with  a 
panic.  Many  d(  serted  their  colours,  some  fled 
even  to  Rome  without  halting.  The  proconsul 
thought  proper  to  order  a  retreat;  and  thus,  by 
seeming  to  authorise  what  he  could  not  prevent,  be 
endeavoured  to  save  in  part  the  credit  of  his  army. 

The  level  country  on  the  To  was  in  this  man- 
ner laid  open  to  the  incursions  of  the  barbarian.-. 
The  inhabitants  of  Italy  were  greatly  alarmed  : 
and  the  Roman  people  passed  an  act  of  attainder 
against  all  those  who  had  abandoned  their  colours. 
Marius,  who  continued  at  Rome  while  the  le- 
gions advanced  on  their  march  from  Gaul,  sus- 
pended the  triumph  which  had  been  ordered  him 
by  the  senate,  went  to  receive  his  army  at  the 
loot  of  the  Alps,  and  to  hasten  its  junction  with 
Catulus. 

Upon  the  junction  of  the  two  armies,  those 
who  bad  lately  fled  recovered  their  courage,  and 
the  generals  determined,  without  loss  of  tune,  to 
hazard  a  battle.  It  is  said  that  the  barbarians  of 
this  d. vision  were  still  ignorant  of  the  disaster 
which  bad  befallen  their  allies  on  the  other  side 


120 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


of  the  Alps,  and  had  sent  a  defiance  or  a  challenge 
to  fight ;  but  that  being  informed  of  this  calamity 
when  they  were  about  to  engage,  they  made  their 
attack  with  less  than  their  usual  ferocity  and  con- 
fidence. Catulus  received  them  in  front.  Marius 
made  a  movement  to  assail  them  in  flank ;  but  as 
they  were  hid  by  the  clouds  of  dust  which  every 
where  rose  from  the  plain,  he  missed  his  way,  or 
could  not  engage  till  after  the  enemy  had  been 
repulsed  by  Catulus,  and  were  already  put  to 
flight.  The  rout  was  extremely  bloody  ;  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  were  said  to  be  slain ; 
sixty  thousand  submitted  to  be  taken  prisoners. 
The  remainder  of  this  mighty  host,  even  the 
women  and  children,  perished  by  their  own 
hands ;  and  the  race  of  barbarous  nations  who 
had  migrated  through  Europe,  perhaps  for  ages 
before  they  encountered  with  the  Romans,  now 
appear  to  have  been  entirely  extirpated.1 


On  receiving  the  news  of  this  victory  at  Rome 
the  city  resounded  with  joy,  and  the  people,  ir. 
every  sacrifice  they  offered  up,  addressed  them- 
selves to  Marius  as  a  god.  He  had  been  con- 
stantly attended  in  this  war  by  Sylla,  who,  though 
already  an  object  of  his  jealousy,  still  chose  tc 
neglect  the  preferments  of  the  city,  and  to  serve 
in  the  camp.  In  the  late  victory  Marius  was  no 
more  than  partner  with  Catulus.  Upon  the  arri- 
val of  the  armies  at  Rome,  he  did  justice  to 
Catulus  in  this  particular,  and  admitted  him  to 
partake  in  his  triumph.  In  this  procession  there 
were  no  carriages  loaded  with  gold,  silver,  or  any 
precious  spoils  of  any  sort ;  but,  instead  of  them, 
the  shattered  armour  and  broken  swords  of  an 
enemy ;  the  surer  marks  of  an  honour  justly 
won,  and  of  a  more  important  service  performed. 
These  were  transported  in  loads,  and  piled  up  in 
the  capitol. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Character  and  immoderate  Ambition  of  Marius — Death  of  Nonius — Re-election  of  the  Tribune 
Saturninus — His  Sedition  and  seizing  the  Capitol — Death  of  Saturninus — Reverse  in  the  State 
of  Parties — Recall  of  Metellus —  Violent  Death  of  the  Tribune  Furius — Birth  of  Caius  Julius 
Caesar — Lex  Ccecilia  Didia — Blank  in  the  Roman  History — Sylla  offers  himself  Candidate  for 
the  Office  of  Prcetor — Edict  of  the  Censors  against  the  Latin  Rhetoricians — Bullion  in  the 
Roman  Treasury — Present  of  a  Groupe  in  golden  Figures  from  the  King  of  Mauritania — 
Acts  of  Livius  Drusus — Revolt  of  the  Italian  Allies — Policy  of  the  Romans  in  yielding  to  the 
Necessity  of  their  Affairs —  The  Laws  of  Plautius. 


UPON  the  extinction  of  the  wandering  na- 
tions which  had  now  for  some  time  molested  the 
empire,  there  was  no  foreign  enemy  to  endanger 
the  peace  of  Italy.  The  wars  in  Thrace  and  in 
Spain  had  no  effect  beyond  the  provinces  in 
which  they  subsisted.  The  insurrection  of  the 
slaves  in  Sicily,  by  the  good  conduct  of  Aquilius 
the  consul,  to  whom  that  service  had  been  com- 
mitted, was  near  being  quelled. 

Marius,  being  now  returned  to  the  city,  might 
have  quitted  the  paths  of  ambition  with  uncom- 
mon distinction  and  honour.  An  ordinary  con- 
sulate, after  his  having  been  so  often  called  upon 
in  times  of  danger,  as  the  person  most  likely  to 
save  his  country,  could  make  no  addition  to  his 
glory.  His  being  set  aside  in  times  of  security 
and  leisure,  would  even  have  been  the  most 
honourable  and  flattering  comment  that  could 
have  been  made  on  his  former  elections. 

But  immoderate  thirst  of  power,  and  extreme 
animosity  to  his  rivals,  not  elevation  of  mind, 
were  the  characteristics  of  Marius.  His  ambi- 
tion had  hitherto  passed  for  an  aversion  to  aristo- 
cratical  usurpations.  But  his  contempt  of  family 
distinctions,  the  offspring  of  a  vanity  which  made 
him  feel  the  want  of  such  honours,  by  clashing 
with  the  established  subordination  of  ranks  in  his 
country,  became  a  source  of  disaffection  to  the 
state  itself.  He  formed  views  upon  the  consulate 
yet  a  sixth  time ;  and  instead  of  the  moderation, 
or  the  satiety  of  honours  with  which  he  pretended 
to  be  actuated  when  he  hoped  to  be  pressed  into 
office,  he  employed  all  his  influence,  even  his 
money,  to  procure  a  re-election  ?  and  accordingly 


1  Plutarch,  in  Mario  &  Sylla.  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  16. 
Florus,  lib.iii.c.3.  Velleius.  Eutrop.  Appian  inCeltica, 


prevailed,  together  with  Valerius  Flaccus.  He 
had  warmly  espoused  the  interest  of  this  candi- 
date against  Metellus,  more  from  animosity  to 
the  competitor,  whose  great  authority,  placed  in 
opposition  to  himself,  he  dreaded, 
U.  C.  653.  than  from  any  regard  or  predilec- 
tion for  Flaccus.  Being  chosen,  in 
Cams  Marius    or(jer  fae  more  j0  strengthen  him- 

Flaccus.  se"  ln  tne  exercise  of  his  power, 

he  entered  into  concert  with  the 
Tribune  Apuleius  Saturninus,  and,  it  is  probable, 
agreed  to  support  this  factious  demagogue  in  his 
pretensions  to  remain  in  office  for  another  year ; 
a  precedent  which  had  taken  place  only  in  the 
most  factious  times  of  the  republic,  and  which 
was  in  itself  more  dangerous  than  any  other  re- 
election whatever.  The  person  of  the  tribune 
being  sacred,  his  will  was  absolute,  there  was  no 
check  to  his  power  besides  the  fear  of  being  called 
to  account  at  the  expiration  of  his  term  %  and  if 
this  fear  were  removed  by  the  perpetuity  of  office, 
it  was  a  power  yet  more  formidable  than  that  of 
the  dictator,  and  to  be  restrained  only  by  the  di- 
visions which  might  arise  among  those  who  were 
joined  together  in  the  exercise  of  it. 

The  faction  that  was  formed  by  Marius  and 
the  tribune  Saturninus,  with  their  adherents,  was 
farther  strengthened  by  the  accession  of  the  praetor 
Glaucta.  This  person,  while  in  office,  and  as  he 
sat  in  judgment,  had  received  an  affront  from  Sa- 
turninus, in  having  his  chair  of  state  broken 
down,  for  presuming  to  occupy  any  part  in  the 
attention  of"  the  people,  while  an  assembly  called 
by  the  tribune  was  met.  He  nevertheless  chose 
to  overlook  this  insult,  in  order  to  be  admitted  a 
partner  in  the  consideration  which  was  now  en- 
joyed by  these  popular  leaders. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


121 


Upon  the  approach  of  the  tribunitian  elections, 
the  senate  and  nobles  exerted  themselves  to  pre- 
vent the  re-election  of  Saturninus;  and  nine  of 
the  new  candidates  were,  without  any  question, 
declared  to  be  duly  elected  in  preference  to  him. 
The  tenth  place  too  was  actually  filled  by  the 
election  of  Nonius  Sufenas,  whom  the  aristocracy 
had  supported  with  all  its  influence.  But  the 
party  of  Apuleius,  enraged  at  their  disappoint- 
ment, had  recourse  to  violence,  forced  Nonius, 
though  already  vested  with  the  sacred  character 
of  tribune,  to  take  refuge  in  a  work-shop,  from 
whence  he  was  dragged  by  some  of  the  late  sol- 
diery attached  to  Marius,  and  slain.  The  assem- 
bly broke  up,  and  sober  persons,  though  reputed 
of  the  popular  party,  retired  under  the  strongest 
impressions  of  affliction  and  terror. 

Marius  had  reason  to  apprehend  some  violent 
resolution  from  the  senate,  and  was  in  no  haste 
to  assemble  that  body.  Mean  time  Glaucia,  in 
the  night,  with  a  party  armed  with  daggers,  took 
possession  of  the  capitol  and  place  of  assembly, 
and,  at  an  early  hour  in  the  morning,  having 
gone  through  the  forms  of  election,  announced 
Apuleius  again  tribune,  in  the  place  that  was 
vacated  by  the  murder  of  Nonius.  This  furious 
demagogue  was  accordingly  reinstated  in  the  sa- 
cred character,  which,  though  recently  violated 
by  himself,  was  still  revered  by  the  bulk  of 
the  people.  He  was  continually  attended  by 
a  new  set  of  men  who  infested  the  streets,  free- 
men of  desperate  fortune,  whom  Marius,  con- 
trary to  the  established  forms  of  the  constitution, 
had  admitted  into  the  legions,  and  who  were 
grown  fierce  and  insolent,  as  partners  in  the  vic- 
tories of  that  general,  and  who  were  made  to 
expect  that,  in  case  the  popular  party  should  pre- 
vail, they  themselves  should  have  estates  in  land 
and  comfortable  settlements. 

Under  the  terror  of  so  many  assassins,  who 
considered  the  nobles  as  enemies  to  their  cause, 
Marius  with  his  faction  were  become  masters  of 
the  commonwealth.  The  better  sort  of  the  people 
were  deterred  from  frequenting  the  public  assem- 
blies, and  no  one  had  courage  to  propose,  that 
any  inquiry  should  be  made  into  the  death  of  the 
tribune  Nonius,  in  whose  person  the  sacred  law 
was  again  set  at  nought.2 

Apuleius  hastened  to  gratify  his 
LezAgraria.    party  by  proposing  popular  laws. 

One  to  seize  in  the  name  of  the 
public,  those  lands  on  the  Po  which  had  lately 
been  desolated  by  the  migrations  of  the  barbarous 
nations,  and  to  distribute  them  in  lots  to  the 
poorer  citizens.3 

Another,  by  which  it  was  resolved,  that  in  the 
province  of  Africa  a  hundred  jugera  a  man  should 
be  distributed  to  the  veterans  :4  that  new  settle- 
ments should  be  made  in  Greece,  Macedonia,  and 
Sicily  :  and  that  the  money  taken  from  the  tem- 
ple at  Tolosa5  should  be  employed  in  the  pur- 
chase of  lands  for  a  like  purpose  :  that  wherever 
these  colonies  should  be  planted,  Marius  should 
have  a  power  to  inscribe  at  each  of  the  settle- 
ments, three  aliens  into  the  list  of 
Lex  Fru-  citizens.6  That  the  price,  hitherto 
mentaria.  pai(j  for  CQm  by  the  people  at  the 

2  Appian  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  1.     Plutarch  in  Mario, 
lib.  lxix.  Valer.  Max.  lib.  ix.  c.  7.  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  57. 
Florus,  lib.  iii  c.  10.        3  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  i. 
4  Auct.  de  Viris  Illustribus  in  Saturnine 
o  Now  Thoulouse.        6  Auct.  de  Vir  Illus  in  Sat 

Q 


public  granaries,  should  be  remitted,  and  that 
corn  should  be  distributed  gratis. 

Upon  the  intention  to  obtain  the  last  of  those 
laws  being  known,  Q,.  Servilius  Caepio,  one  of 
the  questors,  represented,  that  if  such  a  law 
should  pass,  there  would  be  an  end  of  industry, 
good  order,  and  government ;  and  that  the  trea- 
sury of  Rome  would  not  be  sufficient  to  defray 
the  expense.  He  exhorted  the  senate  to  employ 
every  measure  to  defeat  the  motion.  And  this 
body  accordingly  made  a  resolution,  that  whoever 
attempted  to  obtain  the  law  in  question  should  be 
deemed  an  enemy  to  his  country.  But  Apuleius 
was  not  to  be  restrained  by  the  terrors  of  this  re- 
solution. He  proceeded  to  propose  the  law  in 
the  usual  form,  and  had  planted  the* rails  and 
balloting  urns  for  the  people  to  give  their  votes, 
when  Caepio,  with  a  body  of  his  attendants,  had 
the  courage  to  attack  the  tribune,  broke  down  the 
steps,  and  overset  the  balloting  urns;  an  action 
for  which  he  was  afterwards  impeached  upon  an 
accusation  of  treason,  but  by  which,  for  the  pre- 
sent, he  disappointed  the  designs  of  the  faction.7 

Apuleius,  to  extend  the  power  of  the  popular 
assemblies,  and  to  remove  every  impediment  from 
his  own  designs,  brought  forward  a  number  of 
new  regulations.  One  to  confirm  a  former  statute, 
by  which  the  acts  of  the  tribes  were  declared  to 
have  the  force  of  laws.  Another,  declaring  it  to 
be  treason  for  any  person  to  interrupt  a  tribune 
in  putting  a  question  to  the  people.  A  third, 
obliging  the  senate  to  confirm  every  act  of  the 
tribes  within  five  days  after  such  act  had  passed, 
and  requiring  every  senator,  under  pain  of  a  fine, 
and  of  being  struck  off  the  rolls,  to  take  an  oath 
to  abide  by  these  regulations.  While  these  mo- 
tions were  in  debate,  some  one  of  the  party  who 
opposed  them,  in  order  to  stop  the  career  of  this 
factious  tribune,  observed,  that  it  thundered  ;  a 
circumstance  which,  upon  the  ordinary  maxims 
of  the  Roman  augurs,  was  sufficient  to  suspend 
any  business  in  which  the  people  were  engaged, 
and  to  break  up  their  assembly.  "If  you  be  not 
silent,"  said  Apuleius  to  the  person  who  observed 
that  it  thundered,  "  you  will  also  find  that  it  hails." 
The  assembly  accordingly,  without  being  deterred 
by  this  interposition  of  the  auspices,  passed  acts 
to  these  several  purposes.  The  power  of  the 
senate  was  entirely  suppressed,  their  part  of  the 
legislature  was  reduced  to  a  mere  form,  and  even 
this  they  were  not  at  liberty  to  withhold.  Ma- 
rius called  them  together,  and  proposed  that  they 
should  consider  what  resolution  they  were  to  take 
with  respect  to  a  change  of  so  much  importance, 
and  particularly  with  respect  to  the  oath  which 
was  to  be  exacted  from  the  members.  The  old 
warrior  is  said,  on  this  occasion,  to  have  practised 
an  artifice  by  which  he  imposed  on  many  of  the 
members,  and  which  afterwards  furnished  him 
with  a  pretence  for  removing  his  enemy  Metellus 
from  their  councils.  He  declared  himself  with 
great  warmth  against  taking  the  oath,  and  by  his 
example  led  other  senators  to  express  their  senti- 
ments. Metellus,  in  particular,  assured  the  as- 
sembly, that  it  was  his  own  resolution  never  to 
come  under  such  an  engagement. 

While  the  senators  relied  on  the  concurrence 
of  Marius  in  refusing  the  oath,  the  time  appoint!  d 
for  administering  it  nearly  approached;  ami  this 
consul,  after  the  third  day  was  far  spent,  assem- 


7  Auct.  Rhctoricoruin  ad  flcrcnnimu. 


122 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  [f. 


bled  the  senate,  set  forth  the  dangerous  state  of 
the  commonwealth ;  at  the  same  time  expressed 
his  own  fears  of  the  disturbances  that  might  arise 
if  the  senate  refused  to  gratify  the  people  in  this 
matter ;  and  while  multitudes  were  assembled  in 
the  streets  to  know  the  issue  of  their  councils,  he 
required  that  the  oath  should  be  administered.  He 
himself  took  it,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  senate, 
and  the  joy  of  the  populace  assembled  by  Apuleius, 
who  sounded  applause  through  every  part  of  the 
streets.  Metellus  alone,  of  all  who  were  present, 
refused  to  comply,  and  withstood  all  the  intreaties 
of  his  friends,  who  represented  the  danger  with 
which  he  was  threatened.  "  If  it  were  always 
safe  to  do  rights  he  said,  "who  would  ever  do 
wrong  ?  fiut  good  men  are  distinguished,  by 
choosing  to  do  right  even  when  it  is  least  for 
their  safety  to  do  so." 

On  the  following  day  the  tribune  Saturninus 
entered  the  senate,  and,  not  being  stopped  by  the 
negative  of  any  of  his  own  colleagues,  the  only 
power  that  could  restrain  him,  dragged  Metellus 
from  his  p'ace,  and  proffered  an  act  of  attainder 
and  banishment  against  him,  for  having  refused 
the  oath  which  was  enjoined  by  the  people. 
Many  of  the  most  respectable  citizens  offered 
their  aid  to  defend  this  illustrious  senator  by 
force,  but  he  himself  declined  being  the  subject 
of  any  civil  commotion,  and  went  into  exile. 

While  the  act,  which  afterwards  passed  for 
his  banishment  was  preparing,  he  was  heard  to 
say,  "If  the  times  should  mend,  I  shall  recover 
my  station ;  if  not,  it  is  a  happiness  to  be  absent 
from  hence."  He  fixed  his  abode  at  Smyrna, 
conducted  his  retirement  with  great  dignity  dur- 
ing his  exile,  and  probably  felt  as  he  ought  that 
any  censure  inflicted  by  men  of  a  vile  and  profli- 
gate character  was  an  honour. 

In  these  transactions  elapsed  the  second  year 
m  which  Apuleius  filled  the  office  of  tribune ; 
afid';.  being  favoured  by  a  supineness  of  the  oppo- 
site party,  contracted  in  a  seeming  despair  of  the 
republic,  he  prevailed  yet  a  third  time  in  being 
vested  with  this  formidable  power.  To  court  the 
favour  of  the  people,  he  affected  to  credit  what 
was  alleged  concerning  the  birth  of  Equitius; 
and  under  the  name  of  Caius  Gracchus,  son  of 
Tiberius,  had  this  impostor  associated  with  him- 
self in  the  office  of  tribune.  The  name  of  Grac- 
chus, in  this  station,  awakened  the  memory  of 
former  hopes  and  of  former  resentments.  The 
party  had  destined  Glaucia  for  the  consulate,  and 
appear  to  have  left  Marius  out  of  their  councils. 
This  will  perhaps  account  for  the  conduct  with 
which  he  concluded  his  administration  in  the  pre- 
sent year. 

At  the  election  which  followed,  the  interest  of 
the  nobles  was  exerted  for  Marcus  Antonius  and 
C.  Memmius.  The  first  was  declared  consul, 
and  the  second  was  likely  to  prevail  over  Glau- 
cia ;  when,  in  the  midst  of  the  crowds  that  were 
assembled  to  vote,  a  sudden  tumult  arose ;  Mem- 
mius was  beset  and  murdered ;  and  the  people, 
alarmed  at  so  strange  an  outrage,  were  seized 
with  a  panic,  and  fled. 

In  the  night,  Glaucia,  Saturninus,  and  the 
questor  Saufeius,  being  known  to  be  met  in  secret 
conference,  all  the  citizens  who  yet  retained  any 
regard  for  the  commonwealth,  crowded  together, 
m  fear  of  what  so  desperate  a  faction  might  at- 
tempt. All  the  voices  were  united  against  Sa- 
turninus, the  supposed  author  of  so  many  disor- 


ders and  murders.  It  was  proposed,  without 
delay,  to  seize  his  person,  either  living  or  dead 
but  being  put  on  his  guard,  by  the  appearance  of 
a  storm  so  likely  to  break  on  his  head,  he  thought 
proper,  with  the  other  leaders  of  his  party  ana 
their  retainers  in  arms,  to  seize  the  capitol,  and 
there  to  secure  themselves,  and  to  overawe  the 
assembly  of  the  people.  It  was  no  longer  to  be 
doubted  that  the  republic  was  in  a  state  of  war. — 
Marius,  who  had  fomented  these  troubles  from 
aversion  to  the  nobles,  now  remained  undeter- 
mined what  part  he  should  act.  But  the  senate 
being  assembled,  gave  the  usual  charge  to  him- 
self and  his  colleagues  to  avert  the  danger  with 
which  the  republic  was  threatened ;  and  both 
these  officers,  however  much  they  were  disposed 
to  favour  the  sedition,  being  in  this  manner  armed 
with  the  sword  of  the  commonwealth,  were  obliged 
to  employ  it  in  support  of  the  public  peace.  The 
senators,  the  knights,  and  all  the  citizens  of  rank 
repaired  in  arms  to  their  standard.  Antonius, 
consul  elected  for  the  following  year,  in  order  tc 
hinder  the  partizans  of  the  faction  from  resorting 
to  the  city,  was  stationed  in  the  suburbs  with  an 
armed  force.1  The  capitol  was  invested  in  form, 
and  appears  to  have  held  out  some  days ;  at  the 
end  of  which,  in  order  to  oblige  the  rebels  to  sur- 
render, the  pipes  that  supplied  them  with  watei 
were  cut  off.  This  had  the  intended  effect.  They 
submitted  to  such  terms  as  were  proposed  to  them 
and  Marius,  still  inclined  to  treat  them  with  favour 
had  them  confined  to  the  hall  of  the  senate  tilt 
farther  orders.  In  the  mean  time  a  great  partv 
of  citizens,  who  were  in  arms  for  the  defence  of 
the  republic,  impatient  of  delay,  and  thinking  i* 
dangerous  to  spare  such  daring  offenders,  beset 
them  instantly  in  their  place  of  confinement,  and 
put  the  whole  to  the  sword.2 

It  was  reported,  though  afterwards  questioned 
upon  a  solemn  occasion,3  that  Caius  Rabirius,  a 
senator  of  distinction,  having  cut  off  the  head  of 
Apuleius,  carried  it  as  a  trophy,  agreeable  to  the 
manners  of  those  times,  and  had  it  presented  for 
some  days  at  all  the  entertainments  which  were 
given  on  this  occasion,  and  at  which  he  was  a  guest. 

This  was  the  fourth  tribunitian  sedition  raised 
to  a  dangerous  height,  and  quelled  by  the  vigour 
and  resolution  of  the  nobles.  Marius,  who  had 
been  obliged  to  act  as  the  instrument  of  the  senate 
on  this  occasion,  saw  his  projects  baffled,  and  his 
credit  greatly  impaired.  Plutarch  relates,  that 
he  soon  after  chose  to  leave  the  city  for  some  time, 
on  pretence  of  a  desire  to  visit  the  province  of 
Asia,  where  his  active  spirit  formed  the  project 
of  new  wars,  for  the  conduct  of  which  he  was 
much  better  qualified  than  for  the  administration 
of  affairs  in  peace. 

Upon  the  suppression  of  this  dangerous  sedi- 
tion, the  commonwealth  was  restored  to  a  state 
which,  compared  to  the  late  mix- 
U.  C.  652.  ture  of  civil  contention  and  military 
execution,  may  have  deserved  the 
M.  Antonius,  name  of  public  order.  One  office 
A.  Posthumius  0f  consui  was  still  vacant;  and 
Albmus.         the  ejectjon  proceeding  without 


1  Cicero  pro  C.  Rabirio. 

2  Plut.  in  Mario.  Appian  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  i.  Oros. 
lib.  v.  c.  17.  Flor  lib.  iii.  Auct.  de  Virislllust.  Cicero 
in  Sextiana,  in  Catal.  lib.  i.  Philip,  lib.  viii.  et  pro 
Caio  Rabirio. 

3  At  the  trial  of  Rabirius,  when,  some  years  after- 
wards, he  was  accused  of  having  killed  Saturninus. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


123 


disturbance,  Posthumius  Albinus  was  joined  to 
Antonius.  Most  of  the  other  elections  had  also 
been  favourable  to  the  nobles ;  and  the  majority 
pven  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people  were  inclined 
to  respect  the  senate  and  the  aristocracy,  as  prin- 
cipal supports  of  the  government. 

The  first  effect  of  this  happy  recovery  was  a 
motion  to  recall  Metellus  from  banishment.  In 
this  motion  two  of  the  tribunes,  Ct.  Pompeius 
Rufus  and  L.  Porcius  Cato  concurred.  But  Ma- 
rius  having  opposed  it  with  all  his  influence,  and 
Publius  Furius,  another  of  the  tribunes,  having 
interposed  his  negative,  it  could  not  at  that  time 
be  carried  into  execution.  Soon  after,  however, 
the  same  motion  being  renewed  by  the  tribune 
Callidius,  and  Furius  having  repeated  his  nega- 
tive, Metellus,  son  of  the  exile,  in  presence  of  the 
people,  threw  himself  upon  the  ground,  and  em- 
bracing the  tribune's  knees,  beseeched  him  not 
to  withstand  the  recall  of  his  father.  The  young 
man,  from  this  action,  afterwards  acquired  the 
sirname  of  Pius;  and  the  tribune,  insolently 
spurning  him  as  he  lay  on  the  ground,  served  his 
cause  by  that  act  of  indignity  perhaps  more  effec- 
tually than  he  could  have  done  by  lending  a  fa- 
vourable ear  to  his  request.  The  people,  ever 
governed  by  their  present  passions,  were  moved 
with  tenderness  and  with  indignation.  They 
proceeded,  without  regard  to  the  negative  of  Fu- 
rius, under  emotions  of  sympathy  for  the  son,  to 
recal  the  exiled  father.  The  messenger  of  the 
republic  charged  with  the  intimation  of  this  reso- 
lution to  Metellus,  found  him  at  Trallcs  in  Ly- 
dia,  among  the  spectators  at  a  public  show.  When 
the  letters  were  delivered  to  him,  he  continued  to 
the  end  of  the  entertainment  without  opening 
them ;  by  this  mark  of  indifference,  treating  the 
favour  of  a  disorderly  populace  with  as  much  con- 
tempt as  he  had  shown  to  their  censure. 

The  senate,  now  become  the  supreme  power  at 
Rome,  by  the  distaste  which  all  reasonable  men 
had  taken  to  the  violence  of  the  opposite  party, 
were  gratified,  not  merely  Avith  the  test  of  supe- 
riority they  had  gained  in  the  recall  of  Metellus, 
but  likewise  in  the  downfall  of  some  of  the  tri- 
bunes who  had  been  active  in  the  late  disorders. 
Publius  Furius,  now  become  an  object  of  general 
detestation,  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  law  of  Apuleius, 
which  declared  it  treason  to  interrupt  a  tribune  in 
putting  a  question  to  the  people.  Being  accused 
by  Canuleius,  one  of  his  colleagues,  of  violating 
this  law,  he  was  by  the  populace,  who  are  ever 
carried  by  the  torrent,  and  prompt  for  execution, 
prevented  from  malting  his  defence ;  and,  though 
a  tribune,  put  to  death.  Decianus,  another  of  the 
tribunes,  in  supporting  the  charge  against  Furius, 
Happened  to  speak  with  regret  of  the  death  of 
Saturninus,  a  crime  for  which  he  incurred  a  pro- 
secution, and  was  banished.4  So  strong  was  the 
tide  of  popularity  now  opposite  to  its  late  direc- 
tion, and  so  fatal  even  to  their  own  cause  fre- 
quently are  the  precedents  or  rules  by  which 
violent  men  think  to  obtain  discretionary  power 
to  themselves.  The  murder  of  Nonius  was  a 
precedent  to  justify  the  execution  of  Apuleius, 
and  both  were  followed  by  that  of  Furius.  The 
law  which  made  it  treason  to  interrupt  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Apuleius,  was  employed  to  prevent 
any  interruption  to  the  operations  of  his  enemies 
against  himself  and  his  faction. 


Amidst  these  triumphs  of  the  anstocratical  par- 
ty, Sextus  Titius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  still  had 
the  courage  to  move  a  revival  of  the  Agrarian 
law  of  Gracchus.  The  proposal  was  acceptable 
in  the  assembly  of  the  people.5  And  the  edict 
was  accordinglyv passed  ;  but  it  was  observed,  that 
while  the  people  were  met  on  this  business,  two 
ravens  fought  in  the  air  above  the  place  of  as- 
sembly, and  the  college  of  augurs,  on  pretence 
of  this  unfavourable  omen,  annulled  the  decree.6 
Titius,  the  author  of  it,  was  soon  after  condemn- 
ed for  having  in  his  house  the  statue  of  Satur- 
ninus.7 

The  consul  Aquilius  returned  from  Sicily ; 
and  having  had  an  ovation  or  procession  on  foot 
for  the  reduction  of  the  Sicilian  slaves,  was  on  the 
following  year  brought  to  trial  for  extortion  in 
his  province.  He  called  no  exculpatory  evidence, 
nor  deigned  to  court  the  favour  of  his  judges. 
But  when  about  to  receive  sentence,  M.  Anto- 
nius, who  had  pleaded  his  cause,  tore  open  the 
vest  of  his  client,  and  displayed  to  the  court  and 
the  audience  the  scars  which  he  bore  in  his  breast, 
and  which  were  the  marks  of  wounds  received  in 
the  service  of  his  country.  Upon  this  spectacle, 
a  sudden  emotion  of  pity  or  respect  decided 
against  the  former  conviction  of  the  court,  and 
unfixed  the  resolution,  which  a  few  moments  be- 
fore they  had  taken  to  condemn  the  accused. 

Among  the  events  which  distinguished  the  con- 
sulate of  M.  Antonius  and  A.  Posthumius  Albi- 
nus, may  be  reckoned  the  birth  of  Cains  Julius 
Caesar,  for  whose  ambition  the  seeds  of  tribuni- 
tian  disorder  now  sown  were  preparing  a  plenti- 
ful harvest.  This  birth,  it  is  said,  was  ushered 
in  with  many  presages  and  tokens  of  future 
greatness.  If  indeed  we  were  to  believe,  that 
nature  in  this  manner  gives  intimation  of  impend- 
ing events,  we  should  not  be  surprised  that  her 
most  ominous  signs  were  employed  to  mark  the 
birth  of  a  personage  who  was  destined  to  change 
the  whole  face  of  the  political  world,  and  to  lay 
Rome  herself,  with  all  the  nations  she  had  con- 
quered, under  a  perpetuated  military  government. 

Antonius  anil  Albinus  were  succeeded  in  of- 
fice by  CI.  Caecilius  Metellus  and 
U.  C.  G55.       Titus  Didius.  The  war  still  con- 

Ca,rilius  tinued  in  Spain,  and  fell  to  the 
MetcflusMpo,  lot  of  Didius.  Upon  his  arrival 
T.  Didius.  in  the  province,  Dolabella,  the 
propraetor,  set  out  on  his  return 
to  Rome,  and,  for  his  victories  in  Spain,  obtained 
a  triumph.  Metellus  remained  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  affairs  in  Italy. 

The  administration  of  the  present  year  is  dis- 
tinguished by  an  act  in  which 
Lex  Cacilia  both  consuls  concurred,  and  which 
Didia.  is  therefore  marked  in  the  title 

with  their  joint  names.  The  Ro- 
man people  had  frequently  experienced  the  defect 
of  their  forms  in  the  manner  of  enacting  laws. 
Factious  tribunes  had  it  in  their  power  to  carry 
motions  by  surprise,  and  to  pass  in  the  same  law 
a  variety  of  clauses;  and,  by  obliging  the  people 
to  pass  or  reject  the  whole  in  one  vote,  frequent  h 
obtained,  under  the  favour  of  some  popular 
clauses,  acts  of  a  very  dangerous  tendency.  To 
prevent  this  abuse,  it  was  now  enacted,  upon  the 
joint  motion  of  the  consuls  Cscilius  and  Didius, 


4  Val.  Max.  lib.  viii.  c.  1. 


5  Julius  Obsequens.  6  Oicrro  de  Leiibue,  lib.  ii. 
7  Ibid.  prof.  Rabirio.    Ibid.de  Orator,  lib.  ii.  c  28 


124 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


that  every  proposed  law  should  he  made  public 
three  market  days  before  it  could  receive  the 
assent  of  the  people :  that  all  its  different  clauses 
should  be  separately  voted  :  and  that  it  should  be 
lawful  for  the  people  to  pass  or  reject  the  whole 
or  any  part  of  it.' 

This  law  had  a  salutary  tendency;  and,  though 
far  from  sufficient  to  prevent  a  return  of  the  late 
evils,  it  served  for  a  time  to  stop  the  current  of 
trihunitian  violence;  but  while  the  source  was 
open,  any  mere  temporary  stagnation  could  only 
tend  to  increase  the  force  with  which  it  occa- 
sionally burst  over  every  impediment  of  law  or 
good  order  that  was  placed  in  its  way.  And  the 
inefficacy  of  measures  taken  upon  the  suppres- 
sion of  any  dangerous  sedition  to  eradicate  the 
evil,  shows  the  extreme  difficulty  with  which  men 
are  led,  in  most  cases,  to  make  any  great  and 
thorough  reformation. 

It  is  somewhat  singular,  that  about  this  time, 
in  the  midst  of  so  much  animosity  of  the  people 
to  the  senate  and  nobles,  this  superior  class  of  the 
citizens  were  the  patrons  of  austerity,  and  con- 
tended for  sumptuary  laws,  while  the  popular 
tribunes  contended  for  license.  "  What  is  your 
liberty,"  said  the  tribune  Duronius  to  the  people 
(while  he  moved  for  a  repeal  of  the  sumptuary 
law  of  Fannius),  "if  you  may  not  consume  what 
is  your  own ;  if  you  must  be  restrained  by  rule 
and  measure ;  if  you  must  be  stinted  in  your 
pleasures  1  Let  us  shake  offj  I  pray  you,  these 
musty  remains  of  antiquity,  and  make  free  to  en- 
joy what  we  and  our  fathers  have  gained."2 

For  the  petulance  of  these  expressions,  this 
tribune  was,  by  the  judgment  of 
U.  C.  656.  the  censors,  on  the  following  year, 
Cn.  Cornelius  exPehed  from  the  senate ;  and  he 
Lentulus.  took  his  revenge  by  prosecuting 
P.  Licinius  the  censor  Antonius  for  bribery  in 
Crassus.  canvassing  for  his  office, 

Cn.  Cornelius  Lentulus  and  Publius  Licinius 
Crassus  being  raised  to  the  office  of  consul,  the 
latter  was  appointed  to  relieve  Didius  in  Spain, 
and  the  other  to  succeed  Metellus  in  Italy.  There 
is,  during  some  years,  a  considerable  blank  in  the 
materials  from  which  we  collect  this  history; 
little  more  is  recorded  than  the  succession  of  con- 
suls with  the  number  of  years,  and  a  few  particu- 
lars that  ill  supply  the  interval  in  our  accounts 
of  what  passed  in  the  city,  or  in  the  series  of  im- 
portant affairs  abroad.  So  far  as  these  particu- 
lars, however,  can  be  referred  to  their  respective 
dates,  it  will  be  proper,  while  we  endeavour  to 
mark  the  lapse  of  time,  to  record  them  in  the  or- 
der in  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  happened. 

In  the  present  year  are  dated  two  remarkable 
acts  of  the  senate;  one  to  condemn 

U.  C.  656.  the  use  of  magic,  another  to  pro- 
hibit human  sacrifices : 3  the  first 
proceeding,  perhaps,  from  credulity  in  the  au- 
thors of  the  law,  the  other  implying  some  re- 
mains of  a  gross  and  inhuman  superstition, 
which  was  still  entertained  by  the  people  though 
rejected  by  the  government.4 

In  the  following  consulate  the  kingdom  of 
Cyrene  was  bequeathed  to  the  Romans  by  Pto- 
lemy Apion,  the  late  king.  But,  as  this  people 
professed  themselves  to  be  the  general  patrons  of 


1  Cic  Philip,  v.  Pro  domo  sua.  Epist.  ad  Atticum 
lib.  ii. 

2  Val.  Max.  lib  ii.  c.  9.       3  Plin.  lib.  xxx.  c.  1. 
4  Dion.  Cassias,  lib.  xlii.  p.  22C. 


liberty,  where  this  blessing  was  nol  forfeited  by 
some  act  of  ingratitude  or  perfidy  in  their  allies, 
they  did  not  avail  themselves  of  this  legacy,  leav 
ing  the  subjects  of  Cyrene  to  retain  for  some  time 
the  independence  of  their  nation  with  a  species 
of  popular  government ;  and  in  this  form  they 
were  allowed  to  remain  as  a  separate  state,  until, 
in  a  general  arrangement  made  of  all  the  depen- 
dencies of  the  empire,  they  came  to  be  reduced 
to  the  form  of  a  province. 

The  following  consuls  gave  its  name  and  its 
date  to  an  act  of  the  people  nearly 
U.  C.  658.  of  the  same  tenour  with  some  of 
L.  Licinius  those  formerly  passed  for  the  ex- 
Crass,,s,Q.  elusion  of  aliens.  The  inhabitants 
Mucius  Sccb-  of  Italy  still  continued  the  practice 
tola.  Lex  I  i-  cf  croW(linff  to  Rome,  in  expecta- 
TcmSSU.  tion  of  obtaining  in  a  body  the 
gendis.  prerogative  of  citizens,  or  at  least 

of  intruding  themselves,  as  many 
of  them  separately  did,  into  some  of  the  tribes,  by 
which  persons  of  this  description,  from  voting  at 
elections,  came  themselves  by  degrees  to  be  elected 
into  the  higher  offices  of  state.  - 

Times  of  faction  were  extremely  favourable  to 
this  intrusion  of  strangers.  Different  leaders  con- 
nived at  the  enrolment  of  those  who  were  likely 
to  favour  their  respective  parties.  A  nd  the  fac- 
tious tribunes,  in  whatever  degree  they  may  have 
favoured  the  general  claim  of  the  allies  to  be  ad- 
mitted as  Romans,  treated  the  subject  as  matter 
of  opposition  to  the  senate.  They  expected  to 
raise  the  storm  of  popular  animosity  and  tumult 
with  the  more  ease,  in  proportion  as  the  numbers 
of  the  people  increased.  By  the  act  of  Licinius 
and  Mucius,  nevertheless,  a  scrutiny  was  set  on 
foot,  and  all  who,  without  a  just  title,  ventured 
to  exercise  any  privilege  of  Roman  citizens,  were 
remitted  to  their  several  boroughs.5 

In  this  consulate  is  likewise  dated  the  trial  of 
Servilius  Caepio,  for  his  supposed  misconduct 
about  ten  years  belbre  in  his  command  of  the 
army  against  the  Cimbri.  He  had  exasperated 
the  popular  faction,  by  opposing  the  act  of  Sa- 
turninus  for  the  gratuitous  distribution  of  corn, 
and  his  enemies  were  now  encouraged  to  raise, 
this  prosecution  against  him.  The  people  gave 
sentence  of  condemnation,  and  violently  drove 
from  the  place  of  assembly  two  of  the  tribunes 
who  ventured  to  interpose  their  negative  in  his 
favour.  Authors,  according  to  Valerius  Maxi- 
mus,  have  differed  in  their  accounts  of  the  sequel ; 
some  affirming  that  Caepio,  being  put  to  death  in 
prison,  his  body  was  dragged  through  the  streets 
as  that  of  a  traitor,  and  cast  into  the  river ;  others, 
that  he  was,  by  the  favour  of  Antistius,  one  of 
the  tribunes,  rescued,  or  enabled  to  make  hi* 
escape.6 

C.  Norhanus,  who  was  said  to  be  author  of  the 
riot  which  occasioned  the  condemnation  of  Csepio, 
and  the  supposed  cruel  execution  of  that  citizen, 
was  on  the  following  year  brought  to  trial  him 
self  for  maladministration  and  sedition  in  office ; 
but,  by  his  own  popularity,  and  the  address  of 
the  orator  Antonius,  who  pleaded  his  cause,  was 
acquitted.7 

The  war  in  Spain  still  continued ;  and  the 
Romans,  having  gained  considerable  victories, 
sent  ten  commissioners,  to  endeavour,  in  concert 
with  Crassus  and  Didius,  to  make  such  arrange- 


5  Ascon.  in  Orat.  pro  Cornelio  Majest.  reo. 

6  Val.  Max.  lib.  iv.  c.  7.    7  Cicero  de  Orator,  lib  ii. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


125 


merits  as  might  tend  to  the  future  peace  of  those 
provinces :  but  in  vain ;  hostilities  were  again 
renewed  in  the  following  year. 

L.  Cornelius  Sylla,  who  had 
U  C.  6G0.    been  questor  in  the  year  of  Rome 
C  Val  Flat      s*x  nunc're^  an(l  forty  six,  now, 
cus,  M.  Hicr-    a^er  an  interval  of  about  fourteen 
retinitis.  years,  and  without  having  been 

edile,  stood  candidate  for  the  office 
of  praetor.  Whether  his  neglect  of  political  hon- 
ours, during  this  period,  proceeded  from  idleness, 
or  from  want  of  ambition,  is  uncertain.  His 
character  will  justify  either  construction,  being 
equally  susceptible  of  dissipation,  and  of  the  dis- 
dain of  ordinary  distinctions.  The  people,  how- 
ever, refused  to  gratify  him  in  his  desire  of  passing 
on  to  the  office  of  praetor  without  being  edile ;  as 
they  were  resolved  to  be  gratified  with  the  mag- 
nificent shows  of  wild  beasts,  which  his  supposed 
correspondence  with  the  king  of  Mauritania  en- 
abled him  to  furnish.  But  to  remove  this  objec- 
tion to  his  preferment,  he  gave  out,  that  as  praetor 
he  was  to  exhibit  the  same  shows  which  were 
expected  from  him  as  edile :  and  having,  in  the 
following  year,  persisted  in  his  suit,  he  was  ac- 
cordingly elected,  and  fulfilled  the  expectations 
of  the  people ;  insomuch,  that  he  is  said  to  have 
let  loose  in  the  circus  a  hundred  maned  or  male 
lions,  and  to  have  exhibited  the  method  of  bait- 
ing or  fighting  them  by  Mauritanian  huntsmen.8 
Such  was  the  price  which  candidates  for  prefer- 
ment at  Rome  were  obliged  to  pay  for  public 
favour. 

In  this  variable  scene,  where  so  many  particu- 
lar men  excelled  in  genius  and  magnanimity, 
while  the  state  itself  was  subject  to  the  govern- 
ment of  a  capricious  and  disorderly  multitude,  P. 
Rutilius,  late  questor  in  Asia,  exhibited  a  spec- 
tacle sufficient  to  counterbalance  the  lions  of  Syl- 
la ;  and,  if  it  were  permitted  in  any  case  whatever 
to  treat  our  country  with  disdain,  an  instance  to 
be  applauded  of  the  just  contempt  with  which 
the  undeserved  resentments  of  corrupt  and  ma- 
licious men  ought  to  be  received.  Having  reform- 
ed many  abuses  of  the  equestrian  tax-gatherers 
in  the  province  which  he  governed,  he  was  him- 
self brought  before  the  tribunal  of  an  equestrian 
jury,  to  be  tried  for  the  crime  he  had  restrained 
in  others.  In  this  situation  he  declined  the  aid 
of  any  friend,  told  the  judges  he  would  make  no 
defence;  but  stated  the  particulars  by  which  he 
had  offended  his  prosecutors,  left  the  court  to  de- 
cide, and,  being  condemned,  retired  to  Smyrna, 
where  he  ever  after  lived  in  great  tranquillity,  and 
could  not  be  prevailed  on,  even  by  Sylla  in  the 
height  of  his  power,  to  return  to  Rome.9  Great 
as  the  state  and  republic  of  Rome  was  become, 
unmerited  disgrace  was  certainly  a  just  object  of 
contempt  or  indifference. 

The  proconsuls,  Didius  and  Crassus,  were  per- 
mitted to  triumph  for  victories  obtained  in  Spain, 
but  had  not  been  able  to  establish  the  peace  of 
that  country.  The  war  which  broke  out  afresh 
in  one  of  the  provinces  was  committed  to  Va- 
lerius Flaccus,  and  the  care  of  the  other  to  Per- 
penna,  one  of  the  consuls.  Flaccus,  near  the  town 
of  Belgida,  obtained  a  great  victory,  in  which 


8  Plin.  lib.  viii.  c  16. 

9  Val.  Max.  lib.  vi.  c.  17.  Liv.  lib.  lxx.  Orosius, 
lib  v.  c.  17.  Cic.  de  Orator,  et  in  Bruto.  Ptedianus 
in  Divinationem.    Velleius,  lib.  ii. 


were  slain  about  twenty  thousand  of  the  enemy ; 
but  he  could  not  prevail  on  the  canton  to  submit. 
Such  of  the  people  as  were  inclined  to  capitulate, 
deliberating  on  terms,  were  beset  by  their  fellow- 
citizens,  and  the  house  in  which  they  were  assem- 
bled being  set  on  fire,  they  perished  in  the  flames. 

The  war  having  been  likewise 
U.  C.  661.  renewed  with  the  Thracians  on  the 
C.  Claudius  frontiers  of  Macedonia,  Geminius, 
Pulcker,  who  commanded  there  in  the  qual- 

M  Perpenna.  ity  0f  propraetor,  was  defeated,  and 
the  province  over-run  by  the  enemy. 

The  praetor  Sylla,  at  the  expiration  of  his  of- 
fice, was  sent  into  Asia  with  a  commission  to  re- 
store Ariarathes  to  the  kingdom  of  Cappadocia, 
which  had  been  seized  by  Mithridates,  and  to 
restore  Pylamenes  l,o  that  of  Paphlagonia,  from 
which  he  had  been  expelled  by  Nicomedes  king 
of  Bithynia.  The  praetor  having  successfully 
executed  both  these  commissions,  continued  his 
journey  to  the  Euphrates,  where  he  had  a  con- 
ference, and  concluded  a  treaty  with  an  ambas- 
sador from  Ariarathes  king  of  the  Parthians.10 

From  an  edict  of  the  censors,  Cn.  Domitius 
Ahenobarbus  and  Cn.  Licinius  Crassus,condemn- 
ing  the  schools  of  Latin  rhetoric,"  it  appears  that 
the  Romans,  during  this  period,  still  received  with 
reluctance  the  refinements  which  were  gradually 
taking  place  in  the  literary  as  well  as  in  the  other 
arts.  "  Whereas  information,"  said  the  censors 
in  their  edict,  "has  been  lodged  before  us  that 
schools  are  kept  by  certain  persons,  under  the  title 
of  Latin  rhetoricians,  to  which  the  youth  of  this 
city  resort,  and  at  which  they  pass  entire  days  in 
frivolity  and  sloth;  and  whereas  our  ancestors 
have  determined  what  their  children  should  learn, 
and  what  exercises  they  ought  to  frequent :  these 
innovations  on  the  customs  and  manners  of  our 
forefathers  being,  in  our  opinion,  offensive  and 
wrong,  we  publish  these  presents,  that  both  mas- 
ters and  scholars,  given  to  these  illicit  practices, 
may  be  duly  apprised  of  our  pleasure."'2  Cicero 
being  now  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  employed 
in  learning  that  eloquence  for  which  he  became 
so  famous,  was  probably  involved  in  this  censure, 
as  frequenting  the  schools  which,  by  this  formal 
edict  of  the  magistrate,  were  condemned. 

In  the  consulate  of  Marcus  Fhilippus  and 
Sext.  Julius  Caesar,  according  to  Pliny,  there 
were  in  the  Roman  treasury  sixteen  hundred  and 
twenty  eight  thousand  eight  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  pondo13  of  gold14  or  between  sixty  and 
seventy  or  eighty  millions  sterling.  In  the  same 
year  a  present  sent  from  the  king  of  Mauritania 
had  nearly  produced  a  civil  war  m  the  common- 
wealth, and  greatly  inflamed  the  passions  from 
which  that  calamity  soon  after  arose.  Bocchus, 
in  order  to  remind  the  Romans  of  the  merit  he 
had  acquired  by  delivering  Jugurtha  into  their 
hands,  had  caused  this  scene  to  be  represented  in 
a  groupe  of  images  of  gold,  containing  his  own 
figure,  that  of  Jugurtha,  and  that  of  Sylla,  to 
whom  the  unhappy  prince  was  delivered  up. 
Marius,  under  whose  auspices  this  transaction 
had  passed,  being  provoked  at  having  no  place  in 
the  representation  of  it,  attempted  to  pull  down 


10  Plutarch,  in  Sylla.  Appian.  in  Mithiidatico.  Ju» 
tin.  lib.  xxxiii.    Strabo,  lib.  xii. 

11  Cicer.  de  Orator,  lib.  iii.  c.  24. 

12  A.  Gellius,  lib.  xv.  c.  11. 

13  The  Roman  pondo  of  ten  ounces. 

14  Plin.  Harduein,  lib.  xxxiii.  o.  3. 


126 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  II. 


the  images  after  they  had  been  erected  in  the 
place  of  their  destination  in  the  capitol.  Sylla 
was  equally  solicitous  to  have  them  remain ;  and 
the  contest  was  likely  to  end  in  violence,  if  mat- 
ters of  greater  moment  had  not  arisen  to  occupy 
the  ardent  and  vehement  spirit  of  these  rivals. 

The  expectations  of  all  parties  at  Rome,  and 
throughout  Italy,  were  now  raised  by  the  projects 
of  Livius  Drusus,  an  active  tribune,  who,  in  order 
to  distinguish  himself,  brought  forward  many  sub- 
jects of  the  greatest  concern  to  the  public.  He 
acted  at  first  in  concert  with  the  leading  men  of 
the  senate,  and  was  supported  by  them  in  order 
to  obtain  some  amendment  in  the  law  as  it  then 
stood  with  respect  to  the  courts  of  justice.  The 
equestrian  order  had  acquired  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  the  judicature.  The  sena- 
Lex  de  Judi-  tors  wished  to  recover  at  least  a  share 
ciis.  in  that  prerogative ;  and  Drusus,  in 

order  to  gratify  them,  moved  for  an 
act  of  which  the  tendency  was,  to  restore  the  ju- 
dicative power  of  the  senate  :  to  prevent  opposi- 
tion from  the  equestrian  order,  he  proposed,  at 
once,  to  enrol  three  hundred  knights  into  the  sen- 
ate :  and  that  the  senators,  who  appear  at  this 
time  to  have  amounted  to  no  more  than  three 
hundred,  might  not  withstand  this  increase  of 
their  numbers,  he  left  to  each  the  nomination  of 
one  of  the  new  members,  proposing,  that  from  the 
six  hundred  so  constituted  the  lists  of  judges 
should  be  taken.'  Many  of  the  knights  were  re- 
conciled to  this  arrangement,  by  the  hopes  of*be- 
coming  senators;  but  the  order,  in  general,  seem  to 
have  considered  it  as  a  snare  laid  to  deprive  them 
of  their  consequence  in  the  government  of  their 
country ;  and  individuals  refused  to  accept  of  a 
place  in  the  senate,  at  the  hazard  of  so  great  and 
so  sudden  a  change  in  the  condition  of  their  own 
order,  and  of  the  constitution  of  the  state.2 

This  tribune  likewise  proposed 
Lex  Numma-  an  act  to  debase  the  silver  coin,  by 
ria.  mixing  an  eighth  of  alloy.  But  the 

part  of  his  project  which  gave  the 
greatest  alarm,  was  that  which  related  to  the  in- 
digent citizens  of  Rome,  and  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Italy  in  general. 

With  a  view  to  gratify  the  poorer 
Lex  de  Colo-  citizens  he  proposed,  that  all  the  new 
niis.  settlements,  projected  by  the  law  of 

Caius  Gracchus,  should  now  be  car- 
ried into  .execution.  The  consul,  Marcus  Per- 
penna,  having  ventured  to  oppose  this  proposal,  he 
was,  by  order  of  the  tribune,  taken  into  custody ; 
and  so  roughly  treated  in  the  execution  of  this 
order,  that,  while  he  struggled  to  disengage  him- 
self, the  blood  was  made  to  spring  from  his  nostrils. 
"  It  is  no  more  than  the  pickle  of  the  turtle-fish;"3 
said  the  tribune,  a  species  of  delicacy,  in  which, 
it  seems,  among  other  luxuries  of  the  table,  this 
consul  was  supposed  frequently  to  indulge  himself. 

For  the  allies  of  Italy,  Livius 
Lex  de  Ciui-  Drusus  proposed  to  obtain  the  fa- 
tate  Sociis  vourite  object  on  which  they  had 
dtmda.  been  so  long  intent,  the  privileges 
and  powers  of  Roman  citizens.  In 
all  his  other  proposals,  he  had  the  concurrence  of 
some  party  in  the  commonwealth,  and  by  persua- 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  i.  Auct.  de  Viris  Illus- 
tribus,  c.  6U.   Cicero  pro  Clientio. 

2  Ibid. 

3  Ex  turdis  maria.  Auct.  de  Viris  Illustribus,  in  L. 
Drus.    Val.  Max.  lib.  ix.  c.  5.  Florus. 


sion,  or  force,  had  obtained  his  purpose ;  but  in 
this  he  struck  at  the  personal  consideration  of 
every  citizen,  and  was  opposed  by  the  unanimous 
voice  of  the  whole  people. 

This  tribune  used  to  boast,  that  he  would  ex- 
haust every  fund  from  which  any  order  of  men 
could  be  gratified,  and  leave  to  those  who  came 
after  him  nothing  to  give,  but  the  air  and  the 
earth.4  The  citizens  in  general,  however,  were 
become  tired  of  his  favours,  and  the  people  of 
Italy  were  ill-disposed  to  requite  the  merit  of  a 
project  which  he  had  not  been  able  to  execute. 
Soon  after  the  motion,  which  he  made  in  favour 
of  the  Italians,  had  been  rejected,  Drusus  was 
suddenly  taken  ill  in  the  public  assembly,  and 
Papirius  Carbo,  another  of  the  tribunes,  made  a 
short  speech  on  the  occasion,  which,  among  a 
people  prone  to  superstition,  and  ready  to  execute 
whatever  they  conceived  to  be  awarded  by  the 
gods,  probably  hastened  the  fate  of  his  falling  col- 
league :  "O  Marcus  Drusus!"  he  said,  "the 
father  I  call,  not  this  degenerate  son  ;  thou  who 
usedst  to  say,  The  commonwealth  is  sacred,  who- 
ever violates  it  is  sure  to  be  punished.  The  te- 
merity of  the  son  has  evinced  the  wisdom  of  the 
father."  A  great  shout  arose  in  the  assembly, 
and  Drusus,5  being  attended  to  his  own  house  by 
a  numerous  multitude,  received  in  the  crowd  a 
secret  wound  of  which  he  died.6  All  his  laws 
were  soon  after  repealed,  as  having  passed  under 
unfavourable  auspices.  But  the  inhabitants  of 
Italy  were  not  to  be  appeased  under  their  late  dis- 
appointment, and  discontents  were  breaking  out 
in  every  part  of  the  country,  which  greatly  alarm- 
ed the  republic. 

In  this  state  of  public  uneasiness,  some  prose- 
cutions were  raised  by  the  tribunes,  calculated  to 
gratify  their  own  private  resentments,  and  tend- 
ing to  excite  animosities.  &.  Varius  Hybrida 
obtained  a  decree  of  the  people,  directing,  that  in- 
quiry should  be  made  by  whose  fault  the  allies 
had  been  made  to  expect  the  freedom  of  the  city. 
In  consequence  of  an  inquest  set  on  foot  for  this 
purpose,  L.  Calphurnius  Bestia,  late  consul,  and 
M.  Aurelius  Orator,  and  other  eminent  men, 
were  condemned.7  Mummius  Achaicus  was 
banished  to  Delos.  Emilius  Scaurus,  who  had 
long  maintained  his  dignity  as  princeps,  or  first 
on  the  roll  of  the  senate,  was  cited  on  this  occa- 
sion before  the  people  as  a  person  involved  in  the 
same  guilt.  Gtuintus  Varius,  the  tribune,  who 
accused  him,  being  a  native  of  Spain,  Scaurus 
was  acquitted  upon  the  following  short  defence : 
"  Gt.  Varius,  from  the  banks  of  the  Sucro,  in 
Spain,  says,  That  M.  Emilius  Scaurus,  first  in 
the  roll  of  the  senate,  has  encouraged  your  sub- 
jects to  revolt;  Varius  maintains  the  charge ; 
Scaurus  denies  it ;  there  is  no  other  evidence  in 
this  matter ;  choose  whom  you  will  believe."8 

The  year  following,  Varius  himself  was  tried, 
and  condemned  agreeably  to  his  own  act;  and 
while  the  prosecutions  suspended  all  other  civil 
affairs,  and  even  the  measures  required  for  the 
safety  of  the  public,  the  inhabitants  of  Italy 
were  forming  dangerous  combinations,  and  were 
ready  to  break  out  in  actual  rebellion.  They  were 

4  Florus,  lib.  iii.  c.  17.     5  Cicero  in  Bruto,  p.  63. 

6  Velleius,  lib.  ii.  c.  13,  14.  Appian.  Florus,  lib 
iii  c.  17. 

7  Appian.  Val.  Max.  lib.  viii.  c.  6.  Cicero  in  Bruto 

8  Cicero  pro  M.  Scauro  filio.  Auct.  de  Viris  Illus- 
tribus, c.  72.  Q.uintilian,  lib.  v.  c.  12.  Val.  Max 
lib.  iii.  c.  7 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


l'J7 


e xasperatcd  with  having  their  suit  not  only  re- 
fused, but  in  having  the  abettors  of  it  at  Rome 
considered  as  criminals.  They  sent  deputies  to 
meet  at  Corfinium,  and  to  deliberate  on  a  plan  of 
operations.  Their  deputies  were  to  form  a  sen- 
ate, and  to  choose  two  executive  officers,  under 
the  denomination  of  consuls. 

The  Romans  took  their  first  suspicion  of  a  de- 
sign in  agitation  among  their  allies,  from  ob- 
serving that  they  were  exchanging  hostages 
among  themselves.  The  proconsul  Servilius, 
who  commanded  in  the  Picenum,  having  intelli- 
gence to  this  purpose  from  Asculum,  repaired 
thither,  in  order,  by  his  presence,  to  prevent  any 
commotion ;  but  his  coming,  in  reality,  hastened 
the  revolt.  His  remonstrances  and  his  threats 
made  the  inhabitants  sensible  that  their  designs 
were  known,  and  that  the  execution  of  them 
could  no  longer  in  safety  be  delayed.  They  ac- 
cordingly took  arms,  and  put  to  the  sword  the 
proconsul  Servilius,  with  his  lieutenant,  and  all 
the  Roman  citizens  who  happened  to  be  in  the 
place.  The  alarm  immediately  spread  through- 
out all  the  towns  that  were  concerned  in  the  plot ; 
and,  as  upon  a  signal  agreed,  the  Marsi,  Peligni, 
Vestini,  Marcini,  Picentes,  Ferentanae,  Hirpini, 
Pompeiani,  Venusini,  Apuli,  Lucani,  and  Sam- 
nites,  took  arms,  and  sent  a  joint  deputation  to 
Rome  to  demand  a  participation  in  the  privileges 
of  Roman  citizens ;  of  which  they  had,  by  their 
services,  contributed  so  largely  to  increase  the 
value. 

In  answer  to  this  demand  they  were  told  by 
the  senate,  that,  they  must  discontinue  their  as- 
semblies, and  renounce  their  pretensions ;  other- 
wise, that  they  must  not  presume  to  send  any 
other  message  to  Rome. 

War  being  thus  declared,  both 
U.  C.  663.  parties  prepared  for  the  contest. 
L.  Julius  Cm-  The  allies  mustered  a  hundred 
sar,  p.  Ruti-  thousand  men,  in  different  bodies, 
Ihcs  Lupus.  an(j  umier  different  leaders.  The 
Romans  found  themselves  in  an 
instant  brought  back  to  the  condition  in  which 
they  had  been  about  three  hundred  years  before ; 
reduced  to  a  few  miles  of  territory  round  their 
walls,  and  beset  with  enemies  more  united,  and 
more  numerous  than  ever  had  assailed  them  at 
once  on  the  same  ground.  But  their  city  was 
likewise  enlarged,  their  numbers  increased,  and 
every  individual  excellently  formed  to  serve  the 
state,  as  a  warrior  and  a  citizen.  All  of  them  as- 
sumed, upon  this  occasion,  the  sagum,  or  mili- 
tary dress;  and  being  joined  by  such  of  the 
Latins  as  remained  in  their  allegiance,  and  by 
such  of  their  colonies,  from  different  parts  of 
Italy  as  continued  to  be  faithful,  together  with 
some  mercenaries  from  Gaul  and  Numidia,  they 
assembled  a  force  equal  to  that  of  the  allies. 

The  consuls  were  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
two  principal  armies ;  Lucius  Julius  Csssar,  in 
the  country  of  the  Samnites,9  and  Rutilius,  in 
that  of  the  Marsi.10  They  had  under  their  com- 
mand the  most  celebrated  and  experienced  officers 
of  the  republic ;  but  little  more  is  preserved  to  fur- 
nish out  the  history  of  this  war  than  the  names 
of  the  Roman  commanders,  and  those  of  the  per- 
sons opposed  to  them.  Rutilius  was  attended  by 
Pompeius  Strabo,  the  father  of  him  who  after- 
wards bore  the  title  of  Pompey  the  Great ;  Caepio, 

9  Now  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples. 
10  Contiguous  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  stat 


Perpenna,  Messala,  and  Caius  Marius,  of  whom 
the  last  had  already  so  often  been  consul.  Caesar 
had,  in  the  army  which  he  commanded,  Lentulus, 
Didius,  Crassus,  and  Marcellus.  They  were  op- 
posed by  T.  Afranius,  P.  Ventidius,  Marcus 
Egnatius,  &.  Pompedius,  C.  Papius,  M.  Lam- 
ponius,  C.  Judacilius,  Hircus,  Assinius,  and  Ve- 
tius  Cato,  at  the  head  of  the  allies.  The  forces 
were  similar  in  discipline  and  in  arms.  The  Ro- 
mans were  likely  to  be  inferior  in  numbers  and  in 
resources,  but  had  the  advantage  in  reputation, 
authority,  and  in  the  fame  of  their  leaders,  inured 
to  command  in  the  highest  stations.  But  so  well 
had  the  allies  taken  their  measures,  and  with  so 
much  animosity  did  they  support  a  quarrel,  which 
they  had  been  meditating  for  some  years,  that 
the  Romans  appeared  at  first  unequal  to  the  con- 
test, and  were  surprised  and  overcome  in  many 
encounters. 

The  detail  of  these  operations  is  imperfectly 
recorded  ;  and  does  not  furnish  the  materials  of  a 
relation  either  interesting  or  instructive.  "We 
must  therefore  content  ourselves  with  a  list  of 
actions  and  events,  and  with  the  general  result. 

One  of  the  consuls,  Lucius  Caesar,  in  the  first 
encounter  of  the  war,  was  defeated  by  Vetius 
Cato  near  Esernia,  and  had  two  thousand  men 
killed  in  the  field.  The  town  of  Esernia  was 
immediately  invested,  and  some  Roman  officers 
of  distinction  were  obliged  to  make  their  escape 
in  the  disguise  of  slaves.  Two  Roman  cohorts 
were  cut  off  at  Venafrum,  and  that  colony  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  other  consul, 
Rutilius,  was  likewise  defeated  by  the  Marsi, 
and  fell  in  the  field,  with  eight  thousand  men  of 
his  army.  His  colleague  was  called  to  the  city 
to  preside  at  the  election  of  a  successor ;  but  be- 
ing necessarily  detained  with  the  army,  the  office 
continued  vacant  for  the  remainder  of  the  cam- 
paign, while  the  army  acted  under  the  direction 
of  the  late  consuls,  Marius  and  Caepio. 

The  corpse  of  Rutilius,  and  of  other  persons 
of  rank,  being  brought  to  public  funeral  at  Rome, 
so  alarmed  and  sunk  the  minds  of  the  people,  that 
the  senate  decreed,  that,  for  the  future,  the  dead 
should  be  buried  where  they  fell. 

In  the  mean  time,  Lucius  Caesar,  obtained  a 
victory  in  the  country  of  the  Samnites;  and  the 
senate,  in  order  to  restore  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  as  if  this  victory  had  suppressed  the  revolt, 
resolved,  that  the  sagum,  or  military  dress,  should 
be  laid  aside." 

The  usual  time  of  the  consular  elections  being 
come,  Cn.  Pompeius  Strabo  and  Porcius  Cato 
were  named. 

Pompey  gained  a  complete  victory  over  the 
Marsi;  and  notwithstanding  an  ob- 
U.  C.  661.  stinate  defenee,  reduced  the  city  of 
Aseulum,  where  hostilities  at  first 
Strabo'T  nac^  commenced,  and  where  the  Ro- 
Porcius  Cato.  mans  had  suffered  the  greatest  out- 
rage. The  principal  inhabitants  of 
the  place  were  put  to  death,  the  remainder  were 
sold  for  slaves.  The  other  consul,  Cato,  was 
killed  in  the  attack  upon  the  entrenchments  of 
the  Marsi ;  and  although  Marius  and  Sylla,  in 
different  quarters,  had  turned  the  fortune  of  the 
war  against  the  allies,  yet  the  event  still  con- 
tinued to  be  extremely  doubtful. 

The  Umbrians,  Etruscans,  and  inhabitants  of 

11  Liv.  lib.  lxxiv.  Appian.  Orosius,  lib.  v.  c.  18 
Florus,  lib.  iii.  c.  18.   Velleius.  Eutropius. 


128 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


other  districts  of  Italy,  who  had  hitherto  hesitated 
in  the  choice  of  their  party,  took  courage  from 
the  perseverance  and  success  of  their  neighbours, 
and  openly  joined  the  revolt.  The  more  distant 
parts  of  the  empire  were  soon  likely  to  seize  the 
contagion  :  they  were  already,  by  the  obstruction 
they  met  with  in  carrying  supplies  of  provisions 
or  revenue,  severed  from  the  capital,  and  the  alle- 
giance they  owed  as  conquered  provinces,  when- 
ever they  saw  their  opportunity  to  withdraw  it, 
was  likely  to  vanish  like  a  dream  or  ideal  existence. 

Mithridates,  the  king  of  Pontus,  did  not  ne- 
glect the  occasion  that  was  offered  to  him;  he 
put  all  his  forces  in  motion,  expelled  Nicomedes 
from  Bithynia,  and  Ariobarzanes  from  Cappa- 
docia,  and  made  himself  master  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  Lesser  Asia. 

In  this  extremity  it  appeared  necessary  to 
comply  with  the  demands  of  the  allies ;  but  the 
senate  had  the  address  to  make  this  concession 
seem  to  be  an  act  of  munificence  and  generosity, 
not  of  weakness  or  fear. 

The  Latins,  who  had  continued  in  their  alle- 
giance, were,  in  consideration  of  their  fidelity, 
admitted  to  all  the  privileges  of  Roman  citizens. 
The  Umbri  and  Tuscans,  who  either  had  not  yet 
declared,  or  who  had  been  least  forward  in  the  war, 
were  next  comprehended  ;  and  the  other  inhabit- 
ants of  Italy,  observing,  that  they  were  likely  to 
obtain  by  favour  what  they  endeavoured  to  ex- 
tort by  force,  grew  remiss  in  the  war,  or  withdrew 
from  the  league,  that  they  might  appear  to  be  for- 
ward in  the  general  return  to  peace. 

The  Marsi,  Samnites,  and  Lucanians,  who 
had  been  the  principal  authors  of  the  revolt,  or 
who  had  acted  with  most  animosity  in  the  con- 
duct of  it,  continued  for  some  time  to  be  excluded 
from  the  privilege  of  Romans.  But  the  civil  war, 
which  soon  after  broke  out  among  the  citizens 
themselves,  terminated  either  in  the  extirpation 
of  those  aliens,  and  in  the  settlement  of  Roman 
colonies  in  their  stead,  or  gave  them  an  opportu- 
nity, under  favour  of  the  party  they  espoused, 
of  gaining  admittance  to  the  privilege  to  which 
they  aspired  :  so  that,  in  a  few  years,  all  the  in- 
habitants of  Italy,  from  the  Rubicon  to  the  straits 
of  Messina,  were  become  citizens  of  Rome ;  and 
a  constitution  of  state,  which  had  been  already 
overcharged  by  the  numbers  that  partook  of  its 
sovereignty,  was  now  altogether  overwhelmed ; 
or  if  this  change  alone  were  not  sufficient  to  de- 
stroy it,  was  not  likely  long  to  remain  without 
some  notable  and  fatal  revolution.  Assemblies 
of  the  people,  already  sufficiently  tumultuary, 
being  now  considered  as  the  collective  body  of  all 
the  Italians,  were  become  altogether  impractic- 
able, or  could  be  no  more  than  partial  tumults 
raised  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  or  the  contiguous 
fields,  for  particular  purposes :  insomuch  that 
when  we  read  of  the  authority  of  the  senate  be- 
ing set  aside  by  an  order  of  the  people,  we  may 
venture  to  conceive  all  government  suspended  at 
the  instance  of  that  party,  who  had  then  the 
populace  of  Rome  at  their  call. 

Licinius  Crassus  and  L.  Julius  Csesar  were 
chosen  censors,  in  order  to  make  up  the  new  rolls 
of  the  people.  This,  it  is  likely,  was  found  to  be 
a  difficult  and  tedious  work.  It  became  necessary 
to  scrutinize  the  rolls  of  every  separate  borough,  in 


order  to  know  who  were  entitled  to  be  added  ta 
the  list  of  Roman  citizens ;  and  this  difficulty  was 
farther  increased  in  consequence  of  a  law  devisee 
about  this  time  by  Papirius  Carbo,  in  which  it 
was  enacted,  that  not  only  the  natives  and  ancient 
denizens  of  Italy,  but  all  who  should,  for  the  fu- 
ture, obtain  the  freedom  of  any  Italian  borough, 
if  they  had  a  residence  in  Italy,  and  had  given  in 
their  claim  to  the  praetor  sixty  days,  should,  by 
that  act,  become  citizens  :l  so  that  the  prerogative 
of  the  Roman  people  continued  to  be  in  the  gift 
of  every  separate  corporation  as  well  as  in  that  of 
the  state  itself. 

The  number  of  the  aliens  admitted  on  the  rolls, 
at  this  muster,  is  not  recorded ;  but  it  was  pro- 
bably equal  to  that  of  the  ancient  citizens,  and 
might  have  instantly  formed  a  very  powerful  and 
dangerous  faction  in  the  state,  if  effectual  mea- 
sures had  not  been  taker  to  guard  against  the 
effect  of  their  influence.  For  this  purpose,  they 
were  not  mixed  promiscuously  with  the  mass 
of  the  people,  but  confined  to  eight  particular 
tribes  ;2  by  this  means  they  could  only  influence 
eight  votes  in  thirty-five  ;3  and  the  ancient  citi- 
zens were  still  possessed  of  a  great  majority.  But 
this  artifice  did  not  long  escape  the  attention  of 
those  who  were  aggrieved  by  it,  and  became  the 
subject  of  a  new  dispute. 

While  the  Romans  were  meditating,  or  actu- 
ally making  this  important  change  in  the  state 
of  the  commonwealth,  they  found  leisure  for  mat- 
ters of  less  moment,  in  which  they  endeavoured 
to  provide  for  the  peace  of  the  city,  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice. 

Plautius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  ob- 
Lex  Plotia  tained  a  new  law  for  the  selection  of 
de  Judiciis.  judges,  by  which  it  was  enacted,  That 
each  tribe  should  annually  elect  fif- 
teen citizens,  without  any  distinction  of  rank ; 
and  that,  from  the  whole  so  named,  the  judges  in 
all  trials  that  occurred  within  the  year  should  be 
taken.4  This  law  appeared  to  be  equitable,  as  it 
gave,  with  great  propriety,  to  all  the  different 
classes  of  men  in  the  state,  an  equal  right  to  be 
named  of  the  juries;  and  to  every  party  con- 
cerned, an  equal  chance  of  being  tried  by  his 
peers. 

The  same  tribune  likewise  obtain- 
Lex  Plotia  ed  a  law  for  the  preservation  of  the 
de  Vi.  public  peace,  by  which  it  was  de- 

clared capital  to  be  seen  in  public 
with  a  weapon,  or  instrument  of  death ;  to  oc- 
cupy any  place  of  strength  in  the  city ;  to 
offer  violence  to  the  house  of  any  person,  or  to 
disturb  any  company  ;  to  interrupt  any  meeting 
of  the  senate,  assembly  of  the  people,  or  court  of 
justice.  To  these  clauses  Catulus  subjoined  an- 
other, in  which  he  comprehended  persons  sur- 
rounding the  senate  with  an  armed  force,  or 
offering  violence  to  any  magistrate.5 


1  Cicero  pro  Archia  Poeta. 

2  Velleius  Paterculus,  lib.  ii.  c.  20. 

3  Historians  mention  this  particular,  as  if  eight  new 
tribes  were  added  to  the  former  thirty-rive;  but  the 
continual  allusion  of  Roman  writers  to  the  number 
thirty-five,  will  not  allow  us  to  suppose  any  aug- 
mentation.  Cicero  de  Lege  Agraria,  2da,  c.  8. 

4  Pedianas  in  Cornelianam  Ciceronis. 

5  Cicero  pro  Caelio,  et  Aruspicum  Response 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


129 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Triumph  of  Pompeius  Strabo — Progress  of  Sylla — War  with  the  King  of  Pontus — Rise  of  thai 
Kingdom — Appointment  of  Sylla  to  Command — Policy  of  the  Tribune  Sulpicius — Sylla's 
Commission  recalled  in  Favour  of  Marius — His  March  from  Campania  to  Rome — Expels 
Marius  and  his  Faction  from  the  City — His  Operations  in  Greece — Siege  of  Athens — Battle 
of  Chceronea — Of  Orchomenos — Transactions  at  Rome — Policy  of  Cinna — Marius  recalled — 
Cinna  flies,  and  is  deprived — Recovers  the  Possession  of  Rome — Treaty  of  Sylla  with  Mithri- 
dates — He  passes  into  Italy — Is  opposed  by  numerous  Armies —  Various  Events  of  the  War  in 
/taly — Sylla  prevails — His  Proscription,  or  Massacre — Named  Dictator — His  Policy — Resig- 
nation— and  Death. 


THE  social  war,  though  far  from  being  suc- 
cessful, concluded  with  a  triumphal  procession; 
and  the  senate,  though  actually  obliged  to  yield 
the  point  for  which  they  contended,  thought  pro- 
per, under  pretence  of  advantages  gained  on  some 
particular  occasions,  to  erect  a  trophy.  They 
singled  out  Pompeius  Strabo  for  the  pageant  in 
this  ceremony ;  either  because  he  had  reduced 
Asculum,  where  the  rebellion  first  broke  out,  or 
because  a  victory  obtained  by  him  had  immedi- 
ately preceded  the  peace.  But  the  most  remarkable 
circumstance  in  this  procession  was,  its  being,  in 
show,  a  triumph  of  the  old  citizens  over  the  new, 
but  in  reality  a  triumph  of  the  latter.  Ventidius 
Bassus,  being  a  prisoner  in  the  war,  and  led  as 
such  in  the  present  triumph,  came  in  the  form 
of  a  captive  to  share  in  the  prerogatives  of  a 
Roman;  he  was,  in  the  sequel,  promoted  to  all 
the  honours  of  the  state ;  and  himself,  in  the  ca- 
pacity of  a  victorious  general,  led  a  procession  of 
the  same  kind  with  that  in  which  he  made  his 
first  entry  at  Rome  as  a  captive.6 

Sylla,  by  his  conduct  and  his  successes  wher- 
ever he  had  borne  a  separate  command  in  this 
war,  gave  proof  of  that  superior  genius  by  which 
he  now  began  to  be  distinguished.  By  his  mag- 
nanimity on  all  occasions,  by  his  great  courage  in 
danger,  by  his  imperious  exactions  from  the  ene- 
my, and  by  his  lavish  profusion  to  his  own  troops, 
he  obtained,  in  a  very  high  degree,  the  confidence 
and  attachment  of  his  soldiers;  and  yet  in  this, 
it  is  probable,  he  acted  from  temper,  and  not  from 
design,  or  with  any  view  to  what  followed.  With 
so  careless  and  so  bold  a  hand  did  this  man 
already  hold  the  reins  of  military  discipline,  thai 
Albinus,  an  officer  of  high  rank,  and  next  in 
command  to  himself,  being  killed  by  the  soldiers 
in  a  mutiny,  he  treated  this  outrage  as  a  trifle, 
saying,  when  the  matter  was  reported  to  him, 
That  the  troops  would  atone  for  it  when  they 
met  with  the  enemy.7 

With  the  merits  he  had  recently 
U.  (-.665.    displayed  in  this  war,  he  repaired 
to  the  city,  laid  claim  to  the  con- 
fa  QpJmp    su^atei  an^  vvas  accordingly  chosen 
Rufus,  Cons,  hi  conjunction  with  Gtuintus  Pom- 
peius Rufus. 

It  was  thought  necessary  still  to  keep  a  proper 
force  under  arms  in  Italy,  until  the  public  tran- 
quillity should  be  fully  established.  The  army, 
which  had  acted  under  Cneius  Pompeius  Strabo, 
consul  of  the  preceding  year,  was  destined  for 
this  service  ;  and  Gtuintus  Rufus  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  it. 

The  war  with  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus, 


6  Vai.  lih.  vi.  c  9.    Gcllius,  lib.  xv.  c.  t.    Plift.  lib. 
7.  c.  13.    Dio  Cassias,  13.  line.      7  Plutarch  nt  Sylla. 
It 


however,  was  the  principal  object  of  attention  ; 
and  this  province,  together  with  the  army  then 
lying  in  Campania,  fell  to  the  lot  of  Sylla. 

The  monarchy  of  Pontus  had  risen  upon  the 
ruins  of  the  Macedonian  establishments  in  Asia; 
and,  upon  their  entire  suppression,  was  become 
one  of  the  most  considerable  kingdoms  of  the 
East. 

Mithridates  had  inherited  from  his  ancestors  a 
great  extent  of  territory,  reaching  in  length,  ac- 
cording to  the  representation  of  his  own  ambas- 
sador in  Appian  twenty  thousand  stadia,  above 
two  thousand  miles.  He  himself  had  joined  to  it 
the  kingdom  of  Colchis,  and  other  provinces  on 
the  coasts  of  the  Euxine  sea.  His  national 
troops  amounted  to  three  hundred  thousand  foot, 
and  forty  thousand  horse,  besides  auxiliaries  from 
Thrace,  and  from  that  part  of  Scythia  which  lies 
on  the  Meotis  and  the  Tanais,  countries  over 
which  he  had  acquired  an  ascendant  approach- 
ing to  a  sovereignty.  He  had  pretensions  like- 
wise on  the  kingdoms  of  Bithynia  and  Cappa- 
docia,  which  he  had  hitherto  relinquished  from 
respect  to  the  Romans ;  or  of  which  he  had  de- 
ferred the  effect  until  he  should  be  prepared  to 
cope  with  this  formidable  power.  All  his  preten- 
sions, indeed,  like  those  of  other  monarchs,  were 
likely  to  extend  with  his  force,  and  to  receive  no 
limitation  but  from  the  defect  of  liis  power.  And 
such  were  his  resources,  and  his  personal  charac- 
ter, that,  if  he  had  encountered  on  the  side  of  Eu- 
rope with  an  enemy  less  able  than  the  Romans 
were  to  withstand  his  progress,  it  is  probable  that 
in  his  hands  the  empire  of  Pontus  might  have 
vied  with  that  of  the  greatest  conquerors. 

About  the  time  that  the  social  war  broke  out 
in  Italy,  Cassius  JLonginus,  Marcus  Aquiliua, 
and  C.  Oppius  were,  in  different  characters,  sta- 
tioned in  the  province  of  Asia,  and  took  under 
their  protection  every  power  in  that  country 
that  was  likely  to  oppose  the  progress  of  Mith- 
ridates. 

Nicomedes,  who  had  been  recently  restored  to 
the  crown  of  Bithynia,  made  hostile  incursions 
under  the  encouragement  of  these  Roman  gene- 
rals, even  into  the  kingdom  of  Pontus.  Mithri- 
dates, having  made  fruitless  complaints  to  them 
on  this  subject;  and  thinking  that  the  distracted 
state  of  Italy  furnished  him  with  a  favourable 
opportunity  to  slight  their  resentment,  he  sent 
his  son  Ariarathes  into  Cappadocia  with  a  force 
to  expel  Ariobarzanes,  though  an  ally  of  the  Ro- 
mans, and  to  possess  that  kingdom.  He  took  the 
field  himself,  and  sent  powerful  armies,  under  his 
generals,  against  Nieomedes,  ami  against  the  Ro- 
mans, who  had  assembled  all  the  force  of  then 
province  and  of  their  allies,  to  the  amount  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men,  in  differeiil 


♦ 


130 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


oodles,  to  defend  their  own  frontier,  or  to  annoy 
their  enemy. 

Mithridates  fell  separately  upon  the  several 
divisions  of  his  enemies'  forces ;  and  having  de- 
feated Nicomedes,  and  afterwards  Marcus,  obliged 
the  Roman  officers,  with  their  ally,  to  retire ;  Cas- 
sius  to  Apamea,  Marcus  towards  Rhodes,  and 
Nicomedes  to  Pergamus.  His  fleet,  likewise, 
consisting  of  three  hundred  gallies,  opened  the 
passage  of  the  Hellespont,  took  all  the  ships 
which  the  Romans  had  stationed  in  those  straits ; 
and  he  himself  soon  after  in  person  traversed 
Phrygia  and  the  Lesser  Asia,  to  the  sea  of  Cili- 
cia  and  Greece.  In  all  the  cities  of  the  Lesser 
Asia,  where  the  people  now  openly  declared  their 
detestation  of  the  Roman  dominion,  he  was  re- 
ceived with  open  gates.  He  got  possession  of 
the  person  of  Oppius,  by  means  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Laodicea,  where  this  general  had  taken 
refuge  with  a  body  of  mercenaries.  The  merce- 
naries were  allowed  to  disband ;  but  Oppius  him- 
self was  conducted  as  a  prisoner  to  the  head- 
quarters of  Mithridates,  and,  in  mockery  of  his 
state  as  a  Roman  governor,  was  made  to  pass 
through  the  cities  in  his  way,  with  his  fasces  or 
ensigns  of  magistracy  carried  before  him. 

Marcus  Aquilius  likewise  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  and  was  treated  with  similar  scorn ; 
and  with  a  barbarity  which  nothing  but  the  most 
criminal  abuse  of  the  power  he  lately  possessed 
could  have  deserved  or  provoked.  Being  carried 
round  the  cities  of  Asia  on  an  ass,  he  was  obliged 
at  every  place  to  declare,  that  his  own  avarice 
was  the  cause  of  the  war ;  and  he  was  at  last  put 
to  death  by  the  pouring  of  melted  gold  into  his 
throat. 

While  Mithridates  thus  overwhelmed  his  ene- 
mies, and  was  endeavouring  to  complete  his  con- 
quest of  Asia  by  the  reduction  of  Rhodes,  he 
ordered  his  general  Archelaus  to  penetrate  by 
the  way  of  Thrace  and  Macedonia  into  Greece. 

Such  was  the  alarming  state  of  the  war  when 
the  Romans,  having  scarcely  appeased  the  trou- 
bles in  Italy,  appointed  L.  Cornelius  Sylla  with 
six  legions  that  lay  in  Campania,  to  embark  for 
Greece,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  stem  a  torrent 
which  no  ordinary  bars  were  likely  to  withstand. 

But  before  Sylla  or  his  colleague  could  depart 
for  their  provinces,  disorders  arose  in  the  city, 
which,  without  waiting  the  approach  of  foreign 
enemies,  brought  armies  to  battle  in  the  streets, 
and  covered  the  pavements  of  Rome  with  the 
slain. 

Publius  Sulpicius,  tribune  of  the  people,  with 
a  singular  boldness  and  profligacy,  ventured  to 
tamper  with  the  dangerous  humours  which  were 
but.  ill  suppressed  in  the  event  of  the  late  trou- 
bles ;  and,  as  if  the  state  had  no  experience  of  civil 
wars  and  domestic  tumults,  lighted  the  torch 
anew,  and  kindled  the  former  animosity  of  the 
popular  and  senatorian  parties.  The  severe  mea- 
sures hitherto  taken  by  the  senate  and  magis- 

rates  against  the  authors  of  sedition  had,  in  some 
.nstances,  been  effectual  to  snatch  the  republic 
out  of  the  hands  of  lawless  men,  and  to  suspend 
for  a  while  the  ruin  of  the  commonwealth ;  but 

he  examples  so  given,  instead  of  deterring  others 
from  a  repetition  of  the  same  crimes,  appear  only 
to  have  admonished  the  factious  leaders  to  take 
proper  precautions,  and  to  make  the  necessary 
preparations  before  they  embarked  in  designs 
against  the  state.    They  accordingly  improved 


and  refined  by  degrees  on  the  measures  which 
they  successively  took  against  the  senate;  and 
when  the  tribune  Sulpicius  began  to  act,  he 
made  his  arrangements  equal  to  a  system  of 
formal  war.  This  tribune,  according  to  Plu- 
tarch, had  three  thousand  gladiators  in  his  pay, 
and  in  despite  of  the  law  of  Plautius,  had  ever  at 
his  back  a  numerous  company  of  retainers,  arm- 
ed with  daggers  and  other  offensive  weapons; 
these  he  called  his  anti-senate ;  and  retained  tc 
support  him  in  an  attempt,  which  he  was  at  no 
pains  to  disguise,  against  the  authority  of  the 
senate  itself.  He  moved  the  people  to  recall  from 
exile  all  those  who  had  fled  from  the  city  on  oc- 
casion of  the  former  disorders,  and  to  admit  the 
new  citizens  and  enfranchised  slaves  to  be  enroll- 
ed promiscuously  in  all  the  tribes  without  regard 
to  the  late  wise  limitation  of  the  senate's  decree, 
by  which  they  were  restricted  to  four.  By  the 
change  which  he  now  proposed,  the  citizens  of 
least  consideration  might  come  to  have  a  majority, 
or  &  great  sway  in  the  public  deliberations.  The 
tribunes  would  become  masters  in  every  ques- 
tion, and  fill  up  the  rolls  of  the  people  in  the 
manner  that  most  suited  their  interest. 

This  presumptuous  man  himself  undertook  to 
procure  the  freedom  of  the  city  for  every  person 
that  applied  to  him,  and  boldly  received  premiums 
in  the  streets  for  this  prostitution  of  the  privi- 
leges and  powers  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

The  more  respectable  citizens,  and  the  magis- 
trates, in  vain  withstood  t  hese  abuses.  They  were 
overpowered  by  force,  and  frequently  driven  from 
the  place  of  assembly.  In  this  extremity  they 
had  recourse  to  superstition,  and  by  multiplying 
holy-days,  endeavoured  to  stop  or  to  disconcert 
their  antagonists.  But  Sulpicius,  with  his  party, 
laid  violent  hands  on  the  consuls,  in  order  to 
force  them  to  recall  these  appointments.  Young 
Pompey,  the  son  of  the  present  consul,  and  son- 
in-law  to  Sylla,  was  killed  in  the  fray.  Sylla 
himself,  who  had  withdrawn  from  the  tumult, 
feeling  that,  he  was  in  the  power  of  his  enemies, 
and  being  impatient  to  get  into  a  situation  in 
which  he  could  more  effectually  resist  them, 
chose  for  the  present  to  comply  with  their  de- 
mands.1 

In  the  midst  of  these  violences,  the  city  being 
under  an  actual  usurpation  of  tyranny,  Sylla  re- 
paired to  the  army  in  Campania,  with  a  resolu- 
tion to  pursue  the  object  of  his  command  in  Asia, 
and  to  leave  the  tribunitian  storms  at  Rome  to 
spend  their  force.  But  soon  after  his  departure, 
it  appeared,  that  Marius  was  no  stranger  to  the 
councils  of  Sulpicius;  and  that  he  hoped,  by 
means  of  this  tribune,  to  gratify  an  ambition 
which  outlived  the  vigour  of  his  faculties  and  the 
strength  of  his  body.  His  first  object  was  to 
mortify  his  rival  Sylla,  in  revoking,  by  a  decree 
of  the  people,  the  appointment  of  the  senate,  and 
to  supersede  him  in  the  command  of  the  army 
against  Mithridates..  A  decree  to  this  purpose 
was  accordingly  with  ease  obtained  by  Sulpicius, 
in  one  of  those  partial  conventions,  which  took 
upon  them  to  represent  the  people  of  Italy  in  the 
streets  of  Rome;  and  Marius,  now  appointed 
general  of  the  army  in  Campania,  sent  the  pro- 
per officers  to  intimate  his  appointment  to  Sylla^ 
and  to  receive  from  him,  in  behalf  of  his  succes 
sor,  the  charge  of  the  army,  and  the  delivery  of 


1  Hutarch  in  Mario* p.  526.  edit.  Londin.  4to. 


Chap.  VIT.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


131 


the  stores.  Sylla  had  the  address  to  make  the 
troops  apprehend  that  this  change  was  equally 
prejudicial  to  them  as  to  himself;  that  Marius 
had  his  favourite  legions,  whom  he  would  natu- 
rally employ ;  and  that  the  same  act  of  violence, 
by  which  he  had  supplanted  the  general,  would 
bring  other  officers  and  other  men  to  reap  the 
fruits  of  this  lucrative  service  in  Asia.  This  per- 
suasion, as  well  as  the  attachment  which  the 
army  already  bore  to  their  general,  produced  its 
effect.2 

The  officers,  who  intimated  the  appointment 
of  Marius,  on  declaring  their  commission,  found 
that  violence  could  take  place  in  the  camp  as 
well  as  in  the  city.  Their  orders  were  received 
with  scorn.  A  tumult  arose  among  the  soldiers ; 
and  citizens  vested  with  a  public  character,  for- 
mally commissioned  to  intimate  an  order  of  the 
Roman  people,  and  delivering  their  commands  to 
this  purpose,  were  slain  in  the  camp.  In  return 
10  this  outrage  some  relations  and  friends  of  Sylla 
were  murdered  in  the  city,  and  such  retaliations 
were  not  likely  soon  to  end  on  either  side.3 

Faction  is  frequently  blind,  and  does  not  see 
the  use  that  may  be  made  of  its  own  violent  pre- 
cedents against  itself.  Although  Sylla  is  said  to 
have  hesitated,  yet  he  was  not  a  person  likely  to 
shrink  from  the  contest,  in  which  his  own  ene- 
mies, and  those  of  the  state,  had  engaged  him. 
Stung  with  rage,  and  probably  thinking  that 
force  would  be  justified  in  snatching  the  republic 
out  of  such  violent  hands,  he  proposed  to  the 
army  that  they  should  march  to  Rome.  The 
proposal  was  received  with  joy ;  and  the  army, 
without  any  of  the  scruples,  or  any  degree  of  that 
hesitation  which  is  ascribed  to  their  commander 
in  adopting  this  measure,  followed  where  he 
thought  proper  to  lead  them. 

On  this  new  and  dangerous  appearance  of 
things,  not  only  Marius  and  Sulpicius,  with  the 
persons  most  obnoxious  on  account  of  the  in- 
sults offered  to  Sylla  and  other  respectable  citi- 
zens, were  seized  with  consternation ;  but  even 
the  senate  and  the  nobles  were  justly  alarmed. 

A  faction,  it  is  true,  had  assumed  the  authority 
of  the  Romaty  people,  to  violate  the  laws,  and  to 
overawe  the  state;  but  armies,  it  was  thought, 
are  dangerous  tools  in  political  contests;  and  no 
good  intention  on  the  part  of  their  leaders,  no 
magnanimity  or  moderation  in  the  execution  of 
their  intentions,  can  compensate  the  ruinous  ten- 
dency of  a  precedent  which  brings  force  to  be 
employed  as  an  ordinary  resource  in  political 
divisions.  Even  the  present  state  of  the  republic 
did  not  appear  so  desperate  as  to  justify  such  a 
measure. 

The  senate  accordingly  sent  a  deputation  to 
Sylla,  with  entreaties,  and  with  commands,  that 
he  would  not  advance  to  the  city.  This  deputa- 
tion was  received  by  him  within  a  few  miles  of 
the  gates.  He  heard  the  remonstrance  that  was 
made  to  him  with  patience,  and  seemed  to  be 
moved.  He  gave  orders,  in  the  hearing  of  the 
deputies,  that  the  armies  should  halt;  sent  the 
proper  officers  to  mark  out  a  camp,  and  suffered 
t  he  commissioners  to  return  to  their  employers, 
full  of  the  persuasion  that  he  was  to  comply  with 
their  request.  But  as  soon  as  he  thought  this  in- 
telligence had  reached  the  city,  and  had  lulled  his 


2  Appian.  de  Boll.  Civ.  lib.  1. 

3  Plutarch,  in  Mario,  edit.  Londin.  p.  526. 


antagonists  into  a  state  of  security,  he  sent  a  de- 
tachment close  on  the  heels  of  the  deputies,  with 
orders  to  seize  the  nearest  gate ;  and  he  himself, 
with  the  whole  army,  speedily  followed  to  support 
them. 

The  gate  was  accordingly  seized.  The  people, 
in  tumult,  endeavoured  to  recover  it ;  Marius  se- 
cured the  capitol,  and  summoned  every  man, 
whether  freemen  or  slaves,  to  repair  to  his  stan- 
dard. His  party,  as  they  assembled,  were  drawn 
up  in  the  streets.  Sylla,  in  the  mean  time,  at 
the  head  of  his  army,  rushed  through  the  gate, 
which  his  vanguard  still  maintained  against  the 
multitudes  by  whom  they  were  pressed.  He 
was  greatly  annoyed  from  the  battlements  and 
windows  as  he  passed,  and  might  have  been  re- 
pulsed by  the  forces  which  Marius  had  assembled, 
if  he  had  not  commanded  the  city  to  be  set  on 
fire,  in  order  to  profit  by  the  confusion  into  which 
the  people  were  likely  to  be  thrown  in  avoiding 
or  extinguishing  the  flames.  By  this  expedient 
he  drove  Marius  from  all  the  stations  he  had  oc- 
cupied, forced  him  to  abandon  the  city,  and  obliged 
his  adherents  to  separate. 

While  the  army  was  distributed  in  different 
quarters  of  a  city,  deformed  with  recent  marks 
of  bloodshed  and  fire,  their  general  assembled  the 
senate,  and  desired  them  to  deliberate  on  the 
present  state  of  affairs.  Among  the  measures  he 
suggested  on  this  occasion,  was  a  law  by  which 
Marius,  with  his  son,  and  twelve  of  his  faction, 
who  had  secreted  themselves,  were  declared  ene- 
mies of  their  country.  This  sentence  was  accom- 
panied with  a  public  injunction  to  seize  or  kill 
them  wherever  they  could  be  found.  The  reasons 
upon  which  this  act  of  attainder  was  granted 
were,  that  they  had  violated  the  laws  of  the  re- 
public, and  seduced  the  slaves  to  desert  from  their 
masters,  and  to  take  arms  against  the  state.4 

While  the  officers  of  justice  were  dispersed  in 
execution  of  this  decree,  and  many  others  were 
busy  in  search  of  their  private  enemies,  thus  laid 
at  their  mercy,  the  tribune  Sulpicius,  having  fled 
to  the  marshes  on  the  coast  near  Laurentum,  was 
dragged  from  thence  and  slain.  His  head,  se- 
vered from  the  body,  as  that  of  a  traitor,  who  had 
surpassed  every  leader  of  faction  in  the  outrages 
done  to  the  laws  and  the  government  of  his 
country,  was  exposed  on  one  of  the  rostra ; 
an  example  afterwards  frequently  imitated,  and 
which,  though  it  could  not  make  any  addition 
to  the  evil  of  the  times,  became  an  additional  ex- 
pression of  the  animosity  and  rancour  of  parties 
against  each  other.5 

Marius,  upon  his  expulsion  from  Rome,  retired 
to  his  own  villa  at  Salonium;  and,  being  unpro- 
vided for  a  longer  flight,  sent  his  son  to  the  farm 
of  one  Mutius,  a  friend  in  the  neighbourhood,  to 
procure  what  might  be  necessary  for  a  voyage  by 
sea.  The  young  man  was  discovered  at  this 
place,  and  narrowly  escaped  in  a  waggon  loaded 
with  straw,  which,  the  better  to  deceive  his  pur- 
suers, was  ordered  to  take  the  road  to  Rome.  The 
father  fled  to  Ostia,  and  there  embarked  on  board 
a  vessel  which  was  provided  for  him  by  Nume- 
rius,  who  had  been  one  of  his  partizans  in  the 


4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  i.  p.  387.  The  names 
mentioned  in  this  art  of  attainder  or  outlawry,  were 
Sulpicius,  Marius,  father  and  son,  P.  Cethegus,  Junius 
Brutus,  Cneius  and  Pub.Granii,  Albinovanus,  Marcus 
Suetonius. 

5  Velleius  Paterculus,  lib.  ii.  r.  in. 


132 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


late  troubles.  Having  put  to  sea,  he  was  forced 
by  stress  of  weather  to  Circeii,  there  landed  in 
want  of  every  necessary,  and  made  himself 
known  to  some  herdsmen,  of  whom  he  implored 
relief.  Being  informed  of  the  parties  that  were 
abroad  in  pursuit  of  him,  he  concealed  himself 
for  the  night  in  a  neighbouring  wood.  Next  day 
as  he  was  within  a  few  miles  of  the  town  of 
Minturnae,  he  was  alarmed  at  the  sight  of  some 
horsemen,  ran  with  all  the  speed  he  could  make 
to  the  shore,  and,  with  much  difficulty,  got  on 
board  of  a  boat  which  was  passing.  The  per- 
sons with  whom  he  thus  took  refuge  resisted  the 
threats  and  importunities  of  the  pursuers  to  have 
him  delivered  up  to  them,  or  thrown  into  the 
sea  ;  but  having  rowed  him  to  a  supposed  place 
of  safety,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Liris,  they  put  him 
on  shore,  and  left  him  to  his  fate.  Here  he  first 
took  refuge  in  a  cottage,  afterwards  under  a  hol- 
low bank  of  the  river,  and,  last  of  all,  on  hearing 
the  tread  of  the  horsemen,  who  still  pursued  him, 
he  plunged  himself  to  the  chin  in  the  marsh  ; 
but,  though  concealed  by  the  reeds  and  the  depth 
of  the  water,  he  was  discovered  and  dragged  from 
thence  all  covered  with  mud.  He  was  carried  to 
Minturnae,  and  doomed  by  the  magistrates  of  the 
place  to  suffer  the  execution  of  the  sentence 
which  had  been  denounced  against  himself  and 
his  partizans  at  Rome.  He  was,  however,  by 
some  connivance,  allowed  to  escape  from  hence, 
again  put  to  sea,  and,  at  the  island  iEnaria, 
joined  some  associates  of  his  flight.  Being  after- 
wards obliged  to  land  in  Sicily  for  a  supply  of 
water,  and  being  known,  he  narrowly  escaped 
with  the  loss  of  some  of  the  crew  that  navigated 
his  vessel.  From  thence  he  arrived  on  the  coast 
of  Africa ;  but,  being  forbid  the  province  by  the 
Praetor  Sextilius,  continued  to  shift  his  abode 
among  the  islands  or  places  of  retirement  on  the 
coast.' 

Marius  was  in  his  seventieth  year  when  he 
made  this  attempt  to  overturn  the  Roman  repub- 
lic by  means  of  popular  tumults,  and  when  he 
strove  to  obtain  the  command  of  an  army  in  the 
busiest  and  most  arduous  service  which  the  Ro- 
man empire  had  then  to  offer.  Being  forced,  by 
his  miscarriage  in  this  attempt,  into  the  state  of 
an  outlaw,  he  still  amused  the  world  with  adven- 
tures and  escapes,  which  historians  record  with 
the  embellishments  of  a  picturesque  and  even 
romantic  description.  A  Gaulish  or  German 
soldier,  who  was  employed  at  Minturnae  to  put 
him  to  death,  overawed  by  his  aspect,  recoiled 
from  the  task ;  and  the  people  of  the  place,  as  if 
moved  by  the  miracle,  concurred  in  aiding  his 
escape.2  The  presence  of  such  an  exile  on  the 
ground  where  Carthage  had  stood,  was  supposed 
to  increase  the  majesty,  and  the  melancholy  of 
the  scene.  "Go,"  he  s.aid  to  the  lictor  who 
brought  him  the  orders  of  the  praetor  to  depart, 
"  tell  him  that  you  have  seen  Marius  sitting  on 
the  ruins  of  Carthage."3 

The  senate,  thus  restored  to  its  authority,  and, 
by  the  suppression  of  the  late  sedition,  masters 
of  the  city,  took  the  proper  measures  to  prevent, 
for  the  future,  such  violations  of  order  introduced 
for  popular  government.  They  resolved  that  no 
question  of  legislation  should  be  agitated  in  the 


1  Plutarch,  in  Mario,  edit.  Lond.  p.  534. 

2  Velleius  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  19. 

3  Plutarch,  in  Mario. 


assembly  of  the  tribes  ;4  and  Sylla,  before  he  left 
the  city,  thought  proper  to  despatch  the  election 
of  consuls  for  the  following  year,  but.  did  not  em- 
ploy the  power,  which  he  now  possessed,  to  make 
the  choice  fall  on  persons  who  were  both  of  the 
senatorian  party.  Together  with  Octavius,  who 
had  the  authority  of  the  senate  at  heart,  he  suf- 
fered Cinna,  though  of  the  opposite  faction,  to  be 
chosen,  and  only  exacted  a  promise  from  him  not 
to  disturb  the  public  peace,  nor,  in  his  absence, 
to  attempt  any  thing  derogatory  of  his  own 
honour.5 

Having  in  this  manner  restored  the  common 
wealth,  Sylla  set  out  with  his  army  for  their  des- 
tination in  Greece,  duintus  Rufus,  the  other 
consul  of  the  preceding  year,  at  the  same  time 
repaired  to  his  province  in  the  country  of  the 
Marsi,  where,  as  has  been  mentioned,  he  was' to 
succeed  Cn.  Strabo  in  the  command  of  some 
legions  ;  but  being  less  agreeable  to  these  troops 
than  his  predecessor,  the  soldiers  mutinied  upon 
his  arrival,  and  put  him  to  death.  Cn.  Strabo, 
though  suspected  of  having  connived  with  them 
in  this  horrid  transaction,  was  permitted  to  profit 
by  it  in  keeping  his  station.  So  quick  was 
the  succession  of  crimes  which  distressed  the 
republic,  that  one  disorder  escaped  with  impu- 
nity, under  the  more  atrocious  effects  of  another 
which  followed  it. 

When  Sylla  was  about  to  depart 
U.  C.  666.  from  the  city,  Virgilius,  one  of  the 
tribunes,  moved  an  impeachment 
na^Cn  'oua-  against  him  for  the  illegal  steps  he 
vius,  Cons.  bad  lately  taken.  But  the  state  of 
the  war  with  Mithridates  was  ur- 
gent, and  Sylla  took  the  benefit  of  the  law  of 
Memmius,  by  which  persons  named  to  command 
had  a  privilege  to  decline  answering  any  charge 
which  should  be  brought  against  them,  when  go- 
ing on  the  service  to  which  they  were  appointed. 

The  king  of  Pontus,  notwithstanding  he  had 
been  disappointed  in  his  attempt  upon  Rhodes, 
was  become  master  of  the  Lesser  Asia,  had  fixed 
his  residence  at  Pergamus,  and  employed  his  offi- 
cers, with  numerous  fleets  and  armies,  to  carry  on 
the  war  in  different  quarters,  making  rapid  ac- 
quisitions at  once  on  the  side  of  the  Scythian 
and  Thracian  Bosphorus  in  Macedonia  and  in 
Greece.  His  general,  Archelaus,  had  reduced 
most  of  the  Greek  islands,  and  was  hastening  to 
make  himself  master  of  the  Grecian  continent. 
Delos  had  revolted,  and  thrown  off  the  yoke  of 
Athens,  at  the  time  that  it  fell  into  the  hands 
of  this  general.  The  king  proposed  to  make  use 
of  it  as  a  decoy  to  bring  the  Athenians  them- 
selves under  his  power.  For  this  purpose  he  pre- 
tended a  desire  to  restore  the  island,  with  the 
treasure  he  had  seized  there,  to  its  former  mas- 
ters ;  and  sent  Aristion,  a  native  of  Athens,  but 
now  an  officer  in  his  own  service,  with  an  escort 
of  two  thousand  men,  to  deliver  this  treasure  into 
their  hands.  Aristion,  being,  under  this  pretence, 
received  into  the  Piraeus,  continued  to  hold  this 
place,  with  the  city  of  Athens  itself,  for  Mithri- 
dates, and,  by  means  of  the  forces  he  assembled 
in  Attica,  soon  after  overran  Bceotia,  Achaia,  and 
Laconia. 

To  these  powerful  encroachments  on  the  Ro- 
man territory,  and  to  the  personal  injuries  done 


4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  1. 

5  L.  Florus,  lib.  iii.  c.  21.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  1 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


133 


to  such  of  their  generals  as  had  fallen  into  his 
hands,  Mithridates  had  joined  a  barbarous  out- 
rage, that  roused,  in  the  highest  degree,  the  re- 
sentment of  the  Roman  people.  He  had  sent 
orders  to  all  his  commanders  in  every  town  and 
station  in  Asia,  on  a  day  fixed,  to  begin  a  massa- 
cre of  the  Roman  citizens  that  were  any  where 
settled  in  that  country,  and  to  publish  a  reward 
for  the  slaves  of  any  Roman  who  should  succeed 
in  destroying  their  master.  This  order  was  exe- 
cuted with  marks  of  insult,  in  which  the  instru- 
ments of  cruelty  are  often  apt  to  exceed  their  in- 
structions. It  is  particularly  mentioned,  that  at 
Ephesus,  Pergamus,  and  other  cities  of  Asia,  en- 
tire families,  taking  refuge  in  the  temples,  and 
embracing  the  altars,  infants  with  their  parents, 
and  without  distinction  of  sex  or  age,  were  drag- 
ged from  thence  and  murdered.  The  number  of 
persons  that  perished  in  this  massacre,  if  ever 
known,  is  no  where  mentioned.6 

The  resentment  which  was  natural  on  this  oc- 
casion, together  with  the  real  danger  that  threat- 
ened the  empire,  fully  justified  the  contempt  with 
which  Sylla  treated  the  impeachment  of  Virgilius, 
and  the  celerity  with  which  he  left  the  city  of 
Rome.  Having  transported  to  Dyrachium  an 
army  of  six  legions,  he  took  the  route  of  Thes- 
saly  and  iEtolia;  and  having  raised  in  these 
countries  contributions  for  the  pay  and  subsist- 
ence of  his  army,  he  received  the  submission  of 
the  Boeotians,  who  had  lately  been  obliged  to  de- 
clare for  Mithridates,  and  advanced  to  Athens, 
where  Aristion  in  the  city,  and  Archelaus  in  the 
Piraeus,  were  prepared  to  make  a  vigorous  resist- 
ance. Mithridates,  who  was  master  of  the  sea, 
collected  together,  all  the  troops  which  he  had 
distributed  in  the  islands,  and  ordered  a  great 
reinforcement  from  Asia  to  form  an  army  on  the 
side  of  Boeotia  for  the  relief  of  Athens. 

Sylla,  to  prevent  the  enemy,  hastened  the  siege 
of  this  place.  He  first  made  an  attempt  to  force 
his  way  into  the  Piraeus  by  scaling  the  walls ; 
but  being  repulsed,  had  recourse  to  the  ordinary 
means  of  attack.  He  erected  towers,  and  raised 
them  to  the  height  of  the  battlements,  got  upon 
the  same  level  with  the  besieged,  and  plied  his 
missiles  from  thence.  He  shook  the  wails  with 
battering  engines,  or  undermined  them  with 
galleries,  and  made  places  of  arms  for  his  men, 
near  to  where  he  expected  to  open  a  breach. 
But  the  defence  of  the  place  was  vigorous  and 
obstinate,  and  so  well  conducted,  that  he  was 
obliged,  after  many  fruitless  efforts,  to  turn  the 
siege  into  a  blockade,  and  to  await  the  effects 
of  famine,  by  which  the  city  began  already  to  be 
pressed. 

It  was  in  a  little  time  brought  to  the  last  ex- 
tremity. Those  who  were  confined  within  the 
walls  had  consumed  all  the  herbage,  and  killed 
all  the  animals  that  were  to  be  ibund  in  the 
place ;  they  were  reduced  to  feed  on  the  imple- 
ments of  leather,  or  other  materials  that  could  be 
turned  into  sustenance,  and  came  at  last  to  prey 
upon  the  carcases  of  the  dead.  The  garrison 
was  greatly  diminished  in  numbers;  and  of  those 
who  remained,  the  greater  part  was  dispirited  and 
weak :  but  Aristion,  expecting  for  himself  no 
quarter  from  the  Roman  general,  still  showed  no 
desire  to  capitulate;  when  Sylla,  knowing  the 
weak  state  to  which  the  besieged  were  reduced, 


G  Appian.  de  Bell.  Mithrid.  p.  585,  586  . 


made  a  vigorous  effort,  stormed  and  forced  the 
Walls  with  great  slaughter.  Aristion,  who  had 
retired  into  the  Acropolis,  was  soon  afterwards 
taken  and  slain. 

Archelaus,  likewise  greatly  distressed  in  the 
Piraeus,  found  means  to  escape  by  water,  and 
hastened  to  join  the  army  that  was  forming  on  the 
side  of  Thessaly ;  leaving  the  post  he  abandoned 
to  fall  into  the  hands  of  Sylla,  who  razed  its  for- 
tifications to  the  ground. 

The  army  of  Mithridates  advanced  into  Boeo- 
tia. Every  part  of  it  was  sumptuously  provided 
with  all  that  was  necessary  for  subsistence  or 
parade.  There  was  a  numerous  cavalry  richly 
caparisoned;  an  infantry  of  every  description, 
variously  armed,  some  to  use  missile  weapons, 
others  to  engage  in  close  fight ;  a  large  train  of 
armed  chariots,  which,  being  winged  with  scythes, 
threatened  to  sweep  the  plains.  The  whole* army 
amounted  to  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand men.  But  their  master,  with  all  his  ability, 
it  appears,  relied,  in  the  manner  of  barbarous  na- 
tions, more  on  their  numbers  than  he  did  on  their 
order,  or  on  the  conduct  of  their  officers.  Sylla 
was  to  oppose  them  with  thirty  thousand  men. 

On  this  inferior  enemy  Archelaus  continually 
pressed  with  all  his  forces,  and  endeavoured  to 
bring  on  a  general  action,  which  Sylla  cautiously 
avoided ;  waiting  for  an  opportunity  that  might 
deprive  the  enemy  of  the  advantage  they  had  in 
the  superiority  of  their  numbers.  The  armies  be- 
ing both  in  Boeotia,  Archelaus  inadvertently  took 
post  near  Cheronea,  on  the  ascent  of  a  steep  hill 
that  was  formed  into  terraces  by  ledges  of  rocks, 
and  which  terminated  at  last  in  a  peak  or  narrow 
summit.  On  the  face  of  this  hill  he  had  crowded 
his  infantry,  his  cavalry,  and  his  chariots,  and 
trusted  that,  although  the  ground  was  unfavour- 
able to  such  an  army,  it  was  still  inaccessible,  and 
could  not  be  reached  by  an  enemy. 

While  Archelaus  believed  himself  secure  in 
this  position,  Sylla  continued  to  observe  him  from 
the  post  he  had  fortified  at  a  little  distance ;  and 
was  told  by  some  natives  of  the  country,  that  the 
hill  which  the  enemy  had  occupied  might  be  as- 
cended in  their  rear,  and  that  any  part  of  his 
army  might  be  safely  conducted  to  the  summit. 
Upon  this  information  he  made  a  disposition  to 
engage,  placed  his  main  body  against  the  enemy 
in  front,  and,  that  he  might  throw  them  into  con- 
fusion by  a  double  attack,  sent  a  powerful  de- 
tachment, with  proper  guides,  to  seize  on  the 
heights  above  their  encampment. 

The  unexpected  appearance  of  Sylla's  detach- 
ment in  the  rear  produced  the  alarm  that  was  in- 
tended. Their  impetuous  descent  from  the  hill 
drove  in  confusion  all  who  came  in  their  way 
from  thence  to  the  camp.  The  rear  fell  down  on 
the  front.  A  great  uproar  and  tumult  arose  ill 
every  part.  And  in  this  critical  moment  Sylla 
began  his  attack,  and  broke  into  the  midst  of 
enemies  who  were  altogether  unprepared  to  re- 
ceive him.  They  were  crowded  in  a  narrow 
space,  and  mixed  without  any  distinction  of  ae 
parate  bodies  of  officers  or  men ;  and,  under  the 
disadvantage  of  their  ground,  could  neither  resist 
nor  retire.  In  the  centre,  numbers  being  trod 
under  foot  by  those  who  crowded  around  them, 
perished  by  violence  or  suffocation ;  or,  while 
they  endeavoured  to  open  a  way  to  escape,  were 
slain  by  each  other's  swords.  Of  a  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  men,  scarcely  ten  thousand 


134 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


could  be  assembled  at  Chalcis  in  Euboea,  the 
place  to  which  Archelaus  directed  his  flight.  Of 
the  Romans,  at  the  end  of  the  action,  only  fifteen 
men  were  missing,  and  of  these  two  returned  on 
the  following  day.1 

Archelaus,  even  after  this  rout  of  his  army, 
being  still  master  at  sea,  drew  supplies  from  Asia 
and  from  the  neighbouring  islands ;  and,  being 
secure  in  his  retreat  in  Euboea,  made  frequent, 
descents  on  the  neighbouring  coasts.  While 
Sylla  endeavoured  to  cover  the  lands  of  Boeotia 
and  Attica  from  these  incursions,  Mithridates 
made  great  efforts  to  replace  his  army  in  that 
country;  and  in  a  little  time  had  transported 
thither  eighty  thousand  fresh  troops  under  Do- 
rilaus,  to  whom  Archelaus  joined  himself  with 
those  he  had  saved  from  the  late  disaster.  The 
new  army  of  Mithridates,  consisting  chiefly  of 
cavalry,  was  greatly  favoured  by  the  nature  of  the 
ground  in  Boeotia,  which  was  flat  and  abounding 
in  forage.  Sylla,  though  inclined  to  keep  the 
heights  on  which  he  was  least  exposed  to  the 
enemy's  cavalry,  was  obliged,  in  order  to  cover 
the  country  from  which  he  drew  his  subsistence 
and  forage,  to  descend  to  the  plains  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Orchomenos.  There  he  took  post 
among  the  marshes,  and  endeavoured  to  fortify 
himself  with  deep  ditches  against  the  enemy's 
horse.  While  his  works  were  yet  unfinished, 
being  attacked  by  the  Asiatic  cavalry,  not  only 
the  labourers,  but  the  troops  that  were  placed 
under  arms  to  cover  the  workmen,  were  seized 
with  a  panic,  and  fled.  Sylla,  having  for  some 
time  in  vain  endeavoured  to  rally  them,  laid  hold 
of  an  ensign,  and  rushed  in  despair  on  the 
enemy.  "  To  me,"  he  said,  "it  is  glorious  to  fall 
in  this  place :  but  for  you,  if  you  are  asked 
where  you  deserted  your  leader,  you  may  say,  at 
Orchomenos."  Numbers  who  heard  this  re- 
proach returned  to  the  charge  with  their  general ; 
and  wherever  they  presented  themselves,  stopped 
the  career  of  the  enemy,  and  put  them  to  flight. 
The  Roman  army  at  length  recovered  itself  in 
every  part  of  the  field  ;  and  Sylla  remounting  his 
horse,  took  the  full  advantage  of  the  change  of 
his  fortune,  pursued  the  enemy  to  their  camp,  and 
forced  them  to  abandon  it  with  great  slaughter. 

After  the  loss  of  this  second  army,  Mithridates 
appears  to  have  despaired  of  his  affairs  in  Greece ; 
he  suffered  Sylla  to  enter  into  quiet  possession  of 
his  winter  quarters  in  Thessaly,  and  authorised 
Archelaus  to  treat  of  peace. 

Both  parties  were  equally  inclined  to  a  treaty ; 
the  king  of  Pontus  urged  by  his  losses,  and  the 
Roman  proconsul  by  the  state  of  affairs  in  Italy. 
Sylla,  though  commanding  in  Greece  by  autho- 
rity from  the  Roman  senate,  had  been  degraded, 
and  declared  a  public  enemy  by  a  resolution  of 
the  people  at  Rome.  An  officer  had  been  sent 
from  Italy  to  supersede  him ;  and  a  Roman  army, 
independent  of  his  orders,  was  actually  employed 
in  the  province.  Mithridates,  too,  while  he  had 
sustained  such  losses  in  Greece,  was  pressed  by 
the  other  Roman  army  in  Asia,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Fimbria,  who,  with  intentions  equally 
hostile  to  Sylla  as  to  Mithridates,  advanced  with 
a  rapid  pace,  reduced  several  towns  on  the  coast, 
and  had  lately  made  himself  master  of  Pergamus, 
where  the  king  himself  had  narrowly  escaped 


falling  into  his  hands.  In  these  circumstances  a 
treaty  was  equally  seasonable  for  both. 

Sylla  had  been  absent  from  Rome  about  two 
years,  during  which  time,  having  no  supplies  from 
thence,  he  had  supported  the  war  by  the  contri- 
butions which  he  had  raised  in  Greece,  iEtolia, 
and  Thessaly,  and  with  the  money  he  had  coined 
from  the  plate  and  treasure  of  the  Grecian  tern 
pies.2  The  republic,  in  the  mean  time,  had  been 
in  the  possession  of  his  enemies,  and  the  autho- 
rity of  the  senate  was,  in  a  great  measure,  sup- 
pressed. Soon  after  he  left  the  city,  Cinna,  not 
withstanding  his  engagements  to  Sylla,  revivee 
the  project  of  keeping  the  more  respectable  citi- 
zens in  subjection,  under  pretence  of  a  govern- 
ment  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  people. 

The  designation  of  the  popular  party  was  the 
same  with  that  which  had  distinguished  the  fol- 
lowers of  Tiberius  and  Caius  Gracchus ;  but  the 
object  was  changed,  and  the  nominal  popular  fac- 
tion itself  was  differently  composed.  Formerly  this 
faction  consisted  of  the  populace  of  Rome  and  of 
the  poorer  citizens,  opposed  to  the  noble  and  the 
rich.  The  objects  for  which  they  at  that  time 
contended,  were  the  distribution  of  corn,  new 
settlements,  or  the  division  of  lands.  At  present 
the  parties  consisted  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  towns  lately  admitted,  or  still  claiming  to 
be  admitted,  on  the  rolls  of  the  people  on  one 
side,  and  of  the  senate  and  ancient  citizens  on  the 
other.  The  object  to  which  the  former  aspired, 
was  a  full  and  equal  participation  in  all  the  pow- 
ers that  belonged  to  the  Roman  people.  They 
were  far  from  being  satisfied  with  the  manner  of 
their  enrolment  into  a  few  particular  tribes,  and 
laid  claim  to  be  admitted  without  distinction 
among  the  ancient  citizens,  and  to  have  conside- 
ration and  power  proportioned  to  their  numbers. 
In  this  they  were  supported  by  Cinna,  who  made 
a  motion  in  their  favour  in  the  assembly  of  the 
people,  and  at  the  same  time  proposed  to  recall 
Marius  and  the  other  exiles  of  that  party  from 
their  banishment.  The  consul  Octavius,  with  the 
majority  of  the  senate  and  ancient  citizens,  op- 
posed these  propositions ;  but  Cinna  was  likely  to 
have  a  powerful  support  in  the  new  people  that 
flocked  to  him  from  the  country  towns,  and  in 
the  friends  of  the  exiles.  On  the  day  of  assembly, 
multitudes  of  the  new  citizens  took  possession  of 
the  place  of  meeting,  and  were  observed  to  be 
armed  with  daggers  or  short  swords.  Octavius 
was  attended  at  his  house  by  a  numerous  assem- 
bly of  the  ancient  citizens,  who  were  armed  in 
the  same  manner,  and  waited  to  take  such  mea- 
sures as  the  necessity  of  the  case  might  require. 
Being  told  that  the  tribunes  who  had  forbidden 
the  question  were  violently  attacked,  and  likely 
to  be  forced  from  the  assembly,  they  came  forth 
into  the  streets,  and  drove  their  antagonists,  with 
some  bloodshed,  through  the  gates  of  the  city. 
Cinna  endeavoured  to  make  head  against  his 
colleague,  and  invited  the  slaves,  under  a  promise 
of  liberty,  to  his  standard.  But  finding  it  impos- 
sible within  the  city,  that  was  occupied  by  his  op- 
ponents, to  withstand  their  force,  he  withdrew  to 
the  country  towns,  and  solicited  supplies  from 
thence.  He  passed  through  Tibur  and  Praeneste 
to  Nola,  and  openly  implored  the  inhabitants  tc 
aid  him  against  their  common  enemies.  On  thi* 
occasion  he  was  attended  by  Sertorius,  and  by 


1  For  this  fact  Plutarch  quotes  the  Memoirs  of 
Sylla. 


2  Plutarch,  in  Sylla  et  Lucullo. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


13b 


some  other  senators  who  had  embarked  in  the 
same  ruinous  faction.  Their  solicitations  at  any 
other  time  might  perhaps  have  been  fruitless  ;  but 
now,  to  the  misfortune  of  the  republic,  a  number 
of  armies  were  still  kept  on  foot  in  Italy,  to  finish 
the  remains  of  the  social  war.  Cn.  Strabo  com- 
manded one  army  in  Umbria,  Metellus  another 
on  the  confines  of  Lucania  and  Samnium,  and 
Appius  Claudius  a  third  in  Campania.  These 
armies  consisted  chiefly  of  indigent  citizens,  be- 
come soldiers  of  fortune,  were  very  much  at  the 
disposal  of  their  leaders,  in  whose  name  they  had 
been  levied,  to  whom  they  had  sworn  the  military 
oath,  and  on  whom  they  depended  for  the  settle- 
ments and  rewards  which  they  were  taught  to 
expect  at  the  end  of  their  services.  They  were 
inclined  to  take  part  in  the  cause  of  any  faction 
that  was  likely,  by  the  expulsion  and  forfeiture 
of  one  part  of  the  city,  to  make  way  for  prefer- 
ments and  fortunes  to  the  other. 

Cinna  distrusted  Pompey  and  Metellus ;  but 
hoping  for  a  better  reception  from  Appius  Clau- 
dius, he  repaired  to  the  camp  of  this  general,  and 
had  the  address  to  gain  the  troops  who  were  un- 
der his  command. 

Mean  time  the  senate,  without 
Octavius  and  entering  into  any  particular  discus- 
Merula.  sion  of  the  guilt  which  Cinna  had 
'  incurred  in  the  late  tumult  at  Rome, 
found  that,  by  having  deserted  his  station,  he  had 
actually  divested  himself  of  his  office  as  consul, 
and  they  obtained  the  election  of  L.  Cornelius 
Merula  in  his  place. 

Marius,  being  informed  that  one  of  the  armies 
in  Italy,  with  a  Roman  consul  at  its  head,  was 
prepared  to  support  him,  made  haste  from  his 
exile  in  Africa :  he  landed  in  Tuscany,  was 
joined  by  numbers,  and  had  an  offer  of  being 
vested  with  the  ensigns  of  proconsul.  But  intend- 
ing to  move  indignation  or  pity,  he  declined  every 
privilege  of  a  Roman  citizen,  until  the  sentence 
of  attainder  or  banishment,  which  had  been  pro- 
nounced against  him,  should  be  reversed.  In  the 
manner  practised  by  suppliants,  with  a  mean 
habit  and  ghastly  figure,  to  which  he  was  re- 
duced by  the  distress  of  his  exile,  he  presented 
himself  to  the  people ;  but  with  a  countenance, 
says  his  historian,  which,  being  naturally  stern, 
now  rather  seemed  terrible  than  piteous.3  He 
implored  the  protection  of  the  country  towns,  in 
whose  cause  tie  too  pretended  to  have  suffered, 
and  whose  interests  were  now  embarked  on  the 
same  bottom  with  his  own.  He  had  many  par- 
tisans among  those  who  had  composed  the  legions 
which  formerly  served  under  his  orders.  He  had 
reputation  and  authority,  and  soon  assembled  a 
considerable  force,  with  which,  in  concert  with 
Cinna,  with  Sertorius  and  Carbo,  he  advanced 
towards  Rome. 

They  invested  the  city  in  three  separate  di- 
visions. Cinna  and  Carbo  lay  before  it,  Serto- 
rius took  post  on  the  river  above,  and  Marius  be- 
low it.  The  last,  to  prevent  supplies  from  the 
sea,  made  himself  master  of  the  port  of  Ostia; 
the  first  had  sent  a  detachment  to  Arminium,  to 
prevent  any  relief  from  the  side  of  Gaul. 

In  this  extremity  the  senate  applied  to  Metel- 
lus, requesting  that  he  would  make  any  accom- 
modation with  the  Italian  allies,  and  hasten  to 
the  relief  of  the  city.  The  delays  which  he  made 


3  Tlutaich.  in  *Mario. 


in  the  execution  of  these  orders  enabled  Cinna 
and  Marius  to  prevent  him  in  gaining  the  allies. 
The  inhabitants  of  Italy  at  this  time  had  it  in 
their  option  to  accept  the  privileges  they  claimed 
from  either  party;  and,  having  chosen  to  join 
themselves  with  the  popular  faction,  they  threw 
their  weight  into  that  scale. 

Metellus,  however,  advanced  into  Latium ; 
and,  being  joined  by  the  consul  Octavius,  took 
post  on  the  Alban  hill.  Here  they  found  that 
their  troops,  being  inclined  to  favour  their  ene- 
mies, deserted  apace.  Metellus,  being  reduced 
to  a  few  attendants,  despaired  of  the  cause,  and 
withdrew  into  Africa.  Octavius  returned  to  his 
station  in  the  city. 

The  army  lately  commanded  by  Pompeius 
Strabo,  was  now  deprived  of  its  general ;  he  hav- 
ing been  killed  by  lightning  in  his  camp.  And 
the  senate  was  not  inclined  to  repose  any  confi- 
dence in  his  men.  Pie  himself  had  some  time 
hesitated  between  the  parties;  and  the  troops, 
at  his  death,  were  prepared  to  choose  the  side 
which  was  most  likely  to  favour  their  interest. 
With  so  uncertain  a  prospect  of  support,  the 
senate  thought  it  safer  to  enter  into  a  treaty  with 
Cinna  and  Marius  than  to  remain  exposed  to  the 
necessity  of  being  obliged  to  admit  them  by  force. 
They  offered  to  reinstate  Cinna  in  the  office  of 
consul,  and  to  restore  Marius,  with  the  other 
exiles,  to  their  condition  of  Roman  citizens ;  only 
stipulating  that  they  would  spare  the  blood  ol" 
their  opponents,  or  proceed  against  them  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  the  commonwealth.  While 
this  treaty  was  in  dependance,  Marius,  affecting 
the  modesty  of  a  person  whom  the  law,  accord- 
ing to  his  late  sentence  of  banishment,  had  dis- 
qualified to  take  any  part  among  citizens,  observ- 
ed a  sullen  and  obstinate  silence.  Even  when  the 
treaty  was  concluded,  and  the  gates  were  laid 
open  to  himself  and  his  followers,  he  refused  to 
enter  until  the  attainder  under  which  he  lay 
should  be  taken  off,  and  until  he  was  replaced  in 
his  condition  as  a  Roman.  The  people  were  ac- 
cordingly assembled  to  repeal  their  former  decree. 
But  Marius,  proposing  to  take  his  enemies  by 
surprise,  did  not  wait  for  Uie  completion  of  the 
ceremony.  While  the  ballots  were  collecting, 
he  entered  the  city  with  a  band  of  armed  men, 
whom  he  employed  in  taking  vengeance  on  all 
those  who  had  concurred  in  the  late  measures 
against  him.  The  gates,  by  his  orders,  were  se- 
cured, but  most  of  the  senators  escaped.  Sylla's 
house  was  demolished,  many  who  were  reputed 
his  friends  were  slain,  others  assisted  his  wife 
and  his  children  in  making  their  escape.  Among 
the  signals  by  which  Manus  directed  the  execu- 
tion of  particular  persons,  it  was  understood  that 
if  he  did  not  return  a  salute  which  was  offered 
him,  this  was  to  be  considered  as  a  warrant  for 
immediate  death.  In  compliance  with  these  in- 
structions, some  citizens  of  note  were  laid  dead  at 
his  feet.  And  as  the  meanest  retainers  of  his 
party  had  their  resentments  as  well  as  himself, 
and  took  this  opportunity  to  indulge  their  pas- 
sions, the  city  resembled  a  place  that  was  taken 
by  storm,  and  every  quarter  resounded  with  the 
cries  of  robbery,  murders,  and  rapes.  This  hor- 
rid scene  continued  without  intermission  five  days 
and  five  nights. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  a  few  of  the, 
principal  senators  who  suffered  :  the  consul  Oc- 
tavius was  murdered  in  his  robes  of  office,  and  in 


136 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


presence  of  his  lictors ;  two  senators  of  the  name 
of  Caesar,  Caius  and  Lucius ;  two  of  the  name 
of  Crassus,  the  father  and  the  son,  who,  attempt- 
ing to  escape,  but  likely  to  be  taken,  fell  by  their 
own  hands ;  Attilius  Serranus,  Publius  Lentu- 
lus,  C.  Numitorius,  M.  Baebius,  whose  bodies, 
fastened  on  a  hook,  were  dragged  by  a  rope 
through  the  streets ;  Marcus  Antonius,  one  of 
the  first  Roman  senators,  who  had  betaken  him- 
self entirely  or  chiefly  to  civil  arts,  and  is  known 
therefore  by  the  name  of  the  Orator ;  this  sena- 
tor being  discovered  in  a  place  of  concealment, 
was  killed  by  assassins  sent  for  the  purpose. 
The  heads  of  the  others  were  exposed  on  the 
rostra ;  that  of  Antonius  was  placed  on  the  table 
of  Marius,  who  bore  him,  it  seems,  a  peculiar 
degree  of  animosity  and  rancour.  Catulus,  once 
the  colleague  of  Marius  in  the  consulate,  partner 
in  his  last  and  most  decisive  victory  over  the 
Cimbri,  and  without  question  one  of  the  most 
respectable  senators  of  the  age,  was  included  in 
the  warrant  for  general  execution.  Marius  being 
solicited  in  his  favour,  made  answer,  He  must  die. 
And  this  victim,  choosing  to  avoid  by  a  voluntary 
death  the  insults  likely  to  be  offered  to  him  by 
his  enemies,  having  shut  himself  up,  with  a  bra- 
sier  of  burning  coals,  in  a  close  chamber  which 
was  recently  plastered,  perished  by  suffocation. 

Merula,  the  Flamen  Dialis,  whose  name,  with- 
out his  own  knowledge,  had  been  inscribed  con- 
sul in  place  of  that  of  Cinna,  now  likewise,  willing 
to  maintain  the  dignity  of  his  station,  opened  his 
arteries  at  the  shrine  of  Jupiter,  whose  priest  he 
was,  sprinkled  the  statue  of  the  god  with  his 
blood ;  on  feeling  the  approach  of  death,  he  tore 
from  his  head  the  apex  or  crest  of  the  order, 
which,  by  the  maxims  of  religion,  he  always  car- 
ried while  alive,  but  with  which  on  his  head  it 
would  have  been  impious  and  ominous  to  die,  and 
took  those  who  were  present  to  witness  of  the 
exactness  with  which  he  performed  this  duty. 

Cinna  himself  became  weary  of  the  murders 
which  were  committed  to  gratify  the  avarice  of 
mean  and  needy  adventurers,  or  the  rancour 
even  of  fugitive  slaves  against  the  masters  they 
had  deserted  j  he  wished  to  terminate  so  horrid 
a  scene,  but  it  seems  could  not  stop  it  otherwise 
than  by  the  death  of  those  who  were  employed 
in  it.  He  caused  great  numbers  of  them  accord- 
ingly to  be  surrounded  and  put  to  the  sword. 
He  proposed,  in  concert  with  Marius,  to  give 
some  form  or  title  to  their  government,  by  assum- 
ing the  consulate :  and  although  there  is  no  doubt 
that  they  could  have  easily  obtained  the  sanction 
of  an  ordinary  election,  yet  they  chose  to  usurp 
the  ensigns  and  powers  of  consul  without  any 
such  pretence.1  Marius,  while  he  took  the  title 
of  consul,  continued  to  act  like  a  chief  of  banditti, 
connived  at  the  disorders  that  were  committed  by 
his  military  retainers,  and  continued  still  to  su- 
perintend the  execution  of  the  orders  which  he 
had  given  on  his  first  entry  into  the  city,  to  put 
his  opponents  to  death. 

In  the  midst  of  these  crimes,  however,  the 
name  of  Sylla,  and  the  fame  of  his  victories  in 
Greece,  gave  continual  presage  of  a  just  retribu- 
tion. Marius  was  agitated  with  nocturnal  fears, 
and  gave  signs  of  a  distracted  mind.  Some  one, 
he  imagined,  in  the  words  of  a  poet,  continually 
sounded  in  his  ears,  "Horrid  is  the  dying  lion's 


1  Livy,  Epitome,  lil).  viii. 


den which  being  applied  to  himself,  seemed  to 
announce  his  approaching  dissolution.  He  took 
to  the  excessive  use  of  wine,  contracted  a  pleurisy, 
and  died  on  the  seventh  day  of  his  illness,  in  the 
seventeenth  day  of  his  last  or  seventh  consulate, 
and  in  the  seventieth  year  of  his  age ;  leaving  the 
tools  he  had  employed  in  subverting  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country,  to  pay  the  forfeit  of  his 
crimes. 

Livy,  it  appears,2  had  made  it  a  question, 
whether  Marius  had  been  most  useful  to  his 
country  as  a  soldier,  or  pernicious  as  a  citizen.  It 
has  happened  unfortunately  for  his  fame,  that  he 
closed  the  scene  of  life  with  examples  of  the  latter 
kind.  In  what  degree  he  retained  his  genius  or 
abilities  cannot  be  known.  His  insatiable  thirst 
of  power,  like  avarice  in  the  case  of  other  persons, 
seemed  to  grow  with  age.  His  hatred  of  the  no- 
bles, contracted  in  the  obscurity  of  his  early  life, 
remained  with  him  after  he  himself  had  laid  the 
amplest  foundations  of  nobility  in  his  own  family. 
And  he  died  in  an  attempt  to  extinguish  all  just 
or  regular  government  in  the  blood  of  those  who 
only  were  qualified  or  disposed  to  sustain  it. 

Upon  the  death  of  Marius,  the  government 
still  continued  to  be  usurped  by  Cinna.  Many 
of  the  senators,  and  other  citizens,  obnoxious  to 
the  prevailing  party,  took  refuge  with  Sylla. 
This  general  himself  was  declared  a  public  ene- 
my ;  his  effects  were  seized  ;  his  children,  with 
their  mother,  having  narrowly  escaped  the  pur- 
suit of  his  enemies,  fled  to  the  father  in  Greece. 

Upon  this  occasion  Sylla  did  not  change  his 
conduct  in  the  war,  nor  make  any  concessions  to 
the  enemies  of  the  state.  He  talked  familiarly 
every  day  of  his  intention  to  punish  his  enemies 
at  Rome,  and  to  avenge  the  blood  of  his  friends, 
but  not  till  he  had  forced  Mithridates  to  make 
reparation  for  the  wrongs  he  had  done  to  the  Ro- 
mans and  to  their  allies  in  Asia. 

Alarmed  by  these  threats,  Cinna  took  measures 
to  strengthen  his  party ;  assumed,  upon  the  death 
of  Marius,  Valerius  Flaccus  as  his  colleague  in 
the  office  of  consul ;  and,  having  assigned  him  the 
command  in  Asia,  with  two  additional  legions, 
trusted  that  with  this  force  he  might  obtain  pos- 
session of  the  province. 

But  Flaccus,  upon  his  arrival  in  Thessaly, 
was  deserted  by  part  of  the  army,  which  went 
over  to  Sylla ;  and  passing  through  Macedonia  in 
his  route  to  Asia  with  the  remainder,  a  dispute 
arose  between  himself  and  his  lieutenant  Fimbria, 
which  ended  in  the  murder  of  the  consul  Flac- 
cus, and  in  the  succession  of  Fimbria  to  the  com- 
mand. So  little  deference  or  respect  did  citizens 
pay,  in  the  disorder  of  those  unhappy  times,  even 
to  the  government  they  professed  to  serve. 

Fimbria,  with  the  troops  he  had  seduced  to  his 
standard,  after  he  had  assassinated  their  general, 
made  a  rapid  progress  in  Asia,  and  hastened,  as 
has  been  observed,  the  resolution  to  which  Mith- 
ridates was  come,  of  applying  for  peace.  To  this 
crafty  prince,  urged  by  the  necessity  of  his  own 
affairs,  the  conjuncture  appeared  to  be  favourable, 
when  so  much  distraction  took  place  in  the  coun- 
cils of  Rome.  He  had  experienced  the  abilities 
of  Sylla ;  he  knew  his  eager  desire  to  be  gone  for 


2  Livy,  Epitome,  lib.  viii.    Appian.  de  Bell.  Civil, 

lib.  i.    Plutarch,  in  Mario.    Florus,  lib.  iii.  c.  21 

Velleius  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  19.  &,c.  Dio  Cass,  in  Frayg- 
mentis. 


ChXp.  VII.J 


ON  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


137 


Italy,  and  to  be  revenged  of  his  enemies;  and  he 
expected  to  gain  him  by  proffering  assistance  in 
the  war  he  was  about  to  wage  with  the  opposite 
party  at  Rome. 

Upon  a  message  from  Archelaus,  Sylla  readily 
agreed  to  an  interview  in  the  island  of  Delos ;  and 
here  being  told,  in  the  name  of  Mithridates,  that 
he  should  have  money,  troops,  and  shipping  to 
make  a  descent  on  Italy,  provided  he  would  enter 
into  a  confederacy  with  the  king  of  Pontus,  and 
make  war  on  the  Romans,  by  whom  he  was  now 
proscribed,  Sylla,  inhis  turn,  proposed  to  Arche- 
laus to  desert  Mithridates,  to  deliver  up  the  fleet 
and  the  army  which  was  under  his  command, 
and  to  rely  for  protection  and  reward  on  the  faith 
of  the  Romans.  They  will  speedily  seat  you,  he 
said,  on  the  throne  of  Pontus.  Archelaus  having 
rejected  this  proposal  with  horror,  "  And  you," 
says  Sylla,  "  the  slave,  or  (if  you  prefer  that  title) 
the  friend  of  a  barbarous  tyrant,  will  not  betray 
your  trust,  and  yet  to  me  have  the  presumption 
to  propose  an  act  of  perfidy.  The  fields  of  Che- 
ronea  and  Orchomenos  should  have  made  you 
better  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the  Ro- 
mans." 

Upon  this  reply  Archelaus  saw  the  necessity 
of  purchasing  the  treaty  he  was  instructed  to 
make,  and  accordingly  made  the  following  con- 
cessions : 

That  the  fleet  of  Pontus,  consisting  of  seventy 
galleys,  should  be  delivered  up  to  the  Romans. 

That  the  garrisons  should  be  withdrawn  from 
all  places  which  had  been  seized  in  the  course  of 
ibis  war. 

That  the  Roman  province  in  Asia,  together 
with  Paphlagonia,  Bithynia,  and  Cappadocia 
should  be  evacuated,  and  the  frontier  of  Pontus, 
for  the  future,  be  the  boundary  of  Mithridates's 
territory. 

That  the  Romans  should  receive  two  thousand 
lalents,3  to  reimburse  their  expense  in  the  war. 

That  prisoners  should  be  restored,  and  all  de- 
serters delivered  up. 

While  these  articles  were  sent  to  Mithridates 
for  his  ratification,  Sylla  in  no  degree  relaxed  the 
measures  he  had  taken  to  secure  and  facilitate 
the  passage  of  his  army  into  Asia,  lie  sent  Lu- 
cullus4  round  the  maritime  powers  of  the  East 
to  assemble  a  fleet ;  and,  after  having  made  some 
incursions  into  Thrace,  to  gratify  his  army  with 
the  spoil  of  nations  who  had  often  plundered  the 
Roman  province,  he  continued  his  route  to  the 
Hellespont,  and  was  met  in  his  way  by  the  mes- 
sengers of  Mithridates,  who  informed  him  that 
their  master  agreed  to  all  the  articles  proposed, 
except  to  that  which  related  to  the  cession  of 
Paphlagonia ;  and  at  the  same  time  made  a  merit 
of  the  preference  he  had  given  to  Sylla  in  this 
treaty  ;  as  he  might  have  obtained  more  favour- 
able terms  from  Fimbria.  "That  is  a  traitor," 
said  Sylla,  "  whom  I  shall  speedily  punish  for  his 
crimes.  As  for  your  master,  I  shall  know,  upon 
my  arrival  in  Asia,  whether  he  chooses  to  have 
peace  or  war." 

Being  arrived  at  the  Hellespont,  he  was  join- 
ed by  Lucullus  with  a  fleet  which  enabled  him 
to  pass  that  strait.  Here  he  was  met  by  another 
message  from  Mithridates,  desiring  a  persona] 
interview;  which  was  accordingly  held  in  the 
presence  of  both  armies,  and  at  which  the  king 


of  Pontus,  after  some  expostulations,  agreed  to 
all  the  conditions  already  mentioned.  In  this  he 
probably  acted  from  policy,  as  well  as  from  the 
necessity  he  felt  in  the  present  state  of  his  affairs. 
He  still  hoped,  in  consequence  of  this  treaty,  to 
turn  the  arms  of  Sylla  against  the  Romans,  and 
trusted  that  the  peace  he  obtained  for  himself  in 
Asia  was  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  war  in  Italy, 
more  likely  to  distress  his  enemies  than  any  efforts 
he  himself  could  make  against  them.  With  this 
reasonable  prospect  he  retired  into  his  own  king- 
dom of  Pontus ;  and  there,  strengthening  him- 
self by  alliances  and  the  acquisition  of  territory 
on  the  northern  coasts  of  the  Euxine,  he  prepar- 
ed to  take  advantage  of  future  emergencies,  and 
to  profit  by  the  state  of  confusion  into  which  the 
affairs  of  the  Romans  were  hastening. 

Sylla,  having  brought  the  Mithridatic  war  to 
an  issue  so  honourable  for  himself,  and  having 
every  where  gratified  his  army  with  the  spoils  of 
their  enemies,  being  possessed  of  a  considerable 
sum  of  money  and  a  numerous  fleet,  and  being 
secure  of  the  attachment  of  the  soldiers,  who  had 
experienced  his  liberality,  and  rested  their  hopes 
of  fortune  on  the  success  of  his  future  enterprizes, 
prepared  to  take  vengeance  on  his  enemies,  and 
those  of  the  republic  in  Italy.  He  proceeded, 
however,  with  great  deliberation  and  caution  ; 
and,  as  if  the  state  at  Rome  were  in  perfect  tran- 
quillity, staid  to  reduce  the  army  of  Fimbria,  to  re- 
settle the  Roman  province,  and  to  effect  the  resto- 
ration of  the  allies,  Nicomedes  and  Ariobarzanes, 
to  their  several  kingdoms  of  Cappadocia  and 
Bithynia. 

Fimbria  being  required  by  Sylla  to  resign  a 
command  which  he  had  illegally  usurped,  re- 
torted the  charge  of  usurpation,  and  treated  Sylla 
himself  as  an  outlaw  :  but  upon  the  approach  of 
this  general,  being  deserted  by  his  army,  he  fled 
to  Pergamus,  and  there  put  an  end  to  his  life  by 
the  hands  of  a  slave,  of  whom  he  exacted  this  ser- 
vice. To  punish  the  province  of  Asia  for  its 
defection  to  Mithridates,  Sylla  obliged  the  inhab- 
itants to  pay  down  a  sum  equal  to  five  years' 
ordinary  tax.  He  sent  Curio  to  replace  on  their 
thrones  the  kings  of  Cappadocia  and  Bithynia, 
who  had  persevered  in  their  alliance  with  Rome, 
and  sent  an  account  of  these  particulars  to  the 
senate,  without  taking  any  notice  of  the  edict  by 
which  he  himself  had  been  stripped  of  his  com- 
mand, and  declared  an  enemy.5  Before  he  set 
sail,  however,  for  Italy,  he  thought  proper  to 
transmit  to  Rome  a  memorial,  setting  forth  his 
services  and  his  wrongs,  as  well  as  the  injury 
done  to  many  senators  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
his  camp,  and  concluding  with  menaces  of  justice 
against  his  own  enemies  and  those  of  the  re- 
public, but  assuring  the  citizens  in  general  of 
protection  and  security.  This  paper  being  read 
in  the  senate,  struck  many  of  the  members  with 
dreadful  apprehensions ;  expedients  were  pro- 
posed to  reconcile  the,  parties,  and  to  avefl  the 
evils  which  the  republic  must  sufl'er  from  their 
repeated  contentions.  A  message  was  sent  to 
pacify  Sylla,  and  earnest  intreaties  were  made  to 
China,  that  he  would  suspend  his  levies  until  an 
answer  could  be  obtained  from  the  other.  But 
Cinna,  in  contempt  of  these  pacific  intentions, 
U  C  669  took  measures  to  prosecute  the  war; 

divided  the  fasces  with  Cn.  Papiriu^ 


5  Appian.  de  Bell  Mithridal.   Plutarch,  in  Syll 


138 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


Carbo,  whom  without  any  form  of 
o;7ma4(ottS  election,  he  assumed  for  his  colleague 
CnVpapirhis  m  consulate ;  and  in  the  partition  of 
Carbo.         provinces,  retained  for  himself  the 

administration  in  Italy,  while  he  as- 
signed to  Carbo  the  command  in  the  neighbour- 
ing Gaul.  These  titular  magistrates,  with  all  the 
adherents  of  their  faction,  applied  in  great  haste 
to  the  raising  of  men,  and  securing  the  fidelity  of 
the  towns  within  the  several  divisions  which  they 
had  received  in  charge. 

Carbo  exacted  hostages  for  their  good  beha- 
viour from  all  the  towns  in  his  district ;  but  as 
he  had  not  authority  from  the  senate  for  this 
measure,  he  found  himself  unable  to  give  it  effect. 
To  Castricius,  the  chief  magistrate  of  Placentia,  a 
person  of  great  age,  who  refused  to  comply,  be 
said,  "  Have  not  I  your  life  in  my  power?"  "And 
have  not  I,"  said  the  other,  "  already  lived  long 
enough  ?" 1 

Cinna,  however,  having  mustered  a  consider- 
able force,  intended  to  make  head  against  Sylla 
in  Thessaly,  through  which  he  was  expected  to 
pass  in  his  way  to  Italy,  and  determined  to  trans- 
port his  army  thither.  But  the  troops  being 
averse  to  embark,  he  himself,  endeavouring  to 
force  them,  was  killed  in  a  mutiny.  A  general 
disorder  and  anarchy  infected  the  whole  party. 
The  election  of  a  successor  to  Cinna  was  twice 
interrupted  by  supposed  unfavourable  presages, 
and  Carbo  remained  sole  consul. 

At  this  time  an  answer  arrived  from  Sylla  to 
the  proposals  made  by  the  senate  towards  a  re- 
conciliation of  parties ;  in  which  he  declared, 
"  That  he  never  could  return  into  friendship 
with  persons  guilty  of  so  many  and  such  enor- 
mous crimes.  If  the  Roman  people,  however, 
were  pleased  to  grant  an  indemnity,  he  should 
not  interpose,  but  would  venture  to  affirm,  that 
such  of  the  citizens  as  chose,  in  the  present  disor- 
ders, to  take  refuge  in  his  camp,  would  find 
themselves  safer  than  in  that  of  his  enemy's." 
He  had  embarked  his  army  at  Ephesus,  and  in 
three  days  reached  the  Piraeus,  the  port  of  Athens. 
Here  he  was  taken  ill  of  the  gout,  and  was  ad- 
vised to  use  the  hot  baths  at  Adipsus ;  at  which 
he  accordingly  passed  some  time  with  great  ap- 
pearance of  ease,  amusing  himself  with  buffoons 
and  ordinary  company,  as  if  he  had  no  affair  of 
any  consequence  in  contemplation.  His  fleet,  in 
the  mean  time,  consisting  of  twelve  hundred 
ships,  coasted  round  the  Peloponnesus,  and  took 
on  board  the  army  which  had  marched  by  Thes- 
saly to  Dyrachium.  Being  apprehensive  that 
some  part  of  the  legions,  upon  landing  in  Italy, 
and  with  so  near  a  prospect  of  returning  to  their 
homes,  might  desert,  or,  trusting  to  their  conse- 
quence in  a  civil  war,  might  become  disorderly 
and  distress  the  inhabitants,  he  exacted  a  special 
oath,  by  which  every  man  bound  himself,  upon 
his  arrival  in  Italy,  to  abide  by  his  colours,  and 
to  observe  the  strictest  order  in  his  march  through 
the  country.  The  troops,  wishing  to  remove  all 
the  remains  of  a  distrust  which  had  suggested  this 
precaution,  made  a  voluntary  offer  of  a  contribu- 
tion towards  the  support  of  the  war ;  and  Sylla, 
without  accepting  the  favour,  set  sail  with  the 
additional  confidence  which  this  proof  of  attach- 
ment in  the  army  inspired. 

He  had,  according  to  Appian,  five  Roman  le- 


gions, with  six  thousand  Italian  norse,  and  con 
siderable  levies  from  Macedonia  and  Greece, 
amounting  in  all  to  about  sixty  thousand  men. 
With  this  force  he  landed  in  Italy,  in  the  face  of 
many  different  armies,  each  of  them  equal  or  su 
perior  in  number  to  his  own.  The  opposite  part] 
were  supposed  to  have  on  foot  at  different  sta 
tions,  above  two  hundred  thousand  men. 

L.  Cornelius  Scipio  and  C.  Junius  Norbanus, 
who  were  its  leaders,  being  in  pos 
U.  C.  670.    session  of  the  capitol  and  of  tht 
place  of  election,  were  named  foi 
pio°cnjun.    consu's-  Norbanus,  in  the  name  of 
Norbanus.      the  republic,  commanded  a  greal 
army  in  Apulia;-  Scipio,  anothei 
on  the  confines  of  Campania.    Sertorius,  young 
Marius,  with  Carbo,  in  the  quality  of  proconsul, 
and  others  (as  Plutarch  quotes  from  the  memoirs 
of  Sylla,)  to  the  number  of  fifteen  commanders, 
had  each  their  armies,  amounting  in  all  to  four 
hundred  and  fifty  cohorts  ;2  of  these  different  bo- 
dies none  attempted  to  dispute  the  landing  of 
Sylla,  nor  for  some  days  to  interrupt  his  march. 

He  accordingly  continued  to  advance  as  in  a 
friendly  country,  and  in  the  midst  of  profound 
peace.  The  inhabitants  of  Italy,  considering 
the  Roman  nobility,  in  whose  cause  Sylla 
appeared,  as  averse  to  the  claim  they  had  made 
of"  being  promiscuously  enrolled  in  the  tribes 
of  Rome,  were  likely  to  oppose  him.  and  to  fa- 
vour the  faction  which  had  for  some  time  pre- 
vailed in  the  state.  To  allay  their  animosity,  oi 
to  prevent  their  taking  an  active  part  against 
him,  Sylla  summoned  the  leading  men  of  the 
country  towns  as  he  passed,  and  gave  them  as- 
surances that  he  would  confirm  the  grants  which 
had  been  made  to  them,  if  they  did  not  forfeit 
these  and  every  other  title  to  favour,  by  abetting 
the  faction  which  had  subverted  the  government. 

On  his  march  he  was  joined  by  Metellus  Pius, 
who,  as  has  been  observed,  after  a  fruitless  at- 
tempt, in  conjunction  with  the  consul  Octavius, 
to  cover  Rome  from  the  attack  of  Marius  and 
Cinna,  had  withdrawn  to  Africa;  and  being 
forced  from  thence  by  Fabius,  returned  into  Italy. 
Being  in  Liguria,  where  he  still  retained  the 
character  of  proconsul,  he  endeavoured  to  keep 
some  forces  on  foot,  and  to  sustain  the  hopes  of 
his  party,  when  so  great  a  change  was  made  in 
their  favour  by  the  arrival  of  the  army  from 
Greece. 

Sylla  was  likewise,  about  the  same  time,  joined 
by  Cneius  Pompeius,  son  to  the  late  consul 
Pompeius  Strabo,  who,  though  too  young  for  any 
public  character,  had  assembled  a  considerable 
body  of  men  to  make  himself  of  consequence  in 
the  present  contest.  Being  now  only  about  nine- 
teen years  of  age,  he  was  remarked  for  engaging 
manners,  and  a  manly  aspect,  which  procured 
him  a  general  favour  and  an  uncommon  degree 
of  respect.3  This  distinction  being  unsought  for, 
was  possibly  considered  by  him  as  his  birth-right, 
and  gave  him  an  early  impression  of  that  supe- 
riority to  his  fellow-citizens  which  he  continued 
to  assume  through  the  whole  of  his  life.  He  had 
served  in  those  legions  with  which  Cinna  intend- 
ed to  have  carried  the  war  against  Sylla  into  Asia 
or  Greece ;  but,  being  averse  to  the  party,  he 
withdrew  when  the  army  was  about  to  embark, 
and  disappearing  suddenly,  was  supposed  to  have 


1  Val.  Max.  lib.  vi.c.2. 


2  About  255,000  men. 


3.  Plutarch,  in  Maaio 


Chap.  VII.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


139 


been  murdered  by  the  order  of  Cinna,  a  suspicion, 
which,  among  other  circumstances,  incited  the 
soldiers  to  that  mutiny  in  which  the  general  was 
killed.  Sylla  appears  himself  to  have  been  won 
by  the  promising  aspect  of  this  young  man,  and 
received  him  with  distinguishing  marks  of  regard. 

Numbers  of  the  senate  and  nobles,  who  had 
hitherto  remained  exposed  at  Rome  to  the  insults 
of  their  enemies,  now  repaired  to  the  camp  of 
Sylla.  The  consul  Norbanus,  being  joined  by 
young  Marius,  lay  at  Canusium.  Sylla,  while 
he  was  preparing  to  attack  them,  sent  an  officer 
with  overtures  of  peace  ;  these  they  rejected  with 
marks  of  contempt.  This  circumstance  had  an 
effect  which  Sylla  perhaps  foresaw  and  intended. 
It  roused  the  indignation  of  his  army,  and,  in  the 
action  which  followed,  had  some  effect  in  obtain- 
ing a  victory  in  which  six  t  housand4  of  the  enemy 
were  killed,  with  the  loss  of  only  seventy  men  to 
himself. 

Norbanus,  after  this  defeat,  retreated  to  Capua  ; 
and,  being  covered  by  the  walls  of  that  place, 
waited  the  arrival  of  Scipio,  who  intended  to  join 
him  with  the  army  under  his  command.  Sylla 
marched  to  Teanum  to  prevent  their  junction ; 
and,  on  the  approach  of  Scipio,  proposed  to  ne- 
gotiate. The  leaders,  with  a  few  attendants, 
met  between  the  two  armies,  and  were  nearly 
agreed  upon  terms  of  peace ;  but  Scipio  delayed 
his  final  consent  until  he  should  consult  with 
Norbanus  at  Capua.  Sertorius  was  accordingly 
despatched  to  inform  Norbanus  of  what  had 
passed,  and  hostilities  were  to  be  suspended  until 
his  return ;  but  this  messenger,  probably  averse 
to  the  treaty,  broke  the  truce,  by  seizing  a  post  at 
Suessa  which  had  been  occupied  by  Sylla ;  and 
the  negotiation  had  no  other  effect  than  that  of 
giving  the  troops  of  both  armies,  as  well  as  their 
leaders,  an  opportunity  of  conferring  together ;  a 
circumstance  which,  in  civil  wars,  is  always  dan- 
gerous to  one  or  other  of  the  parties.  In  this  case 
the  popularity  of  Sylla  prevailed;  and  the  sol- 
diers of  his  army,  boasting  of  the  wealth  which 
they  had  acquired  under  their  general,  infected 
his  enemies,  and  seduced  them  to  desert  their 
leader.  Scipio  was  left  almost  alone  in  his  camp ; 
but  Sylla,  receiving  the  troops  who  deserted  to 
him,  made  no  attempt  to  seize  their  general,  suf- 
fered him  to  escape,  and,  with  the  accession  of 
strength  he  had  acquired  by  the  junction  of  this 
army,  continued  his  march  towards  Rome.  Nor- 
banus at  the  same  time  evacuated  Capua,  and,  by 
forced  marches  in  a  different  route,  endeavoured 
to  prevent  him. 

About  this  time,  Sertorius,  who,  before  the 
war  broke  out,  had,  in  the  distribution  of  pro- 
vinces, been  appointed  propraetor  of  Spain,  de- 
spairing of  affairs  in  Italy,  in  which  probably  he 
was  not  sufficiently  consulted,  repaired  to  his 
province,  and  determined  to  try  what  the  genius 
of  a  Roman  leader  could  effect  at  the  head  of  the 
warlike  natives  of  that  country. 

The  chiefs  of  the  Marian  party,  who  remained 
in  Italy,  made  efforts  to  collect  all  the  forces  they 
could  at  Rome.  Carbo,  upon  hearing  that  the 
army  of  Scipio  was  seduced  to  desert  their  gene- 
ral, said,  "  We  have  to  do  with  a  lion  and  a  fox, 
of  which  the  fox  is  probably  the  more  dangerous 
•memy  of  the  two.*' 

Norbanus,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  the  city, 


4  Plutarch,  in  Syll.  edit.  Londin.  p  83 


procured  an  edict  of  the  people,  by  which  Me- 
tellus,  and  the  others  who  had  joined  Sylla,  were 
declared  enemies  to  their  country.  About  the 
same  time  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  capitol,  and  the 
buildings  were  burned  to  the  ground.  Various 
suspicions  were  entertained  of  the  cause  ;  but  as 
no  party  had  any  interest  in  this  event,  it  was 
probably  accidental  and  served  only  to  agitate 
the  minds  of  the  people,  prone  to  superstition, 
and  apt  to  find  alarming  presages  in  every  un- 
common event. 

The  remainder  of  the  season  was  spent  by 
both  parties  in  collecting  their  forces  from  every 
quarter  of  Italy ,  and  the  term  of  the  consuls  in 
office  being  nearly  expired,  Carbo  procured  his 
own  nomination  to  succeed  them, 
U.  C.  671.     and  inscribed  the  name  of  Marius, 
C.  Marius,       scarcely  twenty  years  of  age,  as 
Cn.  Pap.  Car-   his  colleague.    This  young  man 
is  by  some  said  to  have  been  the 
nephew,   by  others  the  adopted 
son,  of  the  late  celebrated  C.  Marius,  whose 
name  had  so  long  been  terrible  to  the  enemies, 
and  at  length  not  less  so  to  the  friends,  of  Rome. 

At  this  time  the  senate  consented  to  have  the 
plate  and  ornaments  of  the  temples  coined  for 
the  pay  of  the  supposed  consular  armies.  They 
were,  however,  notwithstanding  this  act  of  ob- 
sequiousness, believed  to  incline  to  the  opposite 
party,  and  not  to  be  trusted  in  case  the  city  were 
attacked.  The  members  being  assembled  together 
by  orders  of  the  praetors,  Damasippus  and  Brutus, 
the  most  suspected,  were  taken  aside  and  put  to 
death ;  of  this  number,  duintus  Mucius  Scsevola, 
Pontifex  Maximus,  flying  to  the  temple  in  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  discharge  his  sacred  office, 
was  killed  in  the  porch. 

The  military  operations  of  the  following  spring 
began  with  an  obstinate  fight  between  two  con- 
siderable armies  commanded  by  Metellus  and 
Carinas.  The  latter  being  defeated  with  great 
loss,  Carbo  hastened  to  the  scene  of  action,  in 
order  to  cover  the  remains  of  the  vanquished  army. 

In  the  mean  time  Sylla,  being  encamped  at 
Setia,  and  having  intelligence  that  the  young  Ma- 
rius was  advancing  against  him,  put  his  army  in 
motion  to  meet  him,  forced  him  back  to  Sacri- 
portum,  near  Praeneste,  where  an  action  soon  af- 
ter ensued,  in  which  Marius  was  defeated. 

The  routed  army  having  fled  in  disorder  to 
Prameste,  the  first  who  arrived  were  received  into 
the  place ;  but  as  it  was  apprehended  the  enemy 
might  likewise  enter  in  the  tumult,  the  gates 
were  shut,  and  many,  being  excluded,  were 
slaughtered  under  the  ramparts.  Marius  himself 
escaped,  by  a  rope  which  was  let  down  from  the 
battlements  to  hoist  him  over  the  walls. 

In  consequence  of  this  victory  Sylla  invested 
Prreneste  ;  and  as  great  numbers  were  thus  sud- 
denly cooped  up  in  a  town,  which  was  not  pre- 
pared to  subsist  them,  he  had  an  immediate  pros- 
pect of  seeing  them  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  surrendering  at  discretion.  Committing  the 
charge  of  the  blockade  to  Lucretius  Offella,  he 
himself,  with  part  of  the  army,  proceeded  to 
Rome.  Metellus,  in  a  second  action,  had  defeated 
the  army  of  Carbo,  and  Pompey  that  of  Marius 
near  Sena ;  and  the  party  of  Sylla  being  victori- 
ous in  every  part  of  Italy,  the  city  was  prepared 
to  receive  him  as  soon  as  he  appeared  at  the  gate*. 
The  partizans  of  the  opposite  faction  withdrew 
and  left  him  master  of  the  capital. 


140 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


Sylla  having  posted  his  army  in  the  field  of 
Mars,  he  himself  entered  the  city,  and  calling  an 
assembly  of  the  people,  delivered  an  harangue,  in 
which  he  imputed  the  disorder  of  the  times  to  the 
injustice  and  cruelty  of  a  few  factious  men,  who 
had  overturned  the  government,  and  sacrificed 
the  best  blood  of  the  republic  to  their  ambition  and 
to  their  personal  resentments.  He  exhorted  all 
well-disposed  men  to  be  of  good  courage,  and  as- 
sured them  that  they  should  soon  see  the  repub- 
lic restored.  In  the  mean  time,  he  gratified  his 
army  with  the  spoils  of  the  opposite  party,  de- 
claring the  effects  of  all  those  to  be  forfeited  who 
had  been  accessary  to  the  crimes  lately  committed 
against  the  state.  After  this  first  specimen  of 
his  policy  in  the  city,  leaving  a  sufficient  force  to 
execute  his  orders,  he  hastened  to  Clusium, 
where  Carbo,  being  joined  by  a  considerable  rein- 
forcement from  Spain,  was  preparing  to  recover 
the  metropolis,  or  to  relieve  his  colleague  Marius, 
who  was  reduced  to  great  distress  in  Prasneste. 

The  events  which  followed  the  arrival  and 
operations  of  Sylla  in  Tuscany  were  various,  but 
for  the  most  part  unfavourable  to  Carbo,  whose 
force,  by  desertions  and  the  sword,  was  declining 
apace.  The  issue  of  the  war  seemed  to  depend 
on  the  fate  of  Praeneste,  and  the  whole  force  of 
the  party  was  therefore  directed  to  the  relief  of 
that  place.  The  Lucanians  and  Samnites,  who 
had  espoused  the  cause  of  Marius,  and  who,  by 
his  favour,  had  obtained  the  freedom  of  Rome, 
apprehending  immediate  ruin  to  themselves,  in 
the  suppression  of  a  party  by  whom  they  had 
been  protected,  determined  to  make  one  great  ef- 
fort for  the  relief  of  Marius. 

They  were  joined  in  Latium  by  a  large  detach- 
ment sent  by  Carbo,  under  Carinas  and  Marcius, 
and  made  an  attempt  to  force  the  lines  of  the  be- 
siegers at  Prameste,  and  to  open  the  blockade  of 
that  place.  But  having  failed  in  this  design, 
they  turned,  with  desperation,  on  the  city  of 
Rome,  which  was  but  slightly  guarded  by  a  small 
detachment  which  had  been  left  for  that  purpose. 
Sylla  being  informed  of  their  intention,  with 
hasty  marches  advanced  to  the  city,  and  found 
the  enemy  already  in  possession  of  the  suburbs, 
and  preparing  to  force  the  gates. 

It  was  about  four  in  the  afternoon  when  he  ar- 
rived, after  a  long  march.  Some  of  his  officers 
proposed,  that  the  troops,  being  fatigued,  should 
have  a  little  time  to  repose  themselves ;  and  that, 
for  this  purpose,  they  should  remain  on  the  ram- 
parts until  the  following  day.  Sylla,  however, 
proposing,  by  his  unexpected  preseuce,  and  by 
coming  to  action  at  an  unusual  hour,  to  surprise 
the  enemy,  gave  orders  for  an  immediate  attack. 
The  event  for  some  time  was  doubtful ;  the  wing 
that  was  led  by  himself  gave  way,  or  was  forced 
from  its  ground;  but  the  other  wing  under  Cras- 
sus  had  a  better  fortune,  put  the  enemy  to  flight, 
and  drove  them  to  Antemnse. 

The  action,  though  thus  various  in  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  it,  became,  in  the  event,  completely 
decisive.  Eighty  thousand  of  the  Marian  party- 
were  killed  in  their  flight,  and  eight  thousand 
taken.  Carbo,  in  despair  of  the  cause,  fled  into 
Sicily.  The  troops  that  were  blocked  up  in 
Praeneste,  having  no  longer  any  hopes  of  relief, 
surrendered  themselves,  and  the  whole  party  was 
dispersed  or  cut  off.  Marius  attempted  to  escape 
by  the  galleries  of  a  mine,  and  being  prevented, 
killed  himself.    His  head  was  carried  to  Svlla. 


and  by  his  order  exposed  in  the  market-place. 
"That  boy,"  he  said,  "should  have  learnt  to 
row  before  he  attempted  to  steer !" 

Sylla  being  now  master  of  the  republic,  all  men 
were  in  anxious  expectation  of  the  sequel ;  nor 
was  it  long  before  they  had  a  specimen  of  the 
measures  he  was  likely  to  pursue.  About  six  or 
eight  thousand  of  those  who  were  supposed  to  be 
the  vilest  instruments  of  the  late  usurpations  and 
murders,  being  taken  prisoners  in  the  war,  or 
surprised  in  the  city,  were,  by  his  direction,  shut 
up  in  the  circus,  and  instantly  put  to  death. 

While  this  horrid  scene  was  acting,  he  had  as- 
sembled the  senate,  at  a  little  distance,  in  the 
temple  of  Bellona  ;  and  as  most  of  the  members 
then  present  had  either  favoured,  or  at  least 
tamely  submitted  to  the  late  usurpation,  he  made 
them  a  speech  on  the  state  of  the  republic,  in 
which  he  reproached  many  of  them  as  accessary 
to  the  late  disorders,  and  admonished  them,  for 
the  future,  to  respect  the  legal  government  and 
constitution  of  their  countiy.  In  the  midst  of 
these  admonitions,  the  cries  of  those  who  were 
slaughtered  in  the  circus,  reaching  their  ears,  the 
assembly  was  greatly  alarmed,  and  many  of  the 
members  started  from  their  seats.  Sylla,  with  a 
countenance  stern,  but  undisturbed,  checked 
them  as  for  an  instance  cf  levity.  "Be  com- 
posed," he  said,  "  and  attend  to  the  business  for 
which  you  are  called.  What  you  hear  are  no 
more  than  the  cries  of  a  few  wretches,  who  are 
suffering  the  punishment  due  to  their  crimes." 
From  this  interruption  he  resumed  his  subject, 
and  continued  speaking  till  the  massacre  of  these 
unhappy  victims  was  completed. 

In  an  harangue  which  he  afterwards  delivered 
to  the  people,  he  spoke  of  his  own  services  to  the 
republic,  and  of  the  misdemeanour  of  others,  in 
terms  that  struck  all  who  heard  him  with  terror. 
"  The  republic,"  he  said,  (if  his  opinion  were 
followed,)  "should  be  purged;  but  whether  it 
were  so  or  no,  the  injuries  done  to  himself  and 
his  friends  should  be  punished."  He  accordingly 
ordered  military  execution  against  every  person 
who  had  been  accessary  to  the  late  massacres  and 
usurpations;  and  while  the  sword  was  yet  reek- 
ing in  his  hands,  passed  great  part  of  his  time,  as 
usual,  in  mirth  and  dissipation  with  men  of  hu- 
mourous and  singular  characters.  He  deigned 
not  even  to  inquire  into  the  abuses  that  were 
committed  in  the  execution  of  his  general  plan. 
The  persons  who  were  employed  in  it,  frequently 
indulged  their  own  private  resentment  and  their 
avarice  in  the  choice  of  victims.  Among  these, 
Catiline,  then  a  young  man,  had  joined  the  vic- 
torious party ;  and  he  plunged,  with  a  singular 
impetuosity,  into  the  midst  of  a  storm  which  now 
overwhelmed  a  part  of  the  city.  He  is  said, 
among  other  persons  to  whom  he  bore  an  aver 
sion,  or  whose  effects  he  intended  to  seize,  to 
have  murdered  his  own  brother,  with  stiangf 
circumstances  of  cruelty  and  horror. 

While  these  dreadful  murders,  mixed  with 
many  examples  of  a  just  execution,  were  perpe- 
trated, a  young  man,  C.  Metellus,  had  the  cou- 
rage to  address  himself  to  Sylla  in  the  senate,  and 
desired  he  would  make  known  the  extent  of  his 
design,  and  how  far  these  executions  were  to  be 
carried?  "  We  intercede  not,"  he  said,  "for  the 
condemned ;  we  only  intreat  that  you  would  re- 
lieve out  of  this  dreadful  state  of  uncertainty  all 
those  whom  in  reality  you  mean  to  spare." 


Chap.  VIT.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


Ml 


Sylla,  without,  being  offended  at  this  freedom, 
published  a  list  of  those  he  had  doomed  to  de- 
struction, offering  a  reward  of  two  talents  for  the 
head  of  each,  and  denouncing  severe  penalties 
against  every  person  who  should  harbour  or  con- 
ceal them.  Hence  arose  the  practice  of  publish- 
ing lists  of  the  persons  to  be  massacred,  which, 
under  the  odious  name  of  proscription,  was  after- 
wards imitated  with  such  fatal  effects  in  the  sub- 
sequent convulsions  of  the  state. 

The  present  proscription,  although  it  promised 
some  security  to  all  who  were  not  comprehended 
in  the  fatal  list,  opened  a  scene,  in  some  respects, 
more  dreadful  than  that  which  had  been  formerly 
acted  in  this  massacre.  The  hands  of  servants 
were  hired  against  their  masters,  and  even  those 
of  children  against  their  parents.  The  merce- 
nary of  every  denomination  were  encouraged,  by 
a  great  premium,  to  commit  what  before  only  the 
ministers  of  public  justice  thought  themselves 
entitled  to  perform ;  and  there  followed  a  scene, 
in  which  human  nature  had  full  scope  to  exert 
all  the  evil  of  which  it  is  susceptible,  treachery, 
ingratitude,  distrust,  malice,  and  revenge;  and 
would  have  retained  no  claim  to  our  esteem  or 
commiseration,  if  its  character  had  not  been  re- 
deemed by  contrary  instances  of  fidelity,  generosi- 
ty, and  courage,  displayed  by  those  who,  to  preserve 
their  friends  and  benefactors,  or  even  to  preserve 
strangers,  who  took  refuge  under  their  protec- 
tion, hazarded  all  the  dangers  with  which  the 
proscribed  themselves  were  threatened. 

In  consequence  of  these  measures,  about  five 
thousand  persons  of  consideration  were  put  to 
death,  among  whom  were  reckoned  forty  senators, 
and  sixteen  hundred  of  the  equestrian  order. 

From  these  beginnings  the  Romans  had  rea- 
son to  apprehend  a  tyranny,  more  sanguinary 
perhaps  than  any  that  ever  afflicted  mankind. 
"If  in  the  field  you  slay  all  who  are  found  in 
arms  against  you,"  said  Catulus,1  "and  in  the 
city  you  slay  even  the  unarmed ;  over  whom  do 
you  propose  to  reign 

These  reproaches  were  by  Sylla  received  as 
jests;  and  the  freedom  and  ease  of  his  manners, 
as  well  as  the  professions  he  made  of  regard  to 
the  commonwealth,  were  imputed  to  insensibility, 
and  to  a  barbarous  dissimulation,  which  render.  ! I 
his  character  more  odious,  and  the  prospect  of  his 
future  intentions  more  terrifying. 

In  comparing  the  present  with  the  late  usurpa- 
tions, men  recollected,  that  Marius,  from  his 
infancy,  had  been  of  a  severe  and  inexorable 
temper ;  that  his  resentments  were  sanguinary, 
and  even  his  frowns  were  deadly;  but  that  his 
cruelties  were  the  effect  of  real  passions,  and  had 
the  apology  of  not  being  perpetrated  in  cold 
blood ;  that  every  person  on  whom  he  looked  with 
indifference  was  safe ;  and  that  even  when  he 
usurped  the  government  of  the  state,  as  soon  as 
his  personal  resentments  were  gratified,  the  sword 
in  his  hand  became  an  innocent  pageant,  and  the 
mere  ensign  or  badge  of  his  power.  But  that 
Sylla  directed  a  massacre  in  the  midst  of  compo- 
sure and  case  :  that  as  a  private  man  he  had  been 
affable  and  pleasant,  even  noted  for  humanity  and 
candour  ;2  that  the  change  of  his  temper  having 
commenced  with  his  exaltation,  there  were  no 


1  Probably  the  son  of  him  who  perished  in  the  ty- 
ranny of  Marias. 

2  Plutarfcn  in  BvHa. 


hopes  that  the  shedding  of  blood  could  be  stopped 
while  he  was  suffered  to  retain  his  power.  His 
daring  spirit,  his  address,  his  cunning,  and  his 
ascendant  over  the  minds  of  men,  rendered  the 
prospect  of  a  deliverance,  if  not  desperate,  ex- 
tremely remote.  The  republic  seemed  to  be  ex 
tinguished  for  ever  ;  and  if  the  rage  of  blood,  after 
the  first  heat  of  the  massacre,  appeared  to  abate, 
it  was  stayed  only  for  want  of  victims,  not  from 
any  principle  of  moderation,  or  sentiment  of 
clemency. 

Such  was  the  aspect  of  affairs,  and  the  grounds 
of  terror  conceived  even  by  those  who  were  in- 
nocent of  the  late  disorders  ;  but  to  those  who  had 
reason  to  fear  the  resentment  of  the  victor,  the 
prospect  was  altogether  desperate.  Norbanue, 
having  fled  to  Rhodes,  received  at  that  place  an 
account  of  the  proscriptions,  and,  to  avoid  being 
delivered  up,  killed  himself.  Carbo,  being  in  Si- 
cily, endeavoured  to  make  his  escape  from  thence, 
but  was  apprehended  by  Pompey,  and  killed.  All 
the  ordinary  offices  of  state  were  vacated  by 
the  desertion  or  death  of  those  who  had  filled  o*r 
usurped  them. 

Sylla  had  hitherto  acted  as  master,  without  any 
other  title  than  that  of  the  sword;  and  it  was 
now  thought  necessary  to  supply  the  defect.  He 
retired  from  the  city,  that  the  senate  might  as- 
semble with  the  more  appearance  of  freedom. 
To  name  an  interrex  was  the  usual  expedient 
for  restoring  the  constitution,  and  proceeding  to 
elections  in  a  legal  form  after  the  usual  time  had 
elapsed,  or  when  by  any  accident  the  ordinary 
succession  to  office  had  failed.  Valerius  Flaccus 
was  named.  To  him  Sylla  gave  intimation,  that, 
to  resettle  the  common  wealth,  a  dictator,  for  an 
indefinite  term,  should  be  apj>ointed,  and  made 
offer  of  his  own  services  for  this  purpose.  These 
intimations  were  received  as  commands.  Flac- 
cus, having  assembled  the  people,  moved  for  an 
act  to  vest  Sylla  with  the  title  of  dictator,  which 
gave  him  a  discretionary  power  over  the  persons, 
fortunes,  and  lives  of  all  the  citizens. 

No  example  of  this  kind  had  taken  place  for  a 
hundred  and  twenty  years  preceding  this  date. 
In  the  former  part  of  ttiis  period,  the  jealousy  of 
the  aristocracy,  and,  in  the  latter  part  of  it,  the 
negative  of  the  tribunes,  had  always  prevented  a 
measure  from  which  they  severally  apprehended 
some  danger  to  themselves.  It  was  now  revived 
in  the  person  of  Sylla  with  unusual  solemnity, 
and  ratified  by  an  act  of  the  people,  in  which  they 
yielded  up  at  once  all  their  own  claims  to  the 
sovereignty,  and  submitted  to  monarchy  for  an 
indefinite  time.  Sylla  having  named  Valerius 
Flaccus  for  his  lieutenant  or  commander  of  the 
horse,  returned  to  the  city,  presenting  a  sight  that 
was  then  unusual,  a  single  person,  preceded  by 
four-and-twenty  lictors,  armed  with  the  axe  and 
the  rods ;  and  it  was  not  doubted  that  these  ensigns 
of  magistracy  were  to  be  employed,  not  for  pa- 
rade, but  for  serious  execution,  and  were  speedily 
to  be  stained  with  the  blood  of  many  citizens, 
whom  the  sword  had  spared  The  dictator,  being 
attended  likewise  by  a  numerous  military  guard, 
in  order  that  the  city,  in  all  matters  in  which  it 
was  not.  necessary  for  himself  to  interpose,  might 
still  enjoy  the  l>enefit  of  the  usual  forms,  he  di- 
rected the  people  to  assemble,  and  to  fill  up  the 
ordinary  lists  of  office. 

Lucretius  Offella,  the  officer  who  had  com- 
manded in  the  reduction  of  Prameste,  presuming 


142 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  If. 


on  his  favour  with  the  dictator,  and  on  his  con- 
sequence with  the  army,  offered  himself  for  the 
consulate.  Being  commanded  by  Sylla  to  desist, 
he  still  continued  his  canvass,  and  was,  by  order 
of  the  dictator,  put  to  death,  while  he  solicited 
votes  in  the  streets.  A  tumult  immediately  arose ; 
the  centurion,  who  executed  this  order  against 
Offella,  was  seized,  and,  attended  by  a  great  con- 
course of  people,  was  carried  before  the  dictator. 
Sylla  heard  the  complaint  with  great  composure, 
told  the  multitude  who  crowded  around  him,  that 
Offella  had  been  slain  by  his  orders,  and  that  the 
centurion  must  therefore  be  released.  He  then 
dismissed  them,  with  this  homely  but  menacing 
apologue.  "  A  countryman  at  his  plough,  feel- 
ing himself  troubled  with  vermin,  once  and  again 
made  a  halt  to  pick  them  off'  his  jacket ;  but  be- 
ing molested  a  third  time,  he  threw  the  jacket, 
with  all  its  contents,  into  the  fire.  Beware,"  he 
said,  "of  the  fire;  provoke  me  not  a  third  time."1 
Such  was  the  tone  of  a  government,  which,  from 
this  example,  was  likely  to  be  fatal  to  many  who 
had  concurred  in  the  establishment  of  it,  as  well 
as  to  those  of  the  opposite  party. 

Sylla,  soon  after  his  elevation  to 
U.  C.  672.    the  station  of  dictator,  proceeded  to 

make  his  arrangements  and  to  new- 
DecuiaiUS  m°del  the  commonwealth.  The  ar- 
Cn.  Corn.  my2  appeared  to  have  the  first  or 
Dolabclla.      preferable  claim  to  his  attention.  He 

accordingly  proposed  to  reward  them 
by  a  gift  of  all  the  lands  which  had  been  forfeited 
by  the  adherents  of  the  opposite  party.  Spoletum, 
Interamna,  Praeneste,  Fluentia,  Nola,  Sulmo, 
Volaterra,  together  with  the  countries  of  Sam- 
nium  and  Lucania,  were  depopulated  to  make 
way  for  the  legions  who  had  served  under  him- 
self in  the  reduction  of  his  enemies.  In  these 
new  inhabitants  of  Italy,  whose  prosperity  de- 
pended on  his  safety,  he  had  a  guard  to  his  person, 
and  a  sure  support  to  his  power.  By  changing 
their  condition  from  that  of  soldiers  to  land- 
holders and  peasants,  he  dispelled,  at  the  same 
time,  that  dangerous  cloud  of  military  power, 
which  he  himself  or  his  antagonists  had  raised 
over  the  commonwealth,  and  provided  for  the 
permanency  of  any  reformations  he  was  to  intro- 
duce into  the  civil  establishment.  The  troops, 
from  soldiers  of  fortune,  became  proprietors  of 
land,  and  interested  in  the  preservation  of  peace. 
In  this  manner,  whatever  may  have  been  his  in- 
tention in  this  arbitrary  act  of  power,  so  cruel  to 
the  innocent  sufferers,  if  there  were  any  such, 
the  measure  had  an  immediate  tendency  to  ter- 
minate the  public  confusion.  Its  future  conse- 
quences, in  pointing  out  to  new  armies,  and  to 
their  ambitious  leaders,  a  way  to  supplant  their 
fellow-citizens  in  their  property,  and  to  practise 
usurpations  more  permanent  than  that  of  Sylla, 
were  probably  not  then  foreseen. 

The  next  act  of  the  dictator  appears  more  en- 
tirely calculated  for  the  security  of  his  own  person. 
A  body  of  ten  thousand  men,  lately  the  property 
of  persons  involved  in  the  ruin  of  the  vanquished 
party,  having  their  freedom  and  the  right  of  citi- 
zens conferred  on  them,  were  enrolled  promis- 
cuously in  all  the  tribes ;  and  as  the  enfranchised 
slave  took  the  name  of  the  person  from  whom  he 


1  Appian.  in  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  i.   Plutarch,  in  Sylla. 

2  It  appears  that  Livy  reckoned  forty-seven  legions, 
Epitome,  lib.  lxxxix. 


received  his  freedom,  these  new  citizens  became 
an  accession  to  the  family  of  the  Cornelii,  and  in 
every  tumult  were  likely  to  be  the  sure  partizans 
of  Sylla,  and  the  abettors  of  his  power.  They 
had  received  a  freedom  which  was  connected 
with  the  permanency  of  his  government,  and 
foresaw,  that,  if  the  leaders  of  the  opposite  party, 
in  whose  houses  they  had  served,  should  be  re- 
stored, they  themselves  must  return  into  the  con- 
dition of  slaves  ;  and  they  accordingly  became  an 
additional  security  to  the  government  which  their 
patron  was  about  to  establish. 

So  far  Sylla  seemed  to  intend  the  security  of . 
his  own  person,  and  the  stability  of  his  govern- 
ment ;  but  in  all  his  subsequent  institutions,  he 
had  a  view  to  restore  the  aristocracy  in  its  legis- 
lative and  judicative  capacity,  to  provide  a  pro- 
per supply  of  officers  for  conducting  the  accumu- 
lated affairs  of  the  commonwealth,  to  furnish 
hands  for  every  department,  and  to  guard  against 
the  growing  depravity  of  the  times,  by  extend- 
ing and  securing  the  execution  of  the  laws.  He 
began  with  filling  up  the  rolls  of  the  senate  which 
had  been  greatly  reduced  by  the  war,  and  by  the 
sanguinary  policy  of  the  parties  who  had  prevail- 
ed in  their  turns.  He  augmented  the  number 
of  this  body  to  five  hundred;  taking  the  new 
members  from  the  equestrian  order,  but  leaving 
the  choice  of  them  to  the  people. 

The  legislative  power  of  the  se- 
Lex  de  Ju-  nate,  and  the  judicative  power  of  its 
diciis.  members  were  restored.    The  law 

that  was  provided  for  the  last  of 
these  purposes  consisted  of  different  clauses.  By 
the  first  clause  it  was  enacted,  that  none  but  sen- 
ators, or  those  who  were  entitled  to  give  their 
opinion  in  the  senate,3  should  be  put  upon  any 
jury  or  list  of  the  judges.4  By  the  second,  that, 
of  the  judges  so  selected,  the  parties  should  not 
be  allowed  to  challenge  or  reject  above  three. 

By  a  third  clause  it  was  provided,  that  judg- 
ment, in  trials  at  law,  should  be  given  either  by 
ballot,  or  openly,  at  the  option  of  the  defendant ; 
and  by  a  separate  regulation,  that  the  nomination 
of  officers  to  command  in  the  provinces,  with  the 
title  of  proconsul,  should  be  committed  to  the 
senate. 

During  the  late  tribunitian  usurpation,  the 
whole  legislative  and  executive  power  had,  under 
pretence  of  vesting  those  prerogatives  in  the  as- 
sembly of  the  tribes,  been  seized  by  the  tribunes. 
But  Sylla  restored  the  ancient  form  of  assembling 
the  people  by  centuries,  and  reduced  the  tribunes 
to  their  defensive  privilege  of  interposing  by  a 
negative  against  any  act  of  oppression ;  and  he 
deprived  them  of  their  pretended  right  to  propose 
laws,  or  to  harangue  the  people.  He  moreover 
added,  that  none  but  senators  could  be  elected  into 
the  office  of  tribune;  and,  to  the  end  that  no 
person  of  a  factious  ambition  might  choose  this 
station,  he  procured  it  to  be  enacted,  that  no  one 
who  had  borne  the  office  of  tribune  could  after- 
wards be  promoted  into  any  other  rank  of  the 
magistracy. 

With  respect  to  the  offices  of  state,  this  new 
founder  of  the  commonwealth  revived  the  obso- 
lete law  which  prohibited  the  re-election  of  any 
person  into  the  consulate,  till  after  an  interval  of 


3  All  the  officers  of  state,  even  before  they  were  pu 
upon  the  rolls,  were  entitled  to  speak  in  the  senate. 

4  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  xi.   Cic.  pro  Cliento. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


143 


ten  years ;  and  enacted,  that  none  could  be  elect- 
ed consul  till  after  he  had  been  questor,  edile, 
and  praetor.  He  augmented  the  number  of  prae- 
tors from  six  to  eight ;  that  of  questors  to  twenty  ; 
and,  to  guard  against  the  disorders  which  had 
recently  afflicted  the  republic,  declared  it  to  be 
treason  for  any  Roman  officer,  without  the  au- 
thority of  the  senate  and  people,  to  go  beyond  the 
limits  of  his  province,  whether  with  or  without 
an  army,  to  make  war,  or  to  invade  any  foreign 
nation  whatever. 

He  repealed  the  law  of  Domitius  relating  to 
the  election  of  priests,  and  restored  to  the  college 
the  entire  choice  of  their  own  members. 

He  made  several  additions  to  the  criminal  law, 
by  statutes  against  subornation,  forgery,  wilful 
fire,  poisoning,  rape,  assault,  extortion,  and  for- 
cibly entering  the  house  of  a  citizen ;  and  a  statute 
making  it  penal  to  be  found  with  deadly  weapons 
of  any  sort.  To  all  these  he  added  a  sumptuary 
law,  of  which  the  tenor  is  not  precisely  known ; 
but  it  appears  to  have  regulated  the  expense  at 
ordinary5  meals  and  at  funerals,  and  to  have  like- 
wise settled  the  price  of  provisions. 

These  laws  were  promulgated  at  certain  inter- 
vals, and  intermixed  with  the  measures  which 
were  taken  to  restore  the  peace  of  the  empire. 
In  order  to  finish  the  remains  of  the  civil  war, 
Pompey  had  been  sent  into  Sicily  and  Africa, 
and  C.  Annius  Luscus  into  Spain.  In  this  pro- 
vince, Sertorius  had  taken  arms  for  the  Marian 
faction ;  but  being  attacked  by  the  forces  of  Sylla, 
and  ill  supported  at  first  by  the  Spaniard,  he 
fled  into  Africa.  From  thence,  hearing  that  the 
Lusitanians  were  disposed  to  take  arms  against 
the  reigning  party  at  Rome,  he  repassed  the  sea, 
put  himself  at  their  head,  and  in  this  situation 
was  able,  for 'some  years,  to  find  occupation  for 
the  arms  of  the  republic,  and  for  its  most  experi- 
enced generals. 

Soon  after  the  departure  of  Sylla  from  Asia, 
Murena,  whom  he  had  left  to  command  in  that 
province,  found  a  pretence  to  renew  the  war 
with  Mithridates ;  and,  having  ventured  to  pass 
the  Halys,  was  defeated  by  that  prince,  and  af- 
terwards arraigned  as  having  infringed  the  late 
treaty  of  peace.  Sylla  listened  to  this  accusation, 
disapproved  the  conduct  of  Murena,  and  sent 
first  A.  Gabinius,  and  afterwards  Minucius  Ther- 
mus,  to  supersede  him  in  the  province. 

Mean  time  Sylla  himself  exhibited  a  splendid 
triumph  on  account  of  his  victories  in  Asia  and 
Greece.  The  procession  lasted  two  days.  On 
the  first,  he  deposited  in  the  treasury  fifteen 
thousand  pohdo  of  gold,6  and  a  hundred  and  fif- 
teen thousand  pondo  of  silver;7  on  the  second 
day  thirteen  thousand  pondo  of  gold,8  and  seven 
thousand  pondo  of  silver.9  There  was  nothing 
that  had  any  reference  to  his  victory  in  the  civil 
war,  except  a  numerous  train  of  senators,  and 
other  citizens  of  distinction,  who,  having  resorted 
to  his  camp  for  protection,  had  been  restored  by 
him  to  their  estates,  and  their  dignities,  and  now 
followed  his  chariot,  calling  him  father,  and  the 
deliverer  of  his  country. 

Upon  the  return  of  the  elections,  Sylla  was 
again  chosen  consul,  together  with  Gt.  Caecilius 


5  Gellius,  lib.  ii  c.  24. 

6  Reckoning  the  pondo  at  ten  ounces,  and  41.  an 
ounce,  this  will  make  about  600,000/. 

7  About  287,500/.  8  About  520,000/. 
9  About  140,000/.    Plin.  lib.  xxxiii.  initio. 


U.  C.  673.  Metellus.  The  latter  was  destined 
L  Corn  Silla  a*  expirat'on  01~  his  office,  to 
Q.  Qecil.  Me-  command  against  Sertorius  in  Spain. 
tell.  Pius.  Sylla  himself  still  retained  the  dic- 
tatorial power,  and  was  employed 
in  promulgating  some  of  the  acts  of  which  the 
chief  have  been  mentioned. 

Pompey  having,  in  the  preceding  year,  by  the 
death  of  Carbo,  and  the  dispersion  of  his  party, 
finished  the  remains  of  the  civil  war  in  Sicily, 
was  now  ordered  by  the  senate  to  transport  his 
army  into  Africa.  There  Domitius,  a  leader  of 
the  opposite  faction,  had  erected  his  standard, 
assembled  some  remains  of  the  vanquished  party, 
and  received  all  the  fugitives  who  crowded  for 
refuge  to  his  camp.  Pompey  accordingly  depart- 
ed from  Sicily,  leaving  the  command  of  that  island 
to  Memmius,  and  embarked  his  army,  consisting 
of  six  legions,  in  two  divisions;  one  landed  at 
Utica,  the  other  in  the  bay  of  Carthage.  Having 
come  to  an  engagement  with  Domitius,  who  had 
been  joined  by  Jarbas,  an  African  prince,  he  ob- 
tained a  complete  victory  over  their  united  forces, 
and  afterwards  penetrated,  without  any  resis- 
tance, into  the  kingdom  of  Numidia,  which, 
though  dependant  on  the  Romans,  had  not  yet 
been  reduced  to  the  form  of  a  province. 

The  war  being  ended  in  this  quarter,  Sylla 
thought  proper  to  supersede  Pompey  in  the  pro- 
vince, and  ordered  him  to  disband  his  army,  re- 
serving only  one  legion,  with  which  he  was  to 
wait  for  his  successor.  The  troops  were  greatly 
incensed  at  this  order ;  and,  thinking  themselves 
equally  entitled  to  settlements  with  the  legions 
who  were  lately  provided  for  in  Italy,  refused  to 
lay  down  their  arms.  They  earnestly  intreated 
their  general  to  embark  for  Rome,  where  they 
promised  to  make  him  master  of  the  government. 
This  young  man,  with  a  moderation  which  he 
continued  to  support  in  the  height  of  his  ambi- 
tion, withstood  the  temptation,  and  declared  to 
the  army,  that,  if  they  persisted  in  their  purpose, 
he  must  certainly  die  by  his  own  hands  ;  that  he 
would  not  do  violence  to  the  government  of  his 
country,  nor  be  the  object  or  pretence  of  a  civil 
war.  If  in  reality,  he  had  encouraged  this  mu- 
tiny, it  was  only  that  he  might  have  the  honour 
of  reclaiming  the  soldiers,  and  of  rejecting  their 
offer.  The  ambition  of  this  singular  person,  as 
will  appear  from  many  passages  of  his  life,  led 
him  to  aim  at  consideration  more  than  power. 

While  Pompey  was  endeavouring  to  bring  the 
troops  to  their  duty,  a  rej>ort  was  carried  to 
Rome,  that  he  had  actually  revolted,  and  was 
preparing,  with  his  army,  to  make  a  descent  upon 
Italy.  "  It  appears  to  be  my  fate,"  said  Sylla, 
"in  my  old  age,  to  fight  with  boys;"  and  he 
was  about  to  recall  the  veterans  to  his  standard, 
when  the  truth  was  discovered,  and  the  part 
which  Pompey  had  acted  was  properly  represent- 
ed. The  merit  of  this  young  man  on  that  occa 
sion  was  the  greater,  that  he  himself  was  unwill- 
ing to  disband  the  army  before  they  should  return 
into  Italy  to  attend  a  triumph,  which  he  hoped  to 
obtain ;  and  that  the  resolution  he  took  to  com- 
ply with  his  orders,  proceeded  from  respect  to  the 
senate,  and  the  authority  of  t  he  state. 

Sylla,  won  by  the  behaviour  of  Pompey  on 
this  occasion,  was  inclined  to  dispense  with  his 
former  commands,  and,  accordingly,  moved  the 
assembly  of  the  people,  that  the  legions  serving  in 
Africa  might  return  into  Italy. 


144 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


This  motion  was  opposed  by  C.  Herennius, 
tribune  of  the  people,  who  ventured  to  employ 
the  prerogative  of  his  office,  however  impaired, 
against  the  power  of  the  dictator.  But  Sylla  per- 
sisted; obtained  a  law  to  authorize  Pompey  to 
enter  with  his  army  into  Italy ;  and  when  he 
drew  near  the  city,  went  forth  with  a  numerous 
body  of  the  senate  to  receive  him.  On  this  occa- 
sion, it  is  said,  that,  by  calling  him  the  Great 
Pompey,  Sylla  fixed  a  designation  upon  him, 
which,  in  the  Roman  way  of  distinguishing  per- 
sons by  nicknames,  whether  of  contempt  or  re- 
spect, continued  to  furnish  him  with  a  title  for 
life.  The  times  were  wretched  when  armies 
stated  themselves  in  the  commonwealth  as  the 
partizans  of  their  leader,  and  when  the  leader,  by 
not  betraying  his  country,  was  supposed  to  per- 
form a  great  action. 

Pompey,  upon  this  occasion,  laid  claim  to  a 
triumph.  Sylla  at  first  opposed  it  as  being  con- 
trary to  the  rule  and  order  of  the  commonwealth, 
which  reserved  this  honour  for  persons  who  had 
attained  to  the  rank  of  consul  or  praetor ;  but  he 
afterwards  complied,  being  struck,  it  is  said,  with 
a  mutinous  saying  of  this  aspiring  young  man, 
bidding  him  recollect,  that  there  were  more  per- 
sons disposed  to  worship  the  rising  than  the 
setting  sun. 

In  the  triumph  which  Pompey  accordingly  ob- 
tained, he  meant  to  have  entered  the  city  on  a 
carriage  drawn  by  elephants ;  but  these  animals 
could  not  pass  abreast  through  the  gates.  His 
.donation  to  the  troops  falling  short  of  their  expec- 
tation, and  they  having  murmured  and  even 
threatened  to  mutiny,  he  said,  the  fear  of  losing 
his  triumph  should  not  affect  him ;  that  he  would 
instantly  disband  the  legions,  rather,  than  com- 
ply with  their  unreasonable  demands.  This 
check,  given  to  the  presumption  of  the  army  by 
an  officer  so  young  and  so  aspiring,  gave  a  gene- 
ral satisfaction.  P.  Servilius,  a  senator  of  ad- 
vanced age,  said,  upon  this  occasion,  "  That  the 
young  man  had  at  last  deserved  his  triumph  and 
his  title." 

Pompey,  by  his  vanity  in  demanding  a  triumph 
contrary  to  the  established  order  of  the  common- 
wealth, had  impaired  the  lustre  of  liis  former  ac- 
tions; by  this  last  act  of  magnanimity,  in  re- 
straining the  insolence  of  the  troops,  he  forfeited 
the  affections  of  the  army  ;  and  in  both  these  cir- 
cumstances together,  gave  a  complete  specimen 
and  image  of  his  whole  life.  With  too  much 
respect  for  the  republic  to  employ  violent  means 
for  its  ruin,  he  was  possessed  by  a  vanity  and  a 
jealousy  of  his  own  personal  consideration,  which, 
in  detail,  perpetually  led  him  to  undermine  its 
foundations. 

Upon  the  return  of  the  elections, 
U.  C.  671.    Sylla  was  again  destined  for  one  of 

the  consuls ;  but  he  declined  this 
XfZSu.  P|f™  of  flattery,  and  directed  the 
4luSt  choice  to  fall  on  P.  Servihus  and 

Appius  Claudius.  Soon  after  these 
magistrates  entered  on  the  discharge  of  their 
trust ;  the  dictator  appeared,  as  usual,  in  the 
forum,  attended  by  twenty-four  lictors ;  but,  in- 
stead of  proceeding  to  any  exercise  of  his  power, 
made  a  formal  resignation  of  it,  dismissed  his 
retinue,  and  having  declared  to  the  people,  that, 
if  any  one  had  any  matter  of  charge  against  him, 
he  was  ready  to  answer  it,  continued  to  walk  in 
the  streets  in  the  character  of  a  private  man,  and 


afterwards  retired  to  his  villa  near  Cumse,  where 
he  exercised  himself  in  hunting.1 

This  resignation  throws  a  new  light  on  the 
character  of  Sylla,  and  leads  to  a  favourable  con- 
struction of  some  of  the  most  exceptionable  parts 
of  his  conduct.  When,  with  the  help  of  the 
comment  it  affords,  we  look  back  to  the  esta- 
blishments he  made  while  in  power,  they  appear 
not  to  be  the  acts  of  a  determined  usurper,  but 
to  be  fitted  for  a  republican  government,  and  for 
the  restoration  of  that  order  which  the  violence 
and  corruption  of  the  times  had  suspended. 

That  he  was  actuated  by  a  violent  resentment 
of  personal  wrongs,  cannot  be  questioned ;  but  it 
is  likewise  evident,  that  he  felt  on  proper  occa- 
sions for  the  honour  and  preservation  of  his  coun- 
try, in  the  noblest  sense  of  these  words.  In  his 
first  attack  of  the  city,  with  a  military  force,  his 
actions  showed,  that  he  meant  to  rescue  the  re- 
public from  the  usurpations  of  Marius,  not  to 
usurp  the  government  himself.  When  he  re- 
turned into  Italy  from  the  Mithridatic  war,  the 
state  of  parties  already  engaged  in  hostilities,  and 
the  violence  done  to  the  republic  by  those  who 
pretended  to  govern  it,  will  abundantly  justify  his 
having  had  recourse  to  arms.  For  the  massacre 
which  followed,  it  may  be  shocking  to  suppose 
that  the  evils  of  human  life  can  require  such  a 
remedy;  but  the  case  was  singular,  exposed  to 
disorders  which  required  violent  remedies,  beyond 
what  is  known  in  the  history  of  mankind,  a 
populous  city,  the  capital  of  a  large  country, 
whose  inhabitants  still  pretended  to  act  in  a  col- 
lective body,  of  whom  every  member  would  be 
a  master,  none  would  be  a  subject,  become  the 
joint  sovereigns  of  many  provinces,  ready  to  spurn 
at  all  the  institutions  which  were  provided  for  the 
purposes  of  government  over  themselves,  and  at 
all  the  principles  of  justice  and  order  which  were 
required  to  regulate  their  government  of  others 
Where  the  gangrene  spread  in  such  a  body,  it 
was  likely  to  require  the  amputation-knife.  Men 
rushed  into  crimes  in  numerous  bodies,  or  were 
led  in  powerful  factions  to  any  species  of  evil 
which  suited  their  demagogues.  Whatever  may 
have  been  Sylla' s  choice  among  the  instruments 
of  reformation  and  cure,  it  is  likely  that  the 
sword  alone  was  that  on  which  he  could  rely ; 
and  he  used  it  like  a  person  anxious  to  effect  its 
purpose,  not  to  recommend  his  art  to  those  on 
whom  it  was  to  be  practised. 

In  his  capacity  of  a  political  reformer,  he  had 
to  work  on  the  dregs  of  a  corrupted  republic ;  and 
although  the  effect  fell  short  of  what  is  ascribed 
to  fabulous  legislators  and  founders  of  states,  yet 
to  none  ever  were  ascribed  more  tokens  of  mag 
nanimity  and  greatness  of  mind.  He  was  supe- 
rior to  the  reputation  even  of  his  own  splendid 
actions;  and,  from  simplicity  or  disdain,  mixed 
perhaps  with  superstition,  not  from  affected  mo 
desty,  attributed  his  success  to  the  effects  of  hit; 
good  fortune  and  to  the  favour  of  the  gods. 
While  he  bestowed  on  Pompey  the  title  of 
Great,  he  himself  was  content  with  that  of  For 
tunate.  He  was  a  man  of  letters,  and  passed  the 
early  part  of  his  life  in  a  mixture  of  dissipation 
and  study.  He  wrote  his  own  memoirs,  or  a 
journal  of  his  life,  often  quoted  by  Plutarch,  and 
continued  it  to  within  a  few  days  of  his  death.  A 
work  possibly  of  little  elegance,  and  even  taint^  i, 


1  Appian.  Bell  Civ.  lib.  i. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


145 


as  we  are  told,  with  superstition  ;  but  more  curi- 
ous surely  than  many  volumes  corrected  by  the 
labours  of  retired  study. 

When  tired  of  his  youthful  amusements,  he 
sued  for  the  honours  of  the  state ;  but  with  so 
little  appearance  of  any  jealous  or  impatient  am- 
bition, that,  if  he  had  not  been  impelled  by  pro- 
vocations into  the  violent  course  he  pursued,  it  is 
probable  that  he  would  have  been  contented  with 
the  usual  career  of  a  prosperous  senator ;  would 
have  disdained  to  encroach  on  the  rights  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  as  much  as  he  resented  the  en- 
croachments that  were  made  on  his  own,  and 
never  would  have  been  heard  of  but  on  the  rolls 
of  the  consuls,  and  in  the  record  of  his  triumphs. 
But  fortune  destined  him  for  a  part  still  more 
conspicuous,  and  in  which,  it  may  be  thought, 
although  none  ever  less  studied  the  unnecessary 
appearances  of  humanity  or  a  scrupulous  mo- 
rality, none  ever  more  essentially  served  the  per- 
sons with  whom  he  was  connected. 

With  respect  to  such  a  personage,  circum- 
stances of  a  trivial  nature  become  subjects  of  at- 
tention. His  hair  and  eyes,  it  is  said,  were  of  a 
light  colour,  his  complexion  fair,  and  his  counte- 
nance blotched.  He  was,  by  the  most  probable 
accounts,  four  years  old  at  the  time  of  the  sedition 
of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  and  seventeen  at  the  death 
of  Caius  Gracchus ;  so  that  he  might  have  per- 
ceived at  this  date  the  effect  of  tribunitian  sedi- 
tions, and  taken  the  impressions  from  which  he 
acted  against  them.  He  served  the  office  of 
questor  under  Marius  in  Africa  at  thirty-one ; 
was  consul  for  the  first  time  at  forty-nine  or 
fifty  ;2  was  dictator  at  fifty-six ;  resigned  when 
turned  of  fifty-eight ;  and  died,  yet  under  sixty, 
in  the  year  which  followed  that  of  his  resignation. 

There  remained  in  the  city,  at  his  death,  a 
numerous  body  of  new  citizens  who  bore  his 
name :  in  the  country  a  still  more  numerous  body 
of  veteran  officers  and  soldiers,  who  held  estates 
by  his  gifts:  numbers  throughout  the  empire, 
who  owed  their  safety  to  his  protection,  and  who 


2  Vel.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  17. 
T 


ascribed  the  existence  of  the  commonwealth  itself 
to  the  exertions  of  his  great  ability  and  courage : 
numbers  who,  although  they  were  offended  with 
the  severe  exercise  of  his  power,  yet  admired  the 
magnanimity  of  his  resignation. 

When  he  was  no  longer  an  object  of  flattery, 
his  corpse  was  carried  in  procession  through 
Italy  at  the  public  expense.  The  fasces,  and 
every  other  ensign  of  honour,  were  restored  to 
the  dead.  Above  two  thousand  golden  crowns 
were  fabricated  in  haste,  by  order  of  the  towns 
and  provinces  he  had  protected,  or  of  the  private 
persons  he  had  preserved,  to  testify  their  venera- 
tion for  his  memory.  Roman  matrons,  whom  it 
might  be  expected  his  cruelties  would  have  affect- 
ed with  horror,  lost  every  other  sentiment  in  that 
of  admiration,  crowded  to  his  funeral,  and  heap- 
ed the  pile  with  perfumes.3  His  obsequies  were 
performed  in  the  Campus  Martius.  The  tomb 
was  marked  by  his  own  directions  with  the  fol- 
lowing characteristical  inscription  :  "  Here  lies 
Sylla,  who  never  was  outdone  in  good  offices  by 
his  friend,  nor  in  acts  of  hostility  by  his  enemy."4 
His  merit  or  demerit  in  the  principal  transactions 
of  his  life  may  be  variously  estimated.  His  hav- 
ing slain  so  many  citizens  in  cold  blood,  and  with- 
out any  form  of  law,  if  we  imagine  them  to  have 
been  innocent,  or  if  we  conceive  the  republic  to 
have  been  in  a  state  to  allow  them  a  trial,  must 
be  considered  as  monstrous  or  criminal  in  the 
highest  degree  :  but  if  none  of  these  suppositions 
were  just,  if  they  were  guilty  of  the  greatest 
crimes,  and  were  themselves  the  authors  of  that 
lawless  state  to  which  their  country  was  reducedf* 
his  having  saved  the  republic  from  the  hands  of 
such  ruffians,  and  purged  it  of  the  vilest  dreg  that 
ever  threatened  to  poison  a  free  state,  may  be 
considered  as  meritorious.  To  satisfy  himself, 
who  was  neither  solicitous  of  praise  nor  dreaded 
censure,  the  strong  impulse  of  his  own  mind, 
guided  by  indignation  and  the  sense  of  necessity, 
was  probably  sufficient. 


3  Appian.de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  i.   Plutarch,  in  Sylla. 

4  Plutarch.in  Sylla,  fine. 


THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


OF  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC- 


book  ixz. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Slate  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  Numbers  of  the  People — Characters  of  Persons  who  began  to 
appear  in  the  Times  of  Sylla — Faction  of  Lepidus — Sertorius  harbours  the  Marian  Party  in 
Spain — Is  attacked  by  Metellus  and  Pompey — His  Death,  and  final  Suppression  of  the  Party — 
First  Appearance  of  C.  Julius  Casar —  Tribunes  begin  to  trespass  on  the  Laws  of  Sylla — Pro- 
gress of  the  Empire — Preparations  of  Mithridates — War  with  the  Romans — Irruption  into 
Bithynia — Siege  of  Cyzicus — Raised — Flight  of  Mithridates — Lucullus  carries  the  War  into 
Pontus — Rout  and  Dispersion  of  the  Army  of  Mithridates — His  flight  into  Armenia — Conduct 
of  Lucullus  in  the  Province  of  Asia. 


THE  public  was  so  much  occupied  with  the 
contest  of  Sylla  and  his  antagonists,  that  little 
else  is  recorded  of  the  period  in  which  it  took 
place.  Writers  have  not  given  us  any  distinct 
account  of  the  condition  of  the  city,  or  of  the 
number  of  citizens.  As  the  state  was  divided  into 
two  principal  factions,  the  office  of  censor  was  be- 
come too  important  for  either  party  to  entrust  it 
with  their  opponents,  or  even  in  neutral  hands. 
The  leaders  of  every  faction,  in  their  turn,  made 
up  the  rolls  of  the  people,  and  disposed,  at  their 
pleasure,  of  the  equestrian  and  senatorian  dig- 
nities. 

At  a  survey  of  the  city,  which  is  mentioned  by 
Livy,1  preceding  the  admission  of  the  Italians  on 
the  rolls  of  the  people,  the  number  of  citizens  was 
three  hundred  and  ninety-four  thousand  three 
hundred  and  thirty-six.  At  another  survey,  which 
followed  soon  after  that  event,  they  amounted, 
according  to  Eusebius,  to  four  hundred  and  sixty- 
three  thousand  :2  and  it  seems  that  the  whole 
accession  of  citizens  from  the  country  made  no 
more  than  sixty-eight  thousand  six  hundred  and 
sixty-four.  The  great  slaughter  of  Romans  and 
Italians,  in  which  it  is  said  that  three  hundred 
thousand  men  were  killed,  preceding  the  last  of 
these  musters,  and  the  difficulty  of  making  com- 
plete and  accurate  lists  when  the  citizens  were  so 
much  dispersed,  will  account  for  the  seemingly 
small  increase  of  their  numbers. 

In  this  period  were  born,  and  began  to  enter 


1  Liv.  lib.  lxiii.  2  Eusab.  in  Chronica. 


on  the  scene  of  public  affairs,  those  persons  whose 
conduct  was  now  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  re- 
public. Pompey  had  already  distinguished  him- 
self, and  was  a  person  of  real  consequence.  He 
had  been  educated  in  the  camp  of  his  father,  and, 
by  accident,  at  a  very  early  age ;  and  before  he 
had  attained  to  any  of  the  ordinary  civil  or  poli- 
tical preferments,  commanded  an  army.  Cicero, 
being  of  the  same  age,  began  to  be  distinguished 
at  the  bar.  He  pleaded,  in  the  second  consulate 
of  Sylla,  the  cause  of  Roscius  Amerinus,  in  which 
he  was  led  to  censure  the  actions  of  Chrysogonus 
and  other  favourites  of  the  dictator,  and,  by  his 
freedom  in  that  instance,  gained  much  honour  to 
himself. 

Caesar,  now  connected  with  the  family  of  Cinna, 
whose  daughter  he  had  married,  and  being  nearly 
related  to  the  elder  Marius,  who  had  married  his 
aunt,  narrowly  escaped  the  sword  of  the  prevail- 
ing party.  Being  commanded  to  separate  from 
his  wife,  he  retained  her  in  defiance  of  this  order, 
and  for  his  contumacy  was  put  in  the  list  of  the 
proscribed.  He  was  saved,  however,  by  the  in- 
tercession of  some  common  friends,  whose  re- 
quest in  his  favour  Sylla  granted,  with  that 
memorable  saying,  "Beware  of  him:  there  is 
many  a  Marius  in  the  person  of  that  young 
man."  A  circumstance  which  marked  at  once 
the  penetration  of  Sylla,  and  the  early  appear- 
ances of  an  extraordinary  character  in  Caesar. 

Marcus  Porcius,  afterwards  named  Cato  of  Utica, 
was  about  three  years  younger  than  Caesar,  and 
being  early  an  orphan,  was  educated  in  the  house 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


147 


of  an  uncle,  Livius  Drusus.  "While  yet  a  child, 
listening  to  the  conversation  of  the  times,  he 
learned  that  the  claim  of  the  Italian  allies,  then 
in  agitation,  was  dangerous  to  the  Roman  com 
monwealth.  Pompedius  Silo,  who  managed  the 
claim  for  the  Italians,  amusing  himself  with  the 
young  Cato,  pressed  him  with  caresses  to  inter 
cede  with  his  uncle  in  their  behalf ;  and,  finding 
that  he  was  not  to  be  won  by  flattery,  likewise 
tried  in  vain  to  intimidate  him  by  threatening  to 
throw  him  from  the  window.  "  If  this  were  a 
man,"  he  said,  "I  believe  we  should  obtain  no 
such  favour."  In  the  height  of  Sylla's  military 
executions,  when  his  portico  was  crowded  with 
persons,  who  brought  the  heads  of  the  proscribed 
to  be  exchanged  for  the  reward  that  was  offered 
for  them,  Cato  being  carried  by  his  tutor  to  pay 
his  court,  asked,  if  "  no  one  hated  this  man  enough 
to  kill  him  V1  "  Yes,  but  they  fear  him  still  more 
than  they  hate  him."  "  Then  give  me  a  sword," 
said  the  boy,  "and  I  will  kill  him."  Such  were 
the  early  indications  of  characters  which  after- 
wards became  so  conspicuous  in  the  common- 
wealth. 

With  the  unprecedented  degradation  of  the  tri- 
bune Octavius,  and  the  subsequent  murder  of 
Tiberius  Gracchus,  began  among  the  parties  at 
Rome,  a  scene  of  injuries  and  retaliations,  with 
intervals  of  anarchy  and  violent  usurpation,  which 
must  have  speedily  ended  in  the  ruin  of  the  com- 
monwealth, if  the  sword  had  not  passed  at  last 
into  hands  that  employed  it  for  the  restoration  of 
public  order,  as  well  as  for  the  avenging  of  pri- 
vate wrongs. 

It  is  indeed  probable,  that  none  of  the  parties 
in  these  horrid  scenes  had  a  deliberate  intention 
to  subvert  the  government,  but  all  of  them  treated 
the  forms  of  the  commonwealth  with  too  little  re- 
spect :  and  to  obtain  some  revenge  of  the  wrongs 
which  they  themselves  apprehended  or  endured, 
did  not  scruple  in  their  turn  to  violate  the  laws 
of  their  country.  But  to  those  who  wished  to 
preserve  the  commonwealth,  the  experience  of 
fifty  years  was  now  sufficient  to  show,  that  at- 
tempts to  restore  the  laws  by  illegal  methods,  and 
to  terminate  animosities  by  retorted  injuries  and 
provocations,  were  extremely  vain.  The  excess 
of  the  evil  had  a  tendency  to  exhaust  its  source, 
and  parties  began  to  nauseate  the  draught  of 
which  they  had  been  made  so  plentifully  to 
drink.  There  were,  nevertheless,  some  dregs  in 
the  bottom  of  the  cup,  and  the  supplies  of  faction 
which  were  brought  by  the  rising  generation, 
were  of  a  mixture  more  dangerous  than  those  of 
the  former  age.  The  example  of  Sylla,  who 
made  himself  lord  of  the  commonwealth  by  moans 
of  a  military  force,  and  the  security  with  which 
he  held  his  usurpation  during  pleasure,  had  a 
more  powerful  effect  in  exciting  the  thirst  of  do- 
minion, than  the  political  uses  which  he  made 
of  his  power,  or  his  magnanimity  in  resigning  it, 
had  to  restrain  or  to  correct  the  effects  of  that 
dangerous  precedent.  Adventurers  accordingly 
arose,  who,  without  provocation,  and  equally  in- 
different to  the  interests  of  party  as  they  were  to 
those  of  the  republic,  proceeded,  with  a  cool  and 
deliberate  purpose,  to  gratify  their  own  ambition 
and  avarice,  in  the  subversion  of  the  government 
of  their  country. 

While  Sylla  was  yet  alive,  mi- 
ll. C.  675.    lius  Lepidus,  a  man  of  profligate 
ambition,  but  of  mean  capacity,  sup- 


M.  JEm.  Lepi-  ported  by  the  remains  of  the  popu- 
dus  Q.  Lut.  lar  factiori)  stoo(]  for  the  consulate, 
Latuius,  tons.  gnd  wag  chosen^  together  with  Q. 
Lutatius  Catulus,  the  son  of  him  who,  with  Ma- 
rks, triumphed  for  their  joint  victory  over  the 
Cimbri,  and  who  afterwards  perished  by  the  or- 
ders of  that  usurper. 

Pompey  had  openly  declared  for  Lepidus,  and 
was  told  upon  that  occasion  by  Sylla,  that  he  was 
stirring  the  embers  of  a  fire  which  would  in  the 
end  consume  the  republic.  After  the  death  of 
Sylla  it  appeared,  from  a  mark  of  disapprobation 
well  known  to  the  Romans,  that  of  not  being 
mentioned  in  his  will,  that  Pompey  had  lost  his 
esteem.  This  prudent  young  man,  however,  in 
opposition  to  Lepidus  and  others,  who  wished  to 
insult  the  memory  of  Sylla,  was  among  the  first 
in  recommending  and  performing  the  honours 
that  were  paid  to  his  remains. 

Lepidus,  upon  his  accession  to  the  consulate, 
moved  for  a  recall  of  the  proscribed  exiles,  a  resti- 
tution of  the  forfeited  lands,  and  a  repeal  of  all 
the  ordinances  of  the  late  dictator.  This  motion 
was  formally  opposed  by  Catulus  ;  and  there  en- 
sued between  the  two  consuls  a  debate  which 
divided  the  city.  But  the  party  of  the  senate  pre- 
vailed to  have  the  motion  rejected. 

In  the  allotment  of  provinces  the  Transalpine 
Gaul  had  fallen  to  Lepidus;  and,  upon  his  mo- 
tion being  rejected  in  the  assembly  of  the  people, 
although  it  had  been  for  some  time  the  practice 
for  consuls  to  remain  at  Rome  during  their  con- 
tinuance in  office,  he  prepared  to  leave  the  city, 
in  order  to  take  possession  of  his  province.  This 
resolution,  as  it  implied  great  impatience  to  be  at 
the  head  of  an  army,  gave  some  jealousy  to  the 
senate,  who  dreaded  the  designs  of  a  consul  desi- 
rous to  join  military  power  with  his  civil  autho- 
rity. They  recollected  the  progress  of  sedition 
which  began  with  the  Gracchi  and  Apuleius 
raising  popular  tumults,  and  ended  with  Marius 
and  Sylla  leading  consular  armies  in  the  city, 
and  fighting  their  battles  in  the  streets.  And  in 
this  point  the  decisive  spirit  of  Sylla,  although  it 
may  have  snatched  the  commonwealth  from  the 
flames  by  which  it  began  to  be  consumed,  yet 
showed  the  way  to  its  ruin  in  the  means  which 
he  employed  to  preserve  it.3  The  senators  were 
willing  that  Lepidus  should  depart  from  the  city  ; 
but  they  had  the  precaution  to  exact  from  him  an 
th,  that  he  should  not  disturb  the  public  peace. 
This  oath,  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  any  par- 
ticular distrust  in  him,  they  likewise  exacted  from 
his  colleague.4 

Lepidus,  notwithstanding  his  oath,  being  ar- 
rived in  his  province,  made  preparations  for  war  ; 
and,  thinking  that  his  oath  was  binding  only 
while  he  remained  in  office,  determined  to  remain 
in  Gaul  at  the  head  of  his  forces  until  the  term 
was  expired.  The  senate,  in  order  to  remove  him 
from  the  army,  appointed  him  to  preside  at  the 
election  of  his  successor.  But  he  neglected  the 
summons  which  was  sent  to  him  for  this  purpose, 
and  the  year  of  the  present  consuls  was  by  this 
means  suffered  to  elapse,  before  any  election  was 
made. 

The  ordinary  succession  being  thus  interrupted, 
the  senate  named  Appius  Claudius,  as  interrex, 
to  hold  the  elections,  and  at  the  same  time  de- 
prived Lepidus  of  his  command  in  Gaul.  Upon 


3  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib. 


4  Ibid. 


148 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


this  information  he  hastened  to  Italy  with  the 
troops  he  had  already  assembled,  and  greatly 
alarmed  the  republic.  The  senate  gave  to  Ap- 
pius  Claudius,  and  to  Catulus,  in  the  quality  of 
proconsul,  the  usual  charge  to  watch  over  the 
safety  of  the  state.  These  officers  accordingly, 
without  delay,  collected  a  military  force,  while 
Lepidus  advanced  through  Etruria,  and  publish- 
ed a  manifesto,  in  which  he  invited  all  the  friends 
of  liberty  to  join  him,  and  made  a  formal  demand 
of  being  re-invested  with  the  consular  power.  In 
opposition  to  this  treasonable  act  of  Lepidus,  the 
senate  republished  the  law  of  Plautius,  by  which 
the  praetors  were  required,  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  justice,  to  take  cognizance  of  all  attempts  to 
levy  war  against  the  state,  and  joined  to  it  an  ad- 
ditional clause  or  resolution  of  their  own,  obliging 
those  magistrates  to  receive  accusations  of  trea- 
son on  holy-days,  as  well  as  on  ordinary  days 
of  business. 

Mean  time  Lepidus  advanced  to  the  gates  of 
Rome,  seized  the  Janiculum  and  one  of  the 
bridges  that  led  to  the  city.  He  was  met  by  Ca- 
tulus in  the  Campus  Martius,  repulsed  and  rout- 
ed. All  his  party  dispersed ;  he  himself  fled  to 
Sardinia,  and  soon  after  died.  His  son,  a  young 
man,  with  part  of  the  army,  retired  to  Alba,  and 
was  there  soon  after  taken,  and  suffered  for  a 
treason  in  which  he  was  engaged  by  his  father. 

Marcus  Brutus,  the  father  of  him  who,  in  the 
continuation  of  these  troubles,  afterwards  fell  at 
Philippi,  having  joined  with  Lepidus  in  this  rash 
and  profligate  attempt  against  the  republic,  was 
obliged  at  Mantua  to  surrender  himself  to  Pom- 
pey,  and,  by  his  orders,  was  put  to  death.  But 
the  most  considerable  part  of  the  army  of  Lepi- 
dus penetrated,  under  the  conduct  of  Perpenna, 
into  Spain,  and  joined  Sertorius,  who  was  now 
become  the  refuge  of  one  party  in  its  distress,  as 
Sylla  had  formerly  been  of  the  other.  In  this 
province  accordingly,  while  peace  began  to  be 
restored  in  Italy,  a  source  of  new  troubles  was 
opening  for  the  state.  The  prevailing  party  in 
the  city  was  willing  to  grant  an  indemnity,  and  to 
suffer  all  prosecution,  on  account  of  the  late  of- 
fences, to  drop ;  the  extreme  to  which  Sylla  had 
carried  the  severity  of  his  executions,  disposing 
the  minds  of  men  to  the  opposite  course  of  in- 
dulgence and  mercy. 

Before  the  arrival  of  Lepidus  with  his  army  in 
Italy,  Mithridates  had  sent  to  obtain  from  the 
senate  a  ratification  of  the  treaty  he  had  con- 
cluded with  Sylla :  but  upon  a  complaint  from 
Ariobarzanes,  that  the  king  of  Pontus  had  not 
himself  performed  his  part  of  that  treaty  by  the 
complete  restitution  of  Cappadocia,  he  was  di- 
rected to  give  full  satisfaction  on  this  point  before 
his  negotiation  at  Rome  could  proceed.  He  ac- 
cordingly complied  ;  but  by  the  time  his  ambas- 
sador brought  the  report,  the  Romans  were  so 
much  occupied  by  the  war  they  had  to  maintain 
against  Lepidus  and  his  adherents,  that  they  had 
no  leisure  for  foreign  affairs.  This  intelligence 
encouraged  Mithridates  to  think  of  renewing  the 
war.  Sensible  that  he  could  not  rely  on  a  per- 
manent peace  with  the  Roman  republic,  he  had 
already  provided  an  army,  not  so  considerable  in 
respect  to  numbers  as  that  which  he  formerly 
had,  but  more  formidable  by  the  order  and  dis- 
cipline he  had  endeavoured  to  introduce  on  the 
model  of  the  legion.  He  flattered  himself  that 
the  distraction  under  which  the  Romans  now  la- 


boured at  home,  would  render  them  unable  to 
resist  his  forces  in  Asia,  and  give  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  remove  the  only  obstruction  that  re- 
mained to  his  own  conquests.  He  avoided,  in 
the  time  of  a  negotiation,  and  without  the  pretext 
of  a  new  provocation,  to  break  out  into  open 
hostilities ;  but  he  encouraged  his  son-in-law  Ti- 
granes,  king  of  Armenia,  to  make  war  on  the 
Roman  allies  in  his  neighbourhood,  and  thereby 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  quarrel  which  he  might 
either  adopt  or  decline  at  pleasure.  This  prince 
accordingly,  being  then  building  a  city,  under  the 
name  of  Tigranocerta,  for  which  he  wanted  in- 
habitants, made  an  incursion  into  the  kingdom  of 
Cappadocia,  carried  off  from  thence  three  hundred 
thousand  of  the  people  to  replenish  his  new  set- 
tlement. 

Soon  after  this  infraction  of  the  peace,  Mith- 
ridates, in  order  to  have  the  co-operation  of  some 
of  the  parties  into  which  the  Roman  state  was 
divided,  entered  into  a  treaty  with  Sertorius,  and 
wished,  in  concert  with  this  general,  to  execute 
the  project  of  a  march,  by  a  route  aftei*wards 
practised  by  the  barbarians  who  invaded  the  Ro- 
man empire.  From  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  it 
appeared  easy  to  pass  over  land  to  the  Adriatic, 
and  once  more  to  repeat  the  operations  of  Pyrrhus 
and  of  Hannibal,  by  making  war  on  the  Romans 
in  their  own  country. 

Sertorius,  who  had  erected  the  standard  of  the 
republic  in  Spain,  gave  refuge  to  the  Roman  ex- 
iles from  every  quarter,  and  was  now  at  the  head 
of  a  formidable  power,  composed  of  Italians  as 
well  as  natives  of  that  country.  By  his  birth  and 
abilities  he  had  pretensions  to  the  highest  prefer- 
ments of  the  state,  and  had  been  early  distin- 
guished as  a  soldier,  qualified  either  to  plan  or  to 
execute.  He  was  attached  to  Marius  in  the 
time  of  the  Cimbric  war,  and  became  a  party 
with  this  leader  in  his  quarrel  with  Sylla.  His 
animosity  to  the  latter  was  increased  by  the  mu- 
tual opposition  of  their  interests  in  the  pursuit  of 
civil  preferments.  At  the  beginning  of  the  civil 
war,  Sertorius  took  an  active  part,  but  showed 
more  respect  to  the  constitution  of  his  country, 
and  more  mercy  to  those  who  were  opposed  to 
him,  than  either  of  his  associates  Marius  or  Chi- 
na. When  his  party  were  in  possession  of  the 
government,  he  was  appointed  to  command  in 
Spain,  and  after  the  ruin  of  their  affairs  in  Italy, 
withdrew  into  that  province.  He  was  received 
as  a  Roman  governor ;  but,  soon  after  the  other 
party  prevailed  in  Italy,  was  attacked  on  their 
part  by  Caius  Annius,  who  came  with  a  proper 
force  to  dislodge  him.  He  had  established  posts 
on  the  Pyrenees  for  the  security  of  his  province ; 
but  the  officer  to  whom  they  were  entrusted  be- 
ing assassinated,  and  the  stations  deserted,  the 
enemy  had  free  access  on  that  side.  Not  in  con- 
dition to  maintain  himself  any  longer  in  Spain, 
he  embarked  with  what  forces  he  had  at  Car- 
thagena,  and  continued  for  some  years,  with  a 
small  squadron  of  Cilician  galleys,  to  subsist  by 
the  spoils  of  Africa  and  the  contiguous  coasts. 
In  this  state  of  his  fortunes  he  formed  a  project 
to  visit  the  Fortunate  Islands,  and  if  a  settlement 
could  be  effected  there,  to  bid  farewell  for  ever  to 
the  Roman  world ;  to  its  factions,  its  divisions, 
and  its  troubles.  But  while  he  was  about  to  set 
sail  in  search  of  this  famous  retreat  in  the  ocean, 
he  received  an  invitation  from  the  unsubdued 
natives  of  Lusitania  to  become  their  leader.  At 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


149 


heir  head  his  abilities  soon  made  him  conspicu- 
ous. He  affected  to  consider  the  Lusitanians  as 
the  senate  and  people  of  Rome,  treating  the 
establishment  of  Sylla  in  Italy  as  a  mere  usurpa- 
tion. He  himself  took  the  ensigns  of  a  Roman 
officer  of  state,  selected  three  hundred  of  his  fol- 
lowers, to  whom  he  gave  the  title  of  senate,  and 
in  all  his  transactions  with  foreign  nations,  as- 
sumed the  name  and  style  of  the  Roman  repub- 
lic. In  treating  with  Mithridates  he  refused  to 
cede  the  province  of  Asia,  or  to  purchase  the 
alliance  of  that  prince  by  any  concessions  in- 
jurious to  the  Roman  empire,  of  which  he  af- 
fected to  consider  himself  and  his  senate  as  the 
legal  head. 

While  Sertorius  was  acting  this  farce,  the  re- 

Eort  of  his  formidable  power,  the  late  accession 
e  had  gained  by  the  junction  of  some  of  the 
Marian  forces  under  the  command  of  Perpenna, 
and  his  supposed  preparations  to  make  a  descent 
upon  Italy,  gave  an  alarm  at  Rome.  Metellus 
had  been  some  time  employed  against  him  in 
Spain ;  but  being  scarcely  able  to  keep  the  field, 
his  opposition  tended  only  to  augment  the  repu- 
tation of  his  antagonist.  The  con- 
U.  C.  676.  suls  lately  elected  were  judged  un- 
D  Junius  equal  to  this  war,  and  the  thoughts 
Brutus,  «  of  all  men  were  turned  on  Pom- 
Mam.  RmtH-  pey,  who,  though  yet  in  no  public 
anus  Livia-  character,  nor  arrived  at  the  legal 
age  of  state  preferments,  had  the 
address  on  this,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  to 
make  himself  be  pointed  at  as  the  only  person 
who  could  effectually  serve  the  republic.  He  was 
accordingly,  with  the  title  of  proconsul,  joined  to 
Metellus  in  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  Spain.1  It 
no  doubt  facilitated  the  career  of  this  young  man's 
pretensions,  that  few  men  of  distinguished  abili- 
ties were  now  in  view  to  sustain  the  fortunes  of 
the  republic.  Such  men,  of  whatever  party,  had 
always,  in  their  turns,  been  the  first  victims  of 
the  late  violent  massacres  ;  and  the  party  of  Sylla, 
which  was  now  the  republic,  when  considered  as 
a  nursery  of  eminent  men,  had  some  disadvan- 
tage, perhaps  in  the  superiority  of  its  leader,  who 
was  himself  equal  to  all  its  affairs,  and  taught 
others  to  confide  and  obey,  not  to  act  for  them- 
selves. Pompey  was  not  of  an  age  to  have  suf- 
fered from  this  influence.  He  came  into  the  pari  v 
in  its  busiest  time,  and  had  been  entrusted  wu\\ 
•separate  commands.  He  had  already  obtained 
for  himself  part  of  that  artificiaP  consideration 
which,  though  it  cannot  be  supported  without 
abilities,  often  exceeds  the  degree  of  merit  on 
which  it  is  founded  ;  and  this  consideration  to  the 
end  of  his  life  he  continued  to  augment  with 
much  attention  and  many  concerted  intrigues. 
He  had  a  genius  for  war,  and  was  now  about  to 
improve  it  in  the  contest  with  Sertorius,  an  ex- 
cellent master,  whose  lessons  were  rough  but  in- 
structive 

Pompey,  having  made  the  levies  destined  for 
this  service,  passed  the  Alps  by  a  new  route,  and 
was  the  first  Roman  general  who  made  his  way 
into  Spain  through  Gaul  and  the  Pyrenees.  Soon 
after  his  arrival,  a  legion  that  covered  the  fora- 
gers of  his  army  was  intercepted  and  cut  off  by 
the  enemy.  Sertorius  was  engaged  in  the  siege 
of  Laura.    Pompey  advanced  to  relieve  it.  Ser- 

1  Claudius,  in  making  this  motion,  alluding  to  the 
insignificance  of  both  consuls,  said,  that  Pompey 
should  be  sent  pro  consulibus. 


torius,  upon  his  approach,  took  post  on  an  emi- 
nence. Pompey  prepared  to  attack  him,  and  the 
besieged  had  hopes  of  immediate  relief.  But  Ser- 
torius had  made  his  disposition  in  such  a  manner, 
that  Pompey  could  not  advance  without  exposing 
his  own  rear  to  a  party  that  was  placed  to  attack 
him.  "  I  will  teach  this  pupil  of  Sylla,"  he  said, 
"  to  look  behind  as  well  as  before  him  ;"  and  Pom- 
pey, seeing  his  danger,  chose  to  withdraw,  leaving 
the  town  of  Laura  to  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands, 
while  he  himself  continued  a  spectator  of  the 
siege,  and  of  the  destruction  of  the  place.  After 
this  unsuccessful  beginning  of  the  war,  he  was 
obliged  to  retire  into  Gaul  for  the  winter.2 

The  following  year,  Cn.  Octa- 
U.  C.  677.  vius  and  C.  Scribonius  Curio  be- 
Cn.  Octavius,  in£  consuls,  Pompey  still  remained 
C.  Scribonius  in  his  command  ;  and,  having  re- 
Curio.  passed  the  Pyrenees,  directed  his 

march  to  join  Metellus.  Sertorius 
lay  on  the  Sucro,3  and  wished  to  engage  him  be- 
fore the  junction  ;  and  Pompey,  on  his  part,  be- 
ing desirous  to  reap  the  glory  of  a  separate  victory, 
an  action  ensued,  in  which  the  wing  on  which 
Pompey  fought  was  defeated  by  Sertorius ;  but 
the  other  wing  had  the  victory  over  Perpenna. 
As  Sertorius  was  about  to  renew  the  action  on 
the  following  day,  he  was  prevented  by  the  ar- 
rival of  Metellus.  "  If  the  old  woman  had  not 
interposed,"  he  said,  "  I  should  have  whipt  the 
boy,  and  sent  him  back  to  his  schools  at  Rome." 

This  war  continued  alnnit  two  years  longer 
with  various  success,  but  without  any  memorable 
event,  until  it  ended  by  the  death  of  Sertorius, 
who,  at  the  instigation  of  Perpenna,  was  betrayed 
and  assassinated  by  a  few  of  his  own  attendants. 
Perpenna,  having  removed  Sertorius  by  this  base 
action,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  army,  and 
endeavoured  to  keep  them  united,  at  least  until 
he  should  l>e  able  to  purchase  his  peace  at  Rome. 
He  was,  however,  deserted  by  nunil>ers  of  his 
own  people,  and  at  last  surprised  by  Pompey,  and 
slain.  He  had  made  oilers  to  disclose  the  secrets 
of  the  party,  and  to  produce  the  correspondence 
which  many  of  the  principal  citizens  at  Rome 
held  with  Sertorius,  inviting  him  to  return  into 
Italy,  and  promising  to  join  him  w  ith  a  formidable 
power.  The  letters  were  secured  by  Pompev, 
and,  without  being  opened,  were  burned.  So 
masterly  an  act  of  prudence,  in  a  person  who 
was  yet  considered  as  a  young  man,  has  been 
deservedly  admired.  It  served  to  extinguish  all 
the  remains  of  the  Marian  faction,  and  reconciled 
men,  otherwise  disaffected,  to  a  situation  in 
which  they  were  assured  of  impunity  and  con- 
cealment. 

While  Pompey  was  thus  gathering  laurels  in 
the  field,  C.  Julius  Cffisar,  being  about  seven  years 
younger,  that  is,  twenty-three  years  of  age,  was 
returned  from  Asia ;  and  to  make  some  trial  of 
his  parts,  laid  an  accusation  against  Dolalndla, 
late  proconsul  of  Macedonia,  for  oppression  and 
extortion  in  his  province.  Cottaand  Hortensius, 
appearing  for  the  defendant,  procured  his  acquit- 
tal. Cicero  says,  that  he  himself  was  then  re- 
turned from  a  journey  he  had  made  into  Asia, 
and  was  present  at  this  trial.  The  following  year 
Cffisar  left  Rome,  with  intention  to  pass  some  time 
under  a  celebrated  master  of  rhetoric  at  Rhodes. 


2  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio  et  Seitorio.  Appian  Liv 
Obsequens.  Frontinus  Stratagem,  lib.  ii.  c.  5. 

3  The  Xucar,  which  falls  into  the  Bay  of  Valentia. 


150 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III 


In  his  way  he  was  taken  by  pirates,  and  detained 
about  forty  days,  until  he  found  means  to  procure 
from  Metellus  a  sum  of  fifty  talents,1  which  was 
paid  for  his  ransom.  He  had  frequently  told  the 
pirates,  while  yet  in  their  hands,  that  he  would 
punish  their  insolence ;  and  he  now  told  them  to 
expect  the  performance  of  his  promise.  Upon 
being  set  on  shore,  he  assembled  and  armed  some 
vessels  on  the  coast,  pursued  and  took  his  cap- 
tors. Leaving  his  prisoners  where  he  landed,  he 
hastened  to  Junius  Silanus,  the  proconsul  of 
Bithynia,  and  applied  for  an  order  to  have  them 
executed;  but  being  refused  by  this  officer,  he 
made  his  way  back  with  still  greater  despatch, 
and,  before  any  instructions  could  arrive  to  the 
contrary,  had  the  pirates  nailed  to  the  cross. 
Such  lawless  banditti  had  long  infested  the  seas 
of  Asia  and  of  Greece,  and  furnished  at  times  no 
inconsiderable  employment  to  the  arms  of  the  re- 
public. Servilius  Vatia,  who  afterwards  bore  the 
title  of  Isauricus,  had  lately  been  employed  against 
them,  and  after  clearing  the  seas,  endeavoured  like- 
wise to  destroy  or  secure  their  ports  and  strong- 
holds on  shore.  They,  nevertheless,  recovered  this 
blow,  and  continued  to  appear  at  intervals  in  new 
swarms,  and  to  the  great  interruption  of  commerce 
by  sea,  and  of  all  the  communications  in  the  empire. 

Under  the  reformations  of  Sylla,  which,  by  dis- 
arming the  tribunitian  power,  in  a  great  measure 
shut  up  the  source  of  former  disorders,  the  re- 
public was  now  restored  to  some  degree  of  tran- 
quillity, and  resumed  its  attention  to  the  ordinary 
objects  of  peace.  The  bridge  on  the  Tiber,  which 
had  been  erected  of  wood,  was  taken  down  and 
rebuilt  with  stone;  bearing  the  name  of  iEmi- 
lius,  one  of  the  questors  under  whose  inspection 
the  fabric  had  been  reared ;  and  as  a  public  work 
of  still  greater  consequence,  it  is  mentioned,  that 
a  treatise  on  agriculture,  the  production  of  Mago 
a  Carthaginian,  and  in  the  language  of  Carthage, 
was,  by  the  express  orders  of  the  senate,  now 
translated  into  Latin.  At  the  reduction  of  Car- 
thage, the  Romans  were  yet  governed  by  hus- 
bandmen, and,  amidst  the  literary  spoils  of  that 
city,  this  book  alone,  consisting  of  twenty-eight 
rolls  or  volumes,  was  supposed  to  merit  public 
attention,  and  was  secured  for  the  state.  A 
number  of  persons,  skilled  in  the  Punic  language, 
together  with  Silanus,  who  had  the  principal 
charge  of  the  work,  were  employed  in  translat- 
ing it.2 

The  calm,  however,  which  the  republic  en- 
joyed under  the  ascendant  of  the  aristocracy,  was 
not  altogether  undisturbed.  In  the  consulate  of 
Cn.  Octavius  and  C.  Scribonius  Curio,  the  tri- 
bune Licinius  made  an  attempt  to  recover  the 
former  powers  of  the  office.  He  ventured,  in 
presence  of  both  the  consuls,  to  harangue  the 
people,  and  exhorted  them  to  reassume  their  an- 
cient rights.  As  a  circumstance  which  serves  to 
mark  the  petulant  boldness  of  these  men,  it  is 
mentioned  that  the  consul  Octavius,  on  this  occa- 
sion, being  ill,  was  muffled  up,  and  covered  with 
a.  dressing  which  brought  flies  in  great  numbers 
about  him.  His  colleague  Curio,  having  made 
a  vehement  speech,  at  the  close  of  it,  the  tribune 
called  out  to  Octavius,  "You  never  can  repay 
your  colleague's  service  of  this  day ;  if  he  had  not 
been  near  you,  while  he  made  this  speech,  and  beat 
the  air  so  much  with  his  gesticulations,  the  flies 


1  Near  to  10,000/.         2  Plin.  lib.  xviii.  c.  3. 


must  by  this  time  have  eaten  you  up."3  The 
sequel  is  imperfectly  known  ;  but  the  dispute  ap 
pears  to  have  been  carried  to  a  great  height,  and 
to  have  ended  in  a  tumult,  in  which  the  tribune 
Licinius  was  killed. 

Upon  a  review  of  Sylla's  acts  intended  to  re- 
store the  authority  of  the  senate,  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned, whether  that  clause  in  the  law  relating  to 
the  tribunes,  by  which  all  persons  having  accept- 
ed of  this  office  were  excluded  from  any  further 
preferment  in  the  state,  may  not  have  had  an  ill 
effect,  and  required  correction.  It  rendered  the 
tribunate  an  object  only  to  the  meanest  of  the 
senators,  who,  upon  their  acceptance  of  it,  ceasing 
to  have  any  pretensions  to  the  higher  offices  of 
state,  were,  by  this  means,  deprived  of  any  inter- 
est in  the  government,  and  exasperated  against 
the  higher  dignities  of  the  commonwealth.  Au- 
relius  Cotta,  one  of  the  consuls  that 
U.  C.  678.  succeeded  Cn.  Octavius  and  Curio, 
L  Octavius  move(^  perhaps  by  this  consider- 
ed Aurelius  ation>  proposed  to  have  that  clause 
Cotta.  repealed,  and  was  warmly  support- 

ed by  the  tribune  Opimius,  who, 
contrary  to  the  prohibition  lately  enacted,  ven- 
tured to  harangue  the  people ;  and  for  this  offence, 
at  the  expiration  of  his  office,  was  tried  and  con- 
demned.4 

By  the  defects  which  the  people  began  to  ap- 
prehend in  their  present  institutions,  or  by  the 
part  which  their  demagogues  began  to  take 
against  the  aristocracy,  the  Roman  state,  after 
a  very  short  respite,  began  to  relapse  into  its  for- 
mer troubles,  and  was  again  to  exhibit  the  curious 
spectacle  of  a  nation  divided  against  itself,  broken 
and  distracted  in  its  councils,  which  nevertheless 
prevailed  in  all  its  operations  abroad,  and  gained 
continual  accessions  of  empire,  under  the  effect 
of  convulsions  which  shook  the  commonwealth 
itself  to  its  base ;  and,  what  is  still  less  to  be  par- 
alleled in  the  history  of  mankind,  was  to  exhibit 
the  spectacle  of  a  nation,  which  proceeded  in  its 
affairs  abroad  with  a  success  that  may  be  imputed 
in  a  great  measure  to  its  divisions  at  home. 

War,  in  the  detail  of  its  operations,  if  not  even 
in  the  formation  of  its  plans,  is  more  likely  to 
succeed  under  single  men  than  under  numerous 
councils.  The  Roman  constitution,  though  far 
from  an  arrangement  proper  to  preserve  domestic 
peace  and  tranquillity,  was  an  excellent  nursery 
of  statesmen  and  warriors.  To  persons  brought, 
up  in  this  school,  all  foreign  affairs  were  com- 
mitted with  little  responsibility  and  less  control. 
The  ruling  passion,  even  of  the  least  virtuous 
citizens,  during  some  ages,  was  the  ambition  of 
being  considerable,  and  of  rising  to  the  highest 
dignities  of  the  state  at  home.  They  enjoyed 
the  condition  of  monarchs  in  the  provinces ;  bu 
they  valued  this  condition  only  as  it  furnished 
them  with  the  occasion  of  triumphs,  and  contri- 
buted to  their  importance  at  Rome.  They  were 
factious  and  turbulent  in  their  competition  for 
power  and  honours  in  the  capital ;  but,  in  order 
the  better  to  support  that  very  contest,  were  faith- 
ful and  inflexible,  in  maintaining  all  the  preten- 
sions of  the  state  abroad.  Thus  Sylla,  though 
deprived  of  his  command  by  an  act  of  the  opposite 
party  at  Rome,  and  with  many  of  his  friends, 
who  escaped  from  the  bloody  hands  of  their  per- 


3  Cicero  de  Claris  Oratoribus. 

4  Cicero,  3tio,  in  Verrem,  et  Pfedianus,  ibid 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  151 


Chap.  I.] 

seen  tors,  condemned  and  outlawed,  still  main- 
tained the  part  of  a  Roman  officer  of  state,  and 
prescribed  to  Mithridates,  as  might  have  been 
expected  from  him  in  the  most  undisturbed  exer- 
cise of  his  trust.  Sertorius,  in  the  same  manner, 
acting  for  the  opposite  faction,  in  some  measure 
preserved  a  similar  dignity  of  character,  and 
refused  to  make  concessions  unworthy  of  the 
Roman  republic.  Contrary  to  the  fate  of  other 
nations,  where  the  state  is  weak,  while  the  con- 
duct of  individuals  is  regular  ;  here  the  state  was 
in  vigour,  while  the  conduct  of  individuals  was 
in  the  highest  degree  irregular  and  wild. 

The  reputation,  as  well  as  the  arms  of  the 
Romans,  procured  them  accessions  of  territory 
without  labour,  and  without  expense.  Kingdoms 
were  bequeathed  to  them  by  will ;  as  that  of  Per- 
gamus,  formerly,  by  the  will  of  Attalus ;  that  of 
Cyrene  by  the  will  of  Ptolemy  Apion ;  and  that 
of  Bithynia,  about  this  time,  by  the  will  of  Nico- 
medes.  To  the  same  effect,  princes  and  states, 
where  they  did  not  make  any  formal  cession  of 
their  sovereignty,  did  somewhat  equivalent,  by 
submitting  their  rights  to  discussion  at  Rome, 
and  by  soliciting  grants  from  the  Romans  of 
which  the  world  now  seemed  to  acknowledge 
the  validity,  by  having  recourse  to  them  as  the 
basis  of  tenures  by  which  they  held  their  posses- 
sions. In  this  manner,  the  sons  of  the  last  An- 
tiochus,  king  of  Syria,  stated  themselves  as  sub- 
jects or  dependents  of  the  Roman  people,  having 
passed  two  years  at  Rome,  waiting  decisions  of 
the  senate,  and  soliciting  a  grant  of  the  kingdom 
of  Egypt,  on  which  they  formed  some  pretensions. 

In  Asia,  by  these  means,  the  Roman  empire 
advanced  on  the  ruin  of  those  who  had  formerly 
opposed  its  progress.  The  Macedonian  line,  in 
the  monarchy  of  Syria,  was  now  broke  off,  or 
extinct.  The  kingdom  itself,  consisting  of  many 
provinces,  began  to  be  dismembered,  on  the  de- 
Feat  of  Antiochus  at  Sipylus,  by  the  defection  of 
provincial  governors  and  tributary  princes,  who, 
no  longer  awed  by  the  power  of  their  former 
master,  entered  into  a  correspondence  with  the 
Romans,  and  were  by  them  acknowledged  as 
sovereigns.  In  this  manner  the  states  of  Arme- 
nia, long  subject  to  the  Persians,  and  afterwards 
to  the  Macedonians,  now  became  the  seat  of  a 
new  monarchy  under  Tigranes.  And,  to  com- 
plete this  revolution,  the  natives  of  Syria,  weary 
of  the  degeneracy  and  weakness  of  their  own 
court,  of  the  irregularity  of  the  succession  to  the 
throne  of  their  own  kingdom  ;  weary  of  the  fre- 
quent competitions  which  involved  them  in  blood, 
invited  Tigranes  to  wield  a  sceptre  "which  the 
descendants  of  Seleucus  were  no  longer  in  con- 
dition to  hold.  This  prince,  accordingly,  ex- 
tended his  kingdom  to  both  sides  of  the  Euphrates, 
and  held  Syria  itself  as  one  of  its  divisions.5 

In  these  circumstances,  the  Romans  were  left 
undisturbed  to  re-establish  their  province  in  the 
Lesser  Asia:  and  under  the  auspices  of  Servilius, 
who,  from  his  principal  acquisition  in  those  parts, 
had  the  name  Isauricus,  were  extending  their 
limits  on  the  side  of  Cilicia,  and  were  hastening 
to  the  sovereignty  of  that  coast,  when  their  pro- 
gress was  suddenly  checked  by  the  re-appearance 
of  an  enemy,  who  had  already  given  them  much 
trouble  in  that  quarter. 


Mithridates,  king  pf  Pontus,  who  appears  to 
have  revived  in  his  own  breast  the  animosities  of 
Pyrrhus  and  of  Hannibal  against  the  Romans, 
had  never  ceased,  since  the  date  of  his  last  mor- 
tifying treaty  with  Sylla,  to  devise  the  means  of 
renewing  the  war.  Having  attempted  in  vain 
to  engage  Sylla  in  a  league  with  himself  against 
the  Romans,  he  made  a  similar  attempt  on  Ser- 
torius in  Spain.  Affecting  to  consider  this  fu- 
gitive, with  his  little  senate,  as  heads  of  the 
republic,  he  pressed  for  a  cession  of  the  Roman 
province  in  Asia  in  his  own  favour,  and  in  re- 
turn offered  to  assist  the  followers  of  Sertorius 
with  all  his  forces  in  the  recovery  of  Italy.  In 
this  negotiation,  however,  he  found,  as  has  been 
already  remarked,  that  whoever  assumed  the 
character  of  a  Roman  officer  of  state,  supported 
it  with  a  like  inflexible  dignit}^.  Sertorius  re- 
fused to  dismember  the  empire,  but  accepted  of 
the  proffered  aid  from  Mithridates,  and  agreed  to 
send  him  Roman  officers  to  assist  in  the  forma- 
tion and  discipline  of  his  army. 

The  king  of  Pontus,  now  bent  on  correcting 
the  error  which  is  common  in  extensive  and  bar- 
barous monarchies,  of  relying  entirely  on  num- 
bers, instead  of  discipline  and  military  skill,  pro- 
posed to  form  a  more  regular  army  than  that 
which  he  had  assembled  in  the  former  war;  and, 
however  little  successful  in  his  endeavours,  meant 
to  rival  his  enemy  in  every  particular  of  their 
discipline,  in  the  use  of  their  weapons,  and  in  the 
form  of  their  legion.  With  troops  beginning  to 
make  these  reformations,  and  amounting  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  foot,  and  sixteen 
thousand  horse,  he  declared  war  on  the  Romans, 
and,  without  resistance,  took  possession  of  Cap- 
padocia,  and  Phrygia,  beyond  the  bounds  they 
liad  set  to  his  kingdom.  As  he  was  to  act  both 
by  sea  and  by  land,  he  began  with  customary 
oblations  to  Neptune  and  to  Mars.  To  the  first 
he  made  an  offering  of  a  splendid  carriage,  drawn 
by  white  horses,  which  he  precipitated  and  sunk 
in  the  sea;  to  the  other  he  made  a  sacrifice, 
which,  as  described  by  the  historian,6  filled  the 
imagination  more  than  any  of  the  rites  usually 
practised  by  ancient  nations.  The  king,  with 
his  army,  ascended  the  highest  mountain  on  their 
route,  formed  on  its  summit  a  great  pile  of  wood, 
of  which  he  himself  laid  the  first  materials,  and 
ordered  the  fabric  to  be  raised  in  a  nyramidical 
form  to  a  great  height.  The  top  was  loaded  with 
offerings  of  honey,  milk,  oil,  wine,  and  perfumes. 
As  soon  as  it  was  finished,  the  army  around  it 
began  the  solemnity  with  a  feast,  at  the  end  of 
which  the  pile  was  set  on  fire,  and  in  proportion 
as  the  heat  increased,  the  army  extended  their 
circle,  and  came  down  from  the  mountain.  The 
flames  continued  to  ascend  for  many  days,  and 
were  seen,  it  is  said,  at  the  distance  of  a  thousand 
stadia,  or  above  a  hundred  miles.7 

After  this  solemnity  was  over,  Mithridates  en- 
deavoured to  animate  and  to  unite  in  a  common 
zeal  for  his  cause  the  different  nations  that  were 
collected  from  remote  parts  of  the  empire,  to  form 
his  army.  For  this  purpose  he  enumerated  the 
successes  by  which  he  had  raised  his  kingdom  to 
its  present  pitch  of  greatness,  and  represented 
the  numerous  vices  of  the  enemy  with  whom  he 
was  now  to  engage,  their  divisions  at  home  ano 


5  Strabo.  lib.  xi.  tine. 


G  Appian. 


:  [bid.  dc  Bell.  Mithridat. 


152 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[BOOK  III. 


their  oppression  abroad,  their  avarice,  and  insati- 
able lust  of  dominion. 

The  Romans  were  some  time  undetermined 
whom  they  should  employ  against  this  formidable 
enemy.  Pompey,  being  still  in  Spain,  saw  with 
regret  this  service  likely  to  fall  to  the  share  of 
another ;  and  he  had  his  partizans  at  Rome  who 
would  have  gladly  put  off  the  nomination  of  any 
general  to  this  command,  until  he  himself  could 
arrive  with  his  army  to  receive  it.  He  accord- 
ingly about  this  time  wrote  a  letter  to  the  senate, 
complaining,  in  petulant  terms,  of  their  neglect, 
and  of  the  straits  to  which  the  troops  under  his 
command  were  reduced  for  want  of  pay  and  pro- 
visions, and  threatening,  if  not  speedily  supplied, 
to  march  into  Italy.  The  consul  Lucullus,  ap- 
prehending the  consequence  of  Pompey's  pre- 
sence in  Italy,  at  the  head  of  an  army,  and  wish- 
ing not  to  furnish  him  with  any  pretence  for 
leaving  his  present  province,  had  the  army  in 
Spain  completely  supplied,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
took  proper  measures  to  support  his  own  preten- 
sions to  the  command  in  Asia.  From  his  rank 
as  the  consul  in  office,  he  had  a  natural  claim  to 
this  station  ;  and  from  his  knowledge  of  the  coun- 
try and  of  the  war1  with  this  very  enemy,  in 
which  he  had  already  borne  some  part  under  Syl- 
la,2  was  entitled  to  plead  his  qualifications  and 
his  merits. 

When  the  provinces  came  to  be  distributed,  the 
difficulties  which  presented  themselves  in  Asia 
were  thought  to  require  the  presence  of  both  the 
consuls.  The  kingdom  of  Bithynia,  which  had 
been  lately  bequeathed  to  the  Romans,  was  in 
danger  of  being  invaded  before  they  could  obtain 
a  formal  possession  of  this  inheritance;  at  the 
same  time  that  the  enemy,  by  whom  they  were 
threatened,  was  not  likely  to  limit  his  operations 
to  the  attack  of  that  country.  Of  the  consuls, 
Cotta  was  appointed  to  seize  on  the  kingdom  of 
Bithynia,  and  Lucullus  to  lead  the  army  against 
Mithridates  wherever  else  he  should  carry  the 
war.  Cotta  set  out  immediately  for  his  province. 
Lucullus,  being  detained  in  making  the  necessary 
levies,  followed  some  time  afterwards ;  but  before 
his  arrival  in  Asia,  the  king  of  Pontus  had  already 
invaded  Bithynia,  defeated  the  forces  of  Cotta, 
and  obliged  him  to  take  refuge  in  Chalcedonia. 
The  king  of  Pontus,  being  superior  both  by  sea 
and  by  land,  over-ran  the  country  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  this  place;  and,  having  broke  the 
chain  which  shut  up  the  mouth  of  the  harbour, 
he  entered  and  burnt  some  Roman  gallies,  which 
were  stationed  there.  Not  thinking  it  advisable 
to  attack  the  town  of  Chalcedonia,  he  turned  his 
forces  against  Cyzicus,  a  port  on  the  Propontis, 
blocked  up  the  place  both  by  sea  and  by  land ; 


1  Vide  Ciceronis  in  Lucullo,  c.  1  &  2. 
'2  Plutarch,  in  Lucull.  initio,  edit.  Lond.  4to.  vol.  iii. 
p.  137. 

Cicero  is  often  quoted  to  prove  that  Lucullus,  at  this 
time,  was  a  mere  novice  in  war,  and  owed  the  know- 
ledge by  which  he  came  to  be  distinguished,  to  specu- 
lation and  study,  not  to  experience.  It  is  observed  by 
lord  Bolingbroke,  that  Cicero  had  an  interest  in  hav- 
ing it  believed,  that  great  officers  might  be  formed  in 
this  manner;  and  it  is  probable,  that  he  affected  to 
consider  the  part  which  was  assigned  to  Lucullus  by 
Sylla,  as  mere  civil  employment.  He  is  mentioned  as 
having  charge  of  the  coinage  with  which  Sylla  paid 
his  army,  and  of  the  fleet  with  which  he  transported 
them  into  Asia:  but  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that 
these  were  the  only  operations  confided  by  Sylla  to  a 
lieutenant  of  so  much  ability. 


!  and,  being  well  provided  with  battering  engines, 
and  the  other  necessaries  of  a  siege,  he  had  hopes 
of  being  soon  able  to  reduce  it  by  storm.  The 
inhabitants,  nevertheless,  prepared  for  their  de- 
fence, in  expectation  of  being  speedily  relieved  by 
the  Romans. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Lucullus  ar- 
rived in  Asia ;  and  having  joined  his  new  levies 
to  the  legions  which  had  served  under  Fimbria, 
and  to  the  other  troops  already  in  the  province, 
he  assembled  an  army  of  about  thirty  thousand 
men,  with  which  he  advanced  to  re-establish 
Cotta  in  his  province,  and  to  relieve  the  town  of 
Cyzicus.  The  king  of  Pontus,  being  elated  by 
his  successes,  and  by  the  superiority  of  his  num- 
bers, gave  no  attention  to  the  motions  of  Lucul- 
lus, suffered  him  to  get  possession  of  the  heights 
in  his  rear,  and  to  cut  off"  his  principal  supplies 
of  provisions  and  forage.  Trusting,  however, 
that  his  magazines  would  not  be  exhausted  be- 
fore he  should  have  forced  the  town  of  Cyzicus 
to  surrender,  he  continued  the  siege.  But  his 
engines  not  being  well  served,  and  the  defence 
being  obstinate,  his  army  began  to  be  distressed 
for  want  of  provisions,  and  it  became  necessary 
to  lessen  his  consumption.  For  this  purpose  he 
secretly  moved  away  part  of  his  cavalry.  These 
were  intercepted  by  the  Romans  on  their  march, 
and  cut  off  or  dispersed ;  and  the  king  being  re- 
duced with  the  remainder  of  his  army  to  the 
greatest  distress,  embarked  on  board  one  of  his 
gallies,  ordered  the  army  to  force  their  way  to 
Lampsacus,  while  he  himself  endeavoured  to 
escape  with  his  fleet.  The  army  being  attacked 
by  Lucullus,  the  greater  part  of  them  perished  in 
passing  the  Asopus  and  the  Grannicus.  The 
king  himself,  having  put  into  Nicomedia,  and 
from  thence  continued  his  voyage  through  the 
Bosphorus  to  the  Euxine,  was  overtaken  on  that 
sea  by  a  storm,  and  lost  the  greatest  part  of  his 
fleet.  His  own  galley  being  sunk,  he  himself 
narrowly  escaped  in  a  barge. 

The  whole  force  with  which  the  king  of  Pon- 
tus had  invaded  Bithynia,  being  thus  dispelled 
like  a  cloud,  Lucullus  employed  some  time  in  re- 
ducing the  towns  into  which  any  of  the  troops  of 
Mithridates  had  been  received ;  and  having  ef- 
fectually destroyed  the  remains  of  the  vanquished 
army,  took  his  route  by  Bithynia  and  Galatia 
towards  Pontus.  At  his  entrance  into  this  king- 
dom was  situated  the  town  of  Amysus,  a  con- 
siderable fortress  on  the  coast  of  the  Euxine,  into 
which  the  king  had  thrown  a  sufficient  force  to 
retard  his  progress.  Mithridates,  under  favour 
of  the  time  he  gained  by  the  defence  of  this  place, 
assembled  a  new  army  at  Cabira,  near  the  fron- 
tier of  Armenia.  Here  he  mustered  about  forty 
thousand  foot,  and  a  considerable  body  of  horse, 
and  was  soliciting  the  Scythians,  Armenians, 
and  all  the  nations  of  that  continent  to  his  aid. 
Lucullus,  in  order  to  prevent,  if  possible,  any  fur- 
ther reinforcements  to  the  enemy,  committed  the 
siege  of  Amysus  to  Murena,  and  advanced  with 
his  army  into  the  plains  of  Cabira.  On  this 
ground  the  Roman  horse  received  repeated  checks 
from  those  of  the  enemy,  and  were  kept  in  con- 
tinual alarm,  until  their  general,  having  time  to 
observe  the  country,  avoided  the  plains,  on  which 
the  king  of  Pontus,  by  means  of  his  cavalry,  was 
greatly  superior.  Though  very  much  straitened 
for  provisions,  Lucullus  kept  his  position  on  the 
heights  until  the  enemy  should  be  forced  to  a 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


153 


general  action.  The  skirmishes  which  happened 
between  the  foraging  parties  drew  considerable 
numbers  from  the  respective  armies  to  engage ; 
and  the  troops  of  Mithridates,  having  been  routed 
in  one  of  these  partial  encounters,  the  king  took 
a  resolution  to  decamp  in  the  night,  and  remove 
to  a  greater  distance  from  the  Romans.  As  soon 
as  it  was  dark,  the  equipage  and  the  attendants 
of  the  leading  men  in  the  camp,  to  whom  he  had 
communicated  this  resolution,  began  to  withdraw ; 
and  the  army,  greatly  alarmed  with  that  appear- 
ance, was  seized  with  a  panic,  and  could  not  be 
restrained  from  flight.  Horse  and  foot,  and 
bodies  of  every  description,  crowded  in  disorder 
into  the  avenues  of  the  camp,  and  were  trod  un- 
der foot,  or  in  great  numbers  perished  by  each 
other's  hands.  Mithridates  himself,  endeavour- 
ing to  stop  and  to  undeceive  them,  was  carried 
off  by  the  multitude. 

The  noise  of  this  tumult  being  hea>  i  «.o  a  great 
distance,  and  the  occasion  being  kn«  '*n  in  the 
Roman  camp,  Lucullus  advanced  with  his  army 
to  take  advantage  of  the  confusion,  in  which  the 
enemy  were  fallen,  and  by  a  vigorous  attack  put 
many  to  the  sword,  and  hastened  their  dispersion. 

The  king  was,  by  one  of  his  servants,  with 
difficulty  mounted  on  horseback,  and  must  have 
been  taken,  if  the  pursuing  party  had  not  been 
amused  in  seizing  some  plunder,  which  he  had 
ordered  on  purpose  to  be  left  in  their  way.  A 
mule,  loaded  with  some  part  of  the  royal  trea- 
sure, turned  the  attention  of  the  pursuers,  while 
he  himself  made  his  escape. 

In  his  flight  he  appeared  to  be  most  affected 
with  the  fate  of  his  women.  The  greatest  num- 
ber of  them  were  left  at  the  palace  of  Pharnacea, 
a  place  that  must  soon  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy.  He  therefore  despatched  a  faithful  eunuch 
with  orders  to  put  them  to  death,  leaving  the  choice 
of  the  manner  to  themselves.  A  few  are  particu- 
larly mentioned.  Of  two,  who  were  his  own  sis- 
ters, Roxana  and  Statira,  one  died  uttering  exe- 
crations against  her  brother's  cruelty,  the  other 
extolling,  in  that  extremity  of  Ins  own  fortune, 
the  generous  care  he  took  of  their  honour.  Mo- 
nime,  a  Greek  of  Miletus,  celebrated  for  her 
beauty,  whom  the  king  had  long  wooed  in  vain 
with  proffers  of  great  riches,  and  whom  he  won 
at  last  only  by  the  participation  of  his  crown,  and 
the  earnest  of  the  nuptial  rites,  had  ever  lamented 
her  fortune,  which,  instead  of  a  royal  husband 
and  a  palace,  had  given  her  a  prison,  and  a  bar- 
barous keeper.  Being  now  told,  that  she  must 
die,  and  that  the  manner  of  her  death  was  Left 
to  her  own  choice,  she  unbound  the  royal  fillet 
from  her  hair,  and,  using  it  as  a  bandage,  endea- 
voured to  strangle  herself.  It  broke  in  the  at- 
tempt: "Bauble,"  she  said,  "it  is  not  fit  even  for 
this !"  then  stretching  out  her  neck  to  the  eunuch, 
bid  him  fulfil  his  master's  purpose.  Berenice  of 
Chios,  another  Grecian  beauty,  had  likewise  been 
honoured  with  the  nuptial  crown ;  and,  having 
been  attended  in  her  state  of  melancholy  elevation 
by  her  mother,  who,  on  this  occasion,  likewise 
resolved  to  partake  of  her  daughter's  fate;  they 
chose  to  die  by  poison.  The  mother  intreated 
that  she  might  have  the  first  draught ;  and  died 
before  her  daughter.  The  remainder  of  the  dose 
not  being  sufficient  for  the  queen,  she  put  herself 
likewise  into  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  and 
was  strangled.    By  these  deaths,  the  barbarous 


jealousy  of  the  king  was  gratified,  and  the  future 
triumph  of  the  Roman  general  deprived  of  its 
principal  ornaments. 

Lucullus,  after  his  late  victory,  having  no  ene- 
my in  the  field  to  oppose  him,  passed  through  the 
country,  and  entered  without  molestation  into 
many  of  the  towns  in  the  kingdom  of  Pontus. 
He  found  many  palaces  enriched  with  treasure, 
and  adorned  with  barbarous  magnificence ;  and, 
as  might  be  expected  under  such  a  violent  and 
distrustful  government,  every  where  places  of  con- 
finement crowded  with  prisoners  of  state,  whom 
the  jealousy  of  the  king  had  secured,  and  whom 
his  supercilious  neglect  had  suffered  to  remain  in 
custody  even  after  his  jealousy  was  allayed. 

Mithridates,  from  his  late  defeat,  fled  into  Ar- 
menia, and  claimed  the  protection  of  Tigranes, 
who,  being  married  to  his  daughter,  had  already 
favoured  him  in  his  designs  against  the  Romans. 

This  powerful  prince,  now  become  sovereign 
of  Syria  as  well  as  Armenia,  still  continued  his 
residence  in  the  last  of  these  kingdoms  at  Tigra- 
nocerta,  a  city  he  himself  built,  rilled  with  inha- 
bitants, and  distinguished  by  his  own  name.  On 
the  arrival  of  Mithridates  to  sue  for  his  protection, 
Tigranes  declined  to  see  him,  but  ordered  him  a 
princely  reception  in  one  of  the  palaces. 

Lucullus  continued  his  pursuit  of  this  flying 
enemy  only  to  the  frontier  of  Armenia,  anD 
from  thence,  sending  Publius  Clodius,  who  was 
his  brother-in-law,  to  the  court  of  Tigranes,  with 
instructions  to  require  that  Mithridates  should  be 
delivered  up  as  a  lawful  prey,  he  himself  fell  back 
into  the  kingdom  of  Pontus,  and  soon  after  re- 
duced Amysus,  together  with  Sinope,  and  other 
places  of  strength,  which  were  held  by  the  troops 
of  the  king. 

The  inhabitants  of  these  places  had  been  ori- 
ginally colonies  from  Greece,  and  having  been 
subdued  by  the  Persians,  were,  on  the  arrival  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  from  respect  to  their  origin, 
restored  to  their  freedom.  In  imitation  of  this 
example,  and  agreeably  to  the  profession  which 
the  Romans  ever  made  of  protecting  the  liberties 
of  Greece,  Lucullus  once  more  declared  those 
cities  to  be  free.  Having  now  sufficient  leisure 
to  attend  to  the  general  state  of  the  Roman  pro- 
vinces in  Asia,  he  found,  that  the  collectors  of 
the  revenue,  under  pretext  of  levying  the  tax 
imposed  by  Sylh,  had  been  guilty  of  the  greatest 
oppressions.  That  the  inhabitants,  in  order  to 
pay  this  tax,  borrowed  money  of  the  Roman  offi- 
cers and  merchants  at  exorbitant  interest ;  and, 
when  the  debts  became  equal  to  their  whole 
effects,  were  then  distrained  for  payment,  under 
pain  of  imprisonment  and  even  tortures :  that 
private  persons  were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
exposing  their  children  to  sale,  and  corporations 
of  selling  the  pictures,  images,  and  other  orna- 
ments of  their  temples,  in  order  to  satisfy  these 
inhumane  creditors.  Willing  to  restrain,  or  cor- 
rect these  abuses,  the  proconsul  ordered,  that 
where  the  interest  exacted  was  equal  to  the  capi- 
tal, the  debt  should  be  cancelled ;  and  in  other 
cases,  fixed  it  at  a  moderate  rate.  These  acts  of 
beneficence  or  justice  to  the  provinces  were,  by 
the  farmers  of  the  revenue,  represented  as  acts 
of  oppression  and  cruelty  to  themselves,  and 
were,  among  their  connexions,  and  the  sharers 
of  their  spoils  at  Rome,  stated  against  Lucullu* 
as  subjects  of  complaint  and  reproach. 


154 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III 


CHAPTER  II. 


Escape  and  Revolt  of  the  Gladiators  at  Capua — Spartacus — Action  and  Defeat  of  Lentulus  the 
Roman  Consul — And  of  Cassius  the  Praetor  of  Gaul — Appointment  of  M.  Crassus  for  this  Ser 
vice — Destruction  of  the  Gladiators — Triumph  of  Mctellus  and  Pompey — Consulship  of  Pom- 
pey  and  Crassus — Tribunes  restored  to  their  former  Powers — Consulate  of  Metellus  and 
Hortensius — War  in  Crete — Renewal  of  the  War  in  Pontus  and  Armenia — Defeat  of  Ti- 
granes — Negotiation  with  the  King  of  Parthia — Mutiny  of  the  Roman  Army — Complaints  of 
Piracies  committed  in  the  Roman  Seas — Commission  proposed  to  Pompey — His  Conduct 
against  the  Pirates — His  Commission  extended  to  Pontus — Operations  against  Mithridates — 
Defeat  and  Flight  of  that  Prince — Operations  of  Pompey  in  Syria — Siege  and  Reduction  of 
Jerusalem — Death  of  Mithridates. 


SOON  after  the  war,  of  which  we  have  thus 
stated  the  event,  had  commenced  in  Asia,  Italy 
was  thrown  into  great  confusion  by  the  acciden- 
tal escape  of  a  few  gladiators  from 
U.  C.  680.  the  place  of  their  confinement  at 
Capua.  These  were  slaves  trained 
Varro^C  UP  to  ^urn's^  tneir  masters  with  a 
Cass.  Varus,  spectacle,  which,  though  cruel  and 
barbarous,  drew  numerous  crowds 
of  beholders.  It  was  at  first  introduced  as  a  spe- 
cies of  human  sacrifice  at  funerals,  and  the  vic- 
tims were  now  kept  by  the  wealthy  in  great 
numbers  for  the  entertainment  of  the  people,  and 
even  for  private  amusement.  The  handsomest, 
the  most  active,  and  the  boldest  of  the  slaves  and 
captives  were  selected  for  this  purpose.  They 
were  sworn  to  decline  no  combat,  and  to  shun  no 
hardship,  to  which  they  were  exposed  by  their 
masters;  they  were  of  different  denominations, 
and  accustomed  to  fight  in  different  ways ;  but 
those  from  whom  the  whole  received  their  desig- 
nation, employed  the  sword  and  buckler,  or  tar- 
get ;  and  they  commonly  fought  naked,  that  the 
place  and  nature  of  the  wounds  they  received 
might  the  more  plainly  appear. 

Even  in  this  prostitution  of  valour,  refinements 
of  honour  were  introduced.  There  were  certain 
graces  of  attitude  which  the  gladiator  was  not 
permitted  to  quit,  even  to  avoid  a  wound.  There 
was  a  manner  which  he  studied  to  preserve  in 
his  fall,  in  his  bleeding  posture,  and  even  in  his 
death.  He  was  applauded,  or  hissed,  according 
as  he  succeeded  or  failed  in  any  of  these  par- 
ticulars. When,  after  a  tedious  struggle  he  was 
spent  with  labour  and  with  the  loss  of  blood,  he 
still  endeavoured  to  preserve  the  dignity  of  his 
character,  dropped  or  resumed  the  sword  at  his 
master's  pleasure,  and  looked  round  to  the  spec- 
tators for  marks  of  their  satisfaction  and  applause.1 
Persons  of  every  age,  condition,  and  sex,  at- 
tended at  these  exhibitions ;  and  when  the  pair 
who  were  engaged  began  to  strain  and  to  bleed, 
the  spectators,  being  divided  in  their  inclinations, 
endeavoured  to  excite,  by  their  cries  and  accla- 
mations, the  party  they  favoured  ;  and  when  the 
contest  was  ended,  called  to  the  victor  to  strike, 
or  to  spare,  according  as  the  vanquished  was  sup- 
posed to  have  forfeited  or  to  have  deserved  his 
life.2  With  these  exhibitions,  which  must  create 
so  much  disgust,  and  horror  in  the  recital,  the 
Romans  were  more  intoxicated  than  any  popu- 
lace in  modern  Europe  now  are  with  the  baiting 
of  bulls,  or  the  running  of  horses,  probably  be- 


1  Cicer.  Tusculanarum,  lib.  ii.  c.  17. 

2  Cicero  pro  Sexto,  c.  27.  Tusciil.  dusst.  Sparta- 
cus, lib.  ii.  c.  17 


cause  they  were  more  deeply  affected,  and  more 
violently  moved. 

Spartacus,  a  Thracian  captive,  who,  on  ac- 
count of  his  strength  and  activity,  had  been 
destined  for  this  barbarous  profession,  with  about 
seventy  or  eighty  of  Iris  companions,  escaped 
from  their  place,  of  confinement,  and  arming 
themselves  with  such  weapons  as  accident  pre- 
sented to  them,,  retired  to  some  fastness  on  the 
ascent  of  Mount  Vesuvius,  and  from  thence 
harassed  the  country  with  robberies  and  murders. 
"If  we  are  to  fight,"  said  the  leader  of  this  despe- 
rate band,  "  let  us  fight  against  our  oppressors, 
and  in  behalf  of  our  own  liberties,  not  to  make 
sport  for  this  petulant  and  cruel  race  of  men." 
Multitudes  of  slaves  from  every  quarter  flocked 
to  his  standard.  The  prefect  of  Capua  armed 
the  inhabitants  of  his  district  against  them,  but 
was  defeated. 

This  feeble  and  unsuccessful  attempt  to  quell 
the  insurrection,  furnished  the  rebels  with  arms, 
and  raised  their  reputation  and  their  courage. 
Their  leader,  by  his  generosity  in  rejecting  his 
own  share  of  any  booty  he  made,  by  his  conduct 
and  his  valour,  acquired  the  authority  of  a  legal 
commander;  and,  having  named  Crixus  and 
Oenomaus,  two  other  gladiators,  for  his  subordi- 
nate officers,  he  formed  the  multitudes  that  re- 
sorted to  him  into  regular  bodies,  employed  a 
certain  number  to  fabricate  arms,  and  to  procure 
the  necessary  accommodations  of  a  camp,  till  at 
length  he  collected  an  army  of  seventy  thousand 
men,  with  which  he  commanded  the  country  to  a 
great  extent.  He  had  already  successively  de- 
feated the  praetors  Clodius,  Varinus,  and  Cossi- 
nius,  who  had  been  sent  against  him  with  con- 
siderable forces,  so  that  it  became  necessary  to 
order  proper  levies,  and  to  give  to  the  consuls  the 
charge  of  repressing  this  formidable  enemy.. 

Spartacus  had  too  much  prudence  to  think 
himself  fit  to  contend  with  the  force  of  the  Roman 
state,  which  he  perceived  must  soon  be  assembled 
against  him.  He  contented  himself,  therefore, 
with  a  more  rational  scheme  of  conducting  his 
army  by  the  ridge  of  the  Appenines,  till  he  should 
gain  the  Alps  from  whence  his  followers,  whe- 
ther Gauls,  Germans,  or  Thracians,  might  sepa- 
rate, each  into  the  country  of  which  he  was  a 
native,  or  from  which  he  had  been  originally 
brought. 

While  he  began  his  progress  by 
U.  C.  681.    the  mountains,  m  order  to  execute 

this  project,  the  consuls,  Gellius  and 
L.  Gell.Pop-  Lentulus,  had  already  taken  the 
Corn: Lent.  field  against  him.  They  at  first 
Clodianus,     surprised  and  cut  off  a  considerable 

body  under  Crixus,  who  had  fallen 


;hap.  ii.j 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


155 


ui"wn  from  the  heights  in  order  to  pillage  the 
country.  But  Lentulus  afterwards  pressing  hard 
upon  Spartacus,  who  led  the  main  body  of  the 
rebels,  brought  on  an  action,  in  which  the  consu- 
lar army  was  defeated  with  considerable  loss. 
Cassius,  too,  the  praetor  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  having 
advanced  upon  him  with  an  army  of  ten  thousand 
men,  was  repulsed  with  great  slaughter. 

In  consequence  of  these  advantages,  Spartacus, 
might  no  doubt  have  effected  his  retreat  to  the 
Alps;  but  his  army  being  elated  with  victory, 
and  considering  themselves  as  masters  of  Italy, 
were  unwilling  to  abandon  their  conquest.  He 
himself  formed  a  new  project  of  marching  to 
Rome ;  and  for  this  purpose  destroyed  all  his  use- 
less baggage  and  cattle,  put  his  captives  to  death, 
and  refused  to  receive  any  more  of  the  slaves, 
who  were  still  in  multitudes  resorting  to  his 
standard.  He  probably  expected  to  pass  the 
Roman  armies  without  a  battle,  and  to  force  the 
city  of  Rome  itself  by  an  unexpected  assault.  In 
this  he  was  disappointed  by  the  consuls,  with 
whom  he  was  obliged  to  fight  in  the  Picenum ; 
and,  though  victorious  in  the  action,  he  lost  hopes 
of  surprising  the  city.  But  still  thinking  himself 
in  condition  to  keep  his  ground  in  Italy,  he  only 
altered  his  route,  and  directed  his  march  towards 
Lucania. 

The  Romans,  greatly  embarrassed,  and  thrown 
into  some  degree  of  consternation,  by  the  unex- 
pected continuance  of  an  insurrection  which  had 
given  them  much  trouble,  exposed  their  armies 
to  much  danger,  with  little  prospect  of  honour ; 
not  being  courted,  as  usual,  for  the  command, 
they  imposed  it  on  Marcus  Crassus,  then  in  the 
rank  of  praetor,  and  supposed  to  be  a  person  of 
consequence,  more  on  account  of  his  wealth  than 
of  his  abilities;  though  in  this  service,  after 
others  had  failed,  he  laid  the  foundation  of  a  more 
favourable  judgment.  They  at  the  same  time 
sent  orders  to  Pompey,  who  had  finished  the  war 
in  Spain,  to  hasten  into  Italy  with  his  army  ;  and 
to  the  proconsul  of  Macedonia,  to  embark  with 
what  forces  could  be  spared  from  his  province. 

Crassus  assembled  no  less  than  six  legions, 
with  which  he  joined  the  army  which  had  been 
already  so  unsuccessful  against  the  revolt.  Of 
the  troops  who  had  misbehaved  he  is  said  to  have 
executed,  perhaps  only  decimated,  four  thousand, 
as  an  example  to  the  new  levies,  and  as  a  warn- 
ing of  the  severities  they  were  to  expect  for  any 
failure  in  the  remaining  part  of  the  service. 

Upon  his  arrival  in  Lucania  he  cut  off  ten 
thousand  of  the  rebels  who  were  stationed  at  a 
distance  from  the  main  body  of  their  army,  and 
he  endeavoured  to  shut  up  Spartacus  in  the  pen- 
insula of  Brutium,  or  head  of  land  which  ex- 
tends to  the  Straits  of  Messina.  The  gladiators 
desired  to  pass  into  Sicily,  where  their  fellow- 
sufferers,  the  slaves  of  that  island,  were  not  yet 
entirely  subdued,  and  where  great  numbers  at  all 
times  were  prepared  to  revolt ;  but  they  were 
prevented  by  the  want  of  shipping.  Crassus  at 
the  same  time  undertook  a  work  of  great  labour, 
that  of  intrenching  the  land  from  sea  to  sea  with 
a  ditch  fifteen  feet  wide,  and  as  many  deep,  ex- 
tending, according  to  Plutarch,  three  hundred 
stadia,  or  above  thirty  miles.  Spartacus  endea- 
voured ,to  interrupt  the  execution  of  this  under- 
taking ;  but  being  repulsed  in  every  attack,  his  fol- 
lowers began  to  despond,  and  entertained  thoughts 
of  surrendering  themselves     In  order  to  supply 


by  despair  what  the)-  lost  in  courage,  he  put  them 
in  mind  that  they  fought  not  upon  equal  terms 
with  their  enemies;  that  they  must  either  con- 
quer or  be  treated  as  fugitive  slaves  :  and,  to 
enforce  his  admonitions,  he  ordered  one  of  his 
captives  to  be  nailed  to  the  cross  in  sight  of  both 
armies.  "  This,"  he  said  to  his  own  people,  "  is 
an  example  of  what  you  are  to  suffer  if  you  fall 
into  the  enemy's  hands." 

Whilst  Crassus  was  busy  completing  his  line, 
Spartacus  prepared  to  force  it ;  and,  having  pro- 
vided faggots  and  other  materials  for  this  purpose, 
filled  up  the  ditch  at  a  convenient  place,  and 
passed  it  in  the  night  with  the  whole  body  of  his 
followers.  He  directed  his  march  to  Apulia,  but 
was  pursued,  and  greatly  harassed  in  his  flight. 

Accounts  being  received  at  once  in  the  camp 
of  Crassus  and  in  that  of  Spartacus,  that  fresh 
troops  were  landed  at  Brundusium  from  Mace- 
donia, and  that  Pompey  was  arrived  in  Italy,  and 
on  his  march  to  join  Crassus,  both  armies  were 
equally  disposed  to  hazard  a  battle ;  the  gladia- 
tors, that  they  might  not  be  attacked  at  once  by 
so  many  enemies  as  were  collecting  against  them; 
and  the  Romans  under  Crassus,  that  Pompey 
might  not  snatch  out  of  their  hands  the  glory  of 
terminating  the  war.  Under  the  influence  of 
these  different  motives,  both  leaders  drew  forth 
their  armies ;  and  when  they  were  ready  to  en- 
gage, Spartacus,  with  the  valour  rather  of  a  gla- 
diator than  of  a  general,  alighting  from  his  horse, 
and  saying  aloud,  in  the  hearing  of  his  followers, 
"  If  I  conquer  to  day,  I  shall  l>e  better  mounted ; 
if  not,  I  shall  not  have  occasion  for  a  horse;"  he 
plunged  his  sword  into  the  body  of  the  animal. 
With  this  earnest  of  a  resolution  to  conquer  or 
to  die,  he  advanced  towards  the  enemy  ;  directing 
the  division  in  which  he  himself  commanded  to 
make  their  attack  where  he  understood  the  Ro- 
man general  was  posted.  He  intended  to  decide 
the  action  by  forcing  the  Romans  in  that  quarter; 
but,  after  much  bloodshed,  being  mangled  with 
wounds,  and  still  almost  alone  in  the  midst  of 
his  enemies,  he  still  continued  to  fight  till  he  was 
killed  ;  and  the  victory  of  course  declared  for  his 
enemy.  About  a  thousand  of  the  Romans  were 
slain ;  of  the  vanquished  the  greatest  slaughter, 
as  usual  in  ancient  battles,  took  place  after  the 
flight  began.  The  dead  were  not  numl>ercd  ; 
about  six  thousand  were  taken,  and,  in  the  man- 
ner of  executing  the  sentence  of  death  on  slaves, 
they  were  nailed  to  the  cross  in  rows,  thai  lined 
the  way  from  Capua  to  Rome.  Such  as  escaped 
from  the  field  of  battle,  being  about  five  thousand, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Pompey,  and  furnished  a 
pretence  to  his  flatterers  for  ascribing  to  him  the 
honour  of  terminating  the  war. 

The  mean  quality  of  the  enemy,  however,  in 
the  present  case,  precluded  even  Crassus  from 
the  honour  q/  a  triumph  ;  he  could  have  only  an 
ovation  or  military  procession  on  foot.  But  in- 
stead of  the  myrtle  wreath,  usual  on  such  occa- 
sions, he  had  credit  enough  with  the  senate  to 
obtain  the  laurel  crown.1 

Pompey  too  arrived  at  the  same  time  with  new 
and  uncommon  pretensions,  requiring  a  dispen- 
sation from  the  law  and  established  forms  of  the 
commonwealth.  The  war  he  had  conducted  in 
Spain  being  of  the  nature  of  a  civil  war  against 
Roman  citizens  or  subjects,  with  a  Roman  general 


1  A.  Gellius,  lib.  v. 


156  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


at  their  head,  did  not  give  a  regular  claim  to  a 
triumph:  Pompey  himself  was  yet  under  the 
legal  age,  and  had  not  passed  through  any  of  the 
previous  steps  of  questor,  edile,  and  pra;tor ;  yet 
on  the  present  occasion  he  not  only  insisted  on  a 
triumph,  but  put  in  his  claim  likewise  to  an  im- 
mediate nomination  to  the  office  of  consul. 

It  now  became  extremely  evident,  that  the  es- 
tablished honours  of  the  state,  conferred  in  the 
usual  way,  were  not  adequate  to  the  pretensions 
of  this  young  man :  that  he  must  have  new  and 
singular  appointments,  or  those  already  known 
bestowed  on  him  in  some  new  and  singular  man- 
ner. His  enemies  observed,  that  he  avoided 
every  occasion  of  fair  competition ;  that  he  took 
a  rank  of  importance  which  he  did  not  submit  to 
have  examined;  and  that  he  ever  aspired  to  stand 
alone,  or  in  the  first  place  of  public  consideration 
and  dignity.  His  partizans,  on  the  contrary, 
stated  the  extraordinary  honours  which  had  been 
done  to  him,  as  the  foundation  of  still  farther  dis- 
tinctions.1 In  enumerating  his  services  upon  his 
return  from  Spain,  they  reckoned  up,  according 
to  Pliny,  eight  hundred  and  seventy-one  towns, 
from  the  Pyrennees  to  the  extremities  of  that 
country,  which  he  had  reduced ;  observed  that  he 
had  surpassed  the  glory  of  all  the  officers  who 
had  gone  before  him  in  that  service ;  and,  in  con- 
sequence of  these  representations,  though  still  in 
a  private  station,  he  was  admitted  to  a  triumph, 
or  partook  with  Metellus  in  this  honour. 

Pompey  had  hitherto,  in  all  the  late  disputes, 
taken  part  with  the  aristocracy ;  but  not  without 
suspicion  of  aiming  too  high  for  republican  go- 
vernment of  any  sort.  While  he  supported  the 
senate,  he  affected  a  degree  of  pre-eminence 
above  those  who  composed  it,  and  was  not  con- 
tent with  equality,  even  among  the  first  nobles 
of  his  country.  He  acquiesced,  nevertheless,  in 
the  mere  show  of  importance,  without  assuming 
a  power  which  might  have  engaged  him  in  con- 
tests, and  exposed  his  pretensions  to  too  near  an 
inspection.  Upon  his  approach  at  the  head  of  an 
army  from  Spain,  the  senate  was  greatly  alarmed ; 
but  he  gave  the  most  unfeigned  assurances  of  his 
intention  to  disband  his  army  as  soon  as  they 
should  have  attended  his  triumph.  The  senate 
accordingly  gave  way  to  this  irregular  preten- 
sion, and  afterwards  to  the  pretension,  still  more 
dangerous,  which  without  any  of  the  previous 
conditions  which  the  law  required, 
U.  C.  683.    he  made  to  the  consulate.  Crassus, 

M  Licin  nat*  ^een  Praetor  m  tne  Pre" 

Crassus  Cn.  ceding  year,  now  stood  for  the  same 
Pomy.  Mag-  office,  entered  into  a  concert  with 
nus-  Pompey,  and,  notwithstanding  their 

mutual  jealousy  of  each  other,  they 
joined  their  interests,  and  were  elected  together. 

Under  the  administration  of  these  officers  some 
important  laws  are  said  to  have  passed,  although 
most  of  the  particulars  have  escaped  the  notice  of 
historians.  It  appears  that  Pompey  now  began 
to  pay  his  court  to  the  people ;  and,  though  he 
professed  to  support  the  authority  of  the  senate, 
wished  to  have  it  in  his  power,  on  occasion,  to 
take  the  sense  of  what  was  called  the  assembly 
of  the  people  against  them,  or  in  other  words, 
to  counteract  them  by  means  of  the  popular  tu- 
mults which  bore  this  name. 

The  tribunes  Gtuinctius  and  Palicanus,  had 


1  Vid.  Cic.  pro.  Lege  Manilia. 


for  two  years  successively  laboured  to  remove  th 
bars  which  had,  by  the  constitution  of  Sylla,  beei 
opposed  to  the  tribunitian  power.  They  hao 
been  strenuously  resisted  by  Lucullus  and  others, 
who  held  the  office  of  consul,  during  the  de- 
pendence of  the  questions  which  had  arisen  on 
that  subject  By  the  favour  of  Pompey  and 
Crassus,  however,  the  tribunes  obtained  a  resti- 
tution of  the  privileges  which  their  predecessors, 
in  former  times  of  the  republic,  had  so  often 
abused ;  and,  together  with  the  security  of  their 
sacred  and  inviolable  character,  and  their  nega- 
tive in  all  the  proceedings  of  the  state,  they  were 
again  permitted  to  propose  laws,  and  to  harangue 
the  people ;  a  dangerous  measure,  by  which 
Pompey  at  once  rendered  fruitless  that  reforma- 
tion which  was  the  only  apology  for  the  blood  so 
lavishly  shed,  not  only  by  Sylla,  but  likewise  by 
himself.  Caius  Julius  Caesar,  at  the  same  time, 
having  the  rank  of  legionary  tribune  conferred 
upon  him  by  the  choice  of  the  people,  was  ex  - 
tremely  active  in  procuring  those  popular  acts ; 
a  policy  in  which  he  was  more  consistent  with 
himself  than  Pompey,  and  only  pursued  the 
course  of  the  party  with  which  he  embarked  in 
his  youth.2 

Under  this  consulate,  and  probably  with  the 
encouragement  of  Pompey,  the  law  of  Sylla,  re- 
specting the  judicatures  was,  upon  the  motion  of 
the  praetor,  Aurelius  Cotta,  likewise  repealed ; 
and  it  was  permitted  to  the  praetors  to  draught 
the  judges  in  equal  numbers  from 
Lex  Aurelia  the  senate,  the  knights,  and  a  certain 
Judiciaria.  class  of  the  people,3  whose  descrip- 
tion is  not  clearly  ascertained.  This 
was,  perhaps,  a  just  correction  of  Sylla's  partiality 
to  the  nobles;  and  if  it  had  not  been  accom- 
panied by  the  former  act,  which  restored  the  tri- 
bunitian power,  might  have  merited  applause. 

In  the  mean  time,  corruption  advanced  among 
all  orders  of  men  with  a  hasty  pace ;  in  the  lower 
ranks,  contempt  of  government;  among  the 
higher,  covetousness  and  prodigality,  with  an  ar- 
dour for  lucrative  provinces,  and  the  opportunities 
of  extortion  and  flagrant  abuse.  As  the  offices 
of  state  at  Rome  began  to  be  coveted  with  a  view 
to  the  appointments  abroad,  with  which  they 
were  followed,  Pompey,  in  order  to  display  his 
own  disinterestedness,  with  an  oblique  reproof  to 
the  nobility  who  aspired  to  magistracy  with  such 
mercenary  views,  took  a  formal  oath  in  entering 
on  his  consulate,  that  he  would  not,  at  the  ex- 
piration of  his  office,  accept  of  any  government 
in  the  provinces ;  and  by  this  example  of  genero- 
sity in  himself,  and  by  the  censure  it  implied  of 
others,  obtained  great  credit  with  the  people,  and 
furnished  his  emissaries,  who  were  ever  busy  in 
sounding  his  praise,  with  a  pretence  for  en- 
hancing his  merit.  It  may,  however,  from  his  cha- 
racter and  policy  in  other  instances,  be  suspected, 
that  he  remained  at  Rome  with  intention  to 
watch  opportunities  of  raising  his  own  considera- 
tion, and  of  obtaining,  by  the  strength  of  his 
party,  any  extraordinary  trust  or  commission  of 
which  the  occasion  should  arise, 

Pompey,  in  the  administration  of  his  consul- 
ate, had  procured  the  revival  of  the  censors' 
functions.  These  had  been  intermitted  about 
sixteen  years,  during  great  part  of  which  time 
the  republic  had  been  in  a  state  of  civil  war ;  and 


2  Sueton.  in  C.  Jul.  Ceesar,  lib.  i.      3  Tribuni  Erarii. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


157 


the  prevailing  parties,  in  their  turns,  mutually 
had  recourse  to  acts  of  banishment,  confiscations, 
and  military  executions  against  each  other.  In 
such  times,  even  after  the  sword  was  sheathed, 
the  power  of  censor,  in  the  first  heat  of  party-re- 
sentment, could  not  be  safely  intrusted  with  any 
of  the  citizens ;  and  the  attempts  which  were  now 
made  to  revive  it,  though  in  appearance  success- 
ful, could  not  give  it  a  permanent  footing  in  the 
commonwealth.  The  public  was  arrived  at  a 
state  in  which  men  complain  of  evils,  but  cannot 
endure  their  remedies. 

L.  Gellius  Poplicola  and  Cn.  Cornelius  Len- 
tulus,  being  intrusted,  in  the  capacity  of  censors, 
to  make  up  the  rolls  of  the  people,  mustered 
four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  citizens.  They 
purged  the  senate  with  great  severity,  having  ex- 
punged sixty-four  from  the  rolls,  and  among  those 
C.  Antonius,  afterwards  consul,  assigning  as  their 
reason,  that  he,  having  the  command  on  the  coasts 
of  Asia  and  Greece,  had  pillaged  the  allies,  and 
mortgaged  and  squandered  his  own  estate.  But 
what  most  distinguished  this  censorship  was 
an  incident,  for  the  sake  of  which,  it  is  likely, 
the  solemnity  of  the  census  had  been  now  revived. 

It  was  customary  on  those  occasions  for  the 
knights  to  pass  in  review,  each  leading  his  horse 
before  the  censors.  They  were  questioned  re- 
specting their  age,  their  services,  and  the  persons 
under  whose  command  they  had  served ;  and  if 
they  had  already  served  the  ten  years  prescribed 
by  law,  they  received  an  exemption  from  future 
services,  and  were  vested  with  the  privileges 
which  were  annexed  to  this  circumstance.  At 
this  part  of  the  ceremony  the  people  were  sur- 
prised to  see  their  consul,  Pompey  the  Great,  de- 
scending into  the  market-place,  leading  his  horse 
in  quality  of  a  simple  knight,  but  dressed  in  his 
consular  robes,  and  preceded  by  the  lictors.  Be- 
ing questioned  by  the  censors,  whether  he  had 
served  the  stated  number  of  years,  he  answered 
that  he  had,  and  all  of  them  in  armies  commanded 
by  himself.  This  farce  was  received  with  loud  ac- 
clamations of  the  people ;  and  the  censors  having 
granted  the  customary  exemption,  rose  from  their 
Beats,  and,  followed  by  a  great  multitude,  attended 
this  equestrian  consul  to  his  own  house.4 

It  is  observed  that  Crassus  and  Pompey,  al- 
though they  entered  on  office  in  concert,  yet  dif- 
fered in  the  course  of  their  administration  on  sub- 
jects which  are  not  particularly  mentioned.  As 
Crassus  was  in  possession  of  great  wealth,  he  en- 
deavoured, by  his  liberalities,  to  vie  with  the  im- 
posing state  and  popular  arts  of  his  colleague. 
He  gave  an  entertainment  to  the  whole  people  at 
ten  thousand  tables,  and  distributed  three  months' 
provision  of  corn.  To  account  for  his  being  able 
to  court  the  people  in  this  manner,  it  is  said  that 
he  inherited  from  his  father  a  fortune  of  three 
hundred  talents,  or  near  sixty  thousand  pounds; 
that  he  increased  it,  by  purchasing  at  a  low  price 
the  estates  of  those  who  were  proscribed  in  the 
late  troubles,  and  by  letting  for  hire  the  labour  of 
a  numerous  family  of  slaves,  instructed  in  various 
arts  and  callings;  and  was  become  so  rich  by 
these  means,  that  when,  some  time  after  this 
date,  he  was  about  to  depart  for  Asia,  and  conse- 
crated the  tenth  part  of  his  estate  to  Hercules, 
he  was  found  to  possess  seven  thousand  one  hun- 
dred talents,  or  about  one  million  three  hundred 


4  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio. 


and  seventy  thousand  and  three  hundred  pounds 
sterling.5 

Pompey  at  the  expiration  of  his  year  in  the 
consulship,  in  observance  of  the  oath  he  had 
taken,  remained  at  Rome  in  a  private  station ; 
but,  agreeably  to  the  character  he  formerly  bore, 
maintained  the  reserve  and  stateliness  of  a  person 
raised  above  the  condition  of  a  citizen,  or  even 
above  that  of  the  first  senators  of  consular  rank. 
Other  candidates  for  consideration  and  public 
honours  endeavoured,  by  their  talents  and  elo- 
quence, to  make  themselves  necessary  to  these 
who  had  affairs  to  solicit  with  the  public,  or  even 
to  make  themselves  feared.  They  laboured  to 
distinguish  themselves  as  able  advocates  or  for- 
midable accusers  at  the  bar,  and  to  strengthen 
their  interest  by  procuring  the  support  of  those 
to  whom  their  talents  either  were  or  might  he- 
come  of  importance.  Pompey,  on  the  contrary, 
stating  himself  as  an  exception  to  common  rules, 
avoided  the  courts  of  justice  and  other  places  of 
ordinary  resort,  did  not  commit  his  talents  to  the 
public  judgment,  nor  present  his  person  to  the 
public  view ;  took  the  respect  that  was  paid  to 
him  as  a  right ;  seldom  went  abroad,  and  never 
without  a  numerous  train  of  attendants.6  He 
was  formed  for  the  state  of  a  prince,  and  might 
have  stolen  into  that  high  station  even  at  Rome, 
if  men,  born  to  equality,  could  have  suffered  an 
elevation  which  was  not  supported  by  adequate 
abilities ;  or  had  been  willing,  when  troubled  with 
faction,  to  forego  their  own  importance,  in  order 
to  obtain  peace  and  the  comforts  of  a  moderate 
government.  The  pretensions  of  Pompey,  how- 
ever, were  extremely  disagreeable  to  the  senate, 
and  not  otherwise  acceptable  to  the  people,  than 
as  they  tended  to  mortify  the  pride  of  that  order 
of  men. 

The  consulate  of  Crassus  and  Pompey  was 
succeeded  by  that  of  Q..  Horten- 
U.  C.684.  sius  and  Q.  Crecilius  JVletellus. 
Q.  Jlortcnsius,  ln  the  distribution  of  provinces, 
q.  Cecil.  Me-  Crete,  with  the  command  ot  an 
tellus  Creti-  armament  to  lie  sent  into  that 
cvs-  island,  fell  to  the  lot  of  Hortensius ; 

but  this  citizen,  having  acquired 
his  consideration  by  his  eloquence  in  pleading  tl.e 
causes  of  his  friends,  and  being  accustomed  to  the 
bar,  perhaps  in  a  degree  that  interfered  with  his 
military  character,  declined  to  accept  of  this  go- 
vernment ;  leaving  it,  together  with  the  command 
of  the  army  that  was  to  be  employed  in  the  re- 
duction of  the  island,  to  his  colleague  Metellus, 
who  afterwards  received  the  appellation  of  Creti- 
cus,  from  the  distinction  he  acquired  in  this  service. 

The  Cretans,  and  most  of  the  other  seafaring 
people  on  the  confines  of  Asia  and  Europe,  hail 
in  the  late  war  taken  an  active  part  against  the 
Romans.  They  had,  by  the  influence  of  Mith- 
ridates,  and  by  their  own  disposition  to  rapine 
and  piracy,  been  led  to  prey  upon  the  traders,  and 
upon  the  carriers  of  the  revenue  that  were  fre- 
quently passing  from  the  provinces  to  Rome. 
The  desire  of  sharing  in  the  profits  that  were 
made  by  this  species  of  war,  had  filled  the  sea 
with  pirates  and  freebooters,  against  whom  the 
Romans  sent  forth  a  succession  of  officers,  with 


5  Plutarch,  in  Crasso.  As  the  interest  of  money 
was  prohibited  at  Rome,  under  the  denomination  of 
usury,  but  in  fact  was  unlimited,  the  annual  return 
from  such  a  capital  must  have  been  immense. 

6  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Pomp. 


158 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


extensive  commands,  on  the  coasts  both  of  Asia 
and  Europe.  Among  others,  M.  Antonius  had 
been  employed  in  this  service,  and  was  accused 
of  abusing  his  power,  by  oppressing  the  Sicilians 
and  the  people  of  other  maritime  provinces,  who 
were  innocent  of  the  crimes  he  was  employed  to 
repress.  In  a  descent  on  the  island  of  Crete  he 
was  defeated  and  killed,1  and  left  the  Romans 
engaged  with  the  people  of  that  island  in  a  war 
which  was  thought  to  require  the  presence  of  one 
of  the  consuls.  The  lot,  as  has  been  observed, 
fell  on  Hortensius,  but  was  transferred  to  his  col- 
league Metellus. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs,  and 
U.  C.  685.     such  the  destination  of  the  Roman 
officers,  when  Lucullus  received 

Cmc.  Me-  from  Tigranes  a  return  to  the 
*ellusi  Q-  demand  which  he  made  of  having 
Mar.  Hex.  Mithridates  delivered  up  as  his  pri- 
soner. This  prince,  at  the  arrival  of  Clodius, 
who  bore  the  message,  had  made  a  progress  to 
the  coasts  of  Phoenicia,  and  to  the  farther  extre- 
mities of  his  empire.  To  verify  the  state  and  title 
which  he  assumed  of  King  of  Kings,  he  affected, 
when  he  mounted  on  horseback,  to  have  four 
captive  sovereigns  to  walk  by  his  stirrup,  and 
obliged  them,  on  other  occasions,  to  perform  every 
office  of  menial  duty  and  servile  attendance  on 
his  person.  Lucullus,  instead  of  the  style  which 
was  affected  by  this  prince,  had  accosted  him  in 
his  letter  only  with  the  simple  title  of  king.  His 
messenger,  however,  was  admitted  to  an  audience, 
and  made  his  demand  that  Mithridates,  a  van- 
quished prince,  whose  territories  were  already  in 
the  possession  of  the  Romans,  should  be  delivered 
up  to  adorn  the  victor's  triumph.  This,  if  refus- 
ed, said  the  bearer  of  the  message,  the  Roman 
general  would  be  entitled  to  extort  by  force,  and 
would  not  fail,  with  a  mighty  army  for  that  pur- 
pose, to  pursue  his  fugitive  wherever  he  was  re- 
ceived and  protected.  Tigranes,  unused  even 
to  a  plain  address,  much  less  to  insult  and  threats, 
heard  this  demand  with  real  indignation ;  and 
though,  with  an  appearance  of  temper,  he  made 
offer  of  the  customary  presents  and  honours  to 
the  person  who  delivered  it,  he  took  his  resolution 
against  the  Romans,  and,  from  having  barely 
permitted  Mithridates  to  take  refuge  in  his  king- 
dom, determined  to  espouse  his  cause.  He  gave 
for  answer  to  Clodius,  that  he  would  not  deliver 
up  the  unfortunate  king,  and  that,  if  the  Romans 
invaded  his  territories,  he  knew  how  to  defend 
them.  Pie  soon  afterwards  admitted  Mithridates 
into  his  presence,  and  determined  to  support  him 
with  the  necessary  force  against  his  enemies. 

Upon  receiving  this  answer  from  Tigranes, 
Lucullus  resolved  without  delay  to  march  into 
Armenia.  He  chose  for  this  expedition  two 
legions  and  a  body  of  horse,  on  whom  he  pre- 
vailed, though  with  some  difficulty,  to  enter  on 
a  new  war  at  a  time  when  they  flattered  them- 
selves that  their  labours  were  ended,  and  that  the 
rewards  they  expected  were  within  their  reach. 
With  hasty  marches  he  arrived  on  the  Euphrates, 
and  passed  that  river  before  the  enemy  were 
aware  of  his  approach.  Tigranes  treated  the 
first  reports  of  his  coming  with  contempt,  and 
ordered  the  person  who  presumed  to  bring  such 
accounts  to  be  punished.  But  being  assured,  be- 
yond a  possibility  of  doubt,  that  an  enemy  was 


1  Peedianus  in  Orat.  in  Veirera 


actually  on  his  territories,  he  sent  Metrodorus, 
one  of  his  generals,  at  the  head  of  a  considerable 
force,  with  orders  to  take  alive  the  person  of  Lu- 
cullus, whom  he  was  desirous  to  see,  but  not  to 
spare  a  man  of  the  whole  army  besides. 

With  these  orders,  the  Armenian  general  set 
out  on  the  road  by  which  the  Romans  were  sup- 
posed to  advance,  and  hastened  to  meet  them. 
Both  armies,  on  the  march,  had  intelligence  of 
each  other.  Lucullus,  upon  the  approach  of  the 
enemy,  halted,  began  to  intrench,  and,  in  order 
to  gain  time,  detached  Sextilius,  with  about  three 
thousand  men,  to  observe  the  Armenians,  and, 
if  possible,  without  risking  an  action  to  amuse 
them  till  his  works  were  completed.  But  such 
was  the  incapacity  and  presumption  of  the  enemy, 
that  Sextilius,  being  attacked  by  them,  gained  an 
entire  victory  with  but  a  part  of  the  Roman  army ; 
Metrodorus  himself  being  killed,  his  army  was 
put  to  the  rout  with  great  slaughter. 

After  this  victory  Lucullus,  in  order  the  more 
effectually  to  alarm  and  to  distract  the  Armeni- 
ans, separated  his  army  into  three  divisions. 
With  one  he  intercepted  and  dispersed  a  body  of 
Arabs,  who  were  marching  to  join  the  king; 
with  another  he  surprised  Tigranes  himself,  in 
a  disadvantageous  situation,  and  obliged  him  to 
fly  with  the  loss  of  his  attendants,  equipage,  and 
the  baggage  of  his  army.  At  the  head  of  the 
third  division  he  himself  advanced  to  Tigrano- 
certa,  and  invested  that  place. 

After  these  disasters  Tigranes  made  an  effort 
to  assemble  the  force  of  his  kingdom ;  and  bring- 
ing into  the  field  all  the  troops  of  his  allies,  as 
well  as  his  own,  he  mustered  an  army  of  one 
hundi'ed  and  fifty  thousand  heavy-armed  foot, 
fifty-five  thousand  horse,  and  twenty  thousand 
archers  and  slingers.  He  was  advised  by  Mith- 
ridates not  to  risk  a  battle,  but  to  lay  waste  the 
country  from  which  the  Romans  were  supplied 
with  provisions,  oblige  them  to  raise  the  siege 
of  Tigranocerta,  and  repass  the  Euphrates,  with 
the  disadvantage  of  having  an  enemy  still  in  force 
to  hang  on  their  rear.  This  counsel  of  Mithri- 
dates, founded  in  the  experience  he  had  so  dearly 
bought,  was  ill  suited  to  the  presumption  of  the 
king.  He  therefore  advanced  toward  the  Ro- 
mans impatient  to  relieve  his  capital,  and  the 
principal  seat  of  his  magnificence.  Lucullus, 
trusting  to  the  specimens  he  had  already  seen  of 
the  Armenian  forces,  ventured  to  divide  his  army, 
and,  without  raising  the  siege,  marched  with  one 
division  to  meet  this  numerous  enemy.  In  the 
action  that  followed,  the  Armenian  horse  being 
in  the  van,  were  defeated  and  driven  back  on  the 
foot  of  their  own  army,  threw  them  into  confu- 
sion, and  gave  the  Romans  an  easy  victory,  in 
which,  with  very  inconsiderable  loss  to  them- 
selves, they  made  a  great  slaughter  of  the  enemy, 
The  king  himself,  to  avoid  being  known  in  hi? 
flight,  unbound  the  royal  diadem  from  his  head, 
and  left  it  to  become  a  part  in  the  spoils  of  the 
day. 

Mariaeus,  who  commanded  in  Tigranocerta 
hearing  of  his  master's  defeat,  and  fearing  a  re 
volt  of  the  Greeks  and  other  foreigners,  who  haf 
been  forced  to  settle  at  that  place,  ordered  then 
to  be  searched  and  disarmed.  This  order  they 
looked  on  as  the  prelude  to  a  massacre,  and 
crowding  together,  defended  themselves  with  the 
staves  and  other  weapons  they  could  seize.  They 
surrounded  a  party  that  was  sent  to  disperse 


Ciur.  11.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


159 


them,  and  having  by  that  means  got  a  supply  of 
arms,  they  took  possession  of  a  tower  which  com- 
manded one  of  the  principal  gates,  and  from 
thence  invited  the  Romans  to  enter  the  place. 
Lucullus  accordingly  seized  the  opportunity,  and 
became  master  of  the  city.  The  spoil  was  great ; 
Tigranes  having  collected  here,  as  at  the  princi- 
pal seat  of  his  vanity,  the  wealth  and  magnificence 
of  his  court 

Mithridates,  who  had  been  present  in  the  late 
action,  met  the  king  of  Armenia  in  his  flight ; 
and,  having  endeavoured  to  re-establish  his  equi- 
page and  his  retinue  by  a  participation  of  his 
own,  exhorted  him  not  to  despair,  but  to  assem- 
ble a  new  force,  and  to  persist  in  the  war.  They 
agreed,  at  the  same  time,  on  an  embassy  to  the 
king  of  Parthia,  with  offers  of  reconciliation  on 
the  part  of  Tigranes,  who,  at  this  time,  was  at 
war  with  that  prince,  and  of  satisfaction  on  the 
subjects  in  contest  between  them,  provided  the 
Parthians  would  join  in  the  confederacy  against 
the  Romans.  They  endeavoured  to  persuade  the 
king,  that  he  was  by  no  means  an  unconcerned 
spectator  in  the  present  contest ;  that  the  quarrel 
which  the  Romans  now  had  with  the  kings  of 
Armenia,  and  Pontus,  was  the  same  with  that 
which  they  formerly  had  with  Philip  and  with 
Antiochus;  and  which,  if  not  prevented,  they 
would  soon  have  with  Arsaccs,  and  was  no  other 
than  his  being  possessed  of  a  rich  territory,  which 
tempted  their  ambition  and  avarice.  Those  re- 
publicans, they  said,  originally  had  not  any  pos- 
sessions of  their  own,  and  were  grown  rich  and 
great  only  by  the  spoils  of  their  neighbours. 
From  their  strong  hold  in  Italy,  they  had  extend- 
ed their  empire  on  the  west  to  the  coast  of  the 
ocean;  and,  if  not  stopped  by  the  powerful 
monarchies  that  lay  in  their  way,  were  hastening 
to  reach  a  similar  boundary  on  the  east.  The 
king  of  Parthia,  they  added,  might  expect  to  be 
invaded  by  these  insatiable  conquerors,  and  must 
now  determine  whether  he  would  engage  in  a 
war  joined  with  such  powerful  allies,  ot  whom 
one  by  his  experience,  the  other  by  his  resources, 
might  enable  him  to  keep  the  danger  at  a  distance 
from  his  own  kingdom,2  or  wait  until  these  pow- 
ers being  overthrown,  and  become  an  accession 
to  the  Roman  force,  he  should  have  the  contest 
to  maintain  in  his  own  territory  singly  and  un- 
supported from  abroad.  To  these  representations 
Arsaces  seemed  to  give  a  favourable  ear,  agreed 
to  the  proposed  confederacy,  on  condition  that 
Mesopotamia,  which  he  had  formerly  claimed, 
was  now  delivered  up  to  him.  At  the  same  time 
he  endeavoured  to  amuse  Lucullus  with  offers  of 
alliance  against  the  king  of  Armenia. 

In  this  conjuncture  it  probably  was,  that  Lu- 
cullus, in  the  apprehension  of  being  superseded 
and  deprived  of  the  honour  of  terminating  the 
war,  made  his  report  that  the  kingdom  of  Mith- 
ridates was  now  in  his  possession,  and  that  the 
kingdom  of  Tigranes  was  also  in  his  power ;  and 
therefore,  that  the  senate  should,  instead  of  a 
successor,  send  the  usual  commission  to  settle  the 
form  of  the  province,  and  to  make  a  proper  esta- 
blishment to  preserve  the  territories  which  he  had 
already  subdued.  But  after  these  representations 
were  despatched,  it  became  apparent  that  the  king 
of  Parthia  had  deceived  him  with  false  profes- 
sions, while  he  actually  made  great  progress  in 


2  Letter  of  Mithridates  in  the  Fragments  of  Sallust. 


his  treaty  with  the  kings  of  Armenia  and  Pon 
tus,  and  meant  to  support  them  with  all  his  force 
In  resentment  of  this  act  of  treachery,  and  to  pre- 
vent the  effects  of  it,  Lucullus  proposed  to  carry 
the  war  into  Parthia ;  and,  for  this  purpose 
ordered  the  legions  that  were  stationed  in  Pontus 
to  march  without  delay  into  Armenia. 

These  troops,  however,  already  tired  of  the 
service,  and  suspecting  that  they  were  intended 
for  some  distant  and  hazardous  enterprise,  broke 
out  into  open  mutiny,  and  refused  to  obey  their 
officers.  This  example  was  soon  afterwards  fol- 
lowed by  other  parts  of  the  army ;  and  the  gene- 
ral was  obliged  to  confine  his  operations  to  the 
kingdom  of  Armenia.  He  endeavoured,  by  pass- 
ing the  mountains  near  to  the  sources  of  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  to  penetrate  as  far  as 
Artaxata,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom.  By  this 
march  he  forced  Tigranes  once  more  to  hazard  a 
battle,  and  obtained  a  victory  ;  but  his  own  army, 
notwithstanding  their  success,  were  so  much  dis- 
couraged with  the  change  of  climate,  which  they 
experienced  in  ascending  the  mountains  of  Ar- 
menia, and  with  the  early  and  severe  approach 
of  winter  in  those  high  lands,  that  they  again 
mutinied,  and  obliged  their  general  to  change  the. 
plan  of  his  operations.  He  turned  his  march  to 
the  southward,  fell  down  on  Mesopotamia,  and, 
after  a  short  siege,  made  himself  master  of  Nisi- 
bis,  a  rich  city  in  that  territory,  where,  with  other 
captives,  he  took  Guras,  brother  to  the  king,  who 
commanded  in  the  place. 

Here,  however,  the  mutinous  spirit  still  con- 
tinuing to  operate  in  the  Roman  army,  it  began 
to  appear,  that  the  general,  who  had  so  often 
overcome  the  kings  of  Pontus  and  Armenia,  was 
better  qualified  to  contend  with  an  enemy,  than 
to  win  or  to  preserve  the  good-will  of  his  own 
troops.  A  report  being  spread  that  he  was  soon 
to  be  recalled,  he,  from  that  moment,  lost  the  small 
remains  of  his  authority ;  the  legions  deserted 
their  colours,  and  treated,  with  contempt  or  in- 
difference, all  the  attempts  he  made  to  retain 
them. 

This  mutiny  began  in  that  part  of  the  armv, 
which,  having  been  transported  into  Asia,  under 
the  command  of  Valerius  Flarcus,  had  murdered 
this  general,  to  put  themselves  under  the  com- 
mand of  Fimbria,  and  afterwards  deserted  their 
new  leader  to  join  with  Sylla.  Such  crimes, 
under  the  late  unhappy  divisions  of  the  republic, 
either  remained  unpunished,  or  were  stated  as 
merits  with  the  party  in  whose  favour  the  crime 
was  committed.  These  legions,  however,  were, 
by  Sylla,  who  was  not  willing  to  employ  such 
instruments,  or  to  intrust  his  own,  Or  the  fate  of 
the  commonwealth  in  such  hands,  left  in  Asia, 
under  pretence  of  securing  the  province;  and 
they  accordingly  made  a  considerable  part  in  the 
armies  successively  commanded  by  Murena  and 
by  Lucullus.  The  disposition  which  they  now 
showed,  and  that  of  the  whole  army,  to  disorder 
and  mutiny,  was  greatly  excited  by  the  factious 
spirit  of  Publius  Clodius,  the  relation  of  Lucul- 
lus, who,  ha\ing  himself  taken  offence  at  the 
general,  gave  this  specimen  of  his  future  conduct 
in  the  state,  by  endeavouring  to  stir  up  rebellion 
among  the  troops.  "  We  who  have  already  un- 
dergone so  many  hardships,"  he  said,  "  are  still 
kept  on  foot  to  escort  the  camels  that  carry  the 
treasures  of  our  general,  and  made  to  pursue, 
without  end,  a  couple  of  barbarous  princes,  that 


160 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


lead  us  over  deserts,  or  uncultivated  wastes, 
while  the  soldiers  of  Pompey,  after  a  few  cam- 
paigns in  Spain,  or  in  Italy,  are  enjoying  the 
fruits  of  their  labour  in  comfortable  settlements, 
procured  by  the  favour  of  their  leader." 

Lucullus  was  so  much  aware  of  the  decline  of 
his  authority,  that  he  did  not  choose  to  expose  it, 
by  attempting  to  effect  even  a  mere  change  of 
position.  He  hoped,  that  while  he  issued  no 
orders  of  any  moment,  the  resolution  of  his  army 
not  to  obey  him  might  remain  a  secret  to  the 
enemy.  This  state  of  affairs,  however,  soon 
became  known  to  Mithridates,  and  filled  him 
with  hopes  of  being  able  to  recover  his  kingdom. 
That  he  might  not  suffer  the  opportunity  to  es- 
cape him,  he  fell  back  into  Pontus,  with  what 
troops  he  had  then  under  his  command,  and,  by 
his  authority  and  influence  over  his  own  sub-, 
jects,  soon  augmented  his  force,  penetrated  among 
the  scattered  quarters  of  the  Romans,  who  were 
left  to  occupy  the  country,  and  separately  sur- 
prised or  destroyed  considerable  bodies  of  their 
troops.  Among  these,  he  attacked  and  defeated 
Fabius,  the  officer  who  was  trusted  with  the 
general  command  in  that  kingdom ;  and  though 
now  turned  of  seventy,  exposed  his  own  person 
in  the  action,  and  received  a  wound  which  stop- 
ped him  in  the  pursuit,  and  by  that  means  pre- 
vented the  full  effect  of  his  victory. 

Lucullus,  being  informed  of  what  had  passed 
in  Pontus,  had  influence  enough  with  the  army 
to  put  them  in  motion  towards  that  kingdom 
with  some  appearance  of  order;  but  before  his 
arrival,  Mithridates  bad  shut  up  Fabius  in  Ca- 
bira,  and  defeated  Triarius  with  considerable 
slaughter.  Here  again  the  old  man  was  wound- 
ed; and,  to  satisfy  the  army  that  he  was  not 
dead,  was  raised  up  into  view,  and  remained  in 
sight  of  the  army  while  his  wound  was  dressed. 
In  this  last  defeat  the  Romans  lost  twenty-four 
legionary  tribunes,  one  hundred  and  fifty  centu- 
rions, and  seven  thousand  men. 

It  was  not  doubted,  however,  that  Lucullus, 
on  his  arrival,  if  the  army  had  been  disposed  to 
act  under  him,  would  have  been  able  soon  to  re- 
trieve his  affairs  :  but  he  was  at  this  time  super- 
seded ;  and  it  was  known  in  the  army,  that  Aci- 
lius  Glabrio  was  set  out  from  Rome  to  assume 
the  command.  The  legions,  therefore,  under  pre- 
tence that  Lucullus  was  no  longer  their  general, 
and  that  they  themselves,  by  a  decree  of  the  peo- 
ple, had  received  their  dismission,  refused  to  obey 
him ;  and  the  men  of  his  army,  in  great  num- 
bers, actually  took  the  route  of  Cappadocia  on 
their  return  to  Italy. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  com- 
missioners, who,  upon  the  report  of  Lucullus,  had 
been  sent  by  the  senate  to  settle  the  kingdom  of 
Pontus  in  the  form  of  a  province,  actually  arrived. 
They  found  the  proconsul  destitute  of  power 
in  his  own  camp,  and  Mithridates  whom  they 
believed  to  be  vanquished,  again  master  of  his 
own  kingdom,  and  joining  to  the  experience  of 
old  age  all  the  ardour  and  enterprise  of  youth.1 

The  Roman  army  in  Asia,  as  a  prelude  to 
their  present  defection,  had  been  taught  to  up- 
braid the  parsimony  of  their  own  general  by  a 
comparison  with  the  liberality  and  munificence  of 
Pompey,  and  in  this  comparison  showed  a  dispo- 


l  Appian.  Bell.  Mithridat.  Plutarch,  in  Lurullo.  Dio 

Cassius. 


sition  to  change  their  leader,  which,  it  is  not 
doubted,  Pompey,  by  his  intrigues,  and  with  the 
aid  of  his  agents,  greatly  encouraged.  He  could 
in  reality  ill  brook  the  private  station  to  which, 
by  his  late  oath,  in  entering  on  the  consulate,  he 
had  bound  himself.  He  studied  to  support  the 
public  opinion  of  his  importance,  and  wished  for 
an  occasion  to  derive  some  advantage  from  it ; 
but  nothing  had  occurred  for  two  years  that  was 
worthy  of  the  high  distinction  to  which  he  as- 
pired. The  command  in  Asia  he  coveted  the 
more,  that  it  was  secured  to  Lucullus  by  the 
splendour  of  his  own  successes,  and  by  the  una- 
nimous judgment  of  the  senate  and  nobles,  who 
knew  his  faithful  attachment  to  their  order,  and 
his  fidelity  to  the  aristocratical  part  of  the  con- 
stitution. The  difficulties  in  that  service  were 
over,  and  nothing  but  the  glory  of  terminating 
the  war  remained.  Pompey,  either  from  envy  to 
Lucullus,  Or  from  a  design  to  open  a  way  to  this 
glory  for  himself,  contributed  to  the  nomination 
of  Glabrio,  and  to  the  nomination  of  the  praetors, 
who  were  sent  with  separate  commands  into  the 
provinces  of  Asia  and  Bithynia.  If,  upon  this 
change,  the  war  should  become  unsuccessful,  or 
languish,  he  had  hopes  to  be  called  for  by  the 
general  voice  of  the  people,  as  the  only  person  fit 
to  bring  it  to  a  happy  conclusion.  Meantime  a 
project  was  started,  which  was  likely  to  place  him 
near  to  this  scene  of  action,  and  to  facilitate  his 
removal,  if  judged  expedient,  to  the  command  of 
the  army  in  Pontus. 

The  pirates  still  continued  to  infest  the  seas, 
and  were  daily  rising  in  their  presumption,  and  in- 
creasing in  their  strength.  They  received  con- 
tinual accessions  of  numbers  from  those,  who,  by 
the  unsettled  state  of  Asia,  were  forced  to  join 
them  for  subsistence.  The  impunity  which  they 
enjoyed  during  the  distractions  of  the  Roman 
commonwealth,  and  the  profits  they  made  by 
their  depredations,  encouraged  many  who  fre- 
quented the  seas  to  engage  in  the  same  way  of 
life.  They  had  been  chased,  and  numbers  of 
them  taken  by  M.  Antonius,  the  orator,  by  Ser- 
vilius  Isauricus,  and,  last  of  all,  by  C.  Antonius, 
the  father  of  him  who,  in  the  capacity  of  trium- 
vir, is  to  become  so  conspicuous  in  the  sequel  of 
this  history.  But  they  had  their  retreats ;  and, 
upon  the  least  remission  of  vigilance  in  the  Ro- 
man officers,  they  again  multiplied  apace,  put  to 
sea  in  formidable  squadrons,  and  embarked  such 
numbers  of  men,  as  not  only  enabled  them  to 
scour  the  seas,  but  likewise  to  make  descents  on 
the  coasts,  to  enter  harbours,  destroy  shipping, 
and  pillage  the  maritime  towns.  They  even  ven- 
tured to  appear  off  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  and 
to  plunder  the  town  of  Ostia.  All  the  coasts  of 
the  empire  were  open  to  their  depredations.  The 
Roman  magistrates  were  made  prisoners  in  pass- 
ing to  and  from  their  provinces ;  and  citizens  of 
every  denomination,  when  taken  by  them,  were 
forced  to  pay  ransom,  kept  in  captivity,  or  put  to 
death.  The  supply  of  provisions  to  Italy  was 
rendered  extremely  difficult,  and  the  price  in  pro- 
portion enhanced.  Every  report  on  these  sub- 
jects was  exaggerated  by  the  intrigues  of  Pompey, 
who  perceived,  in  this  occasion  of  public  distress, 
the  object  of  a  new  and  extraordinary  commis- 
sion to  himself. 

Frequent  complaints  having  been  made,  and 
frequent  deliberations  held  on  this  subject  in  the 
senate,  Gabinius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  at  last  pro- 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


161 


posed,  that  some  officer  of  consular  rank  should 
be  vested,  during  three  years,  with  absolute  pow- 
ers, in  order  to  put  an  effectual  stop  to  these  out- 
rages, and  to  eradicate  the  cause  of  them,  so  as 
to  secure  for  the  future  the  inhabitants  of  the 
coast,  as  well  as  to  protect  the  navigation  of  the 
seas.  As  Gabinius  was  known  to  be  in  concert 
with  Pompoy,  the  design  of  the  proposition  was 
manifest ;  and  it  was  received  in  the  senate  with 
great  aversion.  "  For  this,"  it  was  said,  "  Pom- 
pey  has  declined  the  ordinary  turn  of  consular 
duty  upon  the  expiration  of  his  office,  that  he 
might  lie  in  wait  for  extraordinary  and  illegal  ap- 
pointments." Gabinius  being  threatened  with 
violence  if  he  should  persist  in  his  motion,  thought 
proper  to  withdraw  from  the  assembly. 

A  report  was  immediately  spread  in  the  city, 
that  the  person  of  the  tribune  Gabinius  had  been 
actually  violated;  multitudes  assembled  at  the 
doors  of  the  senate-house,  and  great  disorders 
were  likely  to  follow ;  it  was  judged  prudent  for 
the  senate  to  adjourn ;  and  the  members  dread- 
ing some  insult  from  the  populace,  retired  by 
separate  ways  to  their  own  houses.  Gabinius, 
without  farther  regard  to  the  dissent  of  the  senate, 
prepared  to  carry  his  motion  to  the  people ;  but 
the  other  nine  tribunes  were  inclined  to  oppose 
hitn.  Trebellius  and  Roscius,  in  particular,  pro- 
mised, by  their  negative,  to  put  a  stop  to  any  far- 
ther proceedings  on  that  business.  Pompey,  in 
the  mean  time,  with  a  dissimulation  which  con- 
stituted part  of  his  character,  affected  to  disap- 
prove of  the  motion,  and  to  decline  the  commis- 
sion with  which  it  was  proposed  to  vest  him.  He 
had  recourse  to  this  affectation,  not  merely  as  the 
fittest  means  on  the  present  occasion  to  disarm 
the  envy  of  the  nobles,  and  to  confirm  the  people 
in  their  choice ;  but  still  more  as  a  manner  of 
proceeding  which  suited  his  own  disposition,  no 
less  desirous  to  appear  forced  and  courted  into 
high  situations,  than  solicitous  to  gain  and  to  hold 
them.  He  thus  provoked  the  citizens  of  his  own 
rank,  no  less  by  the  shallow  arts  which  he  prac- 
tised to  impose  on  the  public,  than  by  the  state 
which  he  assumed.  He  could  scarcely  expect  to 
find  a  support  in  the  order  of  nobles,  and  least  of 
all  among  those  who  were  likely  to  become  the 
personal  rivals  of  his  fortune  in  the  common- 
wealth:  and  yet  it  is  mentioned,  that  Julius 
Csssar,  now  about  two-and-thirty  years  of  age, 
and  old  enough  to  distinguish  his  natural  antago- 
nists in  the  career  of  ambition,  took  part  with 
the  creatures  of  Pompey  on  this  occasion.  He 
was  disposed  to  court  the  people,  and  to  oppose 
the  aristocracy ;  either  of  which  principles  may 
explain  his  conduct  in  this  instance.  He  had 
himself  already  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the 
senate,  but  more  as  a  libertine  than  as  a  disturber 
of  the  state,  in  which  he  had  not  hitherto  taken 
any  material  part.  In  common  with  the  youth 
of  his  time,  he  disliked  the  senators,  on  account 
of  the  remaining  austerity  of  their  manners,  no 
less  than  the  inferior  people  disliked  them  on  ac- 
count of  their  aristocratical  claims  to  prerogative. 
But  whatever  wc  may  suppose  to  have  been  his 
motives,  Caesar,  even  before  he  seemed  to  have 
formed  any  ambitious  designs  of  his  own,  was 
ever  ready  to  abet  those  of  every  desperate  adven- 
turer who  counteracted  the  authority  of  the  se- 
nate, or  set  the  orders  of  government  at  nought ; 
and  seemed  to  be  actuated  by  a  species  of  instinct, 
which  set  him  at  variance  with  those  forms  of 
X 


a  civil  nature,  which  checked  the  license  of  fac- 
tion.2 

On  the  day  on  which  the  question  on  the  mo- 
tion of  Gabinius  was  to  be  put  to  the  people, 
Pompey  appeared  in  the  Comitium ;  and,  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  speech  which  is  ascribed  to 
him,  employed  a  dissimulation  and  artifice  some- 
what too  gross  even  for  a  popular  assembly.  He 
took  occasion  to  thank  the  people  for  the  honours 
he  had  so  often  received ;  but  complained,  that, 
having  already  toiled  so  much  in  the  public 
service,  he  still  should  be  destined  for  new  labours. 
"  You  have  forgotten,"  he  said,  "  the  dangers  I  en- 
countered, and  the  fatigues  I  underwent,  while 
yet  almost  a  boy,  in  the  war  with  Cinna,  in  the 
wars  in  Sicily  and  in  Africa,  and  what  I  suffered 
in  Spain,  before  I  was  honoured  with  any  magis- 
tracy, or  was  of  age  to  have  a  place  in  the  senate. 
But  I  mean  not  to  accuse  you  of  ingratitude ;  on 
the  contrary,  I  have  been  fully  repaid.  Your 
nomination  of  me  to  conduct  the  war  with  Ser- 
torius,  when  every  one  else  declined  the  dancer, 
I  consider  as  a  favour;  and  the  extraordinary 
triumph  you  bestowed  in  consequence  of  it,  as 
a  very  great  honour.  But  1  must  entreat  you  to 
consider,  that  continued  application  and  labour 
exhaust  the  powers  of  the  mind  as  well  as  those 
of  the  body.  Trust  not  to  my  age  alone,  nor  ima- 
gine that  I  am  still  a  young  man,  merely  because 
my  number  of  years  is  short  of  what  others  have 
attained.  Reckon  my  services  and  the  dangers 
to  which  I  have  been  exposed  ;  they  will  ex- 
ceed the  number  of  my  years,  and  satisfy  you, 
that  I  cannot  longer  endure  the  labours  and  cares 
which  are  now  proposed  for  me.  But  if  this  be 
not  granted  me,  I  must  beg  of  you  to  consider 
what  loads  of  envy  such  appointments  are  likely 
to  draw  upon  me  from  men,  whose  displeasure, 
I  know  you  neither  do,  nor  ought  to  regard, 
although  to  me  their  envy  would  be  a  great  mis- 
fortune:  and  I  confess,  that,  of  all  the  difficul- 
ties and  dangers  of  war,  I  fear  nothing  so  much 
as  this.  To  live  with  envious  persons ;  to  be 
called  to  account  for  miscarriage,  if  one  fails  in 
public  affairs;  to  be  envied,  if  one  succeeds;  who 
would  choose  to  be  employed  on  such  conditions? 
For  these,  and  many  other  reasons,  I  pray  you 
to  leave  me  at  rest ;  leave  me  to  the  care  of  my 
family,  and  of  my  private  alliiirs.  As  for  the  pre- 
sent service,  1  pray  you  to  choose,  among  those 
who  desire  the  employment,  some  proper  person  ; 
among  so  many,  you  cannot  surely  be  at  a  loss. 
I  am  not  the  only  person  that  loves  you,  or  that 
has  experience  in  military  affairs.  There  are 
many,  whose  names,  to  avoid  the  imputation  of 
flattery,  I  will  not  mention." 

To  this  speech  Gabinius  replied ;  and,  affect- 
ing to  believe  the  sincerity  of  Ponipey's  declara- 
tions, observed,  that  it  was  agreeable  to  the 
character  of  this  great  man,  neither  to  desire 
command,  nor  rashly  to  accept  of  what  was 
pressed  upon  him.  "  They  who  are  best  able  to 
surmount  difficulties,"  he  said,  "an-  likewise 
least  inclined  to  engage  in  them.  But  it  is  your 
business,  fellow-citizens,  to  consider,  not  what  is 
agreeable  to  Pompey,  but  what  is  necessary  to 
your  own  affairs;  not  to  regard  those  who  court 
you  for  offices,  but  those  who  are  fit  to  discharge 
the  duties  of  them.  I  wish  we  had  many  persons 
of  this  description,  besides  the  man  I  have  pro- 


2  Zonoras,  An.  lib.  x.  c.  3* 


162 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


posed  to  your  choice.  Did  we  not  all  wish  for 
such  persons  likewise,  when  we  searched  among 
the  young  and  the  old  for  some  one  whom  we 
could  oppose  to  Sertorius,  and  found  none  but 
himself?  But  wishes  cannot  avail  us ;  we  must 
take  men  as  they  are ;  we  cannot  create  them. 
If  there  be  but  one  man  formed  for  our  purpose, 
with  knowledge,  experience,  and  good  fortune, 
we  must  lay  hold  of  him,  and  seize  him,  if  neces- 
sary, even  by  force.  Compulsion  here  is  expe- 
dient and  honourable  for  both  parties ;  for  those 
who  employ  it,  because  it  is  to  find  them  a  person 
who  can  conduct  their  affairs ;  for  him  who  suf- 
fers it,  because  he  is  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
serving  his  country,  an  object  for  which  no  good 
citizen  will  refuse  to  expose  his  person,  or  to 
sacrifice  his  life. 

"  Do  you  think  that  Pompey,  while  yet  a  boy, 
was  fit  to  command  armies,  to  protect  your  allies, 
to  reduce  your  enemies,  to  extend  your  empire ; 
but  that  now,  in  the  prime  of  life,  ripe  in  wisdom 
and  experience,  he  can  serve  you  no  longer? 
You  employed  the  boy,  you  suffer  the  man  to  be 
idle.  When  a  private  citizen  of  equestrian  rank, 
he  was  fit  for  war  and  affairs  of  state  :  now  he  is 
a  senator,  he  is  fit  for  nothing  !  Before  you  had 
any  trial  of  him,  you  made  choice  of  him  for  the 
most  important  trust;  now  that  you  have  expe- 
rience of  his  ability,  of  his  conduct,  and  of  his 
success,  you  hesitate.  Is  the  present  occasion  less 
pressing  than  the  former  ?  Is  the  antagonist  of 
Sertorius  not  fit  to  contend  with  pirates?  But 
such  absurdities  cannot  be  received  by  the  Roman 
people.  As  for  you,  Pompey,  submit  to  the  will 
of  your  fellow-citizens.  For  this  you  were  born, 
for  this  you  were  educated.  I  call  upon  you  as 
the  property  of  your  country ;  I  call  upon  you  as  its 
defence  and  safe-guard ;  I  call  upon  you  to  lay 
down  your  life,  if  necessary.  This  I  know,  if  your 
country  require  it,  you  will  not,  you  cannot  refuse. 

"  But  it  is  ridiculous  to  accost  you  in  this  man- 
ner ;  you,  who  have  proved  your  courage  and  your 
love  to  your  country  in  so  many  and  such  arduous 
trials.  Be  ruled  by  this  great  assembby.  Despise 
the  envy  of  a  few,  or  study  the  more  to  deserve 
the  general  favour.  Let  the  envious  pine  when 
they  hear  of  your  actions,  it  is  what  they  deserve. 
Let  us  be  delivered  from  the  evils  that  surround 
us,  while  you  proceed  to  end  your  life  as  you  be- 
gan it,  with  success  and  with  glory." 

When  Gabinius  had  finished  his  speech,  Tre- 
bellius,  another  of  the  tribunes,  attempted  to  re- 
ply ;  but  such  a  clamour  was  immediately  raised 
by  the  multitude  that  he  could  not  be  heard.  He 
then,  by  the  authority  of  his  office,  forbad  the 
question ;  and  Gabinius  instantly  proposed  to  have 
the  sense  of  the  tribes,  whether  Trebellius  had 
not  forfeited  the  character  of  tribune  ?  Seven- 
teen tribes  were  of  this  opinion,  and  the  eighteenth 
would  have  made  the  majority,  when  Trebellius 
thought  proper  to  withdraw  his  negative.  Ros- 
cius,  another  of  the  tribunes,  intimated  by  signs 
(for  he  could  not  be  heard)  that  a  second  should 
be  joined  with  Pompey  in  this  commission.  But 
the  clamour  was  renewed,  and  the  meeting  likely 
to  end  in  riot  and  violence.  Then  all  opposition 
to  the  motion  was  dropped.  In  this  state  of  af- 
fairs, Gabinius,  trusting  that,  in  the  present  hu- 
mour of  the  people,  no  man  would  dare  to  oppose 
the  measure,  and  wishing  to  increase  the  honour 
of  Pompey's  nomination,  by  the  seeming  concur- 
rence of  some  of  the  more  respectable  citizens, 


called  upon  Catullus,  who  was  then  first  on  the 
roll  of  the  senate,  to  deliver  his  opinion,  and  led 
him  up  into  the  rostra  for  this  purpose. 

This  citizen,  by  the  equability  of  his  conduct, 
and  by  his  moderation  in  support  of  the  aristo- 
cracy, had  great  authority  even  with  the  opposite 
party.  He  began  his  speech  to  the  people  with 
professions  of  public  zeal,  which  obliged  him  to 
deliver  with  plainness  what  he  thought  was  con- 
ducive to  their  good,  and  which  entitled  him  to  a 
deliberate  hearing,  before  they  should  pronounce 
on  the  merits  of  what  he  was  about  to  deliver, 
"  If  you  listen,"  he  said,  "something  may  still 
be  offered  to  inform  your  judgment ;  if  you  break 
forth  again  into  disorders  and  tumults,  your  ca  - 
pacity and  good  understanding  will  avail  you 
nothing,  I  must  begin  with  declaring  my  opi- 
nion, that  powers  so  great,  and  for  so  long  a  time, 
as  are  now  proposed  for  Pompey,  should  not  be 
committed  to  any  single  citizen. 

"  The  precedent  is  contrary  to  law,  and  in  itself, 
in  the  highest  degree,  dangerous  to  the  state. 
Whence  came  the  usurpations  of  Marius,  but 
from  the  habit  of  continued  command  ;  from  his 
being  put  at  the  head  of  every  army,  entrusted 
with  every  war,  and  no  less  than  six  times  re- 
elected consul  in  the  space  of  a  few  years.  What, 
inflamed  to  such  a  degree  the  arrogant  spirit  of 
Sylla,  but  the  continual  command  of  armies,  and 
the  continual  power  of  dictator?  Such  is  hu- 
man nature,  that,  in  age  as  well  as  in  youth,  we 
are  debauched  with  power;  and  if  inured  for 
any  time  to  act  as  superiors,  we  cannot  submif 
afterwards  to  the  equal  and  moderate  station  ot 
citizens. 

"  I  speak  not  with  any  particular  reference  to 
Pompey;  I  speak  what  the  law  requires,  and 
what  I  am  sure  is  for  your  good.  If  high  office 
and  command  be  an  honour,  every  one  who  had 
pretensions  should  enjoy  them  in  his  turn;  if 
they  be  a  load  or  a  burden,  every  one  ought  to 
bear  his  part.  These  are  the  laws  of  justice  and 
of  republican  government.  By  observing  them, 
republics  have  an  advantage  over  every  other 
state.  By  employing  many  men  in  their  turns, 
they  educate  and  train  many  citizens  for  the  pub- 
lic service,  and  have  numbers  amongst  whom 
they  may  choose  the  fittest  to  serve  on  every  par- 
ticular emergence.  But  if  we  suffer  one  or  a  few 
to  engross  every  office  of  public  service  or  public 
trust,  the  list  of  those  who  are  qualified  for  any 
such  trust  will  decrease  in  proportion.  If  we 
always  employ  the  same  person  in  every  public 
service,  we  shall  soon  have  no  other  person  to 
employ.  Why  were  we  so  much  at  a  loss  for 
experienced  commanders  when  Sertorius  appear- 
ed to  threaten  Italy  with  an  invasion  1  Because 
command,  for  a  considerable  time  before  that  pe- 
riod, had  been  engrossed  by  a  few,  and  those  few 
alone  had  any  experience.  Although,  therefore, 
I  have  the  highest  opinion  of  Pompey's  abilities 
for  this  service,  I  must  prefer  to  his  pretensions 
the  public  utility  and  the  express  declaration  of 
the  laws. 

"  You  annually  elect  consuls  and  praetors :  to 
what  purpose  ?  to  serve  the  state  ?  or  to  carry  for 
a  few  months  the  ensigns  of  power  ?  If  to  serve 
the  state,  why  name  private  persons  with  unpre- 
cedented commissions  to  perform  what  your  ma- 
gistrates are  either  fit  to  perform,  or  are  not  fit  to 
have  been  elected  ? 

"  If  there  be  any  uncommon  emergency  that 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


1G3 


requires  more  than  the  ordinary  exertions  of  go- 
vernment, the  constitution  has  provided  an  expe- 
dient. You  may  name  a  dictator.  The  power 
of  this  officer  has  no  bounds,  but  in  respect  to  the 
place  in  which  it  is  to  be  exercised,  and  to  the  time 
during  which  it  is  to  last.  It  is  to  be  exercised 
within  the  limits  of  Italy,  where  alone  the  vitals 
of  the  state  can  be  exposed  to  any  great  or  press- 
ing attack ;  it  is  limited  to  six  months,  a  sufficient 
period  in  which  to  remove  the  cause  of  any  sud- 
den alarm.  But  this  unlimited  power,  which  is 
now  proposed  for  so  long  a  time,  and  over  the 
whole  empire,  must  end  in  calamities,  such  as 
this  and  other  nations  have  suffered  from  the  am- 
bition and  usurpation  of  arbitrary  and  seditious 
men. 

"  If  you  bestow  unlimited  power  by  sea  and 
by  land  on  a  single  man,  in  what,  manner  is  he  to 
exercise  his  power  1  Not  by  himself  in  person, 
for  he  cannot  be  every  where  present ;  he  must 
have  lieutenants  or  substitutes  who  act  under  his 
orders.  He  cannot  even  attend  to  what  is  passing 
at  once  in  Egypt  and  in  Spain,  in  Africa,  Syria, 
and  in  Greece.  If  so,  then  why  may  not  those 
who  are  to  act  be  officers  named  by  you,  and 
not  by  any  intermediate  person ;  accountable  to 
you,  and  not  to  another;  and  in  the  dangers 
they  run,  animated  with  the  prospect  of  honour 
to  themselves,  not  to  a  person  who  is  unnecessa- 
rily interposed  between  them  and  their  country  ? 
Gabinius  proposes  to  invest  this  officer  with  au- 
thority to  name  many  lieutenants;  I  pray  you 
consider,  whether  these  officers  should  depend 
upon  any  intermediate  person,  or  upon  yourselves 
alone  ?  and  whether  there  be  sufficient  cause  to 
suspend  all  the  legal  powers,  and  to  supersede  all 
the  magistrates  in  the  commonwealth,  and  all  the 
governors  of  provinces  in  every  part  of  your  em- 
pire, in  order  to  make  war  on  pirates?" 

So  much  of  what  Catullus  is  supposed  to  have 
delivered  on  this  occasion  is  preserved  among  the 
fragments  of  Dion  Cassius.  It  is  mentioned  by 
others,  that  the  audience  expressed  their  good- 
will and  respect  for  this  senator  in  a  compliment 
which  they  paid  to  him,  probably  near  the  close 
of  his  speech,  when  urging  some  of  his  former 
arguments,  he  asked,  "  If  this  man  to  whom  alone, 
by  thus  employing  him  in  every  service,  you  give 
an  opportunity  of  learning  the  profession  of  a 
statesman  or  soldier,  should  fall,  to  whom  will 
you  next  have  recourse?"  The  people  answered, 
with  a  general  acclamation,  To  yourself. i  They 
revered,  for  a  moment,  the  candour  and  ability 
of  this  eminent  citizen,  but  could  not  withstand 
the  arts  of  Pompey,  and  the  tide  of  popularity, 
which  then  ran  so  much  in  his  favour. 

This  day  being  far  spent  in  debate,  another 
day  was  appointed  in  which  to  collect  the  votes, 
when  a  decree  passed  to  vest  Pompey  with  the 
supreme  command  over  all  the  fleets  and  armies 
of  the  republic,  in  every  sea  without  distinction 
or  limit,  and  on  every  coast  within  four  hundred 
stadia,  or  fifty  miles  of  the  shore.  This  commis- 
sion took  place  in  Italy,  and  extended  throughout 
every  province,  during  three  years  from  the  time 
of  passing  the  edict. 

As  Pompey  owed  these  extraordinary  powers 
entirely  to  the  tribune  Gabinius,  he  intended  to 
have  employed  him  next  in  command  to  himself; 
put  the  law  which  excluded  the  tribunes  from 


1  Cioero  pro  Lege  Manilia. 


succeeding  to  any  such  commands,  in  the  first 
year  after  the  expiration  of  their  office,  stood  in 
the  way  of  this  choice ;  and  Pompey  did  not  per- 
sist in  it. 

Upon  the  publication  of  an  edict  investing  an 
officer  of  such  renown  with  so  high  powers  for 
restoring  the  navigation  of  the  seas,  corn  and 
every  other  article  of  importation  at  Rome,  con- 
siderably fell  in  their  price.  The  friends  of  Pom- 
pey already  triumphed  in  the  success  of  their 
measure,  and  he  himself  soon  after,  notwithstand- 
ing the  meanness  of  the  enemy  opposed  to  him, 
gained  much  credit  by  the  rapid,  decisive,  and 
effectual  measures  he  took  to  obtain  the  end  of 
his  appointment.  Although  it  was  the  middle 
of  winter,  a  season  too  rough,  even  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, for  such  shipping  as  was  then  in  use, 
he  gave  orders  to  arm  and  put  to  sea  as  many 
vessels  as  could  be  collected  on  every  part  of  the 
coast.  In  a  little  time  he  had  returns  of  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy  gallies  fit  for  service,  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  foot,  and  four  thousand 
horse  embodied  on  the  coasts  to  which  his  com- 
mand extended.  That  the  pirates  might  be  every 
where  attacked  at  once,  and  find  no  refuse  by 
changing  their  usual  places  of  retreat,  he  divided 
the  maritime  parts  of  the  empire  into  separatp 
districts,  appointed  lieutenants  with  full  powers 
in  each,  assigned  their  stations,  and  allotted  their 
quotas  of  shipping  and  troops.  He  himself,  with 
a  squadron  of  sixty  ships,  proposed  to  visit  every 
quarter,  and  to  give  his  presence  where  it  should 
be  most  required.  He  began  with  the  coasts  of 
Spain  and  Gaul,  and  the  seas  of  Sardinia  and 
Corsica;  and  in  passing  from  thence,  while  thp 
fleet  coasted  round  the  peninsula  of  Italy,  he 
himself  went  on  shore,  and  travelled  by  land  to 
meet  them  at  Brundusium.  In  this  journey,  upon 
his  approach  to  Rome,  he  enjoyed,  in  all  respects, 
the  state  of  a  great  monarch,  was  received  with 
acclamations  by  the  people,  and  was  courted  by 
multitudes  of  every  condition  who  went  forth  to 
receive  him.  All  his  complaints  and  representa- 
tions were  received  as  commands.  The  consul 
Piso,  being  supposed  not  to  forward  his  levies 
with  sufficient  alacrity,  would  have  been  degrad- 
ed, if  Pompey  himself  had  not  interposed  to  pre- 
vent a  motion  which  the  tribune  Gabinius  in- 
tended to  make  for  this  purpose. 

The  fleet  being  arrived  at  Brundusium,  Pom- 
pey hastened  to  join  it,  and  from  thence  passed 
by  the  stations  of  his  several  lieutenants  in  the  sea- 
ports of  Macedonia  and  Greece,  to  the  coasts  of 
Pamphylia  and  Cilicia,  which  were  the  principal 
resort  of  the  pirates.  Such  of  these  banditti  as 
he  took  in  his  way,  were  treated  with  mildness; 
and  this  circumstance,  together  with  the  great 
preparations  which  were  reported  from  even- 
quarter  to  be  making  against  them,  with  the  small 
hopes  they  had  of  being  able  to  escape,  induced 
them,  in  great  numbers,  to  surrender  themselves. 
In  the  bay  of  Cilicia  he  found  a  squadron  of  their 
ships  assembled,  and  ready  to  cover  the  harbours 
at  which  they  had  been  accustomed  to  collect 
their  stores,  and  to  lodge  their  booty.  They  sepa- 
rated, however,  upon  his  appeo  ranee,  took  refuge 
in  diff  erent  creeks  of  that  mountainous  coast,  and 
afterwards  surrendered  at  discretion,  delivering 
up  all  the  forts  they  had  erected,  with  all  their 
stores  of  timber,  cordage,  and  sails,  of  which  they 
had  made  a  considerable  provision. 

By  these  means  the  war  was  finished  about 


104  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


the  middle  of  summer,  six  months  after  the  no- 
mination of  Pompey  to  this  command.  In  that 
time  seventy-two  gallies  were  sunk,  three  hundred 
and  six  were  taken,  and  a  hundred  and  twenty 
piratical  harbours  or  strong-holds  on  shore  were 
destroyed.  Ten  thousand  of  the  pirates  were 
killed  in  action,  and  twenty  thousand,  who  had 
surrendered  themselves,  remained  prisoners  at  the 
end  of  the  war.  These  Pompey  ha  ving  sufficiently 
deprived  of  the  means  of  returning  to  their  former 
way  of  life,  transplanted  to  different  parts  of  the 
continent,  where  the  late  or  present  troubles,  by 
thinning  the  inhabitants,  had  made  room  for 
them.  Upon  this  occasion  he  repeopled  the  city 
of  Soli  in  Cilicia,  which  had  been  lately  laid 
waste,  and  forcibly  emptied  of  its  inhabitants 
by  Tigranes,  to  replenish  his  newly  established 
capital  of  Tigranocerta  in  Armenia.  After  this 
re-establishment  of  Soli,  the  place,  in  honour  of  its 
restorer,  came  to  be  known  by  the  name  of  Pom- 
peiopolis.1 

Whilst  Pompey  was  thus  employed  in  dispos- 
ing of  the  pirates  on  the  coast  of  Cilicia,  he  re- 
ceived a  message  from  Lappa  in  the  island  of 
Crete,  now  besieged  by  Metellus,  intimating  that 
the  people  of  this  place,  although  they  held  out 
against  Metellus,  were  willing  to  surrender  to 
Pompey.  This  sort  of  preference,  implying  esti- 
mation and  popular  regard,  was  one  of  the  tempt- 
ations which  Pompey  was  supposed  unable  to 
resist;  he  accordingly,  without  consulting  with 
Metellus,  sent  an  officer  to  receive  the  surrender 
of  Lappa. 

Metellus  had  now  been  near  two  years  in  the 
island  of  Crete,  had  almost  entirely  reduced  it, 
and  had  a  near  prospect  of  that  triumph,  which 
he  afterwards  actually  obtained,  with  the  title  of 
Creticus,  on  account  of  this  conquest.  Pompey's 
commission,  as  commander-in-chief  of  all  the  sea 
and  land  forces  of  Rome,  within  fifty  miles  of  the 
coast,  no  doubt  extended  to  this  island  ;  but  it 
was  justly  reckoned  invidious  to  interfere  in  the 
province  of  a  proconsul,  whose  appointment  pre- 
ceded his  own.  And  this  step  revived  all  the 
former  imputations  against  him,  that  he  consi- 
dered himself  as  every  one's  superior,  strove  to 
suppress  every  growing  fame,  and  threw  his  per- 
sonal consideration  as  a  bar  in  the  way  of  every 
rising  merit.  Metellus,  stung  with  resentment, 
and  trusting  to  the  support  of  the  senate,  ven- 
tured to  contemn  his  orders,  even  after  Octavius, 
who  had  been  sent  by  Pompey  to  take  the  inha- 
bitants of  Lappa  under  his  protection,  had  entered 
the  town,  and  in  his  name  commanded  Metellus 
to  desist  from  the  attack  of  a  place  already  in 
possession  of  the  Romans.  He  nevertheless  con- 
tinued the  siege,  forced  the  town  to  surrender, 
and  threatening  to  treat  Octavius  himself  as  a 
rebel,  obliged  him  to  leave  the  island.  The  senate, 
without  otherwise  deciding  the  controversy  which 
was  likely  to  arise  on  this  subject,  afterwards 
acknowledged  Metellus  as  the  conqueror  of  Crete, 
and  decreed  him  a  triumph  in  that  capacity.2 

The  dispute,  however,  at  this  time  might  have 
led  to  disagreeable  consequences,  if  Pompey, 
while  he  was  preparing  to  pass  into  Crete  against 
Metellus,  had  not  found  another  object  of  more 
importance  to  his  plan  of  greatness.3  Lucullus 


1  Dion  Cassius,  lib.  xxxvi.  c.  20. 

2  Liv.  Epit.  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio.  Dion  Cass.  lib. 
xxxv.  3  Dion  Cass.  lib.  xxxvi.  c.  28. 


had  always  appeared  to  him  a  more  formidable 
rival  in  power  and  consideration  than  Metellus, 
and  the  war  in  Pontus  and  Armenia  likely  to 
furnish  a  more  ample  field  of  glory  than  the  de- 
struction of  pirates. 

Mithridates,  though  once  nearly  vanquished, 
was,  by  means  of  the  distractions  which,  com- 
municating from  the  popular  factions  at  Rome, 
had  infected  the  army  of  Lucullus,  enabled  to  re- 
new the  war  with  fresh  vigour.  Knowing  that 
the  Roman  general  was  no  longer  obeyed,  he  not 
only  returned,  as  has  been  mentioned,  into  his 
own  kingdom,  but,  together  with  Tigranes,  be- 
gan to  act  on  the  offensive,  and  made  excursions 
even  into  Cilicia.  Acilius  Glabrio,  the  procon- 
sul appointed  to  succeed  in  the  command  of  the 
Roman  army,  hearing  the  bad  state  of  affairs, 
stopped  short  in  Bithynia,  and  even  refused  to 
furnish  Lucullus  with  the  reinforcements  he  had 
brought  from  Italy.  In  these  circumstances  the 
province  of  Asia,  likely  to  become  a  principal 
source  of  revenue  to  the  commonwealth,  was  in 
imminent  danger  of  being  wrested  from  their 
hands.  The  friends  of  Pompey  seized  the  op- 
portunity to  obtain  a  farther  enlargement  of  his 
powers.  Manilius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  in  con- 
cert with  Gabinius,  moved  the  people  to  extend 
his  commission  to  the  provinces  of  Phrygia,  Bi- 
thynia, Cappadocia,  and  Pontus  ;  and  of  course 
to  commit  the  war  in  Armenia  and  Pontus  to  his 
direction.  This  motion  was  strenuously  opposed 
by  Catulus,  Hortensius,  and  all  the  principal 
members  of  the  senate.  It  was  supported  by 
Marcus  Tullius  Cicero  and  by  Caius  Julius 
Caesar,  who  both  intended  on  this  occasion,  to 
court  the  popular  party,  by  espousing  the  cause 
of  a  person  so  much  in  favour  with  the  people. 

Cicero  was  one  of  the  first  of  the  Romans  who 
rested  his  consideration  entirely  on  civil  accom- 
plishments, and  who  became  great  by  the  services 
he  was  qualified  to  render  his  friends  in  a  civil 
capacity,  without  any  pretensions  to  the  merit  of 
a  soldier.  The  character  of  a  pleader  was  become 
one  of  the  most  powerful  recommendations  to 
public  notice,  and  one  of  the  surest  roads  to  con- 
sequence and  civil  preferments.  Cicero,  with  a 
fine  genius  and  great  application,  was  supposed 
to  excel  all  who  had  gone  before  him  in  this  line 
of  pursuit.  His  talents  were  powerful  instru- 
ments in  his  own  hands ;  they  rendered  him  ne- 
cessary to  others,  and  procured  him  the  courtship 
of  every  party  in  its  turn.  He  was  understood 
to  favour  the  aristocracy,  and  was  inclined  to 
support  the  senate,  as  the  great  bulwark  of  the 
state,  against  the  licence  of  the  populace,  and  the 
violence  of  factious  leaders.  But  being  now  pra^toi 
with  a  near  prospect  of  the  consulate,  he  sacri- 
ficed much  to  his  ambition  in  the  pursuit  of  pre- 
ferments, which  were  new  in  his  family,  and 
which  the  ancient  nobility  were  disposed  to  envy 
him.  His  speech,  upon  the  motion  of  Manilius, 
was  the  first  he  had  ever  made  in  a  political  cha- 
racter ;  it  is  still  extant,  and  does  more,  honour  to 
his  talents  as  a  pleader,  than  to  his  steadiness  in 
support  of  the  constitution  and  government  of  his 
country.4  He  turned  aside,  by  artful  evasions, 
the  wise  councils  of  Hortensius  and  Catulus; 
and,  under  pretence  of  setting  forth  the  merits  of 
Pompey,  and  of  stating  precedents  in  his  favour, 
dazzled  his  audience,  by  enumerating  the  irregular 


4  Cicer.  Orat.  pro  Lege  Manilia. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


165 


honours  which  they  themselves  had  already  con- 
ferred on  this  object  of  their  favour. 

With  such  able  advocates,  in  a  cause  to  which 
the  people  were  already  so  well  disposed,  the  in- 
terest of  Pompey  could  not  miscarry ;  and  an 
addition  was  accordingly  made  to  his  former  com- 
mission, by  which  he  became  in  reality  sovereign 
of  the  fairest  part  of  the  empire.  Upon  the  ar- 
rival of  this  news  in  Cilicia,  where  he  then  was, 
he  affected  surprise  and  displeasure.  "Are my 
enemies,"  he  said,  "  never  to  give  me  any  respite 
from  war  and  trouble  ?"  He  had  talents  un- 
doubtedly, sufficient  to  support  him  in  the  use  of 
means  less  indirect ;  but  a  disposition  to  artifice, 
like  every  other  ruling  passion,  will  stifle  the 
plainest  suggestions  of  reason,  and  seems  to  have 
made  him  forget,  on  the  present  occasion,  that 
his  own  attendants  at  least  had  common  penetra- 
tion. They  turned  away  from  the  farce  which 
he  acted  with  shame  and  disgust  ;5  and  he  him- 
self made  no  delay  in  showing  the  avidity  with 
which  he  received  what  he  thus  affected  to  dis- 
like ;  laid  aside  all  thoughts  of  other  business ; 
immediately  despatched  his  orders  to  all  the  pro- 
vinces that  were  now  subjected  to  his  power; 
and,  without  passing  his  mandates  through  the 
hands  of  Lucullus,  summoned  Mithridates,  then 
with  an  army  of  between  thirty  and  forty  thou- 
sand men  on  the  frontier  of  Pontus,  to  surrender 
himself  at  discretion.  This  prince,  being  then 
in  treaty  with  Phraates,  who  had  lately  succeeded 
his  father,  Arsaces,  in  the  kingdom  of  Parthia, 
and  being  in  expectation  of  a  powerful  support 
from  that  quarter,  refused  to  listen  to  this  impe- 
rious message;  being  disappointed  in  his  hopes 
of  assistance  from  the  Parthians,  and  finding  that 
Phraates  had  joined  in  a  league  with  his  ene- 
mies, he  at  first  endeavoured  to  pacify  the  Roman 
general;  but  finding  that  his  advances  for  tins 
purpose  had  no  effect,  he  prepared  for  a  vigorous 
resistance. 

Pompey  set  out  for  Pontus,  and  in  his  way  had 
an  interview  with  Lucullus,  who  was  then  in 
Galatia.  They  accosted  each  other  at  first  with 
laboured  expressions  of  respect  and  of  compli- 
ment on  their  respective  services,  but  ended  with 
disputes  and  sharp  altercations.  Pompey  accused 
Lucullus  of  precipitation,  in  stating  the  kingdom 
of  Pontus  as  a  Roman  province,  while  the  king 
himself  was  alive  and  at  liberty.  Lucullus  sus- 
pected that  the  late  mutiny  had  been  fomented  by 
the  emissaries  of  Pompey,  to  make  way  for  his 
own  succession  to  the  command.  He  persisted 
in  maintaining  the  propriety  of  the  report  which 
he  had  made  to  the  senate,  and  in  wliich  he  had 
represented  the  kingdom  of  Pontus  as  conquered, 
and  in  which  he  had  desired  that  commissioners 
should  be  sent  as  usual  to  secure  the  possession ; 
observed,  that  no  province  could  be  kept,  if  the 
troops  stationed  to  preserve  it  refused  to  obey 
their  general ;  that  if  such  disorders  were  made 
the  engine  of  politics  in  the  competition  of  candi- 
dates for  office,  the  republic  had  worse  conse- 
quences to  fear  than  the  loss  of  any  distant 
province;  that  although  the  fugitive  king  had 
taken  advantage  of  the  factions  at  Rome  and  in 
the  army,  to  put  himself  again  at  the  head  of 
some  forces,  he  had  not  yet  recovered  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  his  kingdom,  nor  been  able 
to  disturb  the  commissioners  of  the  senate,  who 


were  employed  in  settling  the  province  ;  that  there 
was  nothing  left  for  a  successor,  but  the  invidious 
task  of  snatching  at  the  glory  which  had  been 
won  by  another. 

From  this  conference  Pompey  entered  on  the 
command  with  many  indications  of  animosity  to 
Lucullus ;  he  suspended  the  execution  of  his  or- 
ders ;  changed  the  plan  of  his  operations ;  remitted 
the  punishments,  and  recalled  the  rewards  he 
had  decreed  to  particular  persons,  in  a  manner 
which  seemed  to  justify  the  suspicion  of  his  hav- 
ing encouraged  the  late  disorders,  suffering  them 
to  pass  with  impunity;  and  treating  with  the 
usual  confidence  even  the  legions  which  had  re- 
fused to  obey  the  orders  of  their  general.  His 
own  authority,  however,  seemed  to  be  secured  by 
the  animosity  of  the  army  to  their  late  commander, 
and  by  their  desire  to  contrast  their  own  conduct, 
and  the  success  of  the  war  under  their  present 
leader,  with  that  which  had  taken  place  under 
his  predecessor.  Finding  himself,  therefore,  at 
the  head  of  numerous  and  well-affected  forces, 
both  by  sea  and  by  land,  he  lined  the  whole  coast 
of  the  Egean  and  Euxine  sea  with  his  galleys, 
and,  at  the  head  of  a  great  army,  advanced  in 
search  of  the  enemy. 

Mithridates,  upon  the  approach  of  Pompey, 
continued  retiring  before  him  towards  the  Lesser 
Armenia,  laid  waste  the  country  through  which 
the  Roman  army  was  to  pass,  and  endeavoured 
to  distress  them  by  the  want  of  provisions  and 
forage. 

For  several  days  successively  the  armies  en- 
camped in  sight  of  each  other.  Mithridates 
chose  his  stations,  so  that  he  could  not  be  safely 
attacked;  and  as  his  object  was  to  pass  the  Eu- 
phrates without  being  forced  to  a  battle,  he  gene- 
rally decamped  in  the  night,  and,  by  his  superior 
knowledge  of  the  country,  passed  through  ways 
in  which  the  Roman  army  could  not  hastily  fol- 
low without  manifest  danger  of  surprise.  Pom- 
pey, sensible  that,  upon  this  plan  of  operations, 
the  king  of  Pontus  must  eflect  his  retreat,  took  a 
resolution  to  pass  him  by  a  forced  march,  not  in 
the  night,  but  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  when  the 
troops  of  Asia  were  most  inclined  to  repose.  1  f 
he  should  succeed  in  this  design,  and  get  between 
their  army  and  the  Euphrates,  he  hoped  to  force 
them  to  a  battle,  or  oblige  them  to  change  their 
route.  He  accordingly,  on  the  day  he  had  chosen 
for  this  attempt,  doubled  his  march,  passed  the 
enemy's  camp  at  noon-day  unobserved,  and  was 
actually  posted  on  their  route,  when  they  began 
to  decamp,  as  usual,  on  the  following  night.  In 
the  encounter  which  followed,  having  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  a  surprize,  and  in  the  dark,  against 
an  army  on  its  march,  and  little  accustomed  to 
order,  he  gained  a  decisive  victory,  in  which  he 
cut  off  or  disj>crscd  all  the  forces  on  which  the 
king  of  Pontus  relied  for  the  defence  of  his 
kingdom.6 

Mithridates  escaped  with  a  few  attendants  ■ 
and,  in  this  extremity,  proposed  to  throw  himsell 
again  into  the  arms  of  Tigranes ;  but  was  re- 
fused by  this  prince,  who  was  himself  then  at- 
tacked by  a  rebellion  of  his  own  son.  Upon  this 
disappointment  he  fled  to  the  northward,  passing 
by  the  sources  of  the  Euphrates  to  I  he  kingdom 
of  Colchis,  and  from  thence,  by  the  eastern  coasts 
of  the  Euxine,  to  the  Scythian  Bosphorus,  now 


5  Plutarch  in  Pompeio. 


C  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xxxvi  c.  32. 


166 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


the  Straits  of  Cossa,  in  order  to  take  refuge  in 
the  Chersonesus,  or  Crim  Tartary,  at  Pantica- 
paea,  the  capital  of  a  kingdom  which  he  himself 
had  acquired,  and  which  he  had  bestowed  on 
Machares,  one  of  his  sons.  Upon  his  presenting 
himself  at  this  place,  he  found  that  Machares  had 
long  since  abandoned  his  father's  fortunes ;  and, 
upon  hearing  of  the  ill  state  of  his  affairs  on  his 
first  flight  from  Lucullus  into  Armenia,  had  sent, 
as  an  offering  of  peace,  a  golden  crown  to  that 
general,  and  sued  for  the  protection  of  the  Ro- 
mans. The  father,  highly  provoked  with  this 
act  of  pusillanimity  or  treachery,  assembled  a 
force  among  his  Scythian  allies,  and,  deaf  to  all 
offers  of  submission  or  entreaties  of  this  undutiful 
son,  dragged  him  from  the  throne,  and  either  or- 
dered him  to  be  put  to  death,  or  made  his  situation 
so  painful,  that  he  thought  proper  to  put  an  end 
to  his  own  life. 

In  this  manner  Mithridates  entered  anew  on 
the  possession  of  a  kingdom,  in  which  he  had  not 
only  a  safe  retreat,  but  likewise  the  means  of 
executing  new  projects  of  war  against  his  ene- 
mies. By  the  maxims  of  the  Romans,  no  king- 
dom was  supposed  to  be  conquered,  till  the  king 
was  either  killed,  taken,  or  forced  to  surrender 
himself ;  and  Pompey,  by  this  flight  of  the  king 
of  Pontus,  found  himself  under  a  necessity  either 
of  pursuing  him  into  his  present  retreat,  or  of 
doing  what  he  had  blamed  in  Lucullus,  by  mak- 
ing his  report  of  a  conquest  before  it  was  fully 
completed.  While  he  was  deliberating  on  the 
measures  to  be  taken  in  these  circumstances,  he 
was  invited  by  Tigranes,  son  to  the  king  of  Ar- 
menia, then  in  rebellion  against  his  father,  to 
enter  with  his  army  into  that  kingdom,  and  to 
give  judgment  on  the  differences  subsisting  be- 
tween the  father  and  the  son. 

In  consequence  of  this  invitation,  Pompey 
marched  into  Armenia,  joined  the  rebel  prince, 
and,  under  pretence  of  supporting  the  son,  was 
about  to  strip  the  father  of  his  kingdom,  when 
this  monarch,  with  an  excess  of  meanness,  pro- 
portioned to  the  presumption  with  which  he  had 
enjoyed  his  prosperity,  now  resolved  to  cast  him- 
self entirely  upon  the  victor's  mercy.  For  this 
purpose  he  desired  to  be  admitted  into  Pompey's 
presence,  and,  with  a  few  attendants,  presented 
himself  for  this  purpose.  Being  told,  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  camp,  that  no  stranger  could  pass  on 
horseback,  he  dismounted,  and  was  conducted  on 
foot  to  the  general's  tent.  Still  bearing  the  dia- 
dem on  his  head,  he  took  it  from  thence,  and 
offered  to  lay  it  on  the  ground  at  Pompey's  feet ; 
but  was  told  with  great  courtesy,  that  he  might 
resume  it;  that,  by  submitting  himself  to  the 
generosity  of  the  Romans,  he  had  not  lost  a  king- 
dom, but  gained  a  faithful  ally.1  At  the  same 
time,  under  pretence  of  reimbursing  the  expense 
of  the  war,  a  sum  of  six  thousand  talents,  or 
about  one  million  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
thousand  pounds  sterling,  was  exacted  from  him  ; 
and  he  himself,  to  this  great  sum  which  was  paid 
to  the  state,  added  a  gratuity  to  the  army  of  a 
talent2  to  each  of  the  tribunes,  ten  minae3  to  each 
of  the  centurions,  and  half  a  mina4  to  each  pri- 
vate man. 

Pompey,  in  disposing  of  the  two  Armenias, 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxvi.  c.  35.   Plutarch,  in  Pompeio. 

2  93/.  15s.  3    321.  5s.  lOd. 

4    1/,  12s.  3ld.    Vid  Arbulhnot  of  Ancient  Coins. 


which  were  now  in  his  power,  allotted  Sophene; 
or  the  Lesser  Armenia,  on  the  right  of  the  Eu 
phrates,  to  Tigranes  the  son,  reserving  Syria  ana 
Phoenicia,  to  which  Antiochus,  the  last  represen- 
tative of  the  Macedonian  line,  had  been  restored 
by  Lucullus,  together  with  Cilicia  and  Galatia,  to 
the  disposal  of  the  Romans. 

Tigranes  the  father  with  great  submission  ac- 
quiesced in  this  partition  ;  but  the  son,  who  pro- 
bably expected  to  have  been  put  in  the  possession 
of  the  whole  of  his  father's  kingdom,  was  greatly 
discontented,  and,  while  Pompey  was  yet  m  Ar- 
menia, entered  into  a  correspondence  with  the 
king  of  Parthia,  and  solicited  his  assistance  to 
overturn  this  establishment.  On  account  of  these 
practices,  whether  real  or  supposed,  the  son  was 
taken  into  custody,  carried  into  Italy,  and  made 
a  part  in  the  ornaments  of  the  victor's  triumph.5 
The  Roman  general,  having  in  this  manner 
disposed  of  the  kingdom  of  Armenia,  and  secured 
the  permanency  of  his  settlement  by  the  con- 
finement of  the  rebel  prince,  resumed  the  thoughts 
of  pursuing  Mithridates  into  his  present  retreat. 
For  this  purpose  he  left  Afranius  in  Armenia, 
with  a  force  sufficient  to  secure  his  rear,  and  to 
prevent  any  disturbance  on  this  side  of  the  Eu- 
phrates.   He  himself  passed  the  Araxes,  and 
wintered  on  the  Cyrus,  or  the  Cyrnus,  on  the 
confines  of  Albania  and  Iberia.  In  the  following 
summer,  having  defeated  the  natives  of  those 
countries  in  repeated  encounters,  he  advanced  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Phasis,  where  he  was  joined  by 
his  fleet,  then  plying  in  the  Euxine  sea,  under  the 
command  of  Servilius.   Here  he  appears  to  have 
deliberated,  whether  he  should  attempt  to  pursue 
Mithridates  any  farther;  but  upon  considering 
the  difficulties  of  the  voyage,  and  of  the  march 
along  a  coast  and  a  country  entirely  unknown, 
unfurnished  with  any  safe  harbour  fur  his  ships, 
or  even  with  any  means  of  subsistence  to  his 
army  by  land,  he  took  his  resolution  to  return, 
and  to  avail  himself,  in  the  best  manner  he  was 
able,  of  the  possessions  which  had  been  abandon- 
ed to  him  by  the  flight  of  the  king.6    With  this 
resolution  he  directed  his  march,  by  the  coast, 
back  into  the  kingdom  of  Pontus ;  and,  finding 
no  resistance,  took  all  his  measures  as  in  a  con- 
quered province.    At  one  place  he  found  a  con- 
siderable treasure,  which  Stratonice,  one  of  the 
concubines  of  the  king,  by  whom  he  had  a  son 
named  Xiphares,  disclosed  to  him,  on  condition 
that,  if  the  chance  of  war  should  throw  Xiphares 
into  the  hands  of  the  conqueror,  his  life  should 
be  spared.  But  this  unhappy  son  was  exposed  to 
other  dangers  besides  those  the  mother  appre- 
hended.   Mithridates,  upon  hearing  of  the  price 
which  was  paid  for  his  life,  ordered  him  to  be 
slain.    "  That  woman,"  he  said,  "  should  have 
likewise  bargained  with  me  in  favour  of  her  son." 
At  other  places  the  Roman  army  found  the  ves- 
tiges of  great  magnificence,  joined  to  monuments 
of  superstition  and  of  cruelty.    They  found  some 
productions  of  an  art,  in  which  the  king  was 
supposed  to  be  master,  relating  to  the  composition 
of  poisons,  and  of  their  antidotes,  and  some  re- 
cords of  dreams,  together  with  the  interpreta- 
tions, which  had  been  given  by  his  women. 
From  Pontus,  Pompey,  having  made  a  proper 

5  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio,  ad  p.  458. 

6  Dio.  Cas.  lib.  37.  c.  3.  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio.  Ap 
pian.  in  Mithridat. 

7  Plutarch  in  Pompeio,  p.  462. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


167 


disposition  of  the  fleet  in  the  Euxine,  to  cover  the 
coast  from  any  attempts  which  Mithridates  might 
make  from  the  Bosphorus  and  opposite  coasts,  set 
out  for  the  kingdom  of  Syria,  which  he  now  de- 
termined to  seize  in  behalf  of  the  Romans.  Lu- 
cullus  had  already,  agreeably  to  the  policy  of  his 
country,  and  under  pretence  of  setting  the  Sy- 
rians free,  separated  their  kingdom  from  the  other 
possessions  of  Tigranes :  but  the  pretence  upon 
which  he  acted  in  this  matter  being  sufficient  to 
prevent  his  seizing  upon  Syria  as  a  Roman  pro- 
vince, he  was  content  with  restoring  it  to  An- 
tiochus,  the  last  pretender  of  the  Macedonian 
line,  who  had  lived  eighteen  years  in  the  greatest 
obscurity  in  Cilicia.  Pompey  now  proposed  to 
complete  the  transaction,  by  seizing  for  the  Ro- 
mans themselves,  what  the  other  affected  only  to 
restore  to  the  lawful  owner  ;8  and  this  intended 
owner  now  pleaded  in  vain  against  the  Romans 
that  right  of  descent  from  the  Macedonian  line, 
which  Lucullus  had  employed  with  so  much  force 
to  supplant  Tigranes.9 

On  the  march  into  Syria,  Pompey,  either  in 
person  or  by  his  lieutenants,  received  the  submis- 
sion of  all  the  principalities  or  districts  in  his  way, 
and  made  the  following  arrangements.  The  Les- 
ser Armenia,  once  intended  for  Tigranes  the  son, 
he  gave  to  Dejotarus,  king  of  Galatia,10  who 
afterwards  was  long  continued  on  the  frontier  of 
the  empire  as  a  faithful  dependant,  and  with 
possessions  which  served  as  a  barrier  against  hos- 
tile invasions  from  that  quarter.  Paphlagonia 
was  given  to  Attalus  and  Pykemenus,  who  were 
ikewise  liberal  tributaries  to  the  Roman  officers, 
and  vigilant  guards  on  the  frontiers  of  the  em- 
pire. Upon  his  arrival  at  Damascus,  he  had 
many  applications  from  the  late  subjects  or  de- 
pendants of  the  Syrian  monarchy ;  among  others, 
from  Hyrcanus  and  Aristobulus,  two  brothers 
contending  for  the  sovereignty  of  Judea,  who  now 
repaired  to  him  for  judgment,  and  requested  the 
interposition  of  his  power  in  behalf  of  the  party 
he  should  be  pleased  to  favour. 

Of  these  rivals,  who  were  the  sons  of  Alex- 
ander, late  high  priest  of  the  Jews,  Hyrcanus  the 
elder  had  succeeded  to  his  mother  Alexandra, 
whom  the  father  had  left  his  immediate  successor 
in  the  throne;  but  was  dispossessed  by  his 
younger  brother  Aristobulus,  who,  being  of  a 
more  active  spirit,  had  formed  a  powerful  taction 
among  the  people. 

Hyrcanus  took  refuge  among  the  Arabs,  and 
prevailed  upon  Aretas,  the  chieftain  of  sonic 
powerful  tribe  of  that  people,  to  support  him  with 
an  army,  in  recovering  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Jews.  In  conjunction  with  this  ally,  he  accord- 
ingly laid  siege  to  Jerusalem,  but  was  disappoint- 
ed of  his  object  by  Scaurus,  one  of  Pompey's 
lieutenants,  who  being  then  in  Syria,  at  the  re- 
quest of  Aristobulus,  from  whom  he  received  a 
present  of  three  hundred  talents,  or  about  fifty- 
seven  thousand  and  nine  hundred  pounds  ster- 
ling, interposed,  and  obliged  the  Arabs  to  raise 
the  siege.  Upon  the  arrival  of  Gabinius,  whom 
Pompey  had  sent  before  him  into  Syria,  Aristo- 
bulus thought  proper  to  make  him  likewise  a 
present  of  fifty  talents,  and  by  these  means  re- 
mained in  possession  of  the  sovereignty  at  the 
arrival  of  Pompey. 


8  Justin,  lib.  xl.  c.  1  and  2. 

9  Appian.  in  Mithridat.  p.  244.     10  Eutrop.  lib.  vi. 


It  is  alleged  that  each  of  the  contending  par- 
ties made  their  presents  to  the  general  himself; 
Hyrcanus  in  particular,  that  of  a  beautiful  piece 
of  plate,  admired  for  its  workmanship  and  weight, 
being  the  imitation  of  a  spreading  vine,  with  its 
leaves  and  fruit  in  massy  gold  ;11  and  these  cir- 
cumstances merit  attention,  as  they  furnish  some 
instances  of  the  manner  in  which  great  riches, 
now  in  so  much  request  at  Rome,  were  amassed 
by  Roman  generals  in  the  course  of  their  sen  ices. 
Besides  what  they  gained  in  this  manner,  it  is 
likely  that  every  conquest  they  effected,  every 
revolution  they  brought  about,  and  every  protec- 
tion they  granted,  were  extremely  profitable. 

Pompey,  on  hearing  the  merits  of  the  question 
between  the  two  brothers,  declared  for  Hyrcanus, 
and  advanced  towards  the  city,  to  execute  the 
decree  he  had  passed.  Upon  his  approach  he  was 
again  met  by  Aristobulus,  who  made  fresh  offers 
of  submission,  and  of  a  public  contribution  in 
money ;  and  Pompey  sent  forward  Gabinius  to 
take  possession  of  the  place,  in  terms  of  this  sub- 
mission. But  upon  a  report  that  the  gates  were 
still  kept  shut  by  the  party  of  Aristobulus,  who 
yet  remained  in  his  camp,  he  ordered  this  prince 
into  confinement,  and  advanced  with  his  army. 

The  citizens  being  divided,  those  who  espoused 
the  cause  of  Hyrcanus  were  willing  to  receive 
the  Romans ;  the  others,  who  were  attached  to 
Aristobulus,  retired  into  the  temple,  and  broke 
down  the  bridge  by  which  this  edifice  was  joined 
to  the  streets,  and  made  every  other  preparation 
to  defend  themselves  to  the  last  extremity. 

The  gates  of  the  city,  in  the  mean  time,  were 
thrown  open  by  the  party  of  Hyrcanus  j  and  the 
Romans  being  admitted,  took  possession  of  all  the 
principal  stations  within  the  walls,  and  prepared 
to  attack  the  temple.  This  building  had  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  a  citadel,  built  on  a  height,  surround- 
ed with  natural  precipices,  or  with  a  deep  ditch, 
overhung  with  lofty  battlements  and  towers. 
Pompey  sent  for  battering  engines  to  Tyre,  and 
cut  down  all  the  woods  in  the  neighbourhood  to 
furnish  materials  for  filling  up  the  ditch,  raising 
his  mound  of  approach,12  and  erecting  his  town  s. 
All  his  works  were  with  great  obstinacy  coun- 
teracted by  those  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
temple.  He  observed,  however,  in  the  course  of 
his  operations,  that  the  people  within,  although 
they  defended  their  persons  when  attacked  on  the 
Sabbath-day,  yet  they  did  not  labour,  either  in  re- 
pairing any  of  their  own  defences,  or  in  opposing 
or  demolishing  the  works  of  the  besiegers.  He 
accordingly  took  advantage  of  this  circumstance, 
made  no  assaults  on  that  day,  but  carried  on  his 
attack  in  filling  up  the  ditch,  and  carrying  on  his 
approach.  In  this  manner  his  towers,  without 
interruption,  were  raised  to  the  level  of  the  battle- 
ments, and  his  engines  playing  from  thence,  made 
great  havoc  among  the  besieged.  The  Jews, 
however,  even  under  the  discharge  of  the  enemy's 
missiles,  still  continued  at  the  altar  to  perform 
their  usual  rites.  While  they  were  engaged  in 
these  holy  exercises  they  took  so  little  precaution 
against  the  dangers  to  which  they  were  exposed, 
that  numbers  perished  in  offering  up  the  sacri- 
fices, and  mingled  their  blood  with  that  of  the 
victims. 

In  the  third  month  after  the  siege  began,  one 
of  the  towers  of  the  temple  was  brought  in  ruin 


11  Joseph.  Antiq.  lib:  xiv.  c.  2.       12  The  Agger. 


168 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  II. 


to  the  ground ;  and  Faustus,  the  son  of  Sylla, 
with  two  centurions  at  the  head  of  the  divisions 
they  commanded,  entered  the  breach,  and  putting 
all  whom  they  met  to  the  sword,  made  way  for 
more  numerous  parties  to  follow  them,  and  co- 
vered the  avenues  and  porches  of  the  temple  with 
the  slain.  The  priests,  who  were  even  then  em- 
ployed in  the  sacrifices,  waited  for  the  enemy  with 
great  composure,  and,  without  discontinuing  their 
duties,  were  slain  at  the  altars.  Numbers  of  the 
people  threw  themselves  from  the  precipices ;  and 
others,  setting  fire  to  the  booths  in  which  they  had 
lodged  under  the  walls  of  the  temple,  were  con- 
sumed in  the  flames.  About  twelve  or  thirteen 
thousand  perished  on  this  occasion,  without  any 
proportional  loss  to  the  besiegers,  or  to  those  who 
conducted  the  storm. 

Pompey,  being  master  of  the  temple,  and  struck 
with  the  obstinate  valour  with  which  the  people 
had  devoted  themselves  to  its  preservation,  was 
curious  to  see  the  interior  recess.  This  place, 
into  which  no  one  was  ever  admitted  besides  the 
high  priest,  he  supposed  to  contain  the  sacred  em- 
blems of  that  power  who  inspired  his  votaries  with 
so  ardent  and  so  unconquerable  a  zeal.  And  he 
ventured,  to  the  equal  consternation  and  horror  of 
his  own  party  among  the  Jews,  as  of  those  who 
opposed  him,  to  enter  with  his  usual  attendants 
into  the  Holy  of  Holies.  He  found  it  adorned 
with  lamps,  candlesticks,  cups,  vessels  of  incense, 
with  their  supports  all  of  solid  gold,  with  a  great 
collection  of  the  richest  perfumes,  and  a  sacred 
treasure  of  two  thousand  talents,  or  about  three 
hundred  and  eighty-six  thousand  pounds  sterling. 

Having  satisfied  his  curiosity,  it  is  mentioned 
that  he  respected  the  religion  of  the  place  so 
much  as  to  have  left  every  part  of  this  treasure 
untouched,  and  to  have  given  directions  that  the 
temple  itself  should  be  purified,  in  order  to  expi- 
ate the  profanation  of  which  he  himself  had  been 
guilty.  He  restored  Hyrcanus  to  the  priesthood 
or  sovereignty  of  the  kingdom,  but  charged  him 
with  a  considerable  tribute  to  the  Romans,  and 
at  the  same  time  stripped  the  nation  of  all  those 
possessions  or  dependencies  in  Palestine  and  Oce- 
lesyria,  which  had  been  acquired  or  held  in  sub- 
jection by  their  ancestors.  Such  were  Gadara, 
Scythopolis,  Hyppus,  Pella,  Samaria,  Marissa, 
Azotus,  Jamana,  Arethusa,  Gaza,  Joppa,  and 
Dora,  with  what  was  then  called  Strato's  Tower, 
and  afterwards  Cesarea.  Under  pretence  of  re- 
storing these  several  places  to  their  liberties,  they 
were  detached  from  the  principality  of  the  Jews, 
but  in  reality  annexed  to  the  Roman  province  of 
Syria.1 

Pompey  now  recollecting  that  he  had  formerly 
carried  his  arms  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic, 
and  to  the  boundaries  of  Numidia  and  of  Spain ; 
that  he  had  recently  penetrated  to  the  coasts  of 
the  Euxine,  and  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Caspian  Sea ;  to  the  end  that  he  might  not  leave 
any  part  of  the  known  world  unexplored  by  his 
arms,  now  formed  a  project  to  finish  this  round 
of  exploits,  by  visiting  the  shores  of  the  Asiatic 
or  Eastern  Ocean  :  a  circumstance  which  was  to 
complete  the  glory  of  his  approaching  triumph, 
and  raise  him,  as  his  flatterers  were  pleased  to 
observe,  to  a  rank  above  every  conqueror  of  the 
present  or  any  preceding  age.2 


1  Joseph,  de  Bell  Jud.  lib.  i.  &  vii.  &  Ant.  lib.  xiv.c.  6. 

2  Plutarch,  in  Pom.  p.  463. 


But  while  Pompey  was  employed  in  the  settle- 
ment of  Syria,  in  the  reduction  of  Jerusalem,  and 
meditating  these  farther  conquests,  Mithridates 
was  busy  in  making  preparations  to  renew  the 
war.  Having  heard  of  the  extremities  to  which 
the  citizens  of  Rome  had  been  frequently  reduced 
by  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls  and  of  Hannibal, 
and  by  the  insurrections  of  their  own  subjects 
and  slaves,  he  concluded  that  they  were  weakest 
at  home,  or  might  be  attacked  with  the  greatest 
advantage  in  Italy.  He  again,  therefore,  resumed 
the  project  of  marching  an  army  of  Scythians  by 
the  Danube  and  the  Alps.  He  visited  all  the 
princes  in  his  neighbourhood,  made  alliances  with 
them,  which  he  confirmed  by  giving  to  some  of 
them  his  daughters  in  marriage,  and  persuaded 
them,  by  the  hopes  of  a  plentiful  spoil,  to  join  with 
him  in  the  project  of  invading  Europe.  He  even 
despatched  his  agents  into  Gaul,  to  secure  the 
co-operations  of  nations  on  that  side  of  the  world, 
and  trusted  that,  on  his  appearance  in  Italy,  many 
of  the  discontented  inhabitants  would  join  him  as 
they  had  joined  Hannibal ;  and  that  the  slaves, 
so  lately  at  open  war  with  their  masters,  would 
likewise  be  a  plentiful  supply  of  recruits  to  his 
army. 

These  projects,  however,  appeared  to  his  own 
nation  too  hazardous  and  vast.  They  were  suited 
to  the  state  of  a  king  who  wished  to  perish  with 
splendour ;  but  not  to  that  of  subjects  and  follow- 
ers who  had  humbler  hopes,  and  who  chose  to  be 
governed  by  more  reasonable  prospects  of  success. 
The  king  himself,  while  he  meditated  such  exten- 
sive designs,  being  confined  by  an  ulcer  in  his 
face,  had  been  for  a  considerable  time  concealed 
from  public  view,  and  had  not  admitted  any  per- 
son to  his  presence  besides  some  favourite  eunuchs. 
The  minds  of  his  subjects,  and  of  his  own  family 
in  particular,  were  much  alienated  from  him  by 
some  late  acts  of  barbarous  severity  against  Ma- 
chares  and  Xiphares,  two  of  his  children,  who 
with  some  others,  as  we  have  mentioned,  had  in- 
curred his  resentment. 

Pharnaces,  another  son,  attended  the  father; 
and,  though  disposed  to  betray  him,  was  still 
much  in  his  confidence.  The  people  of  Phana- 
goria,  a  town  on  the  shore  of  the  Bosphorus,  op 
posite  to  the  fortress  at  which  the  king  now 
resided,  together  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try, pretending  a  variety  of  provocations,  revolted 
against  him ;  and  the  army,  during  his  confine- 
ment, losing  the  usual  awe  of  his  person,  muti- 
nied, and  acknowledged  Pharnaces  for  king. 
They  assembled  round  the  fort  in  which  Mithri- 
dates was  lodged,  and  which  he  had  garrisoned 
with  a  chosen  body  of  men.  When  he  appeared 
on  the  battlements,  and  desired  to  know  their  de- 
mands: "To  exchange  you,"  they  said,  "for 
Pharnaces ;  an  old  king  for  a  young  one."  Even 
while  he  received  this  answer,  and  while  many 
of  his  guards  deserted  him,  he  still  hoped  that,  if 
he  were  at  liberty,  he  might  retrieve  his  affairs. 
He  desired,  therefore,  by  repeated  messages,  to 
know  whether  he  might  have  leave  to  depart  in 
safety?  But  none  of  the  messengers  he  sent 
with  this  question  being  suffered  to  return,  he 
apprehended  that  there  was  a  design  to  deliver 
him  up  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans.  Under 
this  apprehension  he  had  recourse  to  his  last  re- 
sort, a  dose  of  poison,  which,  it  is  said,  he  always 
carried  in  the  scabbard  of  his  sword.  Being  to 
employ  this  sovereign  remedy  of  all  his  evils,  he 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


169 


dismissed,  with  expressions  of  kindness  and  gra- 
titude, such  of  his  attendants  as  still  continued 
faithful  to  him ;  and  being  left  with  two  of  his 
daughters,  who  earnestly  desired  to  die  with  their 
father,  he  allowed  them  to  share  in  the  draught, 
and  saw  them  expire.  But  the  portion  which  he 
had  reserved  for  himself  not  being  likely  to  over- 
come the  vigour  of  his  constitution,  or,  as  was 
believed  in  those  credulous  times,  being  too  pow- 
erfully counteracted  by  the  effect  of  many  anti- 
dotes he  had  taken  against  poison,  he  ordered  a 
faithful  slave  who  attended  him,  to  perform  with 
his  sword  what  was  in  those  times  accounted  the 
highest  proof,  as  it  was  the  last  act,  of  fidelity  in 
a  servant  to  his  master. 

Accounts  of  this  event  was  brought  to  Pom- 
pey. while  his  army  was  encamped  at  the  distance 
of  some  days'  march  from  the  capital  of  Judea,  in 
his  way  to  Arabia.  The  messengers  appeared 
carrying  wreaths  of  laurel  on  the  points  of  their 
spears ;  and  the  army,  crowding  around  their  ge- 
neral to  learn  the  tidings,  were  informed  of  the 
death  of  Mithridates.  This  they  received  with 
acclamations,  and  immediately  proceeded  to  make 
all  the  ordinary  demonstrations  of  joy.  Pompey, 
having  now  accomplished  the  principal  object  of 
the  war,  dropped  his  design  on  Arabia,  and  di- 
rected the  march  of  his  army  towards  Pontus. 
Here  he  received  the  submission  of  Pharnaces, 
and,  with  many  other  gifts,  was  presented  with 
the  embalmed  corpse  of  the  king.  The  whole 
army  crowded  to  see  it,  examined  the  features 
and  the  scars,  testifying,  by  these  last  effects  of 
their  curiosity,  the  respect  which  they  entertained 
for  this  extraordinary  man.  He  had,  with  short 
intervals,  occupied  the  arms  of  the  Romans  dur- 
ing forty  years ;  and,  though  he  could  not  bring 
the  natives  of  Asia  to  match  with  the  Roman 
legions,  yet  he  frequently,  by  the  superiority  of 
his  own  genius,  stood  firm  in  distress,  or  rose 
from  misfortune  with  new  and  unexpected  re- 


sources. He  was  tall,  and  of  a  vigorous  consti- 
stution,  addicted  to  women,  and,  though  superior 
to  every  other  sort  of  seduction,  to  this  his  ardent 
and  impetuous  spirit  made  him  a  frequent  and 
an  easy  prey.  He  appears  to  have  loved  and 
trusted  many  of  that  sex  with  boundless  passion. 
By  some  of  them  he  was  followed  in  the  field ; 
others  he  distributed  in  his  different  palaces ;  had 
many  children,  and  entertained  more  parental 
affection  than  commonly  attends  the  polygamy 
of  Asiatic  princes;  yet  even  towards  his  own  sons, 
as  well  as  towards  every  one  else,  on  occasions 
which  alarmed  the  jealousy  of  his  crown,  he  was 
sanguinary  and  inexorable. 

Pompey  proceeded  to  settle  the  remainder  of 
his  conquests;  and,  besides  the  arrangements 
already  mentioned,  annexed  the  kingdom  of  Pon- 
tus to  the  province  of  Bithynia,  gave  the  Bos- 
phorus  to  Pharnaces,  and  put  the  province  of 
Syria,  extending  to  the  frontier  of  Egypt,  under 
the  government  of  Scaurus.  He  had  "now,  from 
the  time  of  his  appointment  to  succeed  Lucullus, 
for  about  three  years,  had  the  sole  direction  of 
the  affairs  of  the  Romans  in  Asia;1  and  had  ex- 
changed with  the  king  of  Parthia  provoking  mes- 
sages, which,  in  a  different  conjuncture,  might 
have  led  to  immediate  war.  But  the  cirumstances 
were  not  yet  ripe  for  such  a  measure,  and  Pom- 
pey had  provided  sufficient  materials  for  a  tri- 
umph, without  attempting  to  break  through  those 
boundaries  on  which  so  many  Roman  generals 
were  doomed  to  disappointments,  and  on  which 
the  progress  of  the  empire  itself  was  destined  to 
stop. 

Without  entertaining  any  farther  projects  for 
the  present,  he  set  out  with  two  legions  on  the 
route  of  Cilicia  towards  Italy,  having  Tigranes, 
son  to  the  king  of  Armenia,  together  with  Aris^ 
tobulus,  late  usurper  of  the  Jewish  throne,  with 
his  family,  two  sons  and  two  daughters,  as  cap- 
tives to  adorn  his  triumph.3 


CHAPTER  III. 

Growing  Corruption  of  the  Roman  Officers  of  State— Tl*  Lave  of  Consideration  changed  for 
Avarice,  Rapacity,  and  Prodigality— Lavs  against  Extoi'tion— Catiline  a  Candidate  for  the 
Consulship— Conspiracy  with  Autronius— Competition  for  the  Consulate— Election  of  Cicero 
and  Antonius—  Condition  of  the  Times— Agrarian  Law  of  Rullus— Trial  of  Rabirius— 
Cabals  of  the  Tribunes— Of  Catiline— His  Flight  from  the  City— Discovery  of  his  Accom- 
plices—  Their  Execution. 


ABOUT  the  time  that  Pompey  obtained  his 
commission  to  command  with  so  extensive  a  pow- 
er in  the  suppression  of  the  pirates,  the  tide  be- 
gan to  run  high  against  the  aristocratical  party. 

The  populace,  led  by  some  of  the 
U.  C.  686.  tribunes,  were  ever  ready  to  insult 
the  authority  of  the  senate;  and 
nius  PiZ'  l.he  vices  of  particular  men  gave 
M  Aul  Ola-  Sequent  advantages  against  the 
brio.  whole  order  of  nobility.  Corrup- 

tion and  dangerous  faction  prevailed 
at  elections,  and  the  preferments  of  state  were 
generally  coveted,  as  steps  to  the  government  of 
provinces,  where  fortunes  were  amassed  by  every 
species  6f  abuse,  oppression,  and  violence/  Envy 
and  indignation  concurred  in  rousing  the  people 


against  these  abuses.  Cornelius, 
Lex  Cornelia  one  of  the  tribunes,  proposed  a  se- 
de  Ambitu.      vere  law  against  bribery,  by  which 

persons  convicted  of  this  crime 
should  be  disqualified  for  any  office  of  state. 
The  senate  wished  to  soften  the  rigour  of  this 
law,  by  limiting  the  penalty  to  a  pecuniary  fine  ; 
and  the  consul,  Calpurnius  Piso,  moved  for  an 
edict  to  this  purpose,  in  order  to  anticipate  and 
to  preclude  the  more  violent  law  of  Cornelius. 
But  the  tribune  prevailed,  and  obtained  an  act 
imposing  the  severer  penalty.  He  likewise,  by 
another  decree  of  the  people,"  attacked  the  discre- 


1  Dion  Cass.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  6. 

2  Joseph,  de  Bell.  Jud.  lib.  i.  c.  7. 


170 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III 


tionary  juiisdiction  of  the  praetors,1  obliged  them 
to  be  more  explicit  in  the  edicts  they  published, 
and  to  observe  them  more  exactly. 

The  crime  of  extortion  in  the  provinces,  how- 
ever, was  the  great  disgrace  of  the  Romans.  To 
have  found  an  effectual  remedy  for  this  evil, 
would  have  done  more  honour  to  the  common- 
wealth than  they  had  derived  from  all  their  con- 
quests. Severe  laws  were  accordingly  enacted, 
complaints  were  willingly  received,  and  prosecu- 
tions encouraged.  Candidates  for  popularity  and 
public  favour  generally  began  with  endeavouring 
to  bring  some  offender  under  this  title  to  public 
justice ;  but  the  example  of  this  state,  after  all, 
has  left  only  this  piece  of  instruction  to  mankind : 
That  just  government  over  conquei'ed  provinces 
is  scarcely  to  be  hoped  for,  and  least  of  all  where 
republics  are  the  conquerors. 

Manilius,  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people,  in 
order  to  strengthen  the  inferior  class  of  his  con- 
stituents, had  obtained  by  surprise  an  act,2  by 
which  the  citizens  of  slavish  extraction  were  to 
be  promiscuously  inrolled  in  all  the  tribes.  This 
act,  having  drawn  upon  him  the  resentment  of 
the  senate,  compelled  him  to  seek  for  security 
under  the  protection  of  Gabinius  and  Pompey. 
With  this  view  he  moved  his  famous  act,  in 
which  Cicero  concurred,  to  vest  Pompey  with 
the  command  in  Asia.  This  motion  procured 
him  a  powerful  support,  and,  on 
Lex  Manilla,  some  occasions,  the  general  voice 
of  the  people  in  his  favour.  Soon 
after  this  transaction,  being  prosecuted  for  some 
offence  at  the  tribunal  of  Cicero,  who  was  then 
praetor,  and  being  refused  the  usual  delays,  the 
praetor  was  obliged  to  explain  this  step  in  a  speech 
to  the  people ;  in  which  he  told  them,  that  he 
meant  to  favour  Manilius,  and  that,  his  own 
term  in  office  being  about  to  expire,  he  could  not 
favour  him  more  effectually,  than  by  hastening 
his  trial,  and  by  not  leaving  him  in  the  power  of 
a  successor,  who  might  not  be  equally  disposed 
in  his  favour.  Such  were  the  loose  and  popular 
notions  of  justice  then  prevailing  at  Rome.3 

At  the  election  of  consuls  for  the  following 
year,  there  occurred  an  opportunity  to  apply  the 
law  against  bribery.  Of  four  candidates,  Publius 
Autronius  Paetus,  Publius  Cornelius  Sylla,  L. 
Aurelius  Cotta,  and  L.  Manlius  Torquatus,  the 
majority  had  declared  for  the  former  two ;  but 
these  being  convicted  of  bribery,  were  set  aside, 
and  their  competitors  declared  duly  elected. 

About  the  same  time  L.  Sergius  Catilina, 
who  has  been  already  mentioned  as  one  of  the 
most  violent  executioners  of  Sylla' s  proscriptions, 
having  returned  from  Africa,  where  he  had  served 
in  the  capacity  of  praetor,  and  intending  to  stand 
for  the  consulate,  was  accused  of  extortion  in  his 
province,  and  stopped  in  his  canvass  by  a  prose- 
cution raised  on  this  account.  In  his  rage  for  this 
disappointment,  he  was  ripe  for  any  disorder ; 
and,  being  readily  joined  by  Autronius  and  Piso, 
formed  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate  their  rivals,4 
to  massacre  the  senate,  to  seize  the  ensigns  of 
power,  and,  with  the  aid  of  their  faction,  to  lay 
hold  of  the  government.5  Julius  Caesar  and 
Crassus  are  mentioned  by  Suetonius  as  accom- 
plices in  this  plot.    Crassus  was  to  have  been 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxvi.  c.  23. 

2  Ibid.  lib.  xxxvi. 

3  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Cicer. 
5  Dion,  lib.  xxxvi  &c. 


4  Cic.  in  Catil.  i,  c.  6. 


named  dictator,  and  Caesar  his  general  of  the 
horse.6  Caesar  was  to  have  given  the  signal  for 
the  execution  of  the  massacre,  by  uncovering  his 
shoulders  of  his  gown ;  but  Crassus  having  re- 
lented, absented  himself  from  the  senate  on  the 
day  appointed,  and  Caesar,  though  present,  omit- 
ted" to  give  the  signal,  by  which  means  the  whole 
was  disconcerted.  Sylla  was  tried  some  years  after 
as  an  accessory,  and  was  defended  by  Cicero. 

Many  of  those  who,  by  their  birth  and  distinc- 
tion, were  destined  to  run  the  career  of  political 
honours,  found  their  fortunes,  by  the  extravagant, 
expence  of  public  shows,  and  -u  gratuities  to  the 
people,  by  bribes  to  private  persons,  as  well  as  by 
their  own  debauchery  and  prodigality,  ruined 
before  they  attained  their  end.  They  sought  to 
repair  their  ruin  by  any  unwarrantable  means,7 
and  were  ready  to  engage  in  any  dangerous  de- 
sign.. The  state  appears  to  have  apprehended 
an  increase  of  this  danger  from  the  number  of 
foreigners,  who,  from  every  quarter,  crowded  to 
Rome,  as  to  the  general  resort  of  persons  who 
wished  to  gratify  their  own  extravagance,  or  to 
prey  upon  that  of  others.  Under  this  apprehen- 
sion, an  edict  was  obtained,  upon  the  motion  of 
C.  Papius,  tribune  of  the  people,  to  oblige  all 
strangers  to  leave  the  city  :  but  it  is 
Lex  Papia  de  likely,  that  the  state  was  in  greater 
Peregrinis.  danger  from  natives  than  foreign- 
ers. Catiline,  having  prevailed  upon  Clodius, 
by  the  consideration  of  a  sum  of  money,  to  drop 
the  prosecution,  which  had  been  intended  against 
him,  was  left  to  offer  himself  a  candidate  for  the 
consulate  of  the  following  year.8 

The  office  of  censor  had  been  revived  in  the  per 
sons  of  Catulus  and  Crassus ;  but  these  officers 
found  that  its  authority,  so  powerful  in  former 
times,  was  now  of  little  effect.  They  scarcely 
ventured  to  give  it  a  trial  within  the  city ;  and, 
having  differed  about  the  enrolment  of  citizens 
residing  beyond  the  Po,  and  about  some  other 
particulars,  they  resigned  their  power.9  Censors 
were  again  named  in  the  following  year,  but 
with  no  greater  effect;  some  of  the  tribunes, 
fearing  to  be  degraded  from  the  senate,  forbade 
them  to  proceed  m  making  up  the  roll.10 

In  the  next  consulate,  Caius  Ju- 
U.  C.  689.    lius  Caesar,  at  this  time  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  entered  on  his  career 
C  Mar*Fi-     of  popularitv  ana  ambition.  Being 
gulus.  edile,  together  with  Marcus  Bibu- 

lus,  he  not  only  concurred  with  his 
colleague  in  all  the  expensive  shows  that  were 
given  to  the  people,  but  gave  separate  entertain- 
ments on  his  own  account.  The  multitudes  of 
gladiators  he  had  assembled  on  this  occasion 
gave  an  alarm  to  the  magistracy,  and  he  was 
ordered  not  to  exceed  a  certain  number.  In  the 
administration  of  his  office  as  praetor,  he  took 
some  steps  that  were  likely  to  revive  the  animo- 
sity of  the  late  parties  of  Marius  and  Sylla ;  and, 
notwithstanding  the  act  of  indemnity  which  had 
passed,  raised  prosecutions  on  a  charge  of  assas- 
sination, against  all  those  who  had  put  any  citizen 
to  death  in  execution  of  Sylla's  proscription.11 
From  this  time,  Suetonius  observes,  that  Cicero 
dated  the  beginning  of  Caesar's  project  to  subvert 


6  Sueton.  in  Caesar.     7  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Ciceronis 

8  Cicero  de  Auruspicum  Responsis. 

9  Dion,  lib.  xxxvi.    Plutarch,  in  Crasso. 

10  Ibid  Pint-       11  Sueton.  in  Vit  C.  J.  Cssaris. 


>.AP.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


171 


the  republic,  and  to  make  himself  master  of  the 
.state.12 

What  has  most  distinguished  this  consulate, 
however,  is  the  competition  of  candidates  for  the 
.succession  to  that  office  on  the  following  year, 
and  the  consequences  of  the  election  winch  fol- 
lowed. The  candidates  were  M.  Tullius  Cicero, 
C.  Antonius,  son  of  the  late  celebrated  orator, 
L.  Sergius  Catilina,  P.  Sulpitius  Galba,  and  L. 
Cassius  Longinus,  Quintus  Cornificius,  and  Li- 
cinius  Sacerdos. 

Cicero  was  the  first  of  his  family  who  had  ever 
resided,  or  enjoyed  any  honours,  at  Rome.  He 
was  a  native  of  Arpmum,  a  country -town  of 
Italy,  and  was  considered  as  an  obscure  person 
by  those  who  were  descended  of  ancient  families, 
but  had  great  consideration  on  account  of  his 
eloquence  and  the  consequences  of  it,  to  all  such 
as  had  any  interests  at  stake  before  the  tribunals 
of  justice.  Being  solicited  by  Catiline  to  under- 
take his  defence  on  a  trial  for  malversation  in 
Sicily,  he  did  not  at  once  reject  the  request,  nor 
always  deny  his  aid  to  the  factious  tribunes  in 
support  of  their  measures.  He  was  undoubtedly, 
like  other  ambitious  men  at  Rome,  disposed  to 
court  every  party,  and  willing  to  gain  indivi- 
duals;13 and  had  of  late,  in  particular,  considera- 
bly strengthened  his  interest,  by  having  supported 
the  pretensions  of  Pompey,  and  by  having  joined 
the  popular  tribunes,  in  what  they  proposed  in 
behalf  of  that  officer.  He  was,  notwithstanding, 
probably  by  his  aversion  to  appear  for  so  bad  a 
client  as  Catiline,  saved  from  the  reproach  of 
having  espoused  his  cause;  and  by  his  known 
inclination  in  general  to  support  the  authority  of 
the  senate,  he  disposed  the  aristocratical  party  to 
forgive  the  occasional  part  which  he  took  with 
the  tribunes  in  particular  questions,  not  imme- 
diately supposed  to  affect  their  government. 

In  the  course  of  this  competition  for  the  con- 
sulship, Antonius  and  Catiline  joined  interests 
together,  and  spared  no  kind  or  degree  of  corrup- 
tion. Cicero  complained  of  their  practices  in  the 
senate,  and  moved  to  revive  the  law  of  Calpur- 
nius  against  bribery,  with  an  additional  penalty 
of  ten  years'  banishment.14  Catiline  considered 
this  measure  as  levelled  against  himself ;  and 
incited  by  this  provocation,  as  well  as  by  the 
animosity  of  a  rival,  was  then  supposed  to  have 
formed  a  design  against  Cicero's  life,  and  to  have 
expressed  himself  to  this  purpose,  in  terms  that 
gave  a  general  alarm  to  the  electors,  and  deter- 
mined great  numbers  against  himself.  He  had 
drawn  to  his  interests  many  persons  of  infamous 
character  and  desperate  fortune,  many  youths  of 
good  family,  whom  he  debauched  or  encouraged 
in  their  profligacy.  His  language,  at  their  meet- 
ings, was  full  of  indignation  at  the  unequal  and 
supposed  unjust  distribution  of  fortune  and  pow- 
er. "All  the  wealth  of  the  state,  all  authority," 
he  said,  "is  engrossed  by  a  few,  while  others  of 
more  merit,  are  kept  in  poverty  and  obscurity, 
and  oppressed  with  debts."  Pie  professed  his 
intention,  when  in  office,  to  remove  these  griev- 
ances, to  cancel  the  debts  of  his  friends,  to  enrich 


12  Sueton.  Vit.  C.  J.Caes.  c.  ix.  Suetonius  supposes, 
that  Cicero  alluded  to  the  conspiracy  of  Autronius  and 
Syl'm,  in  which  Crassus,  as  well  as  Caesar,  was  said 
to  be  engaged. 

13  Ep.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  i.  ep.  2. 

14  Dio.  lib  xxwii  c.  3(J. 


them  by  plentiful  divisions  of  land,  and  to  place 
them  in  the  highest  stations. 

These  declarations,  being-  made  to  a  numerous 
meeting,  were  ill  concealed.  Curius,  one  of  the 
faction,  boasted  to  Fulvia,  a  woman  of  rank, 
with  whom  he  had  a  criminal  correspondence, 
that  a  revolution  must  soon  take  place,  and  spe- 
cified the  particular  hopes  and  designs  of  their 
party.  This  woman  mentioned  the  subject  to 
her  own  confidents,  but  concealed  the  author  of 
her  information.  In  the  mean  time,  Catiline 
was  considered  as  a  person  of  the  most  dangerous 
designs,  and  was  opposed  in  his  election  by  all 
who  had  any  regard  to  public  order,  or  to  the 
safety  of  the  commonwealth.  Cicero,  at  the  same 
time,  being  supported  by  the  senate,  was  elected, 
together  with  Caius  Antonius.  The  latter  stood 
candidate  upon  the  same  interest  with  Catiline, 
and  was  preferred  to  him  only  by  a  small  majority. 

By  this  event  the  designs  oi  Cati- 
U.  C.  690.    line  were  supposed  to  be  frustrated  ; 

Tullius  but  the  consuls  were  net  likely  to 
Cicero  lUS  enter  on  a  quiet  administration. 
C.  Jlnionius.  The  tribunitian  power,  from  the 
time  of  its  restoration,  was  gradually 
recovering  its  force,  and  extending  its  operations. 
Every  person  that  could  give  any  public  disturb- 
ance, that  could  annoy  the  senate,  or  mortify 
any  of  its  leading  members ;  every  one  that  had 
views  of  ambition  adverse  to  the  laws,  or  who 
wished  to  take  part  in  scenes  of  confusion  and 
tumult;  every  person  oppressed  with  debt,  who 
wished  to  defraud  his  creditors ;  every  person 
.  who,  by  his  profligacy  or  crimes,  was  at  variance 
with  the  tribunals  of  justice,  was  comprehended 
under  the  general  denomination  of  the  popular 
party.  The  Roman  people  had  once  been  divid- 
ed into  patrician  and  plebeian,  next  into  noblemen 
and  commoners;  but  now  they  took  sides  with 
little  regard  to  former  distinctions  against  or  for 
the  preservation  of  public  order.  In  the  assembly 
of  the  centuries,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  tribes, 
the  disorderly  and  the  profligate  began  to  prevail ; 
and  as  it  was  impossible  that  the  collective  body 
of  the  people  could  meet,  the  comitia,  lor  the  most 
part,  was  but  another  name  for  such  riotous  as- 
semblies, as  were  made  up  of  the  persons  who 
haunted  the  streets  of  Rome.  The  minds  of 
sober  men  were  full  of  fear  and  distrust,  alarmed 
with  surmises  of  plots,  and  various  combinations 
of  desperate  persons,  who  united  their  influence, 
not  to  carry  elections  or  attain  to  preferments, 
but  to  overturn  the  government,  or  to  share  in  its 
spoils.15 

One  of  the  tribunes  of  the  present 
Ler  Servilia  year,  Servilius  Rullus,  soon  after  his 
Jigrana.  admission  into  office,  under  pretence 
of  providing  settlements  for  many  of  the  citizens, 
promulgated  the  heads  of  an  Agrarian  law,  which 
he  carried  to  the  senate  and  the  i>eop!e.  The 
subject  of  former  grants  was  now  in  a  great  mea- 
sure exhausted,  and  all  Italy  was  inhabited  by 
Roman  citizens.  This  tribune  proposed  a  new 
expedient  to  open  settlements  for  the  indigent, 
not  by  conquest,  but  by  purchase.  It  was  pro 
posed  that  all  estates,  territories,  or  possessions  of 
any  sort,  which  belonged  to  the  republic,  should 
be  sold  ;  that  all  acquisitions  of  territory  recently 
made,  and  the  spoils  taken  from  any  enemy 
should  be  disposed  of  in  the  same  manner;  that 


15  Cicero  do  f.oge  \graria, 


i?a 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATIOJN 


[Book  III. 


the  money  arising  from  such  sales  should  be  em- 
ployed in  purchasing  arable  and  cultivable  lands, 
to  be  assigned  in  lots  to  the  needy  citizens  5  and 
that,  to  carry  this  law  into  execution,  ten  com- 
missioners should  be  named  in  the  same  manner 
in  which  the  pontiffs  were  named,  not  by  the 
whole  people,  but  by  seventeen  of  the  tribes  select- 
ed by  lot :  that  these  commissioners  should  be 
judges,  without  appeal,  of  what  was  or  was  not 
public  property  ;  of  what  was  to  be  sold,  of  what 
was  to  be  bought,  and  at  what  price;  that  they 
were  to  receive  and  judge  of  the  accounts  of  every 
consul,  or  other  officer,  except  Pompey,  com- 
manding in  any  province,  where  any  capture  was 
made,  or  new  territory  acquired :  and  in  short, 
that  they  should,  during  five  years,  which  was 
the  intended  term  of  their  commission,  be  the 
sole  masters  of  all  property  within  the  empire, 
whether  public  or  private. 

On  the  day  that  the  new  consuls  entered  on 
their  office,  when  they  returned  in  procession 
from  the  capitol,  and  gave  the  first  meeting  to 
the  senate,  Rullus  had  the  presumption  to  pro- 
pose this  law,  and  to  move  the  conscript  fathers, 
that  they  would  be  pleased  to  give  it  the  sanction 
of  their  approbation  and  authority  in  being  car- 
ried to  the  people.  Upon  this  occasion,  Cicero 
made  his  first  speech  in  the  character  of  consul. 
The  former  part  of  it  is  lost ;  the  remainder  may 
be  reckoned  among  the  highest  specimens  of  his 
eloquence.  In  this  and  the  two  speeches  he  de- 
livered to  the  people,  on  the  same  subject,  he 
endeavoured  to  demonstrate  (if  we  may  venture 
to  imitate  his  own  expressions)  that,  from  the 
first  clause  of  this  law  to  the  last,  there  was 
nothing  thought  of,  nothing  proposed,  nothing 
done  but  the  erecting,  in  ten  persons,  under  the 
pretence  of  an  Agrarian  law,  an  absolute  sove- 
reignty over  the  treasury,  the  revenue,  the  pro- 
vinces, the  empire,  the  neighbouring  kingdoms 
and  states ;  and,  in  short,  over  all  the  world  as 
far  as  it  was  known  to  the  Romans.  He  painted 
in  such  lively  colours  the  abuses  which  might  be 
committed  by  Rullus,  and  by  his  associates,  in 
judging  what  was  private  and  what  public  pro- 
perty, in  making  sales,  in  making  purchases,  in 
planting  the  colonies;  and  so  exposed  the  impu- 
dence of  the  cheat,  by  wliich  it  was  proposed  to 
surprise  the  people  into  the  granting  of  such  pow- 
ers, the  absurdity  and  the  ruinous  tendency  of  the 
whole  measure,  that  it  was  instantly  rejected, 
and  its  author  hissed  from  the  assembly,  and 
treated  as  an  object  of  ridicule  and  scorn. 

The  splendour  of  the  consul's  eloquence,  on 
this  occasion,  appeared  with  great  distinction;  and 
the  spirit  of  the  times  continued  to  furnish  him 
with  opportunities  to  display  it.1  Roscius  Ame- 
rinus,  having  been  tribune  of  the  people  a  few 
years  before,  had,  by  the  authority  of  his  office, 
set  apart  some  benches  in  the  theatre  for  the 
equestrian  order.    This  gave  offence  to  the  peo- 

Ele,  so  that  Roscius  was  commonly  hissed  when 
e  appeared  at  any  of  the  public  assemblies.  On 
some  one  of  these  occasions  the  consul  interposed  ; 
and,  in  a  popular  harangue,  secured  the  attach- 
ment of  the  knights  to  himself,  and  reconciled  the 
people  to  the  distinction  which  had  been  made  in 
favour  of  that  body. 


1  It  is  probable  that  Cicero  did  not  write  in  order 
to  speak,  but  wrote  after  he  had  spoken,  for  the  use  of 
ais  friends.    Eprst.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  ii.  c.  1. 


There  happened  under  the  same  consulate  a 
business  of  greater  difficulty,  being  a  motion  to 
restore  the  sons  of  th€  proscribed  to  the  privilege 
of  being  chosen  into  the  offices  of  state,  of  which 
they  had  been  deprived  by  an  ordinance  of  Sylla. 
Their  fate  was  undoubtedly  calamitous  and  se- 
vere*. Many  of  them  who  had  been  too  young 
to  have  incurred  the  guilt  of  their  party,  were  now 
come  of  age,  and  found  themselves  stript  of  their 
birthright,  and  stigmatized  with  this  mark  of  dis- 
honour. It  was  proposed,  in  their  behalf,  to  take 
away  this  cruel  exclusion.  But  Cicero,  appre- 
hending that  this  proposal  tended  to  arm  and  to 
strengthen  persons,  who,  from  long  use,  had  con- 
tracted an  habitual  disaffection  to  the  established 
government,  powerfully  opposed  the  motion,  and 
succeeded  in  having  it  rejected.2 

Though  the  orations  on  the  two  subjects  last 
mentioned  have  perished,  great  part  of  that  which 
he  spoke  on  the  trial  of  C.  Rabirius  still  remains. 
This  man,  of  a  great  age,  a  respectable  senator 
at  the  distance  of  six-and-thirty  years,  was 
brought  to  trial  as  an  accomplice  in  the  death  of 
Apuleius  Saturninus,  the  factious  tribune,  who, 
as  has  been  related,  having  seized  the  capitol,, 
was,  by  the  consuls  Marius  and  Valerius  Flac 
cus,  acting  under  the  authority  of  the  senate,  and 
attended  by  all  the  most  respectable  citizens  in 
arms,  forced  from  his  strong-hold,  and  put  to 
death  as  a  public  enemy. 

Titus  Atius  Labienus,  one  of  the  tribunes, 
was  the  declared  prosecutor  of  C.  Rabirius  ;  but 
historians  agree,  that  this  tribune  acted  at  the  in- 
stigation, and  under  the  direction,  of  C.  Julius 
Caesar.  The  intention  of  the  popular  party  was, 
by  making  an  example  of  this  respectable  person 
in  so  strong  a  case,  where  the  authority  of  the 
senate,  and  the.  commands  of  the  most  popular 
consul,  where  even  the  prescription  of  so  old  a 
date  should  have  repelled  every  danger,  effec- 
tually, for  the  future,  to  deter  every  person  from 
acting  in  support  of  the  senate,  or  from  opposing 
force  to  the  designs  of  factious  tribunes,  however 
turbulent  or  dangerous. 

The  senate,  and  all  the  friends  of  government, 
were  greatly  alarmed,  and  united  in  defence  of 
Rabirius.  The  popular  party,  as  already  de- 
scribed, the  ambitious,  the  profligate,  the  bank- 
rupt, who  were  earnest  to  weaken  the  hands  of 
government,  and  in  haste  to  bring  on  scenes  of 
confusion  and  trouble,  took  the  opposite  side. 

The  prosecutor  laid  his  charge  lor  treason  of 
the  most  heinous  kind,  and  destined  the  accused 
to  die  on  the  cross,  the  ordinary  manner  of  exe- 
cuting the  sentence  of  death  on  the  slaves.  "  The 
executioner  stalks  in  the  forum,"  said  Cicero, 
u  and  the  cross  is  erected  for  a  Roman  citizen  in 
the  field  of  Mars."  The  accusation  was  first 
brought  before  the  praetor,  who  possessed  the 
ordinary  jurisdiction  in  such  cases.  This  magis- 
trate empannelled  t  wo  judges,  who  were  to  deter- 
mine in  this  mighty  cause.  These  were  Caius 
Julius  and  Lucius  Caesar.  At  this  court  the 
defendant  was  condemned  ;  and  with  appearances 
of  animosity,  on  the  part  of  Caius  Cajsar,  that 
greatly  increased  the  alarm.  This  rising  citizen 
had  always  courted  the  populace,  and  was  strongly 
supported  by  them.  That  he  should  aim  at  ho- 
nours and  power,  it  was  said,  is  common ;  but 
that  he  wished  to  provide  impunity  for  the  dis 


2  Ptfn.  lib.  vh.  c.  30 


ChAl'.  111.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


173 


'arbers  of  the  commonwealth,  was  alarming. 
Tlie  crime  of  Rabirius,  even  if  he  could  be  con- 
victed of  it,  had  been  committed  the  year  before 
Ca?sar  was  born.  In  the  person  of  the  accused 
every  circumstance,  even  on  the  supposition  of 
a  true  charge,  pleaded  for  compassion  and  even 
for  respectT  the  fact,  at  the  same  time,  was  de- 
nied, and  a  positive  evidence  was  brought,  that, 
another  had  received  a  reward  for  killing  Saturn- 
inus  :  but  the  policy  of  the  faction  required  this 
victim ;  and  the  sentence  must  have  been  exe- 
cuted, if  the  condemned  had  not  fled,  by  appeal, 
to  the  judgment  of  the  people,  where  indeed  his 
cause  might  be  reckoned  more  desperate  than  if 
it  had  been  before  a  select  court.  The  parties 
attended  this  trial  with  great  ardour.  Hort.en- 
sius  conducted  the  appeal  and  defence.  Cicero 
pleaded  in  behalf  of  justice  and  government ; 
painted  the  age,  the  infirmities,  the  forlorn  state 
of  the  defendant,  who  had  survived  his  relations 
and  his  friends.  He  pointed  out  the  danger  to 
government  and  Jo  order  from  this  precedent,  in 
terms  that  must  have  melted  every  heart,  not 
callous  from  ambition,  faction,  or  profligacy  of 
manners:  but  in  vain.  Even  in  the  assembly 
of  the  centuries,  the  majority  was  hastening  to 
affirm  the  sentence,  when  GL.  Caecilius  iMetellus 
Celer,  then  praetor,  and  one  of  the  augurs,  hasten- 
ed to  the  Janiculum,  and  tore  down  the  ensign 
which  was  planted  there  as  a  sign  of  peace.  A 
silly  piece  of  superstition  stoptthe  proceedings  of 
those  whom  neither  justice  nor  compassion,  nor 
regard  to  government  could  restrain. 

It  was  established,  as  has  been  formerly  no- 
viced,3  that  the  assembly  of  the  centuries  could 
not  proceed  without  this  signal  in  view.  In  the 
jrst  ages  of  Rome,  the  enemy  were  always  at  the 
gate.  While  .the  peojde  were  assembled  in  the 
field  on  one  side  of  the  city,  they  were  in  danger 
of  being  assailed  on  the  other.  When  they  as- 
sembled, therefore,  in  the  field  of  Mars,  a  guard 
was  always  posted  on  the  Janiculum,  and  ail 
ensign  displayed.  If  anv  enemy  appeared,  the 
ensign  was  taken  down,  the  assembly  diaraMPcd, 
and  the  people  took  to  their  arms.  This  c  ere- 
mony, like  many  other  customs  both  of  supersti- 
tion and  law,  remained  after  the  occasion  had 
ceased ;  and  it  was  held  illegal  or  impious  in  the 
people  to  proceed  in  any  alKiir  without  the  en- 
sign in  view.  By  this  means  the  trial  was  put 
off,  and  the  prosecutors,  despairing  of  being  able 
to  work  up  the  people  again  into  an  equal  degree 
of  violence,  dropt  the  prosecution.  The  cause 
still  remained  undecided,  and  the  power  of  the 
senate  to  defend  its  own  authority,  continued  in 
a  state  of  suspense. 

The  tribune  Labienus  laid  aside  all  thoughts 
of  renewing  the  prosecution,  in  order  to  pursue 
the  object  of  some  other  popular  acts;  one  in 
particular,  to  repeal  the  almost  only  remaining 
ordinance  of  Syila;  that  which  related  to  the 
election  of  priests.  The  right  of  election  was 
again  taken  from  the  college,  and,  according  to 
the  law  of  Domitius,  given  to  seventeen  of  the 
tribes  that  were  to  be  drawn  by  lot.  This  change 
was  intended  to  open  the  way  of  Caius  Julius 
Csesar  into  that  office;  and  he  was  accordingly 
promoted  to  it  in  the  following  year. 

Others  of  the  tribunes  likewise  endeavoured  to 
distinguish  themselves  by  acts  of  turbulence  ami 


3  See  book  i  c.  1 


sedition.  MetelliM  Nepo*  endeavoured  to  repeal 
that  clause  of  the  act  against,  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption, which  declared  the  party  convicted  to 
be  disqualified  for  any  of  the  offices  of  state. 
This  tribune,  though  sufficiently  disposed  to  dis- 
orderly courses,  had  many  connections  among 
the  most  respectable  citizens,  and  was  persuade!, 
in  this  instance,  to  drop  his  design. 

But  among  the  several  confederacies  into  which 
the  popular  party  was  divided,  none  was  mere 
desperate,  nor  supposed  more  dangerous,  th;.n 
that  of  Catiline,  the  late  disappointed  candidate 
for  the  consulship.  His  rival  Cicero  had  intima- 
tion, before  the  elections,  of  a  design  formed  by 
this  desperate  faction  against  his  own  person, 
and  still  continued  to  observe  them.  He  entered 
into  a  correspondence  with  Fulvia,  who  had 
given  the  first  hints  of  a  dangerous  conspiracv  ; 
and,  by  means  of  this  woman,  procured  the  con 
fidenee  of  Curius,  who  gave  him  minute  informa 
tion  of  all  the  proceedings  of  the  party. 

In  public,  Catiline  again  professed  himself  a 
candidate  for  the  office  of  consul,  in  competition 
with  Servius  Sulpicius,  P.  Murama,  and  J.  Si- 
lanus.  He  boasted  of  support  from  Antonius; 
but  Cicero  to  divert  his  colleague  from  this  dan- 
gerous connection,  made  him  everv  concession. 
IlavinL',  in  drawing  lots  for  the  provinces  of  Gaul 
and  Macedonia,  drawn  the  latter,  which  was 
thought  to  l»o  preferable,  he  yielded  it  up  to  An- 
tonius; and  by  this,  and  every  other  means  in 
his  power,  persuaded  him  to  value  the  secure 
possession  of  dignities  and  honours,  lawfully  ob- 
tained, in  preference  to  expectations  formed  on 
the  projects  of  a  few  desperate  men. 

In  secret,  Catiline  encouraged  his  adherents 
by  professing  to  have  many  resources,  and  to  be 
supported  by  numbers  who  were  readv  to  take 
arms  at  his  command.  In  a  numerous  meeting 
of  his  party  in  October,  a  few  days  before  the 
consular  elections,  he  opened  the  whole  of  his 
design;  and  in  the  speech  which  he  made  on 
that  occasion,  is  said  to  ba\e  used  expressions  to 
the  following  purpose :  "The  distressed  can  relv 
for  relief  only  on  those  who  have  a  common  cause 
with  themselves.  Whoever,  in  his  own  fortune, 
is  at  ease,  will  not  regard  the  misery  of  others. 
If  you  would  know  how  I  stand  affected  to  the 
parties  which  now  divide  the  commonwealth,  rich 
creditors  and  needy  drblors,  recollect  what  everv 
one  knows,  that  1  have  no  safety  but  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  one,  and  in  the  relief  of  the  other 
that  my  interest  is  the  same  with  yours,  and  that 
I  have  courage  to  attempt  what  may  l>e  necessary 
for  your  benefit." 

From  the  strain  of  this  passage,  the  deseri]  Hon 
of  a  party  to  whom  it  was  with  propriety  ad- 
dressed, may  l>e  easily  collected.  Cicero,  who 
had  frequently  taxed  Catiline  with  dangerous 
designs,  now  determined  to  lay  the  whole  of  Ins 
intelligence  before  the  senate;  and  for  this  pur- 
pose deferred  the  consular  elections,  which  were 
to  have  been  held  on  the  eighteenth  of  Octolx-i, 
to  a  future  day,  and  assembled  the  senate.  Cati- 
line having  with  the  other  members  attended,  and 
hearing  the  charge,  did  not  pretend  to  deny  or 
to  palliate  his  words.  "  There  are,"  he  said,  "in 
this  republic,  two  parties;  one  weak  both  in  its 
members  and  head;  the  other,  strong  in  its  men. 
bers,  but  wanting  a  head  :  while  1  have  the 
honour  of  being  supported  by  this  party,  it  shall 
have  a  head."    Upon  these  words,  a  general  cry 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


(Book  III. 


of  indignation  arose  in  the  senate ;  but  no  resolu- 
tion was  taken.  Many,  who  were  there  present 
as  members,  were  pleased  to  see  the  senate  itself 
insulted ;  and  Catiline,  as  if  in  condition  to  brave 
all  his  enemies,  was,  in  all  his  expressions,  equally 
unguarded  in  the  streets  and  in  the  senate.  To 
Cato,  who,  in  the  public  forum,  some  days  before 
this  meeting,  had  threatened  him  with  a  prosecu- 
tion :  "  Do,"  he  said,  "  but  if  you  light  a  flame  in 
my  fortunes,  I  will  extinguish  it  under  the  ruins 
of  the  commonwealth."1 

A  prosecution  was  actually  raised  against  him 
in  the  name  of  Lucius  Paulus,  a  young  man  of 
distinction,  for  carrying  arms  against  the  public 
peace.  On  this  occasion,  however,  he  thought 
proper  to  dissemble  his  thoughts,  and  offered  to 
commit  his  person  to  custody  till  his  innocence 
should  appear.  "  No  one,"  he  said,  "  who  knows 
my  rank,  my  pretensions,  and  the  interest  I  have 
in  the  preservation  of  the  commonwealth,  will 
believe,  that  its  destruction  is  to  be  apprehended 
from  me,  and  that  its  safety  is  to  come  from  a 
native  of  Arpinum."2  He  offered  to  commit 
himself  to  the  custody  of  Cicero,  of  Metellus,  or 
of  any  other  magistrate,  till  this  injurious  asper- 
sion were  removed.  To  this  offer  the  consul 
replied,  That  he  who  did  not  think  himself  safe 
within  the  same  ramparts  with  Catiline,  would 
not  receive  him  into  his  house.3 

By  one  effect  of  the  unparalleled  freedom  now 
enjoyed  by  Roman  citizens,  persons  accused  of 
the  most  dangerous  crimes  were  at  liberty,  during 
the  dependence  of  their  trial,  either  to  proceed  in 
perpetrating  their  crime,  or  to  withdraw  from  jus- 
tice. This  effect  was  derived  from  the  laws  of 
Valerius  and  Porcius,  which  secured  against 
violence  or  the  power  of  the  magistrate,  the  per- 
son of  every  citizen,  until  he  were  finally  con- 
demned by  the  people.  In  support  of  this  privilege, 
which  was  salutary,  when  the  abuse  of  power  in 
the  magistrate  was  to  be  dreaded  more  than  the 
license  of  crimes  in  the  subject,  the  Romans  per- 
sisted even  after  vice  was  become  too  strong  for 
tie  laws,  and  when  exemption  from  every  just 
rtotraint  was  fatally  mistaken  for  liberty.  The 
state  had  now  been  thrown,  on  many  occasions, 
into  the  most  violent  convulsions,  because  there 
was  no  ordinary  or  regular  method  of  preventing 
disorders,  or  of  suppressing  them  on  their  first 
appearance. 

Catiline,  soon  after  the  elections,  at  which,  by 
he  preference  given  to  Murama  and  Silanus,  he 
received  a  fresh  disappointment  in  his  hopes  of 
the  consulship,  sent  Mallius,  or  Manlius,  an  ex- 
perienced soldier,  who  had  served  with  himself 
under  Sylla,  to  prepare  for  an  insurrection  in  the 
district  of  Etruria.  This  officer,  in  the  end  of 
Jctober,  under  pretence  of  giving  refuge  to  debtors 
>'rom  the  oppression  of  their  creditors,  had  actually 
tssembled  a  considerable  body  of  men.4  Ac- 
counts at  the  same  time  were  received,  that 
Publius  Sylla  was  making  a  large  purchase  of 
gladiators  at  Capua,  and  insurrections  were  ac- 
cordingly apprehended  on  the  side  of  Campania 
and  Apulia.  In  this  state  of  affairs,  continual 
nformations  being  brought  of  Catiline's  designs, 
ne  senate  gave  in  charge  to  the  consuls  to  watch 


1  Cicero  Orat.  pro  Mursena. 

2  The  town  of  which  Cicero  was  native. 

3  Cicero  in  Catilinam,  i.  c.  3 

4  Ibid 


over  the  safety  of  the  state ;  and  these  officers 
accordingly  put  chosen  bodies  of  men  under  arms, 
and  secured  all  the  posts  of  consequence  in  the 
city.  Metellus,  the  conqueror  of  Crete,  who 
still  remained  without  the  walls  in  hopes  of  a 
triumph,  was  appointed  to  command  on  the  side 
of  Apulia.  The  praetor  Metellus  Celer  was  sent 
into  Cisalpine  Gaul,  in  order  to  secure  the  peace 
of  that  province  ;s  and  the  consul  Antonius  was 
destined  to  suppress  the  insurrection  of  Mallius 
at  FaBsuke.6 

Catiline  meanwhile  remained  in  the  city,  and 
had  frequent  consultations  for  the  preparation 
and  the  execution  of  his  plot.  At  a  meeting  of 
the  party,  held  in  the  beginning  of  November,  in 
the  house  of  M.  Porcius  Lecca,?  a  general  mas- 
sacre of  the  principal  senators  was  projected. 
The  conspirators  severally  chose  their  stations, 
and  undertook  their  several  parts.  Two  in  par- 
ticular, who  were  familiar  in  Cicero's  house,  un- 
dertook next  morning,  under  pretence  of  a  visit, 
to  surprise  and  assassinate  the  consul.  But  he 
being  the  same  night  apprised  of  his  danger  by 
Fulvia,  gave  the  proper  orders,  and  the  intended 
murderers,  upon  their  appearance  at  his  door, 
were  refused  admittance.  He  immediately  after 
assembled  the  senate  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter. 
Catiline  presented  himself  with  his  usual  pre- 
sumption ;  and  Cicero,  as  appears  from  an  oration 
which  he  then  delivered,  instead  of  laying  the 
matter  in  form  before  the  senate,  accosted  Cati- 
line in  a  vehement  invective,  urging  him  to  be 
gone  from  the  city,  where  all  his  steps  were  mi- 
nutely observed,  where  his  meaning  was  under 
stood,  and  precautions  taken  against  all  his  de- 
signs. "  I  told  you,"  said  the  consul,  "  that  your 
emissary  Mallius  would  be  in  arms  by  the  first 
of  November ;  that  you  intended  a  massacre  of 
the  senators  about  the  same  time.  I  now  repeat 
the  memorable  words  you  made  use  of  when  you 
were  told,  that  many  of  the  senators  had  with 
drawn  from  the  city.  You  should  be  satisfied, 
you  said,  with  the  blood  of  those  who  remained. 
•Were  you  not  surrounded,  hemmed  in,  and  beset 
on  every  side  by  the  guards  posted  to  watch  you  1 
Did  your  intention  to  surprise  Prseneste,  on  the 
night  of  the  first  of  November,  escape  me  1  Did 
you  not  find  precautions  taken  that  argued  a 
knowledge  of  your  design  ?  There  is  nothing,  in 
short,  that  you  do,  that  you  prepare,  that  you 
meditate,  which  is  not  heard,  which  is  not  seen, 
which  is  not  felt  by  me  in  every  circumstance. 
What  of  last  night?  Were  you  not  at  the  house 
of  Porcius  Lecca  1  Deny  it !  I  have  evidence. 
There  are  here  present  persons  who  were  of  youi 
company.  But  where  are  we  1  What  manner 
of  government  or  republic  is  this  1  The  enemies 
and  destroyers  of  the  commonwealth  make  a  part 
in  its  highest  councils!  We  know  them,  and 
yet  they  are  suffered  to  live !  But,  be  gone.  The 
time  of  enduring  you  is  past.  The  world  is  con- 
vinced of  your  guilt.  Stay  only  till  there  is  not 
a  single  person  that  can  pretend  to  doubt  of  it ; 
till  your  own  partizans  must  be  silent,  and  till 
the  clamour,  which  they  would  willingly  raise 
against  every  necessary  act  of  government,  be 
suppressed." 

This  being  the  general  tendency  of  the  consul's 
speech,  fraught  with  such  alarming  matter,  and 


5  Cicero  in  Catilinam,  c.  12. 

6  Now  Florence.       7  Cicero  pr.  Pub.  Sylla,  c.  16 


Dkap  !%'<."; 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


175 


urged  with  so  much  confidence,  the  audience  was 
seized#with  terror,  and  numbers,  who  happened 
to  be  on  the  same  bench  with  Catiline,  withdrew 
from  his  side.  He  himself  arose,  and  attempted 
to  vindicate  his  character,  but  was  silenced  with 
a  general  cry  of  indignation ;  upon  which  he  left 
the  senate ;  and,  after  concerting  farther  mea- 
sures with  those  of  his  party,  not  thinking  that  a 
longer  stay  in  the  city  could  be  of  any  use  to  his 
affairs,  he  withdrew  in  the  night,  leaving  letters 
behind  him  to  some  of  the  senators,  in  which  he 
complained,  that,  by  a  combination  of  his  ene- 
mies, he  was  driven  into  exile ;  and  that,  rather 
than  be  the  occasion  of  any  disturbance  in  the 
commonwealth,  he  was  willing  to  retire.  While 
these  letters  were  handed  about  in  the  city,  he 
took  his  way,  preceded  by  the  ushers  and  ensigns 
of  a  Roman  proconsul,  straight  for  the  camp  of 
Mallius,  and  entered  into  a  state  of  open  war. 
The  features  of  this  man's  portrait  are  probably 
exaggerated  by  the  vehement  pencils  and  lively 
colourings  of  Cicero  and  of  Sallust.  He  is  re- 
presented as  able  to  endure  hardships  of  any 
kind,  and  as  fearless  in  any  danger ;  as,  from  his 
youth,  fond  of  discord,  assassinations,  and  blood- 
shed ;  as  having,  under  pretence  of  Sylla's  pro- 
scription, murdered  his  own  brother  to  possess 
his  estate  ;  as  having  murdered  his  own  child,  to 
remove  the  objection  made  to  him  by  a  woman 
who  refused  to  marry  him  with  the  prospect  of 
being  a  step-mother.  He  is  represented  as  rapa- 
cious, prodigal,  gloomy,  impetuous,  unquiet,  dis- 
sembling, and  perfidious ;  a  description,  of  which 
the  horrors  are  probably  amplified  ;  but  for  which 
it  cannot  be  doubted  there  was  much  foundation, 
as  he  far  exceeded  in  profligacy  and  desperation 
all  those  who,  either  in  this  or  the  former  age, 
were,  by  their  ambition  or  their  vices,  hastening 
the  ruin  of  the  commonwealth. 

Cicero  always  professed  to  have  particular  in- 
telligence of  the  progress  of  Catiline.  This, 
according  to  Sallust,  he  owed  to  FulVia,  by  whose 
means  he  obtained  a  correspondence  with  Curius; 
but  he  himself,  in  none  of  his  orations,  gives  any 
intimation  of  the  manner  in  which  he  obtained 
his  information.  It  is  probable  that  Curius  in- 
sisted on  being  concealed,  that  he  might  not  be 
exposed  to  the  rage  of  the  conspirators  as  an  in- 
former and  a  traitor.  On  this  account  the  consul, 
although  he  was  minutely  apprised  of  particulars, 
was  obliged  to  adopt  the  plan  he  hitherto  followed, 
to  urge  the  conspirators  into  open  hostilities,  and 
a  full  declaration  of  their  purpose.  Ho  had  suc- 
ceeded with  respect  to  Catiline  ;  but  his  accom- 
plices were  ,yet  very  numerous  in  the  city,  and 
were  taking  their  measures  to  co-operate  with 
those  who  were  in  arms. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  Fabius  Sanga,  a  Roman 
citizen  of  distinction,  came  to  the  consul,  and  in- 
formed him,  that  the  ambassadors  of  the  Allo- 
broges,  a  people  then  inhabiting  what  is  now 
called  the  territory  of  Geneva,  and  part  of  Savoy, 
whose  patron  he  was,  had  made  him  privy  to  a 
very  momentous  affair;  that,  upon  being  dis- 
appointed in  a  suit,  on  which  they  had  been  em- 

? toyed  to  the  senate,  they  had  been  carried  by  P. 
Imbrenus  to  Publius  Cornelius  Lentulus,'  the 
praetor,  who  condoled  with  them  on  the  subject 
of  the  wrong  they  had  received,  assured  them  of 
redress  if  they  would  merit  the  favour  of  a  party 
that  was  soon  to  have  the  ascendant  at  Rome ; 
and  proposed  that  they  should,  immediately 


upon  their  return  to  the:-  cwn  country,  prevail 
on  their  nation  to  march  an  army,  for  "this  pur- 
pose, into  Italy.  Cicero  immediately  laid  hold  of 
this  intelligence,  as  affording  means  to  bring  the 
plot  to  light,  and  furnish  a  sufficient  evidence  to 
convict  the  conspirators.  He  desired  Sanga  to 
encourage  the  correspondence,  to  advise  the  am- 
bassadors to  insist  on  proper  credentials  to  be 
shown  to  their  countrymen,  to  procure  a  list  of 
the  Roman  citizens  who,  in  case  they  should  rif=e 
in  rebellion  against  the  Romans,  were  to  become 
bound  to  protect  them  ;  and  when  they  should  be 
thus  provided,  and  about  to  depart,  he  instructed 
Sanga  to  bring  him  intimation  of  their  motions, 
that  they  might  be  secured,  with  their  writings, 
and  other  evidence  of  the  facts  to  be  ascertained. 
Sanga,  having  instructed  the  ambassadors  ac- 
cordingly, gave  notice  of  their  motions  to  the 
consul.  In  the  evening  before  they  were  to  de- 
part, Cicero  ordered  the  praetors,  L.  Flaccus  and 
C.  Pontinus,  to  march  by  different  ways,  and  in 
small  parties,  after  it  was  dark,  a  sufficient  armed 
force  to  intercept  the  ambassadors  of  the  Allo- 
broges.  The  parties  were  stationed  on  different 
sides  of  the  river,  at  the  bridge  called  Milvius, 
without  knowing  of  each  other,  and  without 
having  any  suspicion  of  the  purpose  for  which 
they  were  placed,  farther  than  arose  from  their 
having  been  told  that  they  were  to  seize  any  per- 
son who  should  attempt  to  pass.  About  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning  the  ambassadors  entered 
on  the  bridge  with  a  numerous  retinue  ;  and  bc- 
ing  challenged,  and  commanded  to  stop  by  the. 
party  that  was  placed  to  intercept  them,  they 
endeavoured  to  force  their  way  ;  and  some  blood 
was  shed.  But  on  the  appearance  of  the  praetors, 
with  their  ensigns  of  office,  the  ambassadors 
ceased  to  resist.  Their  despatches  were  secured. 
Volturcius,  a  Roman  citizen,  who  was  found  in 
their  company,  was  taken  and  searched.  Letters 
were  found  upon  him,  in  different  hands,  and 
under  different  seals,  addressed  toCatiline.  These, 
together  with  the  prisoners,  were  immediately 
carried  back  to  the  city. 

The  consul  being  apprised  of  the  success  which 
attended  this  part  of  his  design,  sent,  before  any 
alarm  could  be  taken  by  the  party,  messages  to 
Gabinius,  Statilius,  Cethegus,  and  Lentulus,  de- 
siring to  see  them  at  his  own  house.  The  threo 
former  came  with  the  messenger;  but  Lentulus 
was  newly  gone  to  bed,  and,  by  his  delay,  gave 
some  cause  to  suspect  that  he  was  aware  of  his 
danger.  He  too,  however,  came  ;  and  the  house 
of  Cicero  was  presently  crowded,  not  only  with 
numbers  of  the  equestrian  order  that  were  in 
arms  for  the  defence  of  his  person,  but  likewise 
with  many  senators  whom  he  desired  to  be  pre- 
sent. The  ambassadors  of  the  Allobroges,  now 
prisoners,  were  likewise  conducted  thither,  and 
the  letters  found  upon  them  were  produced  un- 
opened. Cicero  declared  his  intention  to  assemble 
the  senate  without  delay,  in  order  to  lay  the 
whole  matter  before  them.  Many  of  the  com- 
pany were  of  opinion,  that  the  letters  should  be 
first  opened,  in  order  to  see  whether  they  con- 
tained any  matter  of  so  much  moment,  as  to 
require  assembling  the  senate,  at  a  time  when  so 
great  an  alarm  was  likely  to  be  taken.  Cicero, 
however,  having  no  doubt  of  the  contents  of  the 
letters,  and  of  the  importance  of  the  matter,  over- 
ruled those  scruples,  and  the  senate  was  accord 
ingly  called.    Meantime  the  Allobroges  dropped 


17G 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III 


some  expressions  which  implied,  that  arms  were 
concealed  in  *he  house  of  Cethegus.  This  occa- 
sioned a  search  being  then  made,  and  a  consider- 
able quantity  of  daggers  and  swords  were  accord- 
ingly found. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  senate,  Volturcius  was 
first  examined  ;  he  denied  his  knowledge  of  any 
treasonable  designs,  but  appeared  disconcerted  ; 
and,  upon  being  reminded  of  the  reward  that  had 
been  offered  for  the  discovery  of  any  plot  against 
the  state,  and  of  the  danger  to  which  he  himself 
would  be  exposed  in  prevaricating,  he  confessed, 
that  the  letters  seized  in  his  custody  were  sent  by 
the  prsetor  Lentulus  and  others :  that  he  had  be- 
sides a  verbal  message  to  Catiline,  informing 
him  that  the  plan  was  now  ready  for  execution ; 
that  the  station  of  every  person  was  assigned ; 
that  some  were  appointed  to  set  fire  to  the  city  in 
different  places,  and  some  to  massacre  their  ene- 
mies in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  that  was  likely 
to  be  occasioned  by  the  fire ;  and  desiring  that 
Catiline,  in  order  to  support  his  friends,  and  to 
profit  by  the  diversion  they  were  to  make  in  his 
favour  within  the  walls,  should  issue  a  proclama- 
tion to  arm  the  slaves,  and  that  he  himself  should 
march  directly  to  Rome. 

The  deputies  of  the  Allobroges  being  next 
introduced,  acknowledged,  that  they  had  been 
charged  by  Lentulus,  Cethegus,  Statilius,  and 
Cassius,  with  assurances  of  support  to  the  coun- 
cil of  their  nation,  confirmed  by  oath,  accompa- 
nied with  directions,  without  delay,  to  march  a 
body  of  horse  into  Italy,  where  they  should  be 
joined  by  a  numerous  infantry,  and  receive  pro- 
per directions  in  what  manner  they  should  far- 
ther proceed  ;  that,  to  encourage  them,  Lentulus 
quoted  a  prophecy,  found  in  the  collection  of  the 
Sybils,  by  which  he  himself  was  pointed  out  as 
the  third  of  the  Cornelii,1  destined  to  arrive  at  the 
sovereignty  of  Rome  :  that  the  conspirators  had 
differed  about  the  time  of  executing  their  design. 
Lentulus  was  of  opinion  it  should  be  deferred  to 
the  holy-days  in  December ;  that  Cethegus,  not- 
withstanding, and  the  others,  were  impatient,  and 
desired  a  nearer  day. 

The  supposed  conspirators  were  next  called  in 
their  turns;  and  the  letters,  with  the  seals  un- 
broken, were  exhibited  before  them.  Cethegus, 
being  the  first  examined,  persisted  in  denying  his 
knowledge  of  any  conspiracy ;  accounted  for  the 
arms  that  were  found  in  his  house,  by  saying,  He 
was  curious  of  workmanship  of  that  nature,  and 
always  bought  what  he  liked.  He  maintained 
his  countenance  well,  till  his  letter  was  produced, 
and  then  fell  into  great  confusion,  as  the  seal  was 
immediately  known  to  be  his. 

Lentulus  next,  with  great  confidence,  denied 
the  charge;  affected  not  to  know  either  Voltur- 
cius or  the  ambassadors ;  asked  them  upon  what 
occasion  they  ever  could  pretend  to  have  been  ad- 
mitted into  his  house?  He,  however,  owned  the 
seal  affixed  to  the  letter  that  was  now  produced 
against  him.  It  was  the  head  of  his  grandfather. 
But  the  letter  being  opened,  was  found  to  be 
unsigned,  and  in  the  following  general  terms: 
"The  bearer  will  inform  you  who  I  am.  Fear 
nothing.  Remember  where  you  stand ;  and  ne- 
glect nothing.  Call  in  every  aid,  even  the  mean- 
est." While  he  persisted  in  his  denial,  some 
one  asked  him,  If  he  had  never  quoted  the 


1  The  former  two  were  Cinna  and  Sylla. 


Sybiline  oracles  to  these  Gauls?  Confounded 
with  this  question,  he  forgot  his  disguise,  and 
confessed. 

Gabinius  too  was  at  last  brought  to  own  his 
guilt  ;  and  in  this  manner  the  conspiracy  was 
fully  laid  open.  L.  Julius  Caesar,  the  consul  of 
the  former  year,  in  the  presence  of  Lentulus,  who 
was  married  to  his  sister,  gave  his  opinion,  that 
this  unhappy  man  should  be  immediately  put  to 
death.  "  This,"  he  said,  "  is  no  unprecedented 
measure.  My  grandfather  Fulvius  Flaccus,  was 
slain  by  order  of  the  consul  Gabinius.  His  son 
was  taken  into  custody  and  put  to  death  in  pri- 
son." In  the  mean  time  Lentulus  was  ordered  tr. 
divest  himself  of  the  office  of  praetor,  and,  to- 
gether with  his  accomplices,  was  committed  t? 
close  imprisonment.  This  Cornelius  Lentulus 
was  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Sura.  He  had 
been  consul  about  eight  years  before,  and  was  af- 
terwards, for  his  debaucheries,  struck  off  the  rolh 
of  the  senate.  He  had  now  again  condescended 
to  accept  of  the  office  of  praetor,  in  order  to  re- 
cover, in  the  capacity  of  a  magistrate,  his  seat  in 
the  senate.. 

A  proclamation  was  issued  to  apprehend  M. 
Caeparius,.  who  had  been  sent  to  raise  an  insur- 
rection in  Apulia,  together  with  P.  Furius,  Ma- 
gius  Chilo,  and  P.  Umbrenus,  who  had  first  in- 
troduced the  Gaulish  ambassadors  to  Gabinius, 
The  senate  voted  thanks  to  the  consul  Cicero  for 
his  great  vigilance,  and  for  the  consummate  abi- 
lity he  had  shown  in  the  discovery  and  suppres- 
sion of  this  treasonable  design ;  to  the  praetors, 
for  the  faithful  execution  of  the  consul's  orders  • 
and  to  Antonius,  his  colleague,  for  having  de- 
tached himself  from  men  with  whom  he  was 
known  to  have  been  formerly  connected.  A  pub- 
lic thanksgiving  to  the  gods  was  likewise  decreed 
in  honour  of  the  consul,  and  in  consideration  of 
this  deliverance  of  the  city  from  fire,  of  the  peo- 
ple from  massacre,  and  of  Italy  from  devastation 
and  war. 

An  assembly  of  the  people  being  called,  Cicero 
gave  this  account  of  the  proceedings  in  a  speech 
which  is  still  extant,2  and  early  on  the  following 
day  assembled  the  senate  to  deliberate  on  the 
farther  resolutions  to  be  taken  with  respect  to  the 
prisoners.  An  agent  had  been  busy  in  the  night 
to  raise  some  disturbance  in  favour  of  Lentulus ; 
but  the  design  of  setting  fire  to  the  city  struck 
the  people  in  general  with  so  much  horror,  that 
not  only  such  as  were  possessed  of  property,  but 
every  inhabitant  trembled  for  his  own  person,  and 
for  the  safety  of  his  house.  The  avenues  to  the 
senate,  the  capitol,  the  forum,  all  the  temples 
in  the  neighbourhood,  by  break  of  day,  were 
crowded  with  armed  men.  The  consul  had  sum- 
moned the  equestrian  order  in  arms  to  protect  the 
senate,  and  citizens  of  every  rank  came  forth  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  magistrates. 

When  the  senate  met,  the  members  differed  in 
their  judgment.  Junius  Silanus,  one  of  the  con- 
suls-elect, being  called  up  first  in  order,  declared 
himself  for  a  sentence  of  death.  Tiberius  Nero 
differed  from  him,  and  proposed  perpetual  im- 
prisonment. The  majority,  however,  joined  Si- 
lanus, until  Caius  Julius  Caesar  spoke.  This  able 
advocate  declared  against  the  opinion  of  Silanus, 
not  as  too  severe,  but  as  contrary  to  law ;  and  in 
sisted  on  the  danger  of  a  precedent  which  migh> 


2  In  Cftti'.  1. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


177 


set  the  life  of  every  citizen  at  the  mercy  of  a  vote 
in  the  senate.  Death,  he  said,  was  the  common 
destination  of  all  men ;  what  no  one  could  avoid, 
and  what  the  wise  frequently  coveted.  It  was  not, 
therefore,  a  punishment ;  and  he  did  not  propose 
to  mitigate,  but  to  increase,  the  severity  of  the 
sentence  in  this  case.  He  proposed,  therefore, 
that  the  estates  of  the  prisoners  should  be  con- 
fiscated ;  that  their  persons  should  be  committed 
for  life  to  the  keeping  of  the  most  secure  and  best 
affected  towns  in  Italy ;  and  that  it  should  be  de- 
clared treason  for  any  one  hereafter  to  move  the 
senate  or  the  people  for  any  mitigation  of  their 
punishment. 

Caesar  might  be  considered  as  uttering  what 
the  popular  faction  were  to  urge,  and  as  laying 
the  ground  Upon  which  the  proceedings  of  the 
senate,  and  the  conduct  of  each  particular  mem- 
ber, might  be  afterwards  arraigned  before  the 
people.  The  terrors  of  the  Porcian  and  Sem- 
pronian  laws,  when  likely  to  be  urged  by  so 
powerful  an  advocate,  alarmed  the  greater  part  of 
the  senate.  Silanus  is  said  to  have  retracted  his 
opinion.  The  consul  submitted  the  question  to 
the  judgment  of  the  senate,  and  declared  his  wil- 
lingness to  execute  any  decree  they  should  form. 
He  treated  Caesar  with  great  respect,  and  laid 
hold  of  the  severe  terms  in  which  he  spoke  of  the 
conspiracy,  as  a  pledge  of  his  future  conduct,  in 
case  the  proceedings  of  government,  with  respect 
to  the  matter  now  before  them,  should  hereafter 
be  questioned  or  brought  under  review.  "  The 
senate,"  he  observed,  "had  no  cause  to  dread  the 
imputation  of  cruelty.  It  was  mercy  to  prevent, 
in  the  most  effectual  manner,  a  crime  to  be  per- 
petrated in  so  much  blood.  If  this  crime  were 
not  prevented,  they  were  to  see  that  city,  the  re- 
sort of  nations,  and  the  light  and  ornament  of 
empire,  perish  at  one  blow.  They  were  to  see 
heaps  of  her  citizens  unburied,  and  lying  in  their 
blood  ;  to  see  the  fury  of  Cethegus  let  loose  in 
murder ;  to  see  Lentulus  become  a  king,  Catiline 
commanding  an  army,  and  every  where  to  hear 
the  cries  of  mothers,  to  see  the  flight  of  children, 
and  the  rape  of  virgins.  If  the  father  of  a  fa- 
mily," he  continued,  "should  spare  a  slave  who 
had  shed  the  blood  of  his  children,  who  had  mur- 
dered his  wife,  and  set  fire  to  his  dwelling,  how 
should  such  a  father  be  considered — as  cruel,  or 
as  void  of  affection? 

"  He  desired  them  not  to  regard  what  was 
given  out,  of  their  not  being  in  condition  to  at- 
tempt any  thing  vigorous  against  those  men.  He 
himself,  as  first  magistrate,  had  not  neglected  the 
necessary  precautions ;  and  the  general  ardour 
with  which  all  ranks  of  men  concurred  in  the 
defence  of  their  families,  their  properties,  and  the 
scat  of  empire,  rendered  every  resolution  they 
could  take  secure  of  the  utmost  effect.  The  lb- 
rum  is  full,  all  the  temples  in  its  neighbourhood 
are  full,  all  the  streets  and  avenues  to  this  place 
of  assembly  are  full  of  citizens  of  every  denomina- 
tion, armed  for  the  defence  of  t  heir  country.  He 
requested  that  the  senate  would  issue  their  orders 
before  the  sun  went  down,  and  seemed  to  appre- 
hend dangerous  consequences,  if  these  matters 
were  left  undetermined,  and  the  city  exposed  to 
the  accidents  of  the  following  night.  For  him- 
self, he  professed  to  have  taken  his  resolution. 
Although  he  felt  the  occasion  full  of  personal 
danger,  he  would  execute  the  orders  of  the  con- 
script fathers,"  he  said ;  "  but,  if  he  fell  in  the 


attempt,  implored  their  protection  for  his  wife 
and  his  children."3 

All  this  appears  to  have  passed  in  debate  before 
Cato  spoke.  This  virtuous  citizen,  then  about 
thirty-three  years  of  age,  had,  in  the  former  part 
of  his  life,  taken  a  very  different  course  from  the 
youths  of  his  own  time,  and,  both  by  his  temper 
and  education,  was  averse  to  the  libertine  prin- 
ciples which  had  crept  into  the  politics  and  the 
manners  of  the  age.  He  spoke  chiefly  in  answer 
to  Caius  Ceesar,  who,  he  observed,  seemed  to  mis- 
take the  question.  "We  are  not  inquiring,"  he 
said,  "  what  is  the  proper  punishment  of  a  crime 
already  committed,  but  how  we  may  defend  the 
republic  from  an  imminent  danger  with  which  it. 
is  threatened.  It  is  proposed  to  send  the  prisoners 
to  safe  keeping  in  the  country.  Why  into  the 
country  ?  Because  perhaps  the  faction  of  profli- 
gate citizens  is  more  numerous  in  Rome,  and 
may  rescue  them.  Is  Rome  the  only  place  to 
which  profligate  men  may  resort,  or  are  prisoners 
of  state  most  secure  where  the  force  of  govern- 
ment is  least  ?  This  proposal  is  surely  an  idle  one, 
if  the  author  of  it  professes  to  entertain  any  fear 
of  these  men.  But  if,  in  this  general  alarm  of  all  the 
city,  he  and  such  persons  be  not  afraid,  so  much 
the  more  cause  have  we  to  be  on  our  guard.  We 
are  beset  with  enemies,  both  within  and  without 
the  walls.  While  Catiline  with  fire  and  sword  is 
hastening  to  your  gates,  you  hesitate,  whether  you 
will  cut  off  or  spare  his  associates,  that  are  taken 
with  the  torch  in  their  hands  and  the  dagger  at 
your  breast !  You  must  strike  those  who  are  now 
in  your  power,  if  you  mean  to  intimidate  those 
who  are  coming  to  support  their  designs.  The 
remissness  or  the  vigour  which  you  now  show  will 
be  felt  in  the  camp  of  Catiline,  and  will  be  at- 
tended with  suitable  effects.  I  am  therefore  of 
opinion,  that  we  order  these  men,  agreeably  to 
the  practice  which  our  ancestors  followed  in  all 
cases  of  treason  and  of  open  war  against  the 
commonwealth,  to  immediate  death." 

Such  is  said  to  have  been  the  speech  of  Cato, 
by  which  the  senate  was  determined  in  the  very 
momentous  resolution  which  was  taken  on  the 
present  occasion ;  and  however  little  we  may  be 
inclined  to  consider  such  compositions  in  many 
parts  of  ancient  history  as  records  of  fact,  much 
credit  is  due  to  this  representation,  as  it  is  given 
by  a  person  who  himself  became  a  partizan  of 
Caesar,  and  as  the  speech  itself  must  have  been 
offered  to  the  perusal  of  many  who  were  present 
at  the  delivery  of  it.4  The  execution  of  the  pri- 
soners was  accordingly  determined,  and  Cornelius 
Lentulus,  in  the  beginning  of  the  following  night, 
was,  by  order  of  the  consul,  committed  to  a  vault- 
ed dungeon  under  ground,  and  Strangled.  His 
accomplices  had  the  same  fate  ;  and  the  minds  of 
men,  though  somewhat  quieted  of  their  fears, 
were  nevertheless  stunned  with  the  scene,  and 
beheld  with  amazement  a  patrician  of  the  Cor- 
nelian family,  of  the  first  rank  in  the  common- 
wealth, who  himself  had  been  consul,  suffering, 
without  any  formal  trial,  by  the  hands  of  the 
common  executioner  of  justice.5 

While  these  things  were  in  agitation  at  Rome 

3  Cicero  in  Catilinam,  orat.  IT. 

4  The  more  credit  is  due  to  this  account  of  Cato's 
speech,  that  the  speech  which  is  ascribed  to  Cicero  by 
the  same  historian,  is  a  faithful  extract  from  the  ora- 
tion which  still  remains. 

5  Sallust.  Bell.  Cai.il.  Cur  ergo  in  sentcntiam  Ca 
tonis  ?  (inia  verbis  luculentioribui  ct  pluribus,  rein 


178 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IIT. 


Catiline  was  endeavouring  to  augment  his  force 
in  the  field.  He  found  about  two  thousand  men 
under  Mallius.  These  he  formed  into  two  le- 
gions, and  as  his  party  increased  he  completed 
their  numbers.  He  refused  for  some  time  to  en- 
rol his  fugitive  slaves,  of  whom  many  took  refuge 
in  his  camp;  thinking  it  would  discredit  and 
weaken  his  cause  to  rest  any  part  of  it  on  this 
support.  But  the  freemen  that  joined  him  being 
ill  armed,  he  was  obliged  to  keep  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  mountains,  and  frequently  to 
change  his  ground,  to  avoid  an  engagement  with 
the  consul ;  and  he  endeavoured  to  gain  time,,  in 
hopes  that  the  intended  blow  being  struck  at 
Rome,  a  general  defection  of  the  opposite  party 
would  ensue.  But  when  accounts  came  that  his 
design  had  failed  in  the  city,  and  that  his  principal 
associates  were  no  more,  those  who  were  inclined 
to  his  cause  were  discouraged,  and  numbers  who 
had  already  joined  him  began  to  fall  off,  he  de- 
termined to  remove  to  a  distance  from  his  ene- 
mies ;  and  for  this  purpose  directed  his  march  to 
a  pass  in  the  Apennines,  by  which  he  might 
escape  into  Gaul.  This  design  the  Prsetor  Me- 
tellus  had  foreseen,  made  a  forced  march  to  pre- 
vent the  effect  of  it,  and  Catiline  at  last,  finding 
himself  beset  on  every  quarter,  determined  to 
hazard  a  battle.  Of  the  armies  that  were  in  the 
field  against  him  he  chose  to  face  that  of  An- 


tonius;  either  because  it  lay  on  his  route  to  Rome, 
and,  if  defeated  or  removed,  might  open  his  way 
to  the  city,  or  because  he  hoped  to  meet  in  the 
commander  of  it  some  remains  of  inclination  in 
his  favour.  In  whatever  degree  these  hopes  were 
at  first  reasonably  conceived,  they  ceased  to  have 
any  foundation ;  as  Antonius,  being  taken  ill  had 
left  the  army  under  the  command  of  Petreius. 
With  this  commander  Catiline  engaged  in  battle, 
and,  after  many  efforts  of  valour  and  of  conduct, 
fell  with  the  greater  part  of  his  followers,  and 
thus  delivered  the  state  from  a  desperate  enemy, 
whose  power  was  happily  not  equal  to  his  de- 
signs, and  who  has  owed  much  of  his  celebrity  to 
the  orator  and  the  historian,  who  have  made  him 
the  subject  of  their  eloquent  compositions.  Sal- 
lust  appears  to  have  been  so  intent  on  raising  and 
finishing  particular  parts  of  his  work,  that  he  ne- 
glected the  general  order  of  his  narrative.  I  have, 
therefore,  in  most  parts  of  the  relation,  preferred 
the  authority  of  Cicero  to  his.  This  great  man 
was  undoubtedly  best  informed,  and  he  rested  so 
much  of  his  reputation  on  this  transaction,  that 
he  loses  no  opportunity  of  returning  to  it,  and  in 
different  parts  of  his  writings,  when  collected, 
has  furnished  a  pretty  full  narration  of  circum- 
stances respecting  the  origin  and  termination  of 
this  wild  and  profligate  attempt  to  subvert  the 
government  of  the  republic. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Character  of  the  Times — Philosophy—  Opposite  Tenets  and  Votaries — Proceedings  of  the 
Senate — Tribunate  of  Metellus,  Nepos,  and  of  Cato — Proposal  to  recal  Pompey  at  the  Heaa 
of  his  Army  frustrated — His  arrival  in  Italy — And  Triumph. 


IT  may  appear  strange,  that  any  age  or  nation 
should  have  furnished  the  example  of  a  project 
conceived  in  so  much  guilt,  or  of  characters  so 
atrocious  as  those  under  which  the  accomplices 
of  Catiline  are  described  by  the  eloquent  orator 
and  historian,1  from  whose  writings  the  circum- 
stances of  the  late  conspiracy  are  collected.  The 
scene,  however,  in  this  republic,  was  such  as  to 
have  no  parallel,  either  in  the  past  or  in  the  sub- 
sequent history  of  mankind.  There  was  less 
government,  and  more  to  be  governed,  than  has 
been  exhibited  in  any  other  instance.  The  peo- 
ple of  Italy  were  become  masters  of  the  known 
world  ;  it  was  impossible  they  could  ever  meet  in 
a  fair  and  adequate  convention.  They  were  re- 
presented by  partial  meetings  or  occasional  tu- 
mults in  the  city  of  Rome ;  and  to  take  the  sense 
of  the  people  on  any  subject  was  to  raise  a  riot. 
Individuals  were  vested  with  powers  almost  dis- 
cretionary in  the  provinces,  or  continually  aspired 
to  such  situations.  The  nominal  assemblies  of 
the  people  were  often  led  by  profligate  persons, 
impatient  of  government,  in  haste  to  govern. 
Ruined  in  their  fortunes  by  private  prodigality, 
or  by  the  public  expense  in  soliciting  honours ; 
tempted  to  repair  their  ruins  by  oppression  and 
extortion  where  they  were  entrusted  with  com- 
mand, or  by  desperate  attempts  against  the  go- 

eandem  comprehenderat.   Cicer.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  xii- 
epist.  21. 
T  Cicero  in  Saliuut. 


vernment  of  their  country  if  disappointed  in  then 
hopes.  Not  only  were  many  of  the  prevailing 
practices  disorderly,  but  the  law  itself  was  erro- 
neous ;2  adopted  indeed  at  first  by  a  virtuous  peo- 
ple, because  it  secured  the  persons  and  the  rights 
of  individuals,  but  now  anxiously  preserved  by 
their  posterity,  because  it  gave  a  license  to  their 
crimes. 

The  provinces  were  to  be  retained  by  the  forces 
of  Italy ;  the  Italians  themselves  by  the  ascendant 
of  the  capital ;  and  in  this  capital  all  was  confu- 
sion and  anarchy,  except  where  the  senate,  by 
its  authority  and  the  wisdom  of  its  counsels,  pre- 
vailed. It  was  expedient  for  the  people  to  restrain 
the  abuses  of  the  aristocratical  power ;  but  when 
the  sovereignty  was  exercised  in  the  name  of  the 
collective  body  of  the  Roman  people,  the  anarchy 
and  confusion  that  prevailed  at  Rome  spread  from 
one  extremity  of  her  dominion  to  the  other.  The 
provinces  were  oppressed,  not  upon  a  regular 
plan  to  aggrandize  the  state,  but  at  the  pleasure 
of  individuals,  to  enrich  a  few  of  the  most  out- 
rageous and  profligate  citizens.  The  people  were 
often  assembled  to  erect  arbitrary  powers,  under 


2  Lex  Valeria  et  Porcia  de  tergo  Civium  lata.  Liv. 
lib.  ii.  c.  8.  lib.  iii.  c.  55.  lib.  x.  c.  9.  By  these  laws  a 
Roman  citizen  could  not  be  imprisoned,  any  more  than 
suffer  punishment,  before  conviction;  he  might  stop 
any  proceeding  against  him  by  an  appeal  to  the  people 
at  large  ;  and,  being  at  liberty  during  trial,  might  with- 
draw whenever  he  perceived  the  sentence  likely  to  be 
givrn  against  him. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


179 


the  pretence  of  popular  government.  The  pub- 
lic interests  and  the  order  of  the  state  were  in 
perpetual  struggle  with  the  pretensions  of  single 
and  of  profligate  men.  In  such  a  situation  there 
were  many  temptations  to  be  wicked  ;  and  in  such 
a  situation,  likewise,  minds  that  were  turned  to 
integrity  and  honour  had  a  proportionate  spring 
to  their  exertions  and  pursuits.  The  range  of 
the  human  character  was  great  and  extensive, 
and  men  were  not  likely  to  trifle  within  narrow 
bounds ;  they  were  destined  to  be  good  or  to  be 
wicked  in  the  highest  measure,  and,  by  their 
struggles,  to  exhibit  a  scene  interesting  and  in- 
structive beyond  any  other  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. 

Among  the  causes  that  helped  to  carry  the 
characters  of  men  in  this  age  to  such  distant  ex- 
tremes, may  be  reckoned  the  philosophy  of  the 
Greeks,  which  was  lately  come  into  fashion,  and 
which  was  much  affected  by  the  higher  ranks  of 
men  in  the  state.3  Literature  being,  by  the  diffi- 
culty and  expense  of  multiplying  copies  of  books,4 
confined  to  persons  having  wealth  and  power,  it 
was  considered  as  a  distinction  of  rank,  and  was 
received  not  only  as  a  useful,  but  as  a  fashionable 
accomplishment.  The  lessons  of  the  school  were 
considered  as  the  elements  of  every  liberal  and 
active  profession,  and  they  were  practised  at  the 
bar,  in  the  field,  in  the  senate,  and  every  where 
in  the  conduct  of  real  affairs.  Philosophy  was 
considered  as  an  ornament,  as  well  as  a  real 
foundation  of  strength,  ability,  and  wisdom  in 
the  practice  of  life.  Men  of  the  world,  instead 
of  being  ashamed  of  their  sect,  affected  to  employ 
its  language  on  every  important  occasion,  and 
to  be  governed  by  its  rules  so  mueh  as  to  assume, 
in  compliance  with  particular  systems,  distinc- 
tions of  manners  and  even  of  dress.  They  em- 
braced their  forms  in  philosophy,  as  the  sectaries 
in  modern  times  have  embraced  theirs  in  re- 
ligion ;  and  probably  in  the  one  case  honoured 
their  choice  by  the  sincerity  of  their  faith  and 
the  regularity  of  their  practice,  much  in  the  same 
degree  as  they  have  done  in  the  other. 

In  these  latter  times  of  the  Roman  republic 
the  sect  of  Epicurus  appears  to  have  prevailed ; 
and  what  Fabricius  wished,  on  hearing  the  tenets 
of  this  philosophy,  for  the  enemies  of  Rome,  had 
now  befallen  her  citizens.5  Men  were  glutted 
with  national  prosperity ;  they  thought  that  they 
Were  born  to  enjoy  what  their  fathers  had  won, 
and  saw  not  the  use  of  those  austere  and  arduous 
virtues  by  which  the  state  had  increased  to  its 
present  greatness.  The  votaries  of  this  sect  as- 
cribed the  formation  of  the  world  to  chance,  and 
denied  the  existence  of  Providence.  They  re- 
solved the  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  of 
honour  and  dishonour,  into  mere  appellations  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  Every  man's  pleasure  was 
to  himself  the  supreme  rule  of  estimation  and  of 
action.  All  good  was  private.  The  public  was 
a  mere  imposture,  that  might  be  successfully  em- 
ployed, perhaps  to  defraud  the  ignorant  of  their 


3  Vid  Cicero's  Philosophical  Works. 

4  The  grandees  had  their  slaves  sometimes  educated 
to  serve  as  secretaries  to  themselves,  or  as  preceptors 
to  their  children. 

5  See  Plutarch,  in  Pyrr.  The  philosopher  Cyneas,  in 
the  hearing  of  Fabricius,  entertained  his  prince  with 
an  argument,  to  prove  that  pleasure  was  the  chief 
good.  Fabricius  wished  that  the  enemies  of  Rome 
plight  lon<*  entertain  such  tenets. 


private  enjoyments,  while  it  furnished  the  con- 
veniences of  the  wise.6  To  persons  so  instructed, 
the  care  of  families  and  of  states,  with  whatever 
else  broke  in  upon  the  enjoyments  of  pleasure 
and  ease,  must  appear  among  the  follies  of  human 
life.  And  a  sect  under  these  imputations  might 
be  considered  as  patrons  of  licentiousness,  both 
in  morality  and  religion,  and  declared  enemies  to 
mankind.  Yet  the  Epicureans,  when  urged  in 
argument  by  their  opponents,  made  some  conces- 
sions in  religion,  and  many  more  in  morality. 
They  admitted  the  existence  of  gods,  but  sup- 
posed those  beings  of  too  exalted  a  nature  to  have 
any  concern  in  human  affairs.  They  owned 
that,  although  the  value  of  virtue  was  to  be  mea- 
sured by  the  pleasure  it  gave,  yet  true  pleasure 
was  to  be  found  in  virtue  alone;  and  that  it  might 
be  enjoyed  in  the  highest  degree  even  in  the 
midst  of  bodily  pain.  Notwithstanding  this  de- 
cision on  the  side  of  morality,  the  ordinary  lan- 
guage of  this  sect,  representing  virtue  as  a  mere 
prudent  choice  among  the  pleasures  to  which  men 
are  variously  addicted,  served  to  suppress  the  spe- 
cific sentiments  of  conscience  and  elevation  of 
mind,  and  to  change  the  reproaches  of  criminali- 
ty, profligacy,  or  vileness,  by  which  even  bad  men 
are  restrained  from  iniquity,  into  mere  imputations 
of  mistake,  or  variations  of  taste. 

Other  sects,  particularly  that  of  the  Stoics, 
maintained,  almost  in  every  particular,  the  re 
verse  of  these  tenets.  They  maintained  the 
reality  of  Providence,  and  of  a  common  interest 
of  goodness  and  of  justice,  for  which  Providence 
was  exerted,  and  in  which  all  rational  creatures 
were  deeply  concerned.  They  allowed,  that  in 
the  nature  of  things  there  are  many  grounds  upon 
whieh  we  prefer  or  reject  the  objects  that  present 
themselves  to  us,  but  that  the  choice  which  we 
make,  not  the  event  of  our  efforts,  decides  our 
happiness  or  our  misery;  that  right  and  wrong 
are  the  most  important  and  the  only  grounds 
upon  which  we  can  at  all  times  safely  proceed  in 
our  choice,  and  that,  in  comparison  to  this  differ- 
ence, every  thing  else  is  of  no  account ;  that  a 
just  man  will  ever  act  as  if  there  was  nothing 
good  but  what  is  right,  and  nothing  evil  but 
what  is  wrong-,  that  the  Epicureans  mistook  hu- 
man nature  when  they  supposed  all  its  principles 
resolvable  into  appetites  for  pleasure,  or  aversions 
to  pain ;  that  honour  and  dishonour,  excellence 
and  defect,  were  considerations  which  not  only 
led  to  much  nobler  ends,  but  which  were  of  much 
greater  power  in  commanding  the  human  will ; 
the  love  of  pleasure  was  grovelling  and  vile,  was 
the  source  of  dissipation  and  of  sloth ;  the  love 
of  excellence  and  honour  was  aspiring  and  noble, 
and  led  to  the  greatest  exertions  and  the  highest 
attainments  of  our  nature.  They  maintained 
that  there  is  no  private  good  separate  from  tlie 
public  good ;  that  the  same  qualities  of  the  under- 
standing and  the  heart,  wisdom,  benevolence,  and 
courage,  which  are  good  for  the  individual,  are  so 
likewise  for  the  public ;  that  these  blessings  every 
man  may  possess,  independent  of  fortune  or  the 
will  of  other  men ;  and  that  whoever  does  possess 
them  has  nothing  to  hope,  and  nothing  to  fear, 
and  can  have  but  one  sort  of  emotion,  that  of 
satisfaction  and  joy ;  that  his  affections,  and  the 
maxims  of  his  station,  as  a  creature  of  God,  and 
as  a  member  of  society,  lead  him  to  act  for  the 


0  Cicero  in  Pisonom. 


180 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


good  of  mankind ;  and  that  for  himself  he  has 
nothing  more  to  desire,  than  the  happiness  of 
acting  this  part.  These,  they  said,  were  the  tenets 
of  reason  leading  to  perfection,  which  ought  to  be 
the  aim  of  every  person  who  means  to  preserve 
his  integrity,  or  to  consult  his  happiness,  and 
towards  which  every  one  may  advance,  although 
no  one  has  actually  reached  it. 

Other  sects  affected  to  find  a  middle  way  be- 
tween these  extremes,  and  attempted,  in  specula- 
tion, to  render  their  doctrines  more  plausible;  that 
is,  more  agreeable  to  common  opinions  than  either ; 
but  were,  in  fact,  of  no  farther  moment  in  human 
life  than  as  they  approached  to  the  one  or  to  the 
other  of  these  opposite  systems. 

Csesar  is  said  to  have  embraced  the  doctrines 
of  Epicurus ;  Cato  those  of  Zeno.  The  first,  in 
compliance  with  fashion,  or  from  the  bias  of  an 
original  temper.  The  other,  from  the  force  of 
conviction,  as  well  as  from  the  predilection  of  a 
warm  and  ingenuous  mind.  When  such  cha- 
racters occur  together,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see 
them  in  contrast.  When  Sallust  writes  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  senate,  in  the  case  of  the  Cati- 
line conspiracy,  he  seems  to  overlook  every  other 
character,  to  dwell  upon  these  alone.  Csesar,  at 
the  time  when  this  historian  flourished,  had  many 
claims  to  his  notice  ;*  but  Cato  could  owe  it  to 
nothing  but  the  force  of  truth.  He  was  distin- 
guished from  his  infancy  by  an  ardent  and  affec- 
tionate disposition.  This  part  of  his  character  is 
mentioned  on  occasion  of  his  attachment  to  his 
brother  Csepio,  and  the  vehement  sorrow  with 
which  he  was  seized  at  his  death.  It  is  mention- 
ed, on  occasion  of  his  visit  to  the  dictator  Syila, 
when  he  was  with  difficulty  restrained  by  the 
discretion  of  his  tutor  from  some  act  or  expression 
of  indignation  against  this  real  or  apparent  vio- 
lator of  public  justice.  He  had  from  his  infancy, 
according  to  Plutarch,  a  resolution,  a  steadiness, 
and  a  composure  of  mind  not  to  be  moved  by  flat- 
tery, nor  to  be  shaken  by  threats.  Without 
fawning  or  insinuation,  he  was  the  favourite  of 
his  companions,  and  had,  by  his  unaffected  gene- 
rosity and  courage,  the  principal  place  in  their 
confidence.  Though  in  appearance  stern  and 
inflexible,  he  was  warm  in  his  affections,  and 
zealous  in  the  cause  of  innocence  and  justice. 
Such  are  the  marks  of  an  original  temper  affixed 
by  historians  as  the  characters  of  his  infancy  and 
early  youth.  So  fitted  by  nature,  he  imbibed 
with  ease  an  opinion,  that  profligacy,  cowardice, 
and  malice,  were  the  only  evils  to  be  feared ; 
courage,  integrity,  and  benevolence,  the  only  good 
to  be  coveted  ;  and  that  the  proper  care  of  a  man 
on  every  occasion  is,  not  what  is  to  happen  to 
him,  but  what  he  himself  is  to  do.  With  this 
profession  he  became  a  striking  contrast  to  many 
of  his  contemporaries ;  and  to  Csesar  in  particu- 
lar, not  only  a  contrast,  but  a  resolute  opponent ; 
and  though  he  could  not  furnish  a  sufficient 
counterpoise,  yet  he  afforded  always  much  weight 
to  be  thrown  into  the  opposite  scale.  They  were 
both  of  undaunted  courage,  and  of  great  penetra- 
tion ;  the  one  to  distinguish  what  was  best ;  the 
other  to  distinguish  the  most  effectual  means  for 
he  attainment  of  any  end  on  which  he  was  bent. 
It  were  to  mistake  entirely  the  scene  in  which 
they  were  engaged,  to  judge  of  their  abilities  from 


1  Sallust  attached  himself  to  Csesar,  and  was  em- 
ployed by  him  in  the  civil  wars. 


the  event  of  their  different  pursuits.  Those  of 
Cato  were  by  their  nature  a  series  of  struggles 
with  almost  insurmountable  difficulties  :  those  of 
Csesar  a  constant  endeavour  to  seize  the  advan- 
tages of  which  the  vices  and  weaknesses  of  the 
age,  except  when  he  was  resisted  by  persons 
bent  on  the  same  purpose  with  himself,  gave  him 
an  easy  possession.  Cato  endeavoured  to  pre- 
serve the  order  of  civil  government,  however  des- 
perate, because  this  was  the  part  it  became  him 
to  act,  and  in  which  he  chose  to  live  and  to  die. 
Caesar  proposed  to  overturn  it ;  because  he  wished 
to  dispose  of  all  the  wealth  and  honours  of  the 
state  at  his  own  pleasure. 

Csesar,  as  versatile  in  his  genius  as  Cato,  was 
steady  and  inflexible,  could  personate  any  cha- 
racter, and  support  any  cause ;  in  debate  he 
could  derive  his  arguments  from  any  topic;  from 
topics  of  pity,  of  which  he  was  insensible ;  from 
topics  of  justice  and  public  good,  for  which  he 
had  no  regard.  His  vigour  in  resisting  personal 
insults  and  wrongs  appeared  in  his  early  youth, 
when  he  withstood  the  imperious  commands  of 
Syllato  part  with  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  Cinna, 
and  when  he  revenged  the  insults  offered  by  the 
pirates  to  himself;  but  while  his  temper  might 
be  supposed  the  most  animated  and  warm,  he 
was  not  involved  in  business  by  a  predilection  for 
any  of  the  interests  on  which  the  state  was  di- 
vided. So  long  as  the  appetites  of  youth  were 
sufficient  to  occupy  him,  he  saw  every  object  of 
state,  or  of  faction,  with  indifference,  and  took  no 
part  in  public  affairs.  But  even  in  this  period,  by 
his  application  and  genius,  in  both  of  which  he 
was  eminent,  he  made  a  distinguished  progress  in 
letters  and  eloquence.  When  he  turned  his  mind 
to  objects  of  ambition,  the  same  personal  vigour 
which  appeared  in  his  youth,  became  still  more 
conspicuous ;  but,  unfortunately,  his  passions 
were  ill  directed,  and  he  seemed  to  consider  the 
authority  that  was  exercised  by  the  senate,  and 
the  restraints  of  the  law  on  himself,  as  an  insult 
and  a  wrong. 

Csesar  had  attained  to  seven-and-thirty  years 
of  age  before  he  took  any  part  as  a  member  of 
the  commonwealth.  He  then  courted  the  popu- 
lace in  preference  to  the  senate  or  better  sort  of 
the  people,  and  made  his  first  appearance  in  sup- 
port of  the  profligate,  against  the  order  and  au- 
thority of  government.  With  persons  of  desperate 
fortune  and  abandoned  manners,  he  early  bore 
the  character  of  liberality  and  friendship.  They 
received  him  as  a  generous  patron,  come  to  rescue 
them  from  the  morose  severity  of  those  who 
judged  of  public  merits  by  the  standard  of  public 
virtue,  and  who  declared  against  practices,  how- 
ever fashionable,  which  were  inconsistent  with 
public  safety.  Himself,  a  person  of  the  greatest 
abilities,  and  the  most  accomplished  talents,  hav- 
ing an  opportunity  to  live  on  terms  of  equality 
with  the  greatest  men  that  have  yet  appeared  in 
the  world,  he  chose  to  start  up  as  the  chief  among 
those  who,  being  abandoned  to  every  vice,  saw 
the  remains  of  virtue  in  their  country  with  dis- 
taste and  aversion.  When  he  emerged  from  the 
avocations  of  pleasure,  or  from  the  sloth  which 
accompanies  the  languor  of  dissipation,  his  ambi- 
tion or  desire  to  counteract  the  established  govern- 
ment of  his  country,  and  to  make  himself  master 
of  the  commonwealth,  became  extreme.  To  this 
passion  he  sacrificed  every  sentiment  of  friend- 
ship or  animosity,  of  honour,  interest,  resentment, 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  • 


181 


or  hatred.  The  philosophy  which  taught  men 
to  look  for  enjoyment  indiscriminately  wherever 
it  pleased  them  most,  found  a  ready  acceptance  in 
such  a  disposition.  But  while  he  possibly  availed 
himself  of  the  speculations  of  Epicurus  to  justify 
his  choice  of  an  object,  he  was  not  inferior  to  the 
followers  of  Zeno,  in  vigorous  efforts  and  active 
exertions  for  the  attainment  of  his  ends.  Being 
about  seven  years  younger  than  Pompey,  and 
three  years  older  than  Cato;  the  first  he  occa- 
sionally employed  as  a  prop  to  his  ambition,  but 
probably  never  ceased  to  consider  him  as  a  rival ; 
the  other,  from  a  fixed  animosity  of  opposite  na- 
tures, and  from  having  felt  him  as  a  continual 
opponent  in  all  his  designs,  he  sincerely  hated. 

Cato  began  his  military  service  in  the  army 
that  was  formed  against  the  gladiators,  and  con- 
cluded it  as  a  legionary  tribune,  under  the  prsetor 
Rubrius,  in  Macedonia,  while  Pompey  remained 
in  Syria.  He  was  about  three-and-thirty  years 
of  age  when  he  made  his  speech  relating  to  the 
accomplices  of  Catiline  ;  and  by  the  decisive  and 
resolute  spirit  he  had  shown  on  this  occasion, 
came  to  be  considered  as  a  principal  support  of 
the  aristocracy,  or  of  the  authority  of  the  senate.2 
To  this  body,  as  usual,  every  flagrant  disorder 
repressed  was'a  victory.  The  discovery  of  a  de- 
sign so  odious  as  that  of  Catiline,  covered  under 
popular  pretences,  greatly  weakened  their  antago- 
nists. One  of  the  first  uses  they  proposed  to 
make  of  their  advantage,  was  to  have  Cato  elected 
among  the  tribunes  of  the  subsequent  year.  His 
services  were  likely  to  be  wanted  in  opposition  to 
Metellus  Nepos,  then  arrived  from  the  army  of 
Pompey,  with  recommendations  from  his  general 
to  offer  himself  a  candidate  for  the  same  office  ; 
and,  as  was  expected,  to  start  some  new  gratifi- 
cation to  the  ambition  or  vanity  of  this  insatiable 
suitoj  for  personal  consideration. 

It  had  not  yet  appeared  what  part  Pompey  was 
to  take  in  the  disputes  that  were  likely  to  arise 
on  the  legality  or  expedience  of  the  late  mea- 
sures ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  doubted,  that  he  wished 
to  hold  the  balance  of  parties,  and  that  he  would 
come  prepared  for  the  part  that  was  most  likely 
to  promote  his  own  importance.  Metellus  was 
sent  on  before  him  to  be  supported  by  his  friends 
in  the  canvass  for  the  office  of  tribune,  and 
with  instructions  to  take  such  measures  as  were 
likely  to  favour  the  pretensions  of  his  general. 
The  leading  men  of  the  senate  were  now,  for 
some  time,  aware  of  the  intrigues  of  Pompey,  and 
bore,  with  indignation,  the  personal  superiority 
which  he  affected  even  to  the  first  and  most  re- 
spected of  their  order.  They  took  occasion,  in 
the  present  crisis,  to  mortify  him  by  admitting 
Lucullus  and  Metellus  Creticus  to  the  triumphs 
to  which,  by  their  victories  in  Pontus  and  in 
Crete,  they  were  long  entitled.  Hitherto  their 
claims  had  been  overruled  by  the  popular  faction, 
either  to  annoy  the  senatorian  party,  to  which 
they  were  attached,  or  to  flatter  Pompey,  who 
was  supposed  to  be  equally  averse  to  the  honours 
of  both.  They  had  waited  in  Italy  about  three 
years,  and,  in  the  manner  of  those  who  sue  for  a 
triumph,  had  abstained  from  entering  the  city, 
and  still  retained  the  fasces  or  ensigns  of  their 
late  command.3 

Lucullus,  having  obtained  the  honour  that  was 


2  Plutarch,  in  Caton.  edit.  Londin  p.  238. 

3  Cicero  in  Lucullo. 


due  to  him,  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  his  right ;  and,  as  if  merely  to 
show  with  what  sort  of  enemy  he  had  fought,  he 
entered  the  city  with  a  few  of  the  Armenian 
horsemen  cased  in  armour,  a  few  of  the  armed 
chariots  winged  with  scythes,  and  about  sixty  of 
the  officers  and  courtiers  of  Mithridates,  who 
were  his  captives.  He  ordered  the  spoils  he  had 
gained,  the  arms  and  ensigns  of  war,  the  prows 
of  the  gallies  he  had  taken,  to  be  displayed  to 
public  view  in  the  great  circus,  and  concluded  the 
solemnity  with  giving  a  feast  to  the  people.  The 
senate  hoped  for  his  support  against  the  ambition 
of  Pompey,  and  the  factious  designs  of  the  popu- 
lar leaders ;  but  he  was  disgusted,  and  scarcely 
ever  after  took  any  part  in  the  affairs  of  state. 

The  triumph  of  Metellus  Creticus  did  not  take 
place  till  after  the  accession  of  the  following  con- 
suls, P.  Junius  Silanus  and  Lucius  Muraena, 
after  whose  election,  Cicero,  before  he  had  va- 
cated his  own  office  of  consul,  had  occasion  to 
defend  his  own  intended  successor,  Mursena, 
against  a  charge  of  corruption  brought  upon  the 
statute  of  Calpurnius,  by  Servius  Sulpicius,  one 
of  his  late  competitors,  supported  by  Cato  and 
others.  The  oration  of  Cicero  on  this  occasion  is 
still  extant,  and  is  a  curious  example  of  the  topics, 
which,  under  popular  governments,  enter  even 
into  judicial  pleadings.  Great  part  of  it  consists 
in  a  ridicule  of  law  terms ;  because  Sulpicius,  one 
of  the  prosecutors,  was  accustomed  to  give  coun- 
sel to  his  friends  who  consulted  him  in  matters 
of  law ;  and  in  a  ridicule  of  the  stoic  philosophy, 
because  Cato,  another  prosecutor,  was  supposed 
to  have  embraced  the  doctrines  of  that  sect. 
Cato  made  no  other  remark  on  this  pleading,  but 
that  the  republic  was  provided  with  a  merry  con- 
sul. The  argument  appeared  sufficiently  strong 
on  the  side  of  Murama,  and  he  was  acquitted. 

At  the  close  of  this  trial,  Cicero,  about  to  re- 
sign his  power  with  the  usual  asseveration,  upon 
oath,  that  he  had  faithfully,  and  to  the  best  of 
his  abilities,  discharged  his  trust ;  he  proj>osed,  at 
the  same  time,  to  harangue  the  people,  but  was 
ordered  by  Metellus,  already  elected,  and  acting 
in  capacity  of  tribune,  to  confine  himself  to  the 
terms  of  his  oath.  He  accordingly  refrained  from 
speaking;  but  instead  of  swearing  simply,  that  he 
had  been  faithful  to  his  trust,  he  took  an  oath 
that  he  had  preserved  the  republic. 4  It  was  on 
this  occasion,  probably,  that  Cato,  new  another 
of  the  tribunes,  in  a  speech  to  the  people,  alluding 
to  the  suppression  of  the  late  conspiracy,  called 
Cicero  the  father  of  his  country  ;5  and  from  this 
time  entered  upon  an  opposition  to  his  colleague, 
Metellus,  which  was  not  likely  to  drop  while  they 
continued  in  office. 

Soon  after  the  accession  of  the  new  magistrates, 
a  storm  began  to  gather,  which, 
U.  C.  691.    though  still  aimed  at  the  party  of 
the  senate,  burst  at  last  in  a  personal 
&fontur*£      attack  upon  the  late  consul,  who  had 
Murana.        heen  the  author  or  instrument  of 
the  senate  in  the  summary  proceed 
ings  against  the  accomplices  of  Catiline.  Me- 
tellus Nepos  seems  to  have  come  from  Asia,  and 
to  have  entered  on  the  office  of  tribune,  with  a 
particular  design  to  bring  about  the  introduction 
of  Pompey  with  his  army  into  Rome ;  and  he 
was  joined  in  this  project  by  Caius  Julius  Ca>sar, 


4  Plutarch  in  Cicerone.     5  Cicer.  in  Pisonem,  c.  3. 


182 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


now  in  the  office  of  praetor,1  who  chose  to  support 
the  tribune,  as  an  act  of  hostility  to  the  senate,  if 
not  as  the  means  of  disembarrassing  himself  from 
the  present  forms  of  the  commonwealth. 

In  consequence  of  a  plan  concerted  with  Caesar, 
the  tribune  Metellus  moved  in  the  senate,  as  had 
been  usual  in  the  times  of  its  highest  authority, 
for  leave  to  propose  a  decree  in  the  assembly  of 
the  people,  recalling  Pompey  from  Asia  at  the 
head  of  his  forces,  in  order  to  restore  the  consti- 
tution of  the  commonwealth,  which,  in  the  terms 
he  afterwards  employed  to  the  people,  had  been 
violated  b}^  the  arbitrary  administration  of  Cicero. 
This  was  the  first  attempt  of  the  party  to  inflame 
the  minds  of  the  people  on  the  subject  of  the  late 
executions;  and  Pompey  was,  in  this  manner, 
offered  to  the  popular  party  as  their  leader,  to 
avenge  the  supposed  wrongs  they  had  received. 
Cato,  when  the  matter  was  proposed  in  the 
senate,  endeavoured  to  persuade  Metellus  to  drop 
it,  reminded  him  of  the  dignity  of  his  family, 
which  had  been  always  a  principal  ornament  and 
support  to  the  state.  This  treatment  served  only 
to  raise  the  presumption  of  Metellus,  and  brought 
on  a  violent  altercation  between  the  tribunes. 
The  senate  applauded  Cato,  but  had  not  autho- 
rity enough  to  prevent  the  motion  which  was 
proposed  from  being  made  to  the  people. 

Metellus,  apprehending  an  obstinate  resistance 
from  his  colleague,  endeavoured  to  fill  the  place 
of  assembly  with  his  own  partizans ;  and,  on  the 
evening  before  the  meeting,  in  order  to  intimidate 
his  opponents,  paraded  in  the  streets  with  a  nu- 
merous attendance  of  men  in  arms.  The  friends 
and  relations  of  the  other  tribunes  earnestly  be- 
seeched  them  not  to  expose  themselves  to  the 
danger  with  which  they  were  threatened.  But, 
on  the  following  day,  the  other  party  being  al- 
ready assembled  by  Metellus,  at  the  temple  of 
Castor,  and  the  place  having  been  in  the  night 
occupied  by  persons  under  his  direction,  armed 
with  sticks,  swords,  and  other  offensive  weapons,2 
Cato  went  forth  attended  only  by  Minucius  Ther- 
mus,  another  of  the  tribunes,  and  a  few  friends. 
They  were  joined  by  numbers  in  the  streets,  who 
could  not  accompany  them  to  their  place,  being 
prevented  by  the  multitude  of  armed  men  that 
already  crowded  the  avenues  and  the  steps  of  the 
temple.  But  they  themselves,  from  respect  to 
their  office,  being  suffered  to  pass,  dragged  along 
with  them  through  the  crowd,  as  an  aid,  in  case 
any  violence  were  offered,  Munatius,  a  citizen 
much  attached  to  Cato.  When  they  came  to  the 
bench  of  tribunes,  they  found  that  Metellus,  with 
the  preetor  Julius  Caesar,  had  taken  their  places 
there ;  and  that,  in  order  to  concert  their  opera- 
tions in  the  conduct  of  this  affair,  they  were 
closely  seated  together.  Cato,  to  disappoint  this 
intention,  forced  himself  in  betwixt  them,  and, 
when  the  ordinary  officer  began  to  read  the  in- 
tended decree,  interposed  his  negative,  and  for- 
bade him  to  proceed.  Metellus  himself  seized  the 
writing,  and  began  to  read  ;  but  Cato  snatched  it 
out  of  his  hands.  Metellus  endeavoured  to  re- 
peat the  substance  of  it  from  his  memory.  Ther- 
mus  clapped  his  hand  to  his  mouth.  A  general ' 
silence  remained  in  the  assembly,  till  Metellus, 
having"  made  a  signal  for  his  party  to  clear  the 
comitium  of  their  enemies,  a  great  tumult  and 


I  confusion  arose ;  and  the  tribunes  who  opposed 
Metellus  were  in  imminent  danger.  The  senators 
had  met  in  mourning,  to  mark  their  sense  of  the 
evils  which  threatened  the  commonwealth ;  and 
now,  under  the  apprehension  of  some  signal  ca- 
lamity, gave  a  charge  to  the  consuls  to  watch 
over  the  safety  of  the  state,  and  empowered  them 
to  take  such  measures  as  might  be  necessary  to 
preserve  or  to  restore  the  public  peace.3 

In  consequence  of  this  charge,  the  consul  Mu- 
rsena  appeared  with  a  body  of  men  in  arms,  had 
the  good  fortune  to  rescue  Cato  and  Minucius 
Thermus ;  and  probably  by  this  seasonable  inter- 
position effaced  any  remains  of  misunderstanding 
which  might  have  subsisted  between  Cato  and 
himself,  on  account  of  the  prosecution  for  bribery 
which  followed  the  late  elections.4 

Metellus,  after  the  tumult  was  composed, 
having  again  obtained  silence,  began  to  read  the 
proposed  decree ;  but  the  senatorian  party,  head- 
ed by  the  consuls,  being  then  in  the  comitium, 
he  found  it  impossible  to  proceed ;  and,  together 
with  the  praetor  Caius  Julius  Caesar,  retired  from 
the  assembly.  From  this  time,  these  officers  made 
no  attempt  to  resume  their  motion,  but  complain- 
ed that  the  government  was  usurped  by  a  violent 
faction,  under  whom  even  the  persons  of  the  tri- 
bunes were  unsafe ;  and  Metellus,  as  If  forced  to 
break  through  the  rules  which  obliged  the  tri- 
bunes to  constant  residence  at  Rome,  abandoned 
the  city,  even  left  Italy,  and  fled  to  the  camp  of 
Pompey  in  Asia,  from  which  he  was  lately  ar- 
rived.5 He  had  already  threatened  his  opponents 
at  Rome  with  the  resentment  and  military  power 
of  his  general,  and  now  endeavoured  to  excite 
the  army  and  their  commander  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample which  had  been  set  to  them  by  Sylla  and 
his  legions,  when  oppressed  citizens,  a  description 
in  which  he  now  comprehended  himself,  fled  to 
them  for  protection  and  revenge. 

It  may  well  be  supposed,  that  Ceesar,  remem- 
bering his  own  escape  from  the  ruin  of  the  Ma- 
rian taction,  and  considering  Pompey  as  the  head 
of  an  opposite  interest,  and  a  principal  obstacle  to 
his  own  ambition,  must  look  upon  him  with  some 
degree  of  personal  dislike  and  animosity ;  but  his 
conduct  on  this  occasion  sufficiently  showed  how 
little  he  was  the  dupe  of  any  passion  or  senti- 
ment which  had  a  tendency  to  check  his  pursuits. 
Meaning  for  the  present  only  to  weaken  the 
senate,  and  to  step  in  before  them  in  the  favour 
of  Pompey ;  he  undertook  the  cause  even  of  a 
rival,  and  would  have  joined  the  populace,  in  de- 
livering the  commonwealth  into  his  hands,  rather 
than  remain  under  a  government  which  he  hated. 
But  if  he  really  meant  to  overthrow  the  senate 
by  force,  he  mistook  his  instrument.  Pompey, 
no  doubt,  aspired  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  em- 
pire, and  wished  to  reign  in  the  city  with  a  mili- 
tary power ;  but  even  this  he  desired  to  receive 
as  the  fruit  of  consideration  and  personal  respect, 
and  he  ever  hoped  to  make  the  people  bestow  it, 
and  even  force  him  to  accept  of  it  as  their  gift. 
For  this  purpose  he  encouraged  so  many  agents 
and  retainers  to  sound  his  praise ;  and  for  this 
purpose  he  had  recently  sent  Metellus  Nepos 
from  his  camp  to  take  upon  him  the  functions  of 
a  popular  tribune ;  but  having  failed  of  his  object, 
he  by  no  means  could  think  of  extorting  it  by 


1  Sueton.  in  Jul.  Caes.  c.  16. 

2  Plutarch,  in  Catone,  edit.  Lonelin.  p.  211,  Lc. 


3  Plutarch,  in  Catone,  edit.  Londin.  p.  241,  &c. 
;    4  Plutarch,  ibid.  5  Dio.  Cass,  lib  xxxvii.c.  43 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


183 


force.  No  one  ever  courted  distinction  with  a 
more  incessant  emulation  to  his  rivals;  but  he 
was  entirely  dependent  on  the  public  opinion  for 
any  satisfaction  he  enjoyed  in  the  possession  of 
power.  Trusting  to  this  last  part  of  his  character, 
Caesar,  though  himself  of  unbounded  ambition, 
was  not  yet  alarmed  at  the  elevation  of  Pompey, 
and  thought  that  he  was  safe  even  in  offering 
him  the  dominion  of  the  state.  Pompey  was,  at 
this  conjuncture,  with  his  army  moving  towards 
Italy,  and  his  coming  was  matter  of  great  solici- 
tude to  the  friends  of  the  commonwealth,  who 
feared  that,  in  return  to  the  affront  of  his  not 
being  invited  to  come  with  his  army,  upon  the 
motion  of  Metellus,  he  would  employ  it  in  person 
to  enforce  his  commands.  Upon  his  arrival  at 
Brundusium,  however,  as  formerly  upon  his  re- 
turn from  Africa,  he  dispelled  those  fears  by  an 
immediate  dismission  of  the  troops,  with  instruc- 
tions merely  that  they  would  attend  at  his  tri- 
umph. He  himself  came  forward  to  Rome  with 
the  single  equipage  of  his  proconsular  rank.  Mul- 
titudes of  every  condition  went  forth  to  receive 
him,  and  with  shouts  and  acclamations  recom- 
pensed the  moderation  with  which  he  acquiesced 
in  the  condition  of  a  citizen. 

Caesar,  from  whatever  motive  he  acted  in  re- 
gard to  Pompey,  gave  every  other  sign  of  disaf- 
fection to  the  senate,  and  employed  the  name  of 
this  rising  favourite  of  the  people,  to  mortify  such 
of  the  members  in  particular  as  were  objects  of 
personal  animosity  to  himself.  The  repairs  or 
rebuilding  of  the  capitol  being  finished  about  this 
time,  the  honour  of  dedicating  the  edifice,  and  of 
being  named  in  the  inscription  it  was  to  bear,  had, 
by  a  resolution  of  the  senate,  been  conferred  on 
Catulus,  under  whose  inspection  the  work  was 
executed.  But  Caesar,  affecting  to  procure  this 
honour  for  Pompey,  alleged  that  Catulus  had 
embezzled  the  money  allotted  for  this  service; 
that  much  yet  remained  to  be  done;  and  moved, 
that  the  inscription  of  Catulus  should  be  erased ; 
that  the  completion  of  the  work  being  left  to 
Pompey,  should  carry  an  inscription  with  his 
name.6  Here  he  probably  acted  as  much  from 
antipathy  to  one,  as  from  an  intention  to  flatter 
the  other.  But  the  design  being  extremely  odi- 
ous to  the  whole  body  of  the  nobles,  who  saw, 
with  indignation,  in  that  proposal  an  attempt  to 
affront  a  most  respectable  citizen,  in  order  to  flat- 
ter the  vanity  of  one  person,  and  to  gratify  the 
profligate  resentments  of  another,  Caesar  was 
obliged  to  withdraw  his  motion.7 

It  was  probably  during  this  year  in  which 
Caesar  was  praetor,  and  before  the  arrival  of  Pom- 
pey from  Asia  (although  historians  refer  it  to  an 
earlier  date,)  that  Caesar  promoted,  as  has  been 
already  mentioned,  prosecutions  upon  a  charge 
of  assassination  against  some  persons  concerned 
.in  the  execution  of  Sylla's  proscriptions.  The 

[)raetors  were  appointed  by  lot  to  carry  particular 
aws  into  execution.  The  law  respecting  assas- 
sination appears  to  have  been  the  lot  of  Caesar; 
and  he  was  entitled  in  virtue  of  his  office,  the 
jurisdiction  of  which  was  still  very  arbitrary,  to 
extend,  by  his  edict  or  plan  of  proceeding  for  the 
year,  the  description  of  the  crime  under  his  cog- 
nizance to  any  special  case. 

While  he  seemed  to  have  formed  so  many  de- 


signs against  the  peace  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
in  the  capacity  of  prsetor  supported  them  with 
the  authority  of  a  magistrate,  the  senatorian  party 
made  a  powerful  exertion  of  their  influence  to 
have  him  suspended,  and  actually  obtained  a  de- 
cree for  this  purpose.  He  affected  at  first  to 
slight  their  authority ;  but  finding  that  a  power 
was  preparing  to  enforce  it,  perhaps  at  the  hazard 
of  his  life,  he  laid  aside  for  some  time  the  robes 
and  badges  of  magistracy,  dismissed  his  lictors, 
and  abstained  from  the  functions  of  prsetor,  until, 
having  rejected  an  offer  of  the  people  to  restore 
him  by  force,  he  was,  with  proper  marks  of  re- 
gard, for  this  instance  of  moderation,  reinstated, 
by  an  act  of  the  senate.8 

The  aristocratical  party,  at  the  same  time,  to 
confirm  and  perpetuate  the  evidence  on  which 
they  proceeded  against  the  accomplices  of  Cati- 
line, continued  their  prosecutions  on  this  subject, 
and  obtained  sentence  of  condemnation,  in  par- 
ticular, against  a  citizen  of  the  name  of  Vergun- 
teius,  and  against  Autronius,  who,  about  two 
years  before,  naving  been  elected  consul,  was  set 
aside  upon  a  charge  of  bribery;  and  who,  from 
the  disgust  which  he  took  to  the  senate  upon  that 
occasion,  had  connected  himself  with  the  more 
desperate  party.  Publius  Sylla,  in  the  same  pre- 
dicament with  Autronius,  was  tried ;  but,  bring 
defended  by  Cicero,  in  an  eloquent  harangue 
which  is  still  extant,  was  acquitted. 

Caesar  likewise  was  accused  by  Vectius  as  ac- 
cessary to  the  conspiracy  of  Catiline ;  but  it  is 
not  likely  that  he  was  concerned  farther  than  by 
the  general  encouragement  he  gave  to  every  par- 
ty at  variance  with  the  senate.  Opposition  to 
this  body  was  called  the  interest  of  the  people, 
and  was  adopted  by  every  person  who  had  any 
passions  to  gratify  by  crimes  of  state,  or  who 
wished  to  weaken  the  government,  to  which 
they  themselves  were  accountable.  Among  the 
supporters  of  this  interest,  Crassus  also  was  ac- 
cused, but  probably  on  no  better  grounds  than 
Caesar. 

The  whole  of  these  proceedings,  however,  were 
suspended  by  the  approach  of  Pompey.  This 
leader  had  now  drawn  the  attention  of  all  men 
upon  himself,  was  quoted  in  every  harangue  as 
the  great  support  of  the  empire,  and  courted  by 
multitudes,  who,  without  inquiry,  affected  to  be 
classed  with  his  admirers  and  friends.  The  con- 
tagion spread  like  a  fashion  among  the  vulgar  of 
every  description.  He  himself  affected  indiffer- 
ence to  this  mighty  tide  of  renown,  though  not 
without  much  dignity  and  state,  which  he  temper- 
ed with  affability,  employing  the  greatness  he  pos- 
sessed to  give  the  more  value  to  his  condescensions. 
His  manner,  though  acceptable  to  the  people  and 
the  army,  was  disagreeable  to  t  he  senate.  Having 
previously  sent  Piso,  one  of  his  lieutenants,  before 
him  to  stand  for  the  consulate,  he  had  the  pre- 
sumption to  desire  that  the  senate  would  defer 
the  elections  until  he  himself  could  be  present  to 
canvass  for  his  friend.  The  senate,  according  to 
Dio,  complied  with  his  desire  ;  but,  according  to 
Plutarch,  rejected  the  proposal  with  disdain.  This 
author  imputes  the  resolution,  which  they  took 
upon  this  occasion,  to  Cato,  and  subjoins,  that 
Pompey  endeavoured  to  gain  this  opponent  by  a 
proposed  marriage  with  one  of  his  near  relations ; 
and  that  Cato  declined  the  connection,  saying, 


6  Sueton.  in  Jul.  Caesare,  c.  15. 

7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.  c.  44. 


8  Sueton.  in  Jul.  Crsaie  c.  1G. 


184 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  til 


that  he  should  not  be  caught  in  a  female  snare. 
Piso,  however,  was  elected  together  with  Vale- 
rius Messala,  and  entered  on  his  office  before  the 
triumph  of  Pompey. 

This  solemnity  followed  soon  af- 
U.  C.  692.     ter;  and,  though  continued  for  two 
days,  could  not  make  place  for  all 

cfr22u2*  the  masnificent  sh°ws  that  had 

M,  FhLMis-  Deen  provided  for  it.  The  list  of 
sala  Niger.  conquests  exceeded  that  which  had 
ever  been  produced  at  any  other 
triumph.  Asia,  Pontus,  Armenia,  Cappadocia, 
Paphlagonia,  Medea,  Colchis,  Iberia,  Albania, 
Syria,  Cilicia,  Mesopotamia,  Phoenicia,  Judea, 
Arabia,  Scythia,  Crete,1  with  the  sea  in  all  its 
coasts.  Among  the  people  or  potentates  subdu- 
ed, were  the  Basterni,  Mithridates,  and  Tigranes. 
Among  the  captures,  a  thousand  fortresses,  nine 
hundred  cities  reduced,  eight  hundred  galleys 
taken,  above  two  millions  of  men  in  captivity. 
Towns  repeopled,  not  less  than  three  hundred 
and  ninety-nine.  To  this  pompous  list,  it  was 
subjoined  by  his  friends,  that,  this  being  his 
third  triumph,  he  had  been  round  the  known 
world,  and  had  triumphed  over  all  the  three  parts 
of  the  earth,  Africa,  Europe,  and  Asia. 

After  rewarding  the  soldiers,  of  whom  none 
received  less  than  fifteen  hundred  denarii,2  he 
carried  to  the  treasury  twenty  thousand  talents.3 
He  led,  among  his  principal  captives,  besides 
the  chief  pirates,  Tigranes,  son  to  the  king  of 
Armenia,  with  his  wife  and  his  daughter, — 
Zozime,  the  queen  of  Tigranes,— the  father  of 
Aristobulus,  king  of  the  Jews, — a  sister  of 
Mithridates,  with  five  sons,  and  some  Scythian 
women;  the  hostages  of  the  Iberii,  and  the  Com- 
mageni ;  together  with  trophies  for  every  battle 
he  had  fought,  making  in  all  a  more  splendid 
exhibition  than  any  that  was  to  be  found  on  the 
records  of  the  state. 

The  triumphal  processions  of  Pompey  merit 
more  attention  than  those  of  any  other  person, 
because  they  contained  a  public  evidence  of  his 
character.  Others  took  the  benefit  of  an  estab- 
lished practice  to  publish  and  to  ratify  the  honours 
they  had  acquired ;  but  Pompey,  it  is  likely,  would 
have  invented  the  triumph,  even  if  it  had  not  been 
formerly  thought  of ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  doubted, 
that  he  over-ran  some  provinces  in  which  the 
enemy  were  subdued,  or  in  which  they  were  so 
weak,  as  not  to  be  able  to  make  any  resistance, 
merely  to  place  them  in  the  list  of  his  conquests ; 
and  that  he  made  some  part  of  his  progress  in 

1  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  lib.  vii.  c.  26. 

2  About  mi  3  About  3,8(50,000^. 


Asia  to  collect  Curiosities  and  ornaments  for  this 
pompous  scene. 

The  triumph,  in  its  ordinary  form,  contained 
only  such  exbibitions  as  had  a  reference  to  the 
service  in  which  it  was  obtained;  the  captives 
and  spoils  of  the  enemy,  with  effigies  and  repre- 
sentations where  the  originals,  by  any  accident, 
could  not  be  displayed.  But  in  these  solemnities, 
executed  for  the  honour  of  Pompey,  were  admitted 
whatever  could  distinguish  or  signalize  the  occa- 
sion. Among  these,  according  to  the  record 
transcribed  by  Pliny,4  there  were  many  costly 
ornaments  of  gold  and  of  precious  stones,  which 
were  fabricated  on  purpose  to  be  shown.  Tables 
or  plates,  used  for  some  species  of  play,  made  of 
one  entire  crystal ;  a  representation  of  the  moon 
in  gold,  weighing  thirty  pondo ;  tables,  utensils, 
statues,  crowns,  models  of  different  sorts  in  gold 
and  precious  stones,  with  the  representation  of  a 
mountain  in  gold,  having  lions,  deer,  and  other 
animals  upon  it :  and  what  serves  as  an  evidence 
that  these  exhibitions  were  not  limited  to  the 
spoils  actually  taken  in  war,  there  is  mentioned 
an  image  of  Pompey  himself  incrusted  with 
pearls.  The  whole  conducted  with  more  arrange- 
ment and  order,  than  were  necessary,  perhaps, 
in  the  disposition  of  any  of  the  battles  which  the 
triumph  was  intended  to  celebrate. 

Among  the  images,  representations,  and  me- 
morials which  were  carried  before  the  victor  on 
this  occasion,  there  was  held  up  to  view  a  state 
of  the  public  revenue,  from  which  it  appeared, 
that,  before  Pompey's  time,  it  amounted  to  no 
more  than  fifty  millions  ;5  and  that  the  addition 
which  he  alone  brought  to  it  amounted  to  eighty- 
five  millions.6 

Soon  after  this  pomp  was  over,  an  assembly  of 
the  people  was  called  in  the  circus  Flaminius.  to 
receive  the  address  of  this  victorious  general ;  but, 
from  the  extreme  caution  not  to  offend  any  party, 
the  speech  which  he  made,  upon  this  occasion, 
was  acceptable  to  none.  "It  gave  no  hopes," 
says  Cicero,7  "  to  the  poor ;  no  flattery  to  the  rich ; 
no  satisfaction  to  the  good;  no  encouragement  to 
the  profligate."  Pompey  was  suffered  to  possess 
the  highest  place  in  the  consideration  of  the  pub- 
lic, merely  because  he  assumed  it ;  and  he  pre- 
served his  dignity,  by  never  committing  his 
reputation  without  being  prepared,  and  having 
concerted  a  variety  of  arts  by  which  it  might  be 
supported. 


4  Nat.  Hist.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  2. 

5  416,G6«. 

6  708,333^.    Plutarch  in  Pompeio,  edit.  Lond.  p  479 

7  Cicer.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  i.  ep,  14. 


i 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


185 


CHAPTER  V. 

Transactions  at  Rome,  and  in  the  Provinces-^Julius  Ccesar  appointed  in  the  Quality  of  Proprce- 
tor  to  his  first  Province  of  Lusitania— Trial  of  ClodiUs— Proposed  Adoption  into  a  Plebeian 
Family  to  qualify  him  for  the  Office  of  Tribune—  Ccesdr  a  Candidate  for  the  Consulship  ■ 
The  Triumvirate  of  Ccesar,  Pompey,  and  Crassus— Consulship  of  Ccesar— Motion  of  Vatinius, 
to  confer  on  Ccesar,  for  Pive  Years,  the  Command  in  Gaul— Marriage  of  Pompey  to  Julia— Of 
Ccesar  to  Calpurnia—Plot  of  Vettius—  Consulate  of  Lucius  Calpurnius  and  A.  Gabinius— 
Attack  made  upon  Cicero— His  Exile. 


POMPEY,  at  his  departure  from  Syria,  left 
that  province  with  two  legions  under  the  com- 
mand of  iEmilius  Scaurus,  one  of  his  lieutenants. 
This  officer  occupied  the  country  from  the  Eu- 
phrates to  the  frontier  of  Egypt,  and  continued 
the  war  which  his  predecessor  had  begun  with 
the  Arabs. 

Caius  Antonius,  the  late  colleague  of  Cicero 
in  the  consulate,  soon  after  the  defeat  of  Catiline, 
proceeded  to  the  province  of  Macedonia,  of  which, 
by  the  arrangements  of  the  year,  he  had  been 
appointed  governor.  He  entered  his  province 
with  the  ensigns  of  victory,  which  had  been  ob- 
tained by  the  defeat  of  Catiline;  but  these  he 
soon  forfeited  by  his  misconduct  in  a  war  against 
the  Thracians,  and  by  the  disgrace  which  he 
otherwise  incurred  for  the  Dial-administration  of 
his  province.  Complaints  were  exhibited  against 
him  for  extortion.  On  this  occasion  it  had  been 
reported  by  himself,  or  by  some  of  his  family, 
that,  having  agreed  to  divide  the  profits  of  his 
government  with  Cicero,  part  only  was  exacted 
on  his  own  account.  This  allegation,  Cicero,  in 
a  letter  to  Atticus,  mentions  with  indignation  ; 
and,  being  asked  to  undertake  his  defence,  ques- 
tions whether  he  can  decently  do  so  under  this 
imputation.8  But  as  he  soon  afterwards  under- 
took the  cause  of  Antony,  and  employed  his  in- 
terest to  have  him  continued  in  his  command,  it 
is  probable  that  this  imputation  either  gained  no 
credit,  or  was  entirely  removed.^ 

The  Allobroges,  though  deprived  of  the  sup- 
port they  were  made  to  expect  from  the  party  of 
Catiline,  nevertheless  took  arms,  and  invaded  the 
Roman  province  of  Gaul.  After  a  variety  of 
events,  they  were  repulsed  by  Pontinius,  who 
then  commanded  the  Roman  forces  in  that  quar- 
ter, and  forced  to  retire  into  their  own  country.'0 

About  the  same  time,  Caius  Julius  Caesar, 
upon  the  expiration  of  his  term  in  the  office  of 
praetor,  obtained  his  first  military  command,  being 
appointed  by  lot  to  the  government  of  Lusitania, 
where,  under  different  pretences,  he  found  an 
opportunity  to  quarrel  with  the  natives,  to  show 
his  capacity  for  war,  and  to  lay  some  ground  for 
his  claim  to  a  triumph.'!  In  pushing  his  way  to 
the  preferments  which  he  now  held  in  the  stale, 
he  had  ruined  his  fortune  by  largesses,  public 
shows,  and  entertainments  to  the  people,  by  his 
lavish  bounty  in  private  to  needy  and  profligate 
citizens,  and  in  supporting  every  desperate  cause, 
against  the  senate  and  the  government ;  and  is 
reported  to  have  said  of  himself,  that  he  needed 
one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  Roman  money,  or 
one  million  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  "ster- 


8  Vid.  Cicero  ad  Atlicum,  lib.  v.  ep  12. 

9  Ad  Familiar,  lib.  v.  ep.  5. 

10  Dio.  lib.  xxvii.  11  Dio.  c  52,  Szc. 

2  A 


ling,  to  be  worth  nothing.12  "When  about  to  de- 
part from  the  city,  he  was  pressed  by  his  creditors, 
and  had  recourse  to  Crassus,  who  became  his 
surety  for  great  sums.13 

A  person  who,  in  any  other  state,  than  that  of 
Rome,  could  suppose  such  a  fortune  reparable, 
must  have  thought  of  means  alarming  to  the  state 
itself ;  but  Caesar  had  now  quitted  the  paths  of 
pleasure  for  those  of  ambition ;  and,  in  an  empire 
which  extended  over  so  many  opulent  provinces, 
could  easily  proportion  his  wealth  to  the  extent  of 
his  power.  Although  the  province  into  which 
he  was  then  sent  was  none  of  the  richest,  and 
was  only  a  step  to  somewhat  farther,  more  con- 
siderable, and  more  likely  to  supply  him  with  the 
means  of  pursuing  the  objects  of  his  ambition,  he 
was  nevertheless  reported  to  have  supplied  his 
own  wants,  and  to  have  enriched  his  army.14 

In  passing  the  Alps,  on  his  way  into  Spain,  at 
a  village  on  the  way,  one  of  his  company  ob- 
served, that  "Here  too  there  were  probably  par- 
ties and  contests  for  power."  "  Ay,"  said  Caesar, 
"and  I  would  rather  be  the  first  man  in  this 
place  than  the  second  at  Roiiie.'^"  Upon  his  ar- 
rival in  Lusitania,  he  made  the  necessary  aug- 
mentation of  the  army,  and  soon  overran  all  the 
districts  that  were  disposed  to  resist  his  authority. 
With  the  same  ability  with  which  he  conducted 
his  military  operations,  he  supported  the  dignity 
of  a  Roman  governor,  no  less  in  the  civil  than  in 
the  military  department.  Historians,  upon  an 
idea  which  occurred  to  them,  that  the  disorder  in 
his  own  affairs  might  have  rendered  him  partial 
to  insolvent  debtors,  are  at  pains  to  acquit  him  of 
any  such  charge,  and  observe  that  he  gave  proofs 
of  the  contrary,  and  for  the  most  part  ordered  two 
thirds  of  the  debtor's  effects  to  be  sequestrated 
for  the  use  of  his  creditors.'6 

While  these  things  passed  in  the  provinces, 
the  city  was  occupied  with  ordinary  affairs,  and 
suffered  an  increase  of  the  political  distemj>ers 
with  which  the  public  had  been  for  some  time 
infected.  The  expense  and  dissipation  attending 
the  public  shows,  in  particular,  were  augmented 
to  a  great  degree.  Lucius  Domitius  Ahenobar- 
bus  exhibited  the  baiting  of  a  hundred  bears  by 
African  huntsmen;17  and  whereas  such  enter- 
tainments had  formerly  ended  at  one  meeting, 
they  were  now  continued  through  many  acts,18 
and  were  intermitted  only  while  the  people  retired 
to  their  meals. 

The  office  of  censor,  as  appears  from  the  trans- 
actions which  are  mentioned  relating  to  the  farms 


12  Appian.  de  Btll  Civ.  lib.  ii.  p.  715. 

13  Ibid.    About  160,000/.    Plutarch  in  C*aare. 

14  Plutarch  in  Caesare,  edit.  Lond.  p.  111. 

15  Ibid.  16  loid.  p.  112. 

17  Plin.  Nat.  Hist  lib  viii.  c.  36. 

18  Dio  Cass.  lib.  x.vxvii.  c.  47 


186 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


of  the  revenue  and  the  rolls  of  the  senate,  was  in 
being  at  this  time,  although  the  names  of  the 
persons  by  whom  it  was  exercised  are  not  re- 
corded .  The  censors  are  said  to  have  let  the 
revenues  of  Asia  at  a  rate,  of  which  the  farmers 
afterwards  complained,  alleging,  that  their  own 
avidity  in  grasping  at  the  profits  to  be  made  in 
this  new  province  had  misled  them.1  They  like- 
wise put  upon  the  rolls  of  the  senate  all  who  had 
ever  held  any  office  of  magistrac}^  and  by  this 
addition  increased  the  number  of  members  be- 
yond the  former  and  ordinary  rate.2 

About  the  same  time  happened  the  memorable 
trial  of  Publius  Clodius,  for  the  scandal  he  had 
iven  by  profaning  the  sacred  rites  in  Caesar's 
ouse.  This  debauchee  was  supposed,  for  some 
time,  to  have  sought  for  an  opportunity  of  a  cri- 
minal correspondence  with  Pompeia,  Caesar's 
wife ;  but  to  have  been  prevented,  if  not  by  her 
own  discretion,  at  least  by  the  attention  and  vigi- 
lance of  her  family.3  In  these  circumstances,  in 
the  preceding  year,  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  Pompeia, 
as  being  wife  to  one  of  the  praetors  in  office,  to 
celebrate,  at  her  house,  the  festival  of  a  certain 
female  deity,4  worshipped  by  the  Romans ;  and 
at  whose  rites  women  alone  were  admitted.  Every 
male  domestic,  even  the  husband  was  obliged  to 
absent  himself  from  home  while  the  rites  were 
administered.  Clodius  took  this  opportunity  to 
carry  on  his  intrigue ;  he  put  himself  in  a  female 
dress,  and,  being  young  and  of  an  effeminate 
aspect,  expected  to  pass  for  a  woman.5  Pompeia 
was  supposed  to  be  apprised  of  the  design,  and 
to  have  stationed  a  female  slave  to  receive  and 
conduct  her  paramour  through  the  apartments. 
Being  met,  however,  by  another  slave  who  was 
not  in  the  secret,  his  voice  betrayed  him.  A  cry 
of  amazement  and  horror  was  immediately  raised, 
communicated  through  all  the  apartments,  and 
the  occasion  of  it  discovered  to  the  matrons,  who 
were  met  to  celebrate  the  rites.  Clodius  escaped, 
but  not  without  being  known.  The  college  of 
pontiffs  made  a  report,  that  the  sacred  rites  had 
been  profaned.  The  senate  resolved,  that  inquiry 
should  be  made  into  the  grounds  of  the  scandal ; 
and  that  the  people  should  be  moved  to  authorise 
the  praetor  to  select,  without  drawing  lots,  proper 
judges  for  the  trial  of  the  accused. 

Clodius,  by  the  suspicion  of  an  incestuous 
commerce  with  his  own  sister,  the  wife  of  Lucul- 
lus;  by  his  perfidy  in  seducing  the  troops  of  that 
general  to  mutiny,  and  by  his  profligacy  on  every 
occasion,  had  incurred  a  general  detestation ;  and 
many  of  the  senators  combined,  as  the  likeliest 
way  of  removing  him  from  the  commonwealth, 
in  urging  the  prosecution  against  him. 

He  himself,  foreseeing  this  storm,  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  popular  party,  and  endeavoured  to 
silence  the  voice  of  infamy,  by  professing  extra- 
ordinary zeal  for  the  people,  and  vehement  oppo- 
sition to  the  senate.  These  parties  accordingly 
became  interested  in  the  issue  of  his  cause.  The 
popular  leaders  endeavoured  to  preserve  him  as  a 
useful  instrument,  and  the  senate  to  remove  him 
as  a  vile  and  dangerous  tool  from  the  hands  of 
their  enemies.  Even  Caesar,  though  personally 
insulted,  and  so  far  moved  by  the  scandal  which 


1  Cicer.  ad  Atticum.  lib.  i.  ep.  17. 

2  Dio.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  46. 

3  Plutarch,  in  Caesare,  edit.  Lond.  p.  109. 

4  Called  the  Bnna  Dea. 

5  Cicero  ad  Atncum.  lib  i.  12.  13. 


had  been  given  in  his  own  house  as  to  part  with 
his  wife,  still  affected  to  consider  as  groundless 
the  charge  that  was  brought  against  the  accused; 
and  being  asked,  why  he  had  parted  with  a  wo- 
man who,  upon  this  supposition,  must  appear  to 
be  innocent,  said,  that  his  wife  must  not  only  be 
innocent,  but  above  imputation.  Pompey,  to 
avoid  giving  offence,  declined  to  favour  either 
party ;  but  being  called  upon  in  the  assembly  of 
the  people  to  declare  his  opinion,  whether  this 
trial  should  proceed  according  to  the  decree  of  the 
senate ;  made  a  long  speech,  full  of  respect  to  the 
nobles,  and  of  submission  to  the  senate,  whose 
authority,  in  all  questions  of  this  sort,  he  said, 
should  ever  with  him  have  the  greatest  weight. 
He  afterwards,  in  the  senate  itself,  being  called 
upon  by  Messala  the  consul,  delivered  himself  to 
the  same  purpose ;  and  when  he  had  done,  whis- 
pered Cicero,  who  sat  by  him,  that  he  thought  he 
had  now  sufficiently  explained  himself ;  intimat- 
ing probably,  that  he  meant  to  comprehend,  in 
this  declaration,  his  judgment  with  respect  to  all 
the  acts  of  the  senate  which  had  passed  relating 
to  the  accomplices  of  Catiline.6 

The  consul  Piso  was  instructed  to  carry  to  the 
people,  for  their  assent,  an  act  for  the  better  con- 
duct of  the  trial  of  Clodius,  dispensing  with  the 
usual  mode  of  draughting  judges  by  lot,  and  au- 
thorising the  praetor  to  select  them,  that  he  might 
name  the  more  respectable  persons.  On  the  day 
on  which  this  motion  was  to  be  made,  a  numerous 
party  of  young  nobility  appeared  for  the  defend- 
ant. His  hirelings  and  retainers  crowded  the 
comitium.  Even  Piso,  who  moved  the  question, 
dissuaded  the  people  from  passing  the  law,  and 
allowed  the  friends  of  Clodius  to  put  a  ridiculous 
trick  on  the  assembly,  by  distributing  to  the  peo- 
ple, as  they  came  forward  to  vote,  two  ballots, 
which,  instead  of  being,  as  usual  one  negative 
and  the  other  affirmative,  were  both  negative. 
This  trick  being  observed,  Cato  suspended  the 
ballot,  and  strongly  remonstrated  against  the  pro- 
ceeding of  the  consul.7  He  was  supported  by 
Hortensius  and  Favonius.  The  assembly  broke 
up,  and  the  affair  again  returned  to  the  senate. 
The  members  were  importuned  by  Clodius,  who 
cast  himself  at  their  feet  as  they  entered ;  they, 
nevertheless,  confirmed  their  former  resolution  by 
a  majority  of  four  hundred  to  fifteen.8 

Hortensius,  however,  having  proposed  that, 
instead  of  the  motion  which  the  consuls  had  been 
instructed  to  make  for  the  selection  of  the  judges, 
the  tribune  Fusius  should  move  the  people  to 
grant  commission  for  the  trial,  leaving  the  judges, 
as  usual,  to  be  drawn  by  lot ;  an  edict  was  framed 
and  passed  to  this  effect.  Hortensius,  who  con- 
ducted the  trial,  was  confident  that  no  jury  could 
acquit  the  accused.  The  court  accordingly,  in  all 
their  proceedings,  seemed  at  first  inclined  to  se- 
verity. They  even  applied  for  a  guard  to  protect 
their  persons  against  the  partizans  of  the  criminal ; 
but  the  majority,  nevertheless,  suffered  themselves 
to  be  corrupted,  and  took  money  in  the  course  of 
the  trial.  Of  fifty-six  judges  that  were  inclosed, 
twenty-five  gave  their  voice  to  condemn,  and 
thirty-one  to  acquit.  Catulus,  on  this  occasion, 
asked  the  majority  to  what  purpose  they  had  de- 
sired a  guard  ?  "  Was  it,"  he  said,  "to  secure  the 
money  you  expected  to  receive  for  your  votps  ?"9 

6  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  i.  epist.  13,  14.  16. 

7  Ibid.         8  Ibid.  ep.  14. 

9  Dio.  Cas.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  46.  Cic  ad  Att.  lib.  i.  ep.  16 


1 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


187 


Soon  after  this  judgment  the  senate  resolved 
that  inquiry  should  be  made  concerning  those 
judges  who  had  been  corrupted  in  the  trial.  And 
by  this  resolution  gave  a  general  offence  to  the 
equestrian  order,  who  considered  it  as  an  imputa- 
tion on  their  whole  body.10 

Pompey,  in  the  course  of  this  transaction,  had 
been  obliged  to  declare  himself  for  the  senate  ;  but 
his  object  was  to  be  on  good  terms  with  all  par- 
ties, and  to  manage  his  interest,  by  having  some 
of  his  creatures  always  chosen  into  the  highest 
offices  of  state.  He  offered,  as  candidate  for  the 
consulate  of  the  following  year,  Afranius,  one  of 
his  dependants,  who  is  represented  by  Cicero  as 
a  person  of  mean  character,  and  who,  having  no 
personal  dignity,  nor  any  credit  with  the  people, 
was  to  be  supported  in  his  canvass  by  money 
alone.  Pompey  himself,  and  the  consul  Piso, 
openly  employed  bribery  in  obtaining  votes  in  his 
favour.11 

A  variety  of  resolutions  were  obtained  in  the 
senate  to  restrain  these  practices.  Two  of  them 
were  proposed  by  Cato  and  Domitius.  The  first 
was  levelled  against  the  consul  Piso,  and  gave 
permission,  on  the  suspicion  of  illicit  practices 
respecting  elections,  to  visit  the  house  even  of  a 
magistrate.  By  the  other  it  was  declared,  that  all 
those  who  were  found  distributing  money  to  the 
people  should  be  considered  as  enemies  to  their 
country.12 

The  senate,  at  the  same  time,  encouraged 
Lurco,  one  of  the  tribunes,  to  propose  a  new 
clause  to  corroborate  the  laws  against  bribery. 
By  this  clause  promises  of  money  made  to  the 
people,  if  not  performed,  did  not  infer  guilt ;  but, 
if  performed,  subjected  the  guilty  person  from 
thenceforward  to  pay  to  each  of  the  tribes  an  an- 
nual tax  of  three  thousand  Roman  money,  or 
about  tweuty-four  pounds  sterling ;  and  there 
being  thirty-five  tribes,  this  tax  amounted  in  all 
to  about  eight  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of  our 
money.  That  the  tribune  might  not  be  inter- 
rupted in  carrying  this  law,  the  senate  farther  re- 
solved, that  the  formalities  or  restrictions  of  the 
Lex  iElia  and  Fufia13  should  not  be  opposed  to 
him.14  It  appears,  however,  that  the  liberality  of 
Pompey  prevailed  against  these  precautions,  as 
Afranius  was  elected,  together  with  &.  Caecilius 
Metellus  Celer. 

Soon  after  the  election  of  these  officers,  the 
farmers  of  the  revenue  of  Asia,  supported  by  the 
whole  equestrian  order,  complained,  as  has  been 
mentioned,  of  the  terms  of  their  contract,  in 
which  they  alleged  that  they  had  greatly  exceeded 
what  the  funds  of  that  province  could  afford,  and 
made  application  to  the  senate  for  relief.  Their 
plea  was  contested  for  some  months  with  great 
animosity  on  both  sides.15 

Upon  the  accession  of  the  new  consuls,  several 
other  matters,  tending  to  innovation  and  public 
disturbance,  were  introduced.  Metellus  Nepos, 
late  tribune,  being  now  in  the  office  of  praetor, 
procured  a  law  to  abolish  the  customs  payable  at 
any  of  the  ports  of  Italy.  The  Romans,  as  has 
been  observed,  upon  the  accession  of  wealth  de- 


10  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  i.  ep.  17.  11  Ibid.  ep.  1G. 

12  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib  i.  ep.  16. 

13  These  were  formalities  and  restrictions  provided 
to  check  the  precipitate  passing  of  laws. 

14  Cicer.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  i.  ep.  16. 

16  Ibid.  lib.  i.  ep.  17,  18.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  51. 


rived  from  Macedonia,  had  exempted  themselves 
from  all  the  ancient  assessments,  and  they  now 
completed  the  exemption  of  all  the  Italians  from 
every  tax  besides  that  of  quit-rents  for  public 
lands,  and  the  twentieth  penny  on  the  value  of 
slaves  when  sold  or  emancipated.  They  were 
become  the  sovereigns  of  a  great  empire,  and  as 
such,  thought  themselves  entitled  to  receive,  not 
obliged  to  pay,  contributions.16 

The  tribune  Herennius,  at  the  same  time, 
made  a  motion  for  an  act  to  enable  Publius  Clo- 
dius  to  be  adopted  into  a  plebeian  family,  which, 
though  an  act  of  a  more  private  nature  than  any 
of  the  former,  tended  still  more  to  embroil  the 
parties  of  the  senate  and  the  people.  This  fac- 
tious and  profligate  person  had  entertained  great 
resentments  against  many  of  the  senators  on  ac- 
count of  the  prosecution  he  had  lately  incurred, 
and  against  Cicero  in  particular,  who,  having 
been  called  as  an  evidence  on  his  trial,  gave  a 
very  unfavourable  account  of  his  character.  The 
summary  proceedings  against  the  accomplices  of 
Catiline,  in  which  Cicero  presided  as  consul,  ex- 
posed him  to  the  resentment  of  the  popular  fac- 
tion ;  and  Clodius  now  proposed  to  qualify  him- 
self to  be  elected  tribune  of  the  people,  in  order  to 
wreak  his  vengeance  on  that  magistrate  in  par- 
ticular, as  well  as  on  the  other  abettors  of  the 
senatorian  party.  The  motion,  however,  for  the 
present  was  rejected,  though  not  finally  dropt,  by 
Clodius  himself,  nor  by  the  popular  faction,  whose 
cause  he  professed  to  espouse.17 

Two  other  motions  were  made  in  which  Pom- 
pey was  deeply  interested  :  one,  to  ratify  and  con- 
firm all  his  acts  in  the  province  of  Asia  :  another, 
to  procure  settlements  for  the  veterans  who  had 
served  under  his  command.  The  first,  as  it  im- 
plied a  reflection  on  Lucullus,  many  of  whose 
judgments  Pompey  had  reversed,  roused  this 
statesman  from  the  care  of  his  household  and  his 
table,  to  that  of  the  republic.18  He  opposed  this 
motion  with  vigour,  and  insisted  that  the  acts  of 
Pompey  should  be  separately  examined,  and  not 
confirmed  in  a  single  vote.  In  this  he  was  sup- 
ported by  Catulus,  by  Cato,  by  the  consul  Me- 
tellus, and  by  the  senate  in  general.  Afranius, 
though  vested  with  the  consulate,  and  acting 
almost  as  the  agent  of  Pompey,  had  neither  dig- 
nity nor  force  to  support  such  a  measure  ;  and 
Pompey,  finding  it  rejected  by  the  senate,  de- 
clined carrying  it  to  the  people.19 

The  other  proposal,  relating  to  the  provision  to 
be  made  for  tbe  soldiers  of  Pompey,  was,  by  L. 
Flavius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  moved  in  the  as- 
sembly of  the  people,  under  the  title  of  an  Agra- 
rian law.  In  this  act,  to  prevent  the  imputation 
of  partiality  to  any  particular  description  of  men, 
certain  gratuities  were  projected  for  the  indigent 
citizens  in  general  j20  and,  to  enable  the  common 
wealth  to  extend  its  bounty,  it  was  proposed  first 
of  all  to  revoke  the  conveyance  of  certain  lands, 
which,  having  belonged  to  the  public  in  the  con- 
sulate of  P.  Mucius  and  L.  Calpurnius,  were 
sold  by  the  senate ;  and  that  the  price  should  be 
restored  to  the  purchasers.  It  was  proposed  like- 
wise to  seize  certain  lands  which  had  been  con- 
fiscated by  Sylla,  but  not  appropriated  ;  and  to 


16  Ibid.  lib.  ii  ep.  16.    Dio  Caes. 

17  Dio.  Cass  liv  xxxvii.c.  51. 

18  Plutarch,  in  LaeullO,  edit.  Lnnd.  p.  107. 

13  Dio.  lib.  xxxvii  c  49.  20  Ibid.  lib.  50. 


iS8 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


allot,  during  five  years,  the  revenues  of  the  late 
conquests  in  Asia  to  purchase  lands,  which 
should  be  distributed  in  terms  of  this  act.1 

The  consul  Metellus  Celer,  supported  by  the 
senate,  strenuously  opposed  the  passing  of  this 
law.  The  tribune  persisted  with  great  obstinacy, 
and,  to  remove  the  obstruction  he  met  with,  com- 
mitted the  consul  to  prison.  The  whole  senate 
would  have  attended  him  thither,  and  numbers 
accordingly  crowded  to  the  place,  when  the  tri- 
bune, vested  with  the  sacred  defences  of  his  per- 
son, to  bar  their  way,  planted  his  stool  or  chair  of 
office  in  the  doer  of  the  prison  ;  and,  having  seated 
himself  upon  it,  "This  way,"  he  said,  <lyou 
cannot  pass;  if  you  mean  to  enter,  you  must 
pierce  through  the  walls."2  He  declared  his  re- 
solution to  remain  all  night  where  he  sat.  The 
parties  were  collecting  their  strength,  and  matters 
were  likely  to  end  in  greater  extremities  than 
suited  the  indirect  and  cautious  conduct  of  Pom- 
pey.  This  politician,  although  he  engaged  all  his 
friends  to  support  the  motion  of  Flavius,  affected 
to  have  no  part  in  the  measure,  and  now  probably 
instructed  the  tribune  to  remove  from  the  doors 
of  the  prison.  Flavius  accordingly  withdrew  of 
a  sudden,  saying,  he  had  done  so  at  the  request  of 
the  prisoner,  who  begged  for  his  liberty.3 

It  is  supposed  that  Pompey,  on  this  occasion, 
severely  felt  the  checks  which  his  ambition  re- 
ceived from  the  senate ;  that  he  regretted  for  a 
moment  the  dismission  of  his  army,  and  wished 
himself  in  condition  to  enforce  what  his  craft  or 
his  artifice  had  not  been  able  to  obtain.  The 
error  he  had  committed  in  resigning  the  sword, 
if  he  conceived  it  as  such,  might  have  still  been 
corrected  by  recovering  the  possession  of  some 
considerable  province,  which  would  have  given 
him  the  command  of  an  army  and  of  proper  re- 
sources to  support  his  power.  He,  nevertheless, 
appears  to  have  preferred  the  scene  of  intrigue  in 
the  city  and  the  capital  of  the  empire  ;  a  choice 
in  which  he  was  probably  confirmed  by  Caesar, 
who  professed  great  attachment  to  him.  and  who 
was  about  this  time  returned  from  the  govern- 
ment which  he  held  as  propraetor  in  Lusitania. 

This  officer,  according  to  Dio,  had  found  some 
pretence  for  a  war  with  the  nations  on  the  fron- 
tier of  the  Roman  province ;  had  obliged  them  to 
take  refuge  in  some  of  the  islands  on  the  coast, 
and  afterwards  reduced  them  in  that  retreat.  His 
object  was  to  return  to  Rome  with  the  reputation 
of  victory,  to  obtain  a  triumph,  and  to  offer  him- 
self as  a  candidate  for  the  consulship  of  the  fol- 
lowing year.  For  this  purpose  he  quitted  his 
province  without  waiting  for  a  successor,  and, 
upon  his  arrival  at  Rome,  halted  as  usual  with 
the  ensigns  of  his  military  command  at  the  gates 
of  the  city,  applied  for  a  triumph,  and,  at  the  same 
time  made  interest  for  votes  at  the  approaching 
election.4  The  senate,  and  the  friends  of  the  re- 
public in  general,  were  become  extremely  jealous 
of  his  designs,  and  of  his  credit  with  the  people. 
From  a  libertine  he  was  become  an  ardent  politi- 
cian, seemed  to  have  no  passion  but  ambition  or 
animosity  to  the  senate;  without  committing 
himself  he  had  abetted  every  factious  leader 
against  them,  and  seemed  to  be  indifferent  to 
consideration  or  honours,  except  so  far  as  they  led 


1  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  i.  ep.  19. 

2  Dio.  lib.  xxxvii.  p.  50. 

3  Dio.  Cas.  lib.  xxxvii  p.  50.      4  Ibid.  c.  50,  &c. 


I  to  power.  Cicero  and  Cato  were  at  this  time  the 
principal,  or  most  conspicuous,  members  of  the 
senate.  The  first  was  possessed  of  consular  rank, 
great  ingenuity,  wit,  and  accomplished  talents  • 
the  other,  possessed  of  great  abilities  and  an  in- 
flexible resolution,  embraced  the  cause  of  the  re- 
public with  the  same  ardour  that  others  engaged 
in  pursuing  the  object  of  their  own  ambition, 
their  pleasures,  or  personal  interests.  He  had 
penetration  enough  to  perceive  in  Caesar,  long 
before  the  senate  in  general  was  alarmed,,  a  dis- 
position to  vilify  the  aristocracy,  and,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  needy  and  profligate  citizens,  to  make  a 
prey  of  the  republic.  Under  this  apprehension 
he  opposed  him  with  a  degree  of  keenness  which 
Caesar  endeavoured  to  represent  as  a  persona! 
animosity. 

The  senators  in  general,  now  aware  of  their 
danger  from  Csesar,  were  disposed  to  resist  his 
applications,  whether  made  for  honours  or  for 
public  trust.  They,  on  the  present  occasion, 
disputed  his  pretensions  to  a  triumph :  and,  while 
he  remained  without  the  city  in  expectation  of 
this  honour,  refused  to  admit  him  on  the  list  of 
candidates  for  the  office  of  consul.  But  the  day 
of  election  being  fixed,  Caesar,  without  hesitation, 
preferred  the  consulate  to  the  triumph,  laid  down 
the  ensigns  of  his  late  military  command,  assumed 
the  gown,  and  entered  the  city  as  a  candidate  for 
the  consulship.5 

The  people  were  at  this  time  divided  into  a 
variety  of  factions.  Pompey  and  Crassus  dis- 
trusted each  other,  and  both  were  jealous  of  Cae- 
sar. Their  divisions  strengthened  the  party  of 
the  senate,  and  furnished  that  body  with  the 
means  of  thwarting  separately  many  of  their  am- 
bitious designs.  This  Csesar  had  long  perceived, 
and  had  paid  his  court  both  to  Pompey  and  Cras- 
sus, in  order  to  hinder  their  joining  the  senate 
against  him.  The  expedience  of  this  precaution 
now  appeared  more  clearly  than  ever,  and  he  is 
supposed  to  have  separately  represented  to  these 
rivals  the  advantage  which  their  enemies  derived 
from  their  misunderstanding,  and  the  ease  with 
which,  if  united,  they  might  concert  among  them- 
selves all  the  affairs  of  the  republic,  gratify  every 
friend,  and  disappoint  every  enemy.  Upon  this 
representation  Pompey  and  Crassus  were  recon- 
ciled, and  agreed  to  act  in  concert  with  Caesar, 
and  to  support  him  in  his  pretensions,  at  the  ap- 
proaching elections.6 

This  private  '  combination,  which  remained 
some  time  a  secret,  was  afterwards,  by  a  kind  of 
mockery,  alluding  to  the  ordinary  names  of  pub- 
lic office,  taken  from  the  number  of  those  who 
were  joined  in  them,7  called  the  triumvirate.  In 
the  mean  time,  these  supposed  leaders  of  opposite 
factions,  in  abating  their  violence  against  each 
other,  took  a  favourable  appearance  of  modera- 
tion and  candour.  They  paid  their  court  sepa- 
rately to  persons  whom  they  wished  to  gain,  and 
flattered  them  with  hopes  of  being  able  to  heal 
the  divisions  of  their  country.  This  sort  of  court 
they  paid  in  particular  to  Cicero ;  and  by  their 
flatteries,  and  real  or  pretended  admiration  of  his 
talents,  seemed  to  have  got  entire  possession  of 
his  mind.    Pompey  affected  to  place  the  merits 


5  Sueton.  in  Caesare,  c  18.  Dio.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  54. 

6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  54,  55.  Plutarch,  in 
Poinpeio,  Caesare,  et  Crasso. 

7  As  the  Decemvirs.  Septemvirs,  &c. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


189 


of  Cicero  greatly  above  his  own.  "I,  indeed," 
he  said,  "have  served  my  country,  but  this  man 
has  preserved  it."8  The  senators,  with  whom 
Cicero  had  hitherto  acted,  were  alarmed ;  and  it 
appears  that  Atticus,  about  this  time,  had  taxed 
•him  with  leaving  his  party,  to  commit  himself 
into  the  hands  of  their  enemies.  In  his  answer 
to  this  imputation,  he  seems  to  have  flattered 
himself  that  he  had  made  acquisition  of  Pompey, 
not  surrendered  himself  into  his  power ;  at  least, 
that  he  had  reclaimed  or  diverted  him  from  the 
dangerous  projects  in  which  he  had  been  lately 
engaged,  and  that  he  thought  himself  likely  to 
succeed  in  the  same  manner  with  Caesar:  so 
much,  that  he  triumphed  in  the  superiority  of 
his  own  conduct  to  that  of  Cato,  who,  by  his 
austerity  and  vehemence,  had  alienated  the  minds 
of  men  otherwise  well  disposed  to  the  republic,9 
"  while  I,"  he  said,  "by a  little  discretion,  reclaim, 
or  even  disarm  its  enemies."10 

Few  persons  were  naturally  possessed  of  more 
penetration  than  Cicero,  although  it  will  after- 
wards appear  how  egregiously  he  was  mistaken 
on  this  occasion ;  but  he  chose  not  to  see  what 
checked  his  vanity,  or  prevented  his  enjoying  the 
court  which  was  paid  to  him  by  Pompey  and 
Caesar.  His  own  glory  intercepted  every  other 
object  from  his  view,  and  made  him  the  dupe  of 
every  person  who  professed  to  admire  him,  and 
secretly  displeased  with  every  one  who  did  not 
pay  him,  on  every  occasion,  the  expected  tribute  of 

E raise ;  a  description  under  which  Cato,  though 
is  most  sincere  well-wisher  and  friend,  appears 
at  this  time  to  have  fallen. 

Caesar,  to  the  other  arts  which  he  employed  to 
secure  his  election,  added  the  use  of  money,  which 
he  obtained  by  joining  his  interest,  in  opposition 
to  Bibulus  with  that  of  Lucceius,  another  of  the 
candidates  possessed  of  great  wealth.  He  him- 
self having  squandered  his  fortune,  as  has  been 
observed,  was  still  greatly  in  debt,  and  Lucceius 
willingly  furnished  the  money  that  was  given  to 
the  people  in  the  name  of  both.  This  illegal  pro- 
ceeding, together  with  the  menacing  concerts  of 
which  he  began  to  be  suspected  with  Pompej 
and  Crassus,  greatly  alarmed  the  friends  of  the 
republic.  They  determined  to  support  Bibulus 
against  Lucceius ;  and,  in  order  to  give  Caesar  a 
colleague  who  might  occasionally  oppose  hiia  dan- 
gerous intentions,  they  even  went  so  far  as  to 
contribute  sums  of  money,  and  to  bid  for  votes  as 
high  as  their  opponents.  In  this  crisis,  even  Cato 
owned  it  was  meritorious  to  bribe." 

During  the  dependence  of  this  contest,  the 
senate,  by  the  death  of  Lutatius  Catulus,  was 
deprived  of  an  able  member,  and  the  people  of  a 
fellow-citizen  of  great  integrity,  moderation,  forti- 
tude, and  ability ;  a  model  of  what  the  Romans 
in  this  age  should  have  been,  in  order  to  have 
preserved  their  republic.  He  partook  with  Cato 
in  the  aversion  which  Caesar  bore  to  the  most  re- 
spectable members  and  best  supporters  of  the 
senate,  and  would  probably  have  taken  part  with 


8  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  ii.  epist.  1. 

9  Alluding  to  the  opposition  which  Cato  gave  to 
the  farmers  of  the  revenue,  in  their  petition  for  an 
abatement  of  their  rent.  But  Cato  followed  his  judg- 
ment in  this  matter;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  prefer 
the  judgment  of  Cicero  to  his. 

10  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  ii.  epist.  1. 

11  Sueton.  in  Caio  Ciesare,  c.  xix.  Appian.  de  Bell. 
Civil,  lib.  ii. 


him  likewise  in  the  continual  efforts  he  made  to 
preserve  its  authority.  The  aristocrat ical  party, 
notwithstanding  this  loss,  prevailed  in  carrying 
the  election  of  Bibulus  against  Lucceius;  and 
though  they  could  not  exclude  Caesar  from  the 
office  of  consul,  they  hoped,  by  means  of  his  col- 
league, to  oppose  and  to  frustrate  his  designs.12 

Caesar,  well  aware  of  their  purpose,  opened  his 
administration  with  a  speech  praising  unanimity, 
and  recommending  good  agreement  between  those 
who  are  joined  in  any  public  trust.  While  he 
meant  to  vilify  the  senate,  and  to  foster  every  dis- 
orderly party  against  them,  he  guarded  his  own 
behaviour,  at  least  in  the  first  period  of  his  con- 
sulship, with  every  appearance  of  moderation  and 
candour,  paid  his  court  not  only  to  leaders  of  fac- 
tion, but  to  persons  of  every  description,  and 
while  he  took  care  to  espouse  the  popular  side  in 
every  question,  was  active  likewise  in  devising 
regulations  for  the  better  government  of  the  em- 
pire :  so  that  the  senate,  however  inclined  to  coun- 
teract his  designs,  as  calculated  to  raise  himself 
on  the  ruins  of  the  commonwealth,  could  scarce- 
ly, with  a  good  grace,  oppose  him  in  any  particu- 
lar measure.  He  set  out  with  a  project  for  the 
relief  of  indigent  citizens  having  numerous  fami- 
lies, including  the  veterans  and  disbanded  soldiers 
of  Pompey ;  proposing  to  settle  them  on  some  of 
the  public  lands  in  Italy.  He  gave  out  that  he 
expected  the  concurrence  of  Cicero  in  this  mea- 
sure, sent  him  a  message  by  Balbus,13  with  assur- 
ances that  he  meant  to  consult  with  Pompey  and 
himself  in  all  matters  of  importance,  and  that 
he  had  hopes  of  bringing  Crassus  into  the  same 
mind:  words,  from  which  it  is  manifest  that  the  co- 
alition of  these  persons  was  not  yet  publicly  k  nown. 
"What  a  fine  prospect  I  have  before  me,"  says 
Cicero  to  Atticus ;  "a  perfect  union  with  Pom- 
pey, even  with  Caesar  if  1  please;  peace  with  my 
enemies,  and  tranquillity  in  niv  old  age."  But 
his  heart  misgave  him;  the  honours  of  his  former 
life  recurred  to  his  mind.  With  his  great  talents, 
he  was  destined  to  transmit  a  more  honest  fame 
to  posterity,  and  to  become  the  lamented  victim 
of  his  country's  betrayers,  not  the  detested  asso- 
ciate of  their  crimes.14 

This  consulate  is  distinguished  by  the  passing 
of  many  laws,  particularly  this,  wbich  was  de- 
vised for  the  settlement  of  citizens  on  certain  pub- 
lic lands;  and  therefore  known  by  the  title  of  the 
Agrarian  law.  On  this  act  Casar  was  to  rest  his 
popularity,  and  his  triumph  over  the  senate.  He 
gave  out  that  he  was  to  make  a  provision  for 
twenty  thousand  citizens,  without  any  burden  to 
the  revenue.  But  he  well  knew  that  his  antago- 
nists would  perceive  the  tendency  of  the  law,  and 
notrsuffer  it  to  pass  without  opposition ;  and  he 
affected  great  moderation  in  the  general  pur]M>se, 
and  in  framing  every  part  of  his  plan  ;  affecting 
solicitude  to  obtain  the  consent  of  the  senate ; 
but,  in  reality,  to  make  their  opposition  appear 
the  more  unreasonable  and  the  more  odious  to  the 
people.  He  declared,  that  he  did  not  mean  to 
strip  the  revenue  of  any  branch  that  was  known 
to  carry  profit  to  the  public,  nor  to  make  any  par- 
tial distribution  in  favour  of  his  friends;  that  he 
only  meant  to  plant  with  inhabitants  certain  un- 

12  Plutarch.  Appian  Dio.  Sueton.  &c. 

13  Dio.  Cass,  lib  viii.  initio.  Plutarch,  in  Coesare. 
In  Pompeia,  Pompeio,  Lucullo,  Catone,  &x.  <fcc  £*%e- 
ton.  in  Ctrsare.  Appian.  de  Hell.  Civil  lib  ii. 

14  Cicero  a.l  Atticum,  lib  ii.  ep  3. 


190 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


profitable  wastes,  and  to  provide  for  a  number 
of  citizens,  who,  being  indigent  and  uneasy  in 
their  circumstances,  filled  the  city  itself  with 
frequent  disorders  and  tumults ;  and  that  he 
would  not  proceed  a  step  without  consulting  the 
senate,  and  persons  of  credit  and  authority  in  the 
state. 

In  a  way  .to  save  these  appearances,  and  with 
these  professions,  Caesar  formed  the  first  draught 
of  an  act  which  he  brought  to  the  senate  for  their 
approbation,  and  the  support  of  their  authority 
in  proposing  it  to  the  people.  It  was  difficult  to 
find  topics  on  which  to  oppose  a  measure  so  plau- 
sible, and  conducted  with  so  much  appearance 
of  moderation  and  candour.  But  the  tendency 
of  the  act  itself  was  evidently  not  to  promote  the 
peace  of  the  commonwealth,  but  to  constitute  a 
merit  in  the  party  that  procured  it,  and  to  give 
power  to  those  who  were  to  be  entrusted  with  its 
execution. 

In  great  and  populous  cities  indigent  citizens 
are  ever  likely  to  be  numerous,  and  would  be 
more  so,  if  the  idle  and  profligate  were  taught  to 
hope  for  bounties  and  gratuitous  provisions,  to 
quiet  their  clamours,  and  to  suppress  their  disor- 
ders. If  men  were  to  have  estates  in  the  country 
because  they  are  factious  and  turbulent  in  the 
city,  it  is  evident  that  public  lands,  and  all  the 
resources  of  the  most  prosperous  state,  would  not 
be  sufficient  to  satisfy  their  claims. 

The  commissioners  appointed  for  the  distribu- 
tion of  £uch  public  favours,  would  be  raised  above 
the  ordinary  magistrates,  and  above  the  laws  of 
their  country.  They  might  reward  their  own 
creatures,  and  keep  the  citizens  in  general  in  a 
state  of  dependence  on  their  will.  The  authors 
of  such  proposals,  while  they  were  urging  the 
state  and  the  people  to  ruin,  would  be  considered 
as  their  only  patrons  and  friends  "  It  is  not  this 
law  I  dread,"  said  Cato;  "it  is  the  reward  ex- 
pected for  obtaining  it." 

Odious  as  the  task  of  opposition  on  such  diffi- 
cult ground  might  appear  to  the  peopie,  this  sena- 
tor did  not  decline  it.  Being  asked  his  opinion 
in  his  turn,  he  answered,  That  he  saw  no  occa- 
sion for  the  change  that  was  now  proposed  in  the 
state  of  the  public  lands ;  and  entered  on  an  ar- 
gument with  which  he  meant  to  exhaust  the 
whole  time  of  the  sitting  of  the  senate,  and  to 
prevent  their  coming  to  a  question.  He  was  en- 
titled, by  his  privilege  as  a  member  in  that  assem- 
bly, to  speak  without  interruption,  and  might,  if 
he  chose  to  continue  speaking,  persist  until  all 
the  members  had  left  the  house.  Caesar  suspect- 
ing his  design,  and  finding  it  impossible  otherwise 
to  silence  him,  ordered  him  into  custody.  The 
whole  senate  instantly  rose  in  a  tumult.  "  Whither 
go  you  before  the  meeting  is  adjourned?"  said 
Caesar  to  Petreius,  who  was  moving  from  his  side. 
"I  go,"  said  the  other,  "into  confinement  with 
Cato.  With  him  a  prison  is  preferable  to  a  place 
in  the  senate  with  you."  The  greater  part  of 
the  members  were  actually  moving  away  with 
Cato,  and  Caesar  felt  himself  at  once  stripped  of 
the  disguise  of  moderation  he  had  assumed,  and 
dreaded  the  spirit  which  he  saw  rising  in  so  nu- 
merous a  body  of  men,  who,  on  former  occasions, 
had  maintained  their  authority  with  becoming 
vigour.  He  had  relied  on  their  want  of  decision, 
and  on  their  ignorance  of  their  own  strength. 
But  his  rashness  broke  the  charm.  He  wished 
that  the  prisoner  w>uM  procure  soino  friend 


among  the  tribunes  to  interpose ;  but  Cato,  seeing 
him  embarrassed,  and  the  senate  engaged  in  the 
cause,  went  off  in  the  custody  of  the  lictor  with- 
out any  signs  of  reluctance.  Caesar  immediately 
recollecting  himself,  and  never  hurried  too  far  by 
any  passion,  despatched  a  tribune  of  his  own 
party,  with  secret  directions  to  rescue  the  prison- 
er ;  and  this  being  done,  the  senators  again  re- 
turned to  their  places.  "  I  meant,"  said  Caesar, 
"  to  have  submitted  this  law  to  your  judgment 
and  correction;  but  if  you  throw  it  aside,  the 
people  shall  take  it  up."1 

Caesar,  upon  this  occasion,  increased  his  own 
popularity,  and  diminished  that  of  his  enemies 
in  the  senate,  who  were  supposed  in  this,  as  in 
some  other  instances,  to  withstand  with  keenness, 
every  measure  that  was  devised  for  the  comfort 
of  the  people.  The  imputations  cast  out  against 
him  by  Cato  and  others,  were  supposed  to  proceed 
from  malice  or  cynical  prejudices.  He  found  him- 
self strong  enough  to  extend  his  bounty  to  the 
people,  so  as  to  comprehend  the  lands  of  Campa- 
nia, which  were  hitherto  considered  as  unalien- 
able, and  the  richest  demesne  of  the  public, 
together  with  a  valuable  district  near  the  conflu- 
ence of  the  Vulturnus  and  the  Sabbatus,  formerly 
consecrated  to  pious  uses.  In  these  valuable  tracts 
of  land  there  was  sufficient,  subject  for  an  ample 
provision  for  the  soldiers  of  Pompey,  and  for  the 
retainers  of  those  who,  together  with  Crassus  and 
Caesar  himself,  were  proposed  to  be  commission- 
ers for  carrying  this  act  into  execution. 

At  the  first  assembly  of  the  people,  Caesai 
proposed  his  scheme  to  impropriate  the  lands  of 
Campania,  with  the  above  additions  ;  and  first  of 
all  called  on  his  colleague  Bibulus  to  declare  his 
mind  on  the  subject.  Bibulus  spoke  his  dis- 
sent; and  in  vehement  terms  declared,  that  no 
such  alienation  of  the  public  demesne  should  be 
made  in  his  consulate.  Caesar  next  called  upon 
Pompey,  though  in  a  private  station  ;  and  the 
audience,  ignorant  of  the  concert  into  which  these 
leaders  had  entered,  were  impatient  to  hear  him 
on  the  subject  of  a  measure  which  was  likely  to 
elevate  a  supposed  rival  so  high  in  the  favour  of 
the  people.  To  the  surprise  of  all  who  were  pre- 
sent, Pompey  applauded  the  general  design,  and, 
in  a  speech  of  considerable  length,  discussed  all 
the  clauses  of  the  act,  and  with  great  approbation 
of  each.  When  he  had  done  speaking,  Caesar, 
alluding  to  what  had  dropped  from  his  colleague, 
and  affecting  to  fear  the  interposition  of  force; 
"Will  you  support  us,"  he  said  to  Pompey,  "in 
case  we  are  attacked  ?" — "  If  any  one,"  said  the 
other,  "  shall  lift  up  a  sword  against  you,  I  shall 
lift  up  both  sword  and  shield."  2  Crassus  being 
called  upon,  spoke  to  the  same  purpose.  The 
concurrence  of  these  leaders  portended  the  unani- 
mous consent  of  all  parties ;  and  a  day  being 
fixed  for  putting  the  question,  the  assembly  for 
the  present  adjourned. 

To  oppose  a  measure  so  popular,  and  from 
which  such  numbers  had  great  expectations,  no 
means  remained  so  likely  to  succeed  as  supersti- 
tion. To  this  aid  Bibulus  accordingly  had  re* 
course,  and  by  virtue  of  the  authority  with  which 
he  was  vested,  proclaimed  a  general  fast,  and  a 
suspension  for  the  present  year  of  all  the  affairs 

1  Dio.  lib.  xxxviii.  c.  1, 2,  3.  Plutarch.  Sueton.  Ap- 
pian.  Sec. 

2  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.    Putarch.  in  Pompeio.  Dio, 

Cass,  lib  Yxxviii  c  5. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


191 


of  state.  The  design  of  this  suspension,  and  the 
extravagant  length  of  time  to  which  it  was  ex- 
tended, probably  enabled  his  colleague  to  treat  it 
with  contempt,  and  to  proceed  in  the  design  of 

Eutting  his  question,  as  if  no  such  proclamation 
ad  been  issued.  The  assembly  was  accordingly 
summoned  in  the  temple  of  concord.  Caesar, 
early  in  the  morning,  secured  all  the  avenues 
and  the  steps  of  the  portico  with  an  armed  force ; 
had  Vatinius,  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people, 
who  was  entirely  devoted  to  his  interest  and  even 
in  his  pay,3  stationed  with  thig  party,  in  order  to 
take  the  odium  of  all  violent  measures  on  himself. 
Bibulus,  however,  attended  by  numbers  of  the 
senate,  and  three  of  the  tribunes,  who  were  pre- 
pared, by  their  negative,  to  put  a  stop  to  every 
proceeding,  came  into  the  place  of  assembly  with 
a  firm  countenance ;  he  protested  against  the  le- 
gality of  any  meeting  to  be  formed  in  a  time  of 
general  fast";  but  the  opposite  party^  being  in 
possession  of  the  temple,  forced  him  from  the 
steps,  broke  the  ensigns  of  the  lictors,  wounded 
the  tribunes  that  interposed  in  his  defence,  and 
effectually  removed  all  farther  obstruction  to  their 
own  designs.  The  question  then  being  put,  the 
law  passed  without  opposition,  including  a  clause 
to  oblige  every  senator,  under  pain  of  exile  or 
death,  to  swear  to  the  observance  of  it. 

This  oath  was  probably  a  snare  laid  by  Caesar 
for  the  most  resolute  of  his  opponents,  like  that 
which  was  formerly  laid  by  Marius,  on  a  like  oc- 
casion, for  Metellus  Numidicus,  and  by  which 
that  virtuous  citizen  was  actually  for  some  time 
removed  from  the  commonwealth.4 

Metellus  Celer,  the  late  consul,  together  with 
Cato  and  Favonius,  were  likely  to  have  fallen 
into  this  snare.  They  at  first  declared  their  reso- 
lution not  to  swear  to  the  observance  of  any  such 
ruinous  law  ;  but  on  maturer  consideration,  they 
became  sensible  that  in  this  they  were  serving  the 
cause  of  their  enemies.  "  You  may  have  no  need 
of  Rome,"  said  Cicero  to  Cato,  "and  may  go  into 
exile  with  pleasure ;  but  Rome  has  need  of  you. 
Give  not  such  a  victory  to  her  enemies  and  your 
own."  Upon  these  considerations  it  was  deter- 
mined to  comply.5 

Bibulus,  on  the  day  following  that  of  his  violent 
expulsion  from  the  assembly  of  the  people,  as- 
sembled the  senate,  complained  of  the  outrage  he 
had  received,  and  submitted  the  state  of  the  re- 
public to  their  consideration.  But  even  this 
assembly,  though  consisting  of  above  six  hundred 
of  the  most  powerful  citizens  of  Rome,  not  desti- 
tute even  of  courage,  were  declined  in  their  spirit, 
and  beeame  averse  to  exertions  of  vigour.  They 
were  occupied  with  their  villas,  their  equipages, 
and  the  other  appurtenances  of  wealth  and  of 
high  rank.  "  They  appear,"  says  Cicero  upon 
this  occasion,  "to  think  that  even  if  the  republic 
should  perish,  they  will  be  able  to  preserve  their 
fish-ponds." 

The  consul  Bibulus,  even  Cato,  though  far  re- 
moved from  any  ambiguity  of  conduct,  saw  no 
possibility  of  resisting  the  torrent.    The  first  re- 


3  Cicero  in  Vatinium.  Caesar  was  reported  to  have 
said  at  Acquileia,  some  time  after  this  date,  when 
Vatinius  was  disappointed  of  the  edileship,  that  he 
had  no  business  with  honours,  being  intent  on  money 
only  ;  and  that  he  was  paid  for  all  his  services  in  the 
iribunate. 

4  See  book  ii.  c.  6. 

5  Plutarch.  inCatone    Appian.  de  Bell. Civil,  lib.  ii. 


tired  to  his  own  house,  and  from  thence  forward, 
during  the  remainder  of  the  year,  did  not  appeal 
in  any  public  place.  Cato  absented  himself  from 
the  senate.6 

While  Caesar  engrossed  the  full  exercise  of  the 
consular  power,  Bibulus  was  content  with  issuing 
his  edicts  or  manifestos  in  writing,  containing 
protests,  by  which  he  endeavour**!  to  stop  all  pro- 
ceedings in  public  affairs  on  account  of  the  reli- 
gious fast,  or  continuation  of  holidays,  which  he 
had  instituted  to  restrain  his  colleague.  In  these 
writings  he  published  violent  invectives  against 
Caesar,  in  which,  among  other  articles,  he  charged 
him  with  having  had  a  part  in  the  conspiracy  of 
Catiline.7  The  tribune  Vatinius,  in  return, 
issued  a  warrant  to  commit  the  consul  Bibulus  to 
prison ;  and,  in  order  to  seize  him,  attempted  to 
break  into  his  house ;  but  in  this  he  was  foiled, 
and  the  parties  continued,  during  the  remainder 
of  this  consulate,  in  the  same  situation  with  re- 
spect to  each  other. 

In  dating  the  year,  instead  of  the  consulate  of 
Caesar  and  Bibulus,  it  was  called  by  some  wag 
the  consulate  of  Julius  and  Ca=sar.8  This  able 
adventurer,  though  suspected  of  the  deepest  de- 
signs, went  still  deeper  in  laying  his  measures  for 
the  execution  of  them  than  his  keenest  opponents 
supposed.  He  found  means  to  tie  up  every  hand 
that  was  likely  to  be  lifted  up  against  himself ;  as 
those  of  Pompey  and  Crassus,  by  their  secret 
agreement,  of  which  the  articles  were  gradually 
disclosed  in  the  effect.  He  confirmed  to  Pom- 
pey all  the  acts  of  his  administration  in  Asia,  and, 
by  putting  him  on  the  commission  for  dividing 
the  lands  of  Campania,  and  for  settling  a  colony 
at  Capua,  gave  him  an  opportunity,  which  the 
other  earnestly  desired,  of  providing  for  many  ne- 
cessitous citizens  of  his  party.  He  flattered  Cras- 
sus sufficiently,  by  placing  him  on  the  same 
commission,  and  by  admitting  him  to  a  supposed 
equal  participation  of  that  political  consequence 
which  the  triumvirs  proposed  to  secure  by  their 
union.  He  gained  the  equestrian  order,  by  grant- 
ing a  suit  which  they  had  long  in  dependence, 
for  a  diminution  of  the  rents  payable  by  the  re- 
venue farmers  in  Asia.9  These  he  reduced  a 
third ;  and  with  that  order  of  men  acquired  the 
character  of  great  liberality  and  candour.  He 
himself  was  the  only  person  who  in  apficarance 
was  not  to  profit  by  these  arrangements.  He 
was  occupied,  as  his  retainers  pretended,  in  serv- 
ing the  republic  and  in  promoting  his  friends; 
was  the  general  patron  of  the  distressed  and  the 
indigent,  and  had  nothing  to  propose  for  himself. 

With  his  consent  and  under  his  authority, 
Fufius,  one  of  the  praetors,  and  Vatinius,  one  of 
the  tribunes,  obtained  two  laws,  both  of  them 
equitable  and  salutary :  the  first  relating  to  the 
use  of  the  ballot  in  the  comitia,  or  assembly  of 
the  people  :  the  other,  relating  to  the  challenge  of 
parties  in  the  nomination  of  judges  or  juries. 
The  introduction  of  the  ballot  in  political  ques- 
tions had  greatly  weakened  the  influence  of  the 
aristocracy  over  the  determinations  of  the  people; 
and  resolutions  were  frequently  carried  in  this 
manner,  which  no  party,  nor  any  particular  or- 
der of  men,  were  willing  to  acknowledge  as  theii 


6  Cicero  pro  Sextio.   Plutarch,  in  Catone. 

7  Sueton.  inC.  C.isare. 

8  Ibid.  c.  20.    Dio.  Cass  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  6.  8. 

9  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.  ep.  1.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civil 
lib.  ii  p.  435. 


192 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III 


measure.  The  nobles  imputed  the  absurd  deter- 
minations to  the  majority  that  was  formed  by 
the  people,  and  these  sometimes  retorted  the  im- 
putation. To  leave  no  doubt  in  such  matters  for 
the  future,  Fufius  proposed  that  the  orders  of 
Patrician,  Equestrian,  and  Plebeian,  should  ballot 
apart.1  This  regulation  had  some  tendency  to 
restore  the  influence  of  the  superior  classes. 

Vatinius  proposed  that  in  criminal  actions, 
when  the  judges  were  drawn  by  lot,  the  defend- 
ant and  prosecutors  might,  in  their  turns,  chal- 
lenge, or  strike  off  from  the  list,  persons  to  whom 
they  took  a  particular  exception.2 

Caesar  himself  was  busy  in  devising  new  regu- 
lations to  reform  the  mode  of  elections,  and  to  im- 
prove the  forms  of  business  in  some  of  the  public 
departments.  By  one  of  his  acts  the  priests  were 
to  be  elected  agreeably  to  the  former  laws  of 
Atius  and  Domitius,  with  this  difference,  that 
candidates  might  be  admitted  even  in  absence. 
By  another  of  his  acts,  regular  journals  were  to 
be  kept  in  the  senate  and  in  the  assemblies  of  the 
people,  and  all  their  proceedings  recorded  for  the 
inspection  of  the  public.  By  a  third,  persons  con- 
victed of  treason  were  subjected  to  new  penalties, 
and  governors  of  provinces  to  additional  restraints 
in  the  exercise  of  their  power.  Such  officers 
were  not  allowed  to  receive  any  honorary  gift 
from  their  provinces,  until  their  services  being 
considered  at  Rome,  were  found  to  have  entitled 
them  to  a  triumph.3  They  were  restrained  from 
encroaching  on  the  right  of  any  state  or  princi- 
pality beyond  the  limits  of  their  province.  They 
were  obliged  to  leave  copies  of  their  books  and  of 
their  acts  at  two  of  the  principal  towns  in  their 
government, 4  and  immediately  upon  their  ar- 
rival at  Rome,  to  give  in  a  copy  of  the  same 
accounts  to  the  treasury.  They  were  doomed  to 
make  restitution  of  all  subjects  received  in  extor- 
tion, not  only  by  themselves,  but  by  any  of  their 
attendants.6 

With  these  acts  Caesar  adorned  his  consulate, 
and  in  some  measure  discountenanced  the  party 
which  was  disposed  to  traduce  him.  He  is, 
nevertheless,  accused  of  having  stolen  from  the 
treasury,  to  which  he  had  access  in  the  capacity 
of  consul,  bars  of  gold  weighing  three  thousand 
pondo,  and  of  having  concealed  the  theft  by  sub- 
stituting brass  gilt,  and  of  the  same  form,  in  its 
place.6 

Whatever  foundation  there  may  have  been  for 
this  report,  it  soon  appeared  that  Caesar  had  ob- 
jects of  a  more  serious  nature,  could  copy,  on 
occasion,  the  example  of  Pompey,  and,  in  his 
manner,  cause  what  was  personal  to  himself  to 
be  proposed  by  others,  whom  he  might  be  free  to 
support  or  disavow  according  to  the  reception 
which  his  proposal  met  from  the  public.  It  can- 
not be  doubted  that  he  now  conceived  the  design 
of  bringing  a  military  force  to  support  his  pre- 
tensions in  the  city.  Hitherto  kingly  power  be- 
ing odious  at  Rome,  whoever  had  aspired  to  it 
had  always  perished  in  the  attempt,  and  the 
mere  imputation,  however  supported,  was  fatal. 


1  Dio.  lib.  xxxviii.  c.  8.  2  Ibirl.  Appian. 

3  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  v.  ep.  16.  et  lib.  vi.  ep  7. 

4  Cicero  ad  Famil.  lib.  ii.  ep.  17.  et  lib.  v.  ep.  20. 

5  Ibid,  in  Vatinium  pro  Sext. 

b'  Sueton.  in  Jul.  c.  54.  Ctsar  is  said  to  have  sold 
the  gold  bullion  he  brought  from  Spain  at  3000  H.  S. 
or  about  25/.  of  our  money.  This  will  make  hit?  sup- 
posed theft  about  75  000/ 


The  most  profligate  party  among  the  populace 
were  unable  or  unwilling  to  support  their  dema- 
gogues to  this  extent ;  and  the  people  in  genera, 
became  jealous  of  their  most  respectable  citizens, 
when  it  appeared  that  merit  itself  approached  to 
monarchical  elevation.  Marius,  by  the  continued 
possession  of  the  highest  offices,  and  by  the  su- 
preme command  of  armies,  had  acquired  a  spe- 
cies of  sovereignty  which  tie  knew  not  how  to 
resign.  Cinna  came  into  partnership  with  Ma- 
rius, and  wished  to  govern  after  his  decease. 
Sylla,  to  avenge  his  own  wrongs  and  those  of  his 
friends,  to  cut  off  a  profligate  faction,  and  restore 
the  republic,  took  possession  of  the  government. 
He  led  his  army  against  usurpers,  and  had  the 
power  to  become  himself  the  most  successful 
usurper,  as  he  was  put  in  possession  of  a  so- 
vereignty which  he  no  doubt  might  have  retained. 
So  far  he  was  a  model  to  every  ambitious  adven- 
turer, and  pointed  out  the  only  means  which 
could  insure  to  a  single  person  the  sovereignty  of 
Rome.  Catiline,  with  his  accomplices,  Lentulus 
and  Cethegus,  had  vainly  attempted  to  overturn 
the  state,  or  to  usurp  its  government,  by  means 
of  a  profligate  party  among  the  populace  or  citi- 
zens of  desperate  fortune.7  Caesar  was  become 
head  of  the  same  party  ;  but  an  army  like  that  of 
Sylla,  a  convenient  station,  and  the  resources  of 
a  great  province,  were  necessary  to  support  the 
contest,  and  to  carry  it  against  his  rivals,  as  well 
as  against  the  republic  itself,  to  a  favourable  issue. 

The  republic  had  taken  many  precautions  to 
prevent  the  introduction  of  military  power  at 
Rome.  Although  the  functions  of  state  and  of 
war  were  entrusted  to  the  same  persons,  yet  the 
civil  and  military  characters,  except  in  the  case  of 
a  dictator,  were  never  united  at  once  in  the  same 
person.  The  officer  of  state  resigned  his  civil 
power  before  he  became  a  soldier,  and  the  soldier 
was  obliged  to  lay  aside  his  military  ensigns  and 
character  before  he  could  enter  the  city ;  and  if 
he  sued  for  a  triumph  in  his  military  capacity, 
must  remain  without  the  walls  till  that  suit  was 
discussed.  The  command  of  armies  and  of  pro- 
vinces in  the  person  of  any  officer  was  limited  to 
a  single  year  at  a  time,  at  the  end  of  which,  if  it 
were  not  expressly  prolonged,  it  was  understood 
to  expire,  and  to  devolve  on  a  successor  named 
by  the  senate. 

That  no  leader  of  a  party  might  have  an  army 
at  hand  to  overawe  the  republic,  no  military  sta- 
tion was  supposed  to  exist  within  the  limits  of 
Italy.  The  purpose,  however,  of  this  precaution 
was  in  some  measure  frustrated  by  the  near  situ- 
ation of  a  province  in  which  an  army  was  kept 
within  the  Alps.  Italy  was  understood  to  extend 
only  from  the  sea  of  Tarentum  to  the  Arnus  and 
the  Rubicon :  beyond  these  boundaries,  on  the 
northwest,  all  those  extensive  and  rich  tracts  on 
both  sides  of  the  Apennines,  and  within  the  Alps, 
which  now  make  the  dutchies  of  Ferrara,  Bo- 
logna, Modena,  Milan,  the  states  of  Piedmont 
and  Venice,  with  the  dutchy  of  Carniola,  and 
the  whole  of  Lombardy,  were  considered,  not  as 
a  part  of  Italy,  but  as  a  province  termed  the 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  and,  like  the  other  Roman  pro- 


7  Speaking  of  the  imaginary  danger  to  a  state  of 
being  overturned  by  the  rabble;  we  might  as  much 
fear,  said  a  witty  writer  of  the  present  age,  that  a  city 
would  be  drowned  by  the  overflowing  of  its  own  ken 

nels. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


193 


vinces,  was  to  be  held  by  a  military  officer,  sup- 
ported by  an  army. 

This  then  was  the  most  commodious  station 
at  which  a  political  adventurer  might  unite  the 
greatest  advantages,  that  of  having  an  army  at 
nis  command,  and  that  of  being  so  near  the  capi- 
tal as  to  be  able,  by  surprise,  to  occupy  the  seats 
of  government  whenever  his  designs  were  ripe 
for  such  an  attempt. 

Sylla  had  an  army  devoted  to  his  pleasure; 
but,  having  the  seas  of  Asia  and  Ionia  to  pass  in 
his  way  to  Italy,  could  not,  without  giving  an 
alarm  from  a  great  distance,  and  without  putting 
his  enemies  on  their  guard,  approach  to  the  city. 
He  therefore,  when  he  had  this  object  in  his  view, 
made  no  secret  of  his  purpose. 

Caesar  had  formed  a  design  on  the  common- 
wealth, and  acted  from  his  original  disposition, 
and  a  deliberate  intention  to  make  himself  master 
of  it;  not  urged,  like  Sylla,  by  great  provoca- 
tions, and  the  suggestion  of  singular  circum- 
stances. He  arranged  his  measures  like  the  plan 
of  a  campaign,  which  he  had  the  ability  to  digest, 
and  the  patience  to  execute  with  the  greatest  de- 
liberation. He  proposed  to  make  himself  master 
of  an  army  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  to  have  the 
resources  of  a  province  contiguous  to  the  capital. 
He  secured  the  possession  of  these  advantages  by 
an  unprecedented  prolongation  of  the  usual  ap- 
pointments for  five  years ;  so  that  the  people 
themselves  could  not,  without  a  breach  of  faith, 
recal  their  grant  upon  any  sudden  alarm  of  the 
improper  use  he  might  propose  to  make  of  their 
favours. 

The  Cisalpine  Gaul,  or  that  part  of  Italy 
which  lay  from  the  Rubicon  to  the  Alps,  was 
peculiarly  suited  to  the  purpose  of  Caesar.  But 
the  distribution  of  the  provinces  was  still  within 
the  prerogative  of  the  senate ;  and  the  provincial 
governments  were  filled  by  their  appointment, 
in  pursuance  of  an  express  regulation  ascribed 
to  Caius  Gracchus,  and  known,  from  his  name, 
by  the  title  of  the  Sempronian  law.8  Caesar  had 
ever  been  at  variance  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
senate.  In  the  office  of  praetor  he  had  been  sus- 
pended by  their  authority.  In  his  present  office 
of  consul  he  had  set  them  at  open  defiance.  He 
had  no  prospect  of  being  able  to  obtain  from  them 
the  choice  he  had  made  of  a  province ;  and  the 
proposal  to  put  him  in  possession  of  the  Cisalpine 
Gaul  for  a  term  of  years,  joined  to  the  preceding 
parts  of  his  conduct,  would  have  given  a  general 
alarm,  and  opened  at  once  the  whole  extent  of 
his  design. 

It  was  necessary,  therefore,  in  order  to  obtain 
this  object,  to  set  aside  the  authority  of  the  senate, 
and  to  procure  his  nomination  by  some  degree  of 
surprise.  The  tribune  Vatinius  accordingly, 
upon  a  rumour  that  the  Helvetii,  or  the  nations 
inhabiting  from  mount  Jura  to  the  Alps,  were 
likely  to  cause  some  commotion  on  the  frontier 
of  Gaul,  moved  the  people  to  set  aside  the  law  of 
Sempronius,  and,  by  virtue  of  their  own  supreme 
power,  to  name  Caesar  as  proconsul  of  the  Ci- 
salpine Gaul  and  Illyricum  for  five  years  with  an 
army  of  three  legions.  The  senatorial!  party,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  were  greatly  alarmed 
at  this  proposal.  They  vainly,  however,  hoped 
to  evade  it  by  substituting  another  appointment 


8  Lex  Sempronia,  vid.  b.  li.  c.  3. 
2B 


for  Caesar  in  place  of  this  province.  It  was  pro- 
posed to  make  him  superintendant  of  the  public 
forests  throughout  the  empire  ;  a  charge  which, 
though  not,  in  our  acceptation  of  the  word,  a 
province,  however,  like  every  other  public  depart- 
ment in  that  empire,  known  by  this  name.  This 
substitute  for  the  government  of  the  Cisalpine 
Gaul  was  thought  to  be  the  better  chosen,  that  it 
neither  implied  nor  required  the  command  of  an 
army,  and  was  to  withhold  the  engine  of  military 
power  from  a  person  so  likely  to  abuse  it.  This 
weak  attempt,  however,  against  so  able  an  adver- 
sary, only  tended  to  expose  the  meaning  of  those 
by  whom  it  was  made,  and  by  showing  to  the 
senate  their  own  weakness,  hurried  them  into 
concessions  which  perhaps  might  have  been 
otherwise  avoided.  In  order  that  Caesar  might 
not  owe  every  thing  to  the  people  and  nothing  to 
them,  they  extended  his  command  at  once  to  both 
sides  of  the  Alps.  On  the  one  side  pf  these 
mountains  he  had  a  station  from  which  to  over- 
awe the  city :  on  the  other,  he  had  a  great  extent 
of  territory,  and  a  theatre  of  war  on  which  he 
might  form  an  army  and  inure  them  to  service. 
The  senate,  seeing  he  had  already,  by  a  vote  of 
the  people,  obtained  the  first  with  an  army  of 
three  legions  for  five  years;  and  imagining  that 
it  was  no  longer  of  any  use  to  oppose  him ;  or 
hoping  to  occupy  Ins  attention,  or  to  wear  out  the 
five  years  of  his  command  in  wars  that  might 
arise  beyond  the  Alps,  they  joined  to  his  province 
on  the  Po  that  of  the  Transalpine  Gaul,  with  an 
additional  legion .  In  this  manner,  whether  from 
these  or  any  similar  reasons,  it  is  affirmed  by 
some  of  the  historians,^  that  the  senate  even  out- 
ran the  people  in  concessions  to  Caesar ;  and  to 
this  occasion  is  referred  the  memorable  saying 
of  Cato:  "Now  you  have  taken  to  yourselves  a 
king,  and  have  placed  him  with  his  guards  in 
your  citadel,"10 

Caesar  at  the  same  time,  on  the  motion  of  the 
tribune  Vatinius,  was  empowered  to  settle  a  Ro- 
man colony  on  the  lake  Larius  at  Novum  Co- 
mum,  with  full  authority  to  confer  the  privilege 
of  Roman  citizens  on  those  who  should  settle  in 
this  place.  Having  obtained  the  great  object  of 
his  consulate,  in  his  appointment  for  a  term  of 
years  to  the  command  of  an  army  within  the 
Alps,  he  no  longer  kept  any  measures  with  the 
senate,  nor  allowed  them  any  merit  in  the  advan- 
tages he  had  gained.  He  was  aware  of  their 
malice,  he  said,  and  had  prevailed  in  every  suit, 
not  by  their  concession,  but  in  direct  opposition 
to  their  will.  Though  capable  of  great  com- 
mand of  temper,  and  of  the  deepest  dissimula- 
tion when  in  pursuit  of  his  object,  he  appears,  on 
this  and  other  occasions,  to  have  had  a  vanity 
which  he  indulged,  in  braving  the  world  when 
his  end  was  obtained.11  As  he  nisulled  the  senate 
when  no  longer  depending  on  their  concurrence 
for  any  of  his  objects,  so  he  no  longer  disguised 
his  connexion  with  Pompey  and  Crassus,  or  the 
means  by  which  in  his  late  measures,  the  con- 
currence of  these  rivals  had  been  obtained. 

As  such  combinations  and  cabals  generally 
have  an  invidious  aspect  to  those  who  are  ex- 
cluded from  them,  the  triumvirate,  for  so  it  be- 
gan to  be  called  in  detestation  and  irony,  not- 

9  Sueton.  in  Jul.  Citsare.  c.  21. 

10  Plutarch,  in  Catone.  Dio.  C  ass.  lib.  x.wVin.  Ap- 
pian.  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  ii. 

H  Sucton.  in  Ca  saie,  lib.  ii.  c  22. 


194 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


withstanding  the  popularity  or  influence  enjoyed 
by  those  who  had  formed  it,1  became  an  object  of 
aversion  and  general  abuse.2  They  were  re- 
ceived at  all  public  places  with  groans  and  ex- 
pressions of  hatred.  An  actor,  performing  on  the 
public  theatre,  applied  to  Pompey  a  sentence  of 
reproach,  which  occurred  in  the  part  he  was  act- 
ing. The  application  was  received  with  peals  of 
applause,  and  called  for  again  and  again.3 

The  edicts  that  were  published  by  Bibulus  in 
opposition  to  Caesar  were  extolled,  and  received 
with  avidity.  The  places  of  the  streets  at  which 
they  were  posted  up  were  so  crowded  with  multi- 
tudes assembled  to  read  them,  that  the  ways  were 
obstructed.  Caesar  and  Pompey  endeavoured  to 
lessen  the  effect  of  these  edicts  in  speeches  to  the 
people,  but  were  ill  heard.  Pompey  lost  his  temper 
and  his  spirit,  and  sunk  in  his  consideration  as 
much  as  Caesar  advanced  in  power.  It  became 
manifest  even  to  the  people,  that  Caesar  had  pro- 
cured their  conjunction  for  his  own  conveniency  ;4 
but  Pompey  himself  probably  felt  that  he  was  too 
far  advanced  to  recede. 

The  senate,  and  all  the  most  respectable  citi- 
zens of  Rome,  though  unanimous  in  their  detes- 
tation of  the  design  that  was  formed  by  Caesar, 
Pompey,  and  Crassus,  to  dispose  of  the  republic 
at  their  pleasure,  yet  either  were,  or  believed 
themselves,  unable  to  cope  with  the  power  of  so 
many  factions  united.  Caesar,  in  order  to  hold  by 
force  what  he  gained  by  artifice,  and  by  some  de- 
gree of  surprise,  filled  the  streets  with  his  re- 
tainers in  arms,  and  showed,  that,  in  case  of  any 
attempt  to  recal  what  had  been  so  weakly  given 
up  to  him,  he  was  in  condition  to  resist,  and  to 
lay  the  city  in  blood.  If  he  were  driven  from 
Rome,  he  had  provided  within  the  Alps  an  army 
of  two  or  three  complete  legions,  with  which  he 
could  maintain  his  province,  or  even  recover  his 
possession  of  the  city.  Every  one  censured,  com- 
plained, and  lamented  ;  but  there  was  little  con- 
cert, and  less  vigour,  even  among  the  members  of 
the  senate. 

Cato,  with  his  declared  disapprobation  of  the 
late  measures,  was  reduced  to  the  single  expedient 
of  assisting  Bibulus  in  drawing  up  the  edicts  or 
manifestos  against  the  proceedings  of  Caesar, 
which  were,  at  this  time  received  with  so  much 
avidity  by  the  people. 

Cicero  now  declined  taking  part  in  any  affair 
of  state ;  but  being  known  for  an  advocate,  was 
courted  in  this  capacity  by  many  citizens,  who 
had  affairs  in  dependence  before  the  courts  of 
justice,  and  apprehending  an  attack  which  was 
likely  to  be  made  upon  himself,  on  account  of  the 
transactions,  of  his  consulate,  he  avoided,  as  much 
as  possible,  giving  offence  to  any  of  the  parties 
which  divided  the  commonwealth.  The  storm 
was  to  be  directed  against  him  by  Publius  Clo- 


1  The  titles  of  duumvirs,  triumvirs,  and  so  on,  were 
the  designations  of  legal  commissions  at  Rome  acting 
under  public  authority;  such  title  was  given  to  the 
private  coalition  of  these  adventurers  in  mere  irony. 

2  Cicer.  ad.  Att.  lib.  ii.  ep.  16. 

3  "To  our  misfortune  thou  art  great."  He  was 
called  upon  to  repeat  these  words  again  and  again  in- 
numerable times.  "The  time  will  come  when  thou 
shalt  rue  this  state  ;"  likewise  repeated  with  peals  of 
applause,  &c.  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.  epist.  19.  Val. 
Max.  lib.  vi.  c.  2. 

4  One  of  the  sentences,  so  much  applauded  in  its 
application  to  him  at  the  theatre,  was,  "  Eandem 
vrrtutem  tempus  veniet  oura  gravitor  gemes." 


dius,  under  whose  animosity  to  the  governmen 
of  the  nobles,  and  to  Cicero  in  particular,  it  was 
perceived  for  some  time  to  be  gathering.5 

This  bustling  profligate  having,  in  the  former 
year,  in  order  that  he  might  be  qualified  for  tri- 
bune of  the  people,  got  himself  adopted  into  a 
plebeian  family,  could  not  obtain  the  necessary 
ratification  of  the  deed  of  adoption  in  the  assem- 
bly of  the  curiae,  until  his  cause  was  espoused  by 
Caesar,  who  seems  to  have  taken  his  part,  in  re- 
sentment of  some  insinuations  thrown  out  against 
himself  by  Cicero,  in  pleading  for  M.  Antonius, 
his  late  colleague  in  the  consulate.  Antonius 
being,  as  has  been  mentioned,  on  account  of  his 
administration  in  Macedonia,  accused  of  extor- 
tion, was  defended  by  Cicero,  who  took  that  oc- 
casion to  lament  the  state  of  the  republic,  brought 
under  subjection  as  it  was  by  a  cabal  which  ruled 
by  violence,  and  in  contempt  of  the  law.  Caesar 
was  greatly  provoked:  "This  person,"  he  said, 
"  takes  the  same  liberty  to  vilify  the  reputation 
of  others,  that  he  takes  to  extol  his  own  f*  and 
upon  those  expressions,  considered  as  a  warning 
of  the  part  which  Cicero  was  likely  to  take  in  his 
absence,  he  determined  not  to  leave  him  at  the 
head  of  the  senatorian  party  to  operate  against 
him.  His  destruction  might  be  effected  merely 
by  expediting  the  formality  of  Clodius's  adoption 
into  a  plebeian  family,  to  qualify  him  for  tribune 
of  the  people  ;6  and  Caesar,  on  the  very  day  in 
which  he  received  this  provocation  from  Cicero, 
permitted  the  act  of  adoption  to  pass  in  the  as- 
sembly of  the  curia. 

Pompey  likewise  concurred  in  executing  this 
deed  of  adoption  for  Clodius,  and  assisted  in  the 
quality  of  augur  to  carry  it  through  the  religious 
forms.  Clodius,  in  the  mean  time,  gave  out,  that 
he  had  no  design  on  the  tribunate,  but  was  solicit- 
ing an  embassy  to  Tigranes  king  of  Armenia. 
Cicero  was  so  much  blinded  by  this  pretence, 
that  he  was  merry  in  his  letter  to  Atticus  on  the 
absurdity  of  Clodius,  in  having  himself  degraded 
into  a  plebeian,  merely  to  qualify  him  to  appear 
at  the  court  of  Tigranes.  He  was  merry  like- 
wise with  his  not  being  put  on  the  commission  of 
twenty  for  the  execution  of  Caesar's  Agrarian 
law.  "  Strange  !"  he  said,  "  that  he  who  was 
once  the  only  male  creature  in  Caesar's  house, 
cannot  now  find  one  place  among  twenty  in  this 
list  of  his  friends."7 

The  more  effectually  to  impose  upon  Cicero 
and  his  friends,  Caesar  affected  to  believe,  that  the 
intention  of  Clodius  was  against  himself,  and 
taken  up  with  the  animosity  of  a  person  who  had 
already  attempted  to  dishonour  his  house  ;8  and 
he  pretended  to  dispute  the  validity  of  his  adop- 
tion, and  of  consequence,  his  qualification  to  be 
elected  a  tribune.  Pompey  joined  in  the  same 
vile  artifice.  "  Nay,"  says  Cicero,  upon  hearing 
of  their  pretended  opposition  to  Clodius,  "  this  is 
perfect  tyranny.  Only  send  the  proper  officers  to 
me,  and  I  will  give  my  affidavit,  that  Pompey  told 
me  himself  he  had  assisted  as  augur  in  passing 
that  decree."9 

With  these  transactions  the  year  of  Caesar's 


5  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.  epist.  19,  20,  21,  22,  23. 

6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxviii  c.  10.  &c.  Plutarch,  in 
Cicerone.  Cicero  pro  domo  sua,  de  Provinciis  Con. 
sularibus,  &c. 

7  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.  epist.  7. 

8  In  the  intrigue  with  Cresar's  wife. 

9  Cic  ad  Att.  epist.  10.   Vul.  12. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


195 


consulate  drew  to  a  close.  He  ratified  his  treaty 
with  Pompey,  by  giving  him  his  daughter  Julia  in 
marriage.  During  the  former  part  of  the  year, 
this  lady  had  been  promised  to  Servilius  Csepio, 
and  had  been  of  great  use  to  her  father,  by  se- 
curing the  services  of  Caepio  against  Bibulus. 
Servilius,  on  his  disappointment,  was  pacified  by 
the  promise  of  Pompey's  daughter.  Caesar  him- 
self married  the  daughter  of  Calpurnius  Piso, 
who,  together  with  Gabinius,  the  creature  of 
Pompey,  was  destined  to  succeed  in  the  consu- 
late, and  who  was,  by  this  alliance,  secured  in  the 
interest  of  Caesar.  "Provinces,  armies,  and 
kingdoms,"  said  Cato  on  this  occasion,  "  are 
made  the  dowries  of  women,10  and  the  empire 
itself  an  appendage  of  female  prostitution." 

In  this  situation  of  affairs,  and  among  parties 
who  dealt  in  impositions  and  artifices,  as  well  as 
in  open  and  daring  measures,  some  particulars 
are  recorded,  which,  to  gain  our  belief,  require 
some  acquaintance  with  the  manners  of  the  times. 
Vettius,  a  citizen  of  some  note,  who  had  been 
employed  by  Cicero  in  the  time  of  his  consulship 
to  gain  intelligence  of  the  Catiline  conspiracy, 
now  himself  appeared  as  the  author  of  a  plot,  of 
which  the  origin  and  the  issue  were  matter  of 
various  conjecture.  Knowing  that  Curio,  a  young 
man  of  high  rank,  and  a  declared  enemy  of  Cae- 
sar, was  on  bad  terms  likewise  with  Pompey,  he 
told  him  in  confidence,  that  he  himself  had  deter- 
mined to  assassinate  Pompey,  and  proposed  to 
Curio  to  join  with  him  in  that  design.  The  young 
man  communicated  the  matter  to  his  father,  and 
the  father  to  Pompey,  who  laid  it  before  the  senate. 
Vettius  being  examined  in  the  senate,  at  first  de- 
nied any  intercourse  with  Curio,  but  afterwards 
confessed,  that  he  had  been  drawn  into  a  con- 
spiracy with  this  young  man,  with  Lucullus, 
Brutus,  Bibulus.  and  some  others,  who  had 
formed  a  design  on  Pompey's  life. 

It  was  strongly  suspected,  that  Csesar  had  em- 
ployed Vettius  to  frame  this  imposture,  in  order 
that  he  might  engage  some  of  those  persons  in  a 
criminal  correspondence;  and  that  it  was  in- 
tended, as  soon  as  he  had  laid  some  foundation 
for  an  imputation  of  guilt  against  them,  that  he 
should,  with  a  party  of  slaves,  armed  with  dag- 
gers, put  himself  in  the  way  of  being  taken  ;  that 
he  should  at  first  deny  the  plot,  but  afterwards 
suffer  himself  to  be  forced,  by  degrees,  to  confess, 
and  to  declare  his  pretended  accomplices ;  that 
this  plan  was  disconcerted  by  the  early  intima- 
tion which  Curio  gave  to  his  father,  before  all  the 
circumstances  intended  to  give  it  an  air  of  proba- 
bility were  in  readiness. 

It  was  scarcely  possible,  however,  that  Caesar 
should  have  committed  his  reputation  to  the 
hazard  of  detection  in  so  infamous  a  project.  He 
laid  hold  of  it  indeed  with  some  avidity,  and  en- 
deavoured to  turn  it  against  his  opponents.  After 
Vettius  had  been  examined  before  the  senate, 
and  was  committed  to  prison  for  farther  examina- 
tion, Caesar  presented  him  to  the  people,  and 
brought  him  into  the  rostra,  to  declare  what  he 
knew  of  this  pretended  bloody  design.  The 
prisoner  repeated  his  confession,  but  varied  in 
the  account  of  his  accomplices,  particularly  in 
leaving  Brutus  out  of  the  list;  a  circumstance 
likewise,  in  the  scandal  of  the  times,  imputed  to 
the  partiality  of  Caesar,  and  considered  as  proof 


10  Plutarch,  in  Catone. 


of  his  clandestine  relation  to  this  young  man. 
Vettius  was  remanded  to  prison,  and  a  process 
commenced  against  him  on  the  statute  of  in- 
tended assassination.  A  trial  must  have  proba- 
bly disclosed  the  whole  scene,  and  for  this  reason 
was  said  to  have  been  prevented,  by  the  sudden 
death  of  Vettius,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been 
strangled  by  order  of  Caesar  in  prison.11 

By  the  influence  of  Pompey  and 
U.  C.  695.  Csesar,  Gabinius  and  Piso  were 
L  Calvur-  elected  consuls  ;  and,  by  their  con- 
nius  Piso  Ce-  nivance,  Clodius  became  tribune  of 
sonianus,  the  people.  The  ascendant  they 
A.  Gabinius  had  gained,  however,  was  extreme- 
Jfepos.  Yy  disagreeable  to  many  of  the  other 

officers  of  state,  and  even  to  some 
of  the  tribunes.  L.  Domrtius  Ahenobarbus  and 
C.  Memius  Gemellus  joined  in  an  accusation 
against  Caesar,  late  consul,  for  proceedings  in  office 
contrary  to  law  and  religion.  Caesar,  for  some 
time,  affected  to  join  issue  with  him  on  these 
questions,  and  to  submit  his  cause  to  judgment ; 
but  apprehending  delay  and  trouble,  without  any 
advantage  from  such  an  enquiry,  he  pleaded  his 
privilege  as  a  person  destined  for  public  service ; 
and  accordingly,  without  staying  to  answer  this 
charge,  withdrew  from  the  city,  and  continued  to 
make  his  levies,  and  to  assemble  his  army  in  the 
suburbs  of  Rome. 

In  this  posture  of  affairs,  one  of  the  quaestors, 
who  had  served  under  Ca?sar  in  his  consulship, 
was  convicted  of  some  misdemeanor  ;12  and  the 
opposite  party,  as  if  they  had  of  a  sudden  broke 
the  chains  in  which  they  were  held,  commenced 
suits  against  all  the  tools  that  had  been  employed 
by  him  in  his  late  violent  measures.  Gabinius 
had  been  charged  with  bribery  by  Caius  Cato, 
then  a  young  man.  But  the  praetor,  whose  lot  it 
was  to  exercise  the  jurisdiction  in  such  cases, 
being  under  the  influence  of  Pompey,  evaded  the 
question.  Caius  Cato  complained  to  the  people, 
and,  having  said  that  Pompey  usurwd  a  dicta- 
torial power,  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life.13 

Vatinius  was  accused  before  the  praetor  Mem- 
mius,  who  willingly  received  the  accusation ;  but 
all  proceedings  were  suddenly  stopped  by  the  in- 
terposition of  Clodius  in  the  capacity  of  tribune; 
and  the  attention  of  the  people  and  of  the  senate 
soon  came  to  be  more  entirely  occupied  with  the 
designs  of  this  factious  adventurer. 

The  ruin  of  Cicero  appears  to  have  been  the 
principal  object  which  Clodius  proposed  to  him- 
self in  entering  on  the  office  of  tribune ;  and  this, 
though  affecting  to  be  of  the  popular  part)-,  he 
pursued  chiefly  from  motives  of  personal  ani- 
mosity and  resentment.  Cicero  had  given  evi- 
dence against  him  on  his  trial,  and  afterwards  in 
the  senate  made  him  the  object  of  his  wit  and  in- 
vective.14 He  is  generally  represented  by  Cicero 
as  effeminate  and  profligate,  void  of  discretion  or 
prudence.  On  the  present  occasion,  however,  he 
seems  to  have  managed  with  considerable  steadi- 
ness and  address.  He  acted  evidently  in  concert 
with  Caesar,  Pompey,  and  Crassus ;  but  proba- 
bly had  not  from  them  any  particular  direction  in 
what  manner  he  was  to  proceed. 

Ever  since  the  summary  proceedings  which 


11  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  ii.  epist.  24.   Sueton.  in  Ca- 

sare,  c.  20. 

12  Sueton.  in  Nerone,  c.  ii.  et  in  Caegare,  e.  23. 

13  Cicero  ad  Quint.  Prat.  lib.  i.  epist.  2. 
U  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  i. 


196 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


Were  employed  against  the  accomplices  of  Cati- 
line, the  danger  of  this  precedent  was  a  favourite 
topic  with  the  popular  faction.  Clodius  professed 
that  the  object  of  his  tribunate  was  to  provide  a 
guard  against  this  danger.  He  began  with  pay- 
ing his  court  to  different  parties  and  different  or- 
ders of  men  in  the  republic,  by  proposing  acts  fa- 
vourable to  each ;  and  he  stated  his  motion  for  the 
better  securing  of  the  people  against  arbitrary 
executions,  which  he  meant  in  the  end  to  apply 
to  Cicero,  as  but  one  of  many  regulations  intended 
by  him  for  the  benefit  of  the  public,  and  which  he 
joined  with  some  acts  of  gratification  to  private 
persons.  He  gained  the  present  consuls  by  pro- 
Curing  them  lucrative  appointment^  at  the  ex- 
piration of  their  year  in  office ;  to  Piso,  Macedo- 
nia including  Achaia ;  to  Gabinius,  Syria  with  a 
considerable  addition  beyond  the  usual  bounds  of 
the  province.1  He  gained  the  indigent  part  of  the 
people  by  an  act  to  remit  all  the  debts  which  were 
due  for  corn  at  the  public  granaries ;  and  by  or- 
dering, for  the  future,  the  distributions  from  thence 
to  be  made  gratuitously.2  He,  at  the  same  time, 
procured  another  act  extremely  agreeable  to  many 
of  the  citizens,  for  restoring  and  increasing  the 
number  of  corporations  which  had  been  abolished 
about  nine  years  before,  on  account  of  the  trou- 
bles to  which  they  gave  rise. 

The  meeting  of  corporate  bodies,  in  a  city  so 
much  addicted  to  faction  and  tumult,  had  been 
the  cause  of  frequent  disorders.  As  persons,  af- 
fecting to  govern  the  state,  endeavoured  to  gain 
the  people,  by  indulging  their  passions  for  idle- 
ness and  pleasure,  with  games,  theatrical  enter- 
tainments, combats  of  gladiators,  and  the  baiting 
of  wild  beasts;  so  the  head  of  every  corporate 
body,  though  upon  a  smaller  scale,  had  his  feasts, 
his  entertainments,  and  shows,  forming  his  party 
of  retainers,  on  occasion,  to  maintain  his  preten- 
sions by  force.  The  renewal,  therefore,  of  such 
establishments,  a  measure  which  carried  to  every 
tradesman  in  his  stall  the  feeling  and  consequence 
of  a  Crass  us,  a  Pompey,  and  a  Caesar,  affecting 
to  govern  the  world  in  their  respective  ways,  was 
greedily  adopted  by  the  lower  people.  And  Clo- 
dius took  the  opportunity  of  the  first  popular  meet- 
ings to  awaken  and  to  direct  their  zeal  to  his  own 
purpose.3  He  even  gained  a  considerable  party 
in  the  senate  by  affecting  to  circumscribe  the  dis- 
cretionary power  of  the  censors  over  this  body. 
Many  of  the  members  had  reason  to  dread  the 
censorial  animadversions,  and  were  pleased  with 
an  act  which  he  obtained  to  provide,  that  for  the 
future,  no  one  could  be  struck  off  the  rolls  of  the 
senate  without  a  formal  trial,  and  the  concurrence 
of  both  the  censors.4 

Joined  to  so  many  arts  practised  to  reconcile 
different  parties  to  the  measures  he  affected  to 
take  for  the  security  of  the  people's  liberties,  Clo- 
dius promulgated  his  law  of  provision  against  ar- 
bitrary executions,  and  gave  it  a  retrospect  which 
was  undoubtedly  meant  to  comprehend  the  sum- 
mary proceedings  which  had  been  held  against 
Cethegus  and  Lentulus  in  the  consulate  of  Ci- 
cero. While  the  subject  was  in  dependence,  he 
thought  of  two  circumstances  that  might  operate 

1  Plutarch,  in  Cicerone. 

2  Paedianus  in  Pisoniana.  Dio.  lib.  xxxviii.  Cicero 
pro  Domo  sua. 

3  Dio.  lib.  xxxviii.  c.  13.  Cicero  in  Pisonein,  c.  4.  et 
Ascanius,  ibid. 

4  Ibid.  See  a  summary  of  these  acts.  Cicero  pro 
teextio,  from  c.  15  to  c.  28. 


against  him,  and  which  he  was  therefore  deter 
mined  to  prevent.  One  was,  the  practice  of  re- 
curring to  the  celestial  auspices  by  which  the 
proceedings  of  the  people  were  sometimes  sus- 
pended ;  and  the  other  Was,  the  opposition  which 
he  might  expect  from  Cato,  who  Was  likely  to 
consider  the  cause  of  the  senate  and  the  republic 
as  involved  in  that  of  the  magistrate^  who  had 
preserved  the  state  by  executing  their  decrees. 
To  Secure  himself  against  the  first,  he  procured 
an  edict  to  prohibit  all  persons  from  observing  the 
heavens  while  the  people  were  deliberating  on 
any  affair  of  state ;  and  to  obviate  the  second,  he 
thought  of  a  pretence  for  a  temporary  removal  of 
Cato  from  Rome. 

In  the  preceding  consulate,  Cato,  though  arfncd 
as  he  was  solely  with  the  reputation  of  integrity, 
Unable  to  prevent  the  progress  of  a  ruinous  fac- 
tion affecting  popular  measures,  yet  by  his  un- 
remitted opposition,  he  forced  them,  on  occasion, 
to  show  what  Pompey  in  particular  was  ex- 
tremely desirous  to  conceal,  that  they  prevailed 
by  corruption  and  force,  not  by  what  they  pre- 
tended, the  free  choice  of  their  fellow-citizensi 
Clodius  foreseeing  a  like  opposition,  and  possibly 
a  disappointment  in  his  design  against  Cicero,  if 
Cato  continued  at  Rome,  devised  a  commission  to 
employ  him  in  foreign  service.  Ptolomy,  king  of 
Cyprus,  had  put  a  personal  affront  on  Clodius, 
by  refusing  to  pay  his  ransom  when  taken  by  pi- 
rates on  the  coast  of  Asia  near  to  that  island. 
He  now  took  an  opportunity  to  be  revenged  on 
him,  by  procuring  an  act  to  forfeit  his  kingdom 
and  his  treasure;  and  by  making  Cato  the  in- 
strument of  his  revenge,  he  proposed  to  free  him- 
self at  the  same  time  from  the  interruption  which 
this  citizen  was  likely  to  give  to  his  projects  at 
Rome.5 

At  an  interview  with  Cato;  Clodius  had  the 
impudence  to  pretend  great  admiration  of  his  vir- 
tue ;  told  him,  that  the  commission  to  reduce  Cy- 
prus into  the  form  of  a  province  was  solicited  by 
many ;  but  that  he  knew  of  none  who,  by  his 
faithfulness  and  integrity,  was  so  well  qualified 
for  the  trust  as  Cato,  and  that  he  meant  to  propose 
him  to  the  people.  "  That,"  said  Cato,  "  I  know  is 
a  mere  artifice;  not  an  honour,  but  an  indignity  in- 
tended to  me.'5  "  Nay,"  said  Clodius,  "if  you  do 
not  go  willingly,  you  shall  go  by  force ;"  and  on 
that  very  day  moved  and  obtained  his  nomination 
from  the  people.  Lest  the  affair  of  Cyprus  should 
not  detain  him  a  sufficient  time,  he  was  farther 
charged  in  his  commission  to  repair  to  Byzantium 
to  restore  some  exiles,  and  to  quiet  some  troubles 
which  had  arisen  at  that  place. 

Caesar  and  Pompey  likewise  concurred  in  pro- 
curing this  commission  to  Cato,  in  order  to  re- 
move a  powerful  support  from  the  praetors  Mem- 
mius  and  Domitius,  whose  proposal  to  repeal  all 
the  acts  of  Caesar  was  yet  in  dependence. 

The  storm  was  now  prepared  to  fall  upon  the 
magistrate  who  had  presided  in  the  suppression 
of  Catiline's  party,  and  no  man  had  any  doubt 
of  its  direction.  Cato,  before  he  left  Rome,  see- 
ing Caesar  in  possession  of  the  gates  with  an 
army,  and  ready,  in  the  event  of  any  tumult, 
under  pretence  of  quieting  disorders,  to  enter 
the  city  by  force,  and  to  seize  on  the  government ; 
and  apprehending,  that  the  cause  in  dependence, 
however  just,  was  altogether  desperate,  earnestly 


5  Cicero  pro  Sextio. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


197 


exhorted  Cicero,  rather  to  yield  and  to  withdraw 
from  the  city,  than  to  bring  matters  to  extremi- 
ties in  the  present  state  of  the  republic.6 

Cicero,  however,  was  for  some  time  undecided. 
Having  secured  the  support  of  L.  Ninius  Q.ua- 
dratus,  one  of  the  tribunes,  he  proposed  to  ob- 
struct the  proceedings  of  his  enemy,  and  to  give 
a  negative  to  all  his  motions.  Afterwards,  upon 
assurances  from  Clodius,  that  the  purpose  of  the 
act  was  altogether  general,  and  had  no  special 
relation  to  himself,  he  was  prevailed  on  not  to 
divide  the  college  of  tribunes,  or  to  engage  his 
friends  in  the  invidious  task  of  giving  a  negative 
to  a  law,  that  was  intended  merely  to  guard  the 
people  against  arbitrary  proceedings.7 

Clodius,  having  obtained  this  advantage,  no 
longer  made  any  secret  of  his  design  against 
Cicero,  and  boasted  of  the  concurrence  of  Caesar 
and  Pompey.  In  this  neither  of  these  professed 
friends  of  Cicero  denied  the  imputation  ;8  but  ex- 
cused themselves  in  private  by  pleading,  that 
while  their  own  acts  of  the  preceding  year  were 
still  questioned  by  the  praetor,  it  was  necessary 
for  them  to  keep  terms  with  so  violent  a  tribune  ;9 
but  Pompey,  together  with  this  apology  for  his 
present  conduct,  gave  Cicero  the  strongest  assur- 
ances of  future  protection.  "This  tribune,"  he 
said,  "shall  kill  me  before  he  injure  you."  It  is 
not  credible  that  Pompey  then  meant  to  betray 
him;  it  was  sufficiently  base  that,  in  the  sequel, 
he  did  not  keep  his  word.  On  the  contrary, 
when  his  aid  came  to  be  most  Wanted  by  his  in- 
jured friend,  he  retired  to  the  country,  under 
pretence  of  business;  and  being  at  his  villa  near 
Alba,  where  Lentulus,  Lucullus,  and  many  of 
the  most  respectable  senators  repaired  to  him 
with  the  warmest  entreaties  in  behalf  of  a  person 
to  whose  eloquence  and  panegyric  he  owed  so 
many  of  his  honours,  he  coldly  referred  them  to 
the  ordinary  officers  of  state  for  protection,  say- 
ing, that  as  a  private  citizen  he  could  not  contend 
with  a  furious  tribune  at  the  head  of  an  armed 
people.10 

In  the  mean  time,  the  consul  Gabinius,  though 
under  the  absolute  direction  of  Pompey,  promoted 
the  attack  against  Cicero,  and  checked  everj 
attempt  that  was  made  in  his  favour.  When 
the  equestrian  order,  together  with  numbers  of 
the  most  respectable  citizens  from  every  quarter 
of  Italy,  crowded  in  mourning  to  Rome,  and  pre- 
sented a  memorial  to  the  senate  in  his  behalf ; 
and  when  the  members  proposed  to  take  mourn- 
ing, and  to  intercede  with  the  people,  Gabinius 
suddenly  left  the  chair,  broke  up  the  meeting, 
went  directly  from  thence  to  the  assembly  of  the 
people,  where  he  threw  out  injurious  insinuations 
against  the  senate,  and  mentioned  the  meetings 
which  had  been  held  by  the  equestrian  order,  as 
riotous  and  seditious  tumults;  said,  that  the 
knights  ought  to  be  cautious  how  they  revived 
the  memory  of  that  part  which  they  themselves  had 
acted  in  the  violent  measures  which  were  now 
coming  under  review,  and  which  were  so  likely 
to  meet  with  a  just  retribution  from  the  people. 

In  this  extremity  Cicero  attempted  to  see  Pom- 
pey in  person  at  his  country-house ;  but  while 
the  suppliant  was  entering  at  one  door,  this 


6  Plutarch,  in  Catone.      T  Dio.  lib.  xxxviii.c.  14. 

8  Cicero  post  Redituin  in  Scnatum. 

9  Ibid,  pro  Sextio,  c.  17  et  1«. 

10  Cieero  ia  Pisonem. 


treacherous  friend  withdrew  at  another. u  No 
longer  doubting  that  he  was  betrayed  by  a  per- 
son on  whom  he  had  so  fully  relied,  he  began  to 
be  agitated  by  a  variety  of  counsels  and  projects. 
He  was  invited  by  Caesar  to  place  himself  in  the 
station  of  lieutenant  in  his  province  of  Gaul ;  and, 
in  that  public  character  abroad,  to  take  refuge 
from  the  storm  that  was  gathering  against  him 
in  Italy.  But  this,  from  a  person  who  had  so 
much  contributed  to  raise  the  storm,  was  sup- 
posed to  proceed  from  a  design  to  insult  or  betray 
him ;  or  at  best  to  reduce  him  to  a  state  of  de- 
pendence on  himself.  Being  attended  by  a  nu- 
merous body  of  citizens,  chiefly  of  the  equestrian 
order,  who  had  taken  arms  in  his  cause,  he  some- 
times had  thoughts  of  defending  himself  by  force; 
at  other  times,  he  despaired  of  his  fortunes,  and 
as  appears  from  his  letters,  proposed  to  kill  him- 
self ;  and  was  diverted  from  this  intention  only 
by  the  entreaties  and  anxious  care  of  his  friends. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs,  when  Clodius 
assembled  the  people  to  pass  the  act  he  had  fram- 
ed against  arbitrary  executions.  He  had  sum- 
moned them  to  meet  in  the  suburbs,  that  Caesar, 
who  on  account  of  his  military  command  was 
then  excluded  from  the  city,  might  be  present. 
This  artful  politician  being  called  upon  among 
the  first  to  deliver  his  opinion ;  with  an  appear- 
ance of  moderation  and  unwillingness  to  bear 
hard  on  any  person  to  whom  the  law  might  ap- 
ply, referred  the  people  to  his  former  declarations ; 
said,  that  every  one  knew  his  mind  on  the  sub- 
ject of  arbitrary  executions ;  that  he  approved  the 
act  which  was  now  proposed,  as  far  as  it  provided 
against  such  offences  for  the  future ;  but  could 
not  approve  of  its  having  a  retrospect  to  any 
transaction  already  passed. 

While  Caesar  thus,  in  delivering  his  own  opi- 
nion, affected  to  go  no  farther  than  consistency 
and  a  regard  to  his  former  conduct  seemed  to 
require,  he  permitted  or  directed  his  party  to  go 
every  length  with  Clodius,  and  meant  either  to 
ruin  Cicero,  or  force  him  to  accept  of  protection 
on  the  terms  that  should  be  prescribed  to  him. 

When  the  general  law  had  passed,  there  was 
yet  no  mention  of  Cicero ;  and  his  enemies  might 
have  still  found  it  a  difficult  matter  to  carry  the 
application  to  him  ;  but  he  himself,  in  the  anguish 
of  his  mind,  anticipated  the  accusation,  wentYorth 
in  mourning  to  the  streets,  and  implored  mercy 
of  every  citizen  wit  h  an  aspect  of  dejection,  which 
probably  did  not  encourage  any  party  to  espouse 
his  cause.  He  was  frequently  met  in  this  con- 
dition, and  insulted  by  Clodius,  who  walked  in 
the  streets,  attended  by  an  armed  rabble ;  and  he 
determined  at  last  to  abandon  the  city.  Being 
escorted  by  a  company  of  his  friends,"he  passed 
through  the  gates  in  the  middle  of  the  night  on 
the  first  of  April,  took  the  road  of  Lucania,  and 
intended  to  have  made  his  retreat  into  Sicily, 
where  the  memory  of  his  administration  in  the 
capacity  of  quaestor,  and  the  continued  effects  of 
his  patronage  at  Rome,  were  likely  to  procure 
him  a  favourable  reception.12  But  Clodius,  im- 
mediately upon  his  departure,  having  carried  a 
special  attainder,  by  which,  in  the  language  of 
such  acts,  he  was  interdicted  the  use  of  fire  and 
water;  and  by  which  every  person  within  five 
hundred  miles  of  Italy  was  forbid,  under  severe 


11  Plutarch,  in  Cicerone. 

12  Vid.  Actionem  in  Verrem. 


198 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


penalties  to  harbour  him ;  Virgilius,  the  praetor 
of  Sicily,  though  his  friend,  declined  to  receive 
him.  He  turned  from  thence  to  Brundusium, 
passed  into  Macedonia,  and  would  have  fixed  his 
residence  at  Athens ;  but  apprehending  that  this 
place  was  within  the  distance  prescribed  to  him 
by  the  act  of  banishment,  he  went  to  Thessalo- 
mca  in  his  way  to  Cyzicum.  Here  he  had  let- 
ters that  gave  him  intimation  of  some  change  in 
his  favour,  and  entertaining  some  prospect  of 
being  speedily  recalled,  he  accordingly  determined 
to  wait  the  issue  of  this  hope. 

We  have  better  means  of  knowing  the  frailties 
of  Cicero,  than  perhaps  is  safe  for  the  reputation 
of  any  one  labouring  under  the  ordinary  defects 
of  human  nature.  He  was  open  and  undisguised 
to  his  friends,  and  has  left  an  extensive  corres- 
pondence behind  him.  Expressions  of  vanity  in 
some  passages  of  his  life,  of  pusillanimity  in  others, 
escape  him  with  uncommon  facility.  Being  at 
least  of  a  querulous  and  impatient  temper,  he 
gives  it  full  scope  in  his  exile,  perhaps  not  more 
from  weakness,  than  from  design  to  excite  his 
friends  to  redouble  their  efforts  to  have  him  re- 
stored. He  knew  the  value  of  fortitude  as  a  topic 
of  praise,  and  might  have  aspired  to  it ;  but  would 
it  not,  he  may  have  questioned,  encouraged  his 
party  to  sleep  over  his  wrongs?  In  any  other 
view,  his  complaints  resemble  more  the  wailings 
of  an  infant,  or  the  strains  of  a  tragedy  composed 
to  draw  tears,  than  the  language  of  a  man  sup- 
porting the  cause  of  integrity  in  the  midst  of 
undeserved  trouble. — "  I  wish  I  may  see  the  day," 
he  writes  to  Atticus,  "in  which  I  shall  be  dis- 
posed to  thank  you  for  having  prevailed  upon 
me  not  to  lay  violent  hands  on  myself;  for  it  is 
certainly  now  matter  of  bitter  regret  to  me  that  I 
yielded  to  you  in  that  matter."1 

In  answer  to  the  same  friend,  who  had  chid 
him  for  want  of  fortitude,  u  What  species  of  evil,"  ! 


he  says,  "  do  I  not  endure  ?  Did  ever  any  per- 
son fall  from  so  high  a  state  ?  in  so  good  a  cause  ? 
with  such  abilities  and  knowledge  ?  with  so  much 
public  esteem  ?  with  the  support  of  such  a  re- 
spectable order  of  citizens  ?  Can  I  remember 
what  I  was,  and  not  feel  what  I  am  1  Stript  of 
so  many  honours,  cut  off  in  the  career  of  so  much 
glory,  deprived  of  such  a  fortune,  tore  from  the 
arms  of  such  children,  debarred  the  view  of  such 
a  brother,  dearer  to  me  than  I  was  to  myself,  yet 
now  debarred  from  my  presence,  that  I  may  spare 
him  what  he  must  suffer  from  such  a  sight,  and 
myself  what  I  must  feel  in  being  the  cause  of 
so  much  misery  to  him.  I  could  say  more  of  a 
load  of  evils  which  is  too  heavy  for  me  to  bear ; 
but  I  am  stopped  by  my  tears."2 

From  the  whole  of  this  correspondence  of  Ci- 
cero in  his  exile,  we  may  collect  to  what  degree 
the  unjust  reproaches  which  he  had  suffered,  the 
desertion  of  those  on  whom  he  relied  for  support, 
the  dangers  to  which  he  left  his  family  exposed, 
affected  his  mind.  The  consciousness  of  his  in- 
tegrity, even  his  vanity  forsook  him ;  and  his  fine 
genius,  no  longer  employed  in  the  forum  or  in 
the  senate,  or  busied  in  the  literary  studies  which 
amused  him  afterwards3  in  a  more  calamitous 
time  of  the  republic,  now,  by  exaggerating  the 
distress  of  his  fortunes,  preyed  upon  himself.  It 
appeared  from  this,  and  many  other  scenes  of  his 
life,  that  although  he  loved  virtuous  actions,  yet 
his  virtue  was  accompanied  with  so  insatiable  a 
thirst  of  the  praise,  to  which  it  entitled  him,  that 
his  mind  was  unable  to  sustain  itself  without  this 
foreign  assistance;  and  when  the  praise  which 
was  due  to  his  consulate  was  changed  into  ob- 
loquy and  scorn,  he  seems  to  have  lost  the  sense 
of  good  or  of  evil  in  his  own  conduct  or  character ; 
and  at  Thessalonica,  where  he  fixed  the  scene  of 
his  exile,  sunk  or  rose  in  his  own  esteem,  as  he 
seemed  to  be  valued  or  neglected  at  Rome.4 


CHAPTER  VL 

Caesar  takes  Possession  of  his  Province — Migration  of  the  Helvelii — Their  Defeat — War  with 
Ariovistus — Return  of  Caesar  for  the  Winter  into  Italy — Great  Concourse  of  Citizens  to  his 
Quarters — Motion  to  recal  Cicero — Disorders  that  followed  upon  it — Consultations  of  Pompey 
and  Caesar — Augmentation  of  the  Army  in  Gaul — Second  Campaign  of  Caesar — Operations 
on  the  Aisne — On  the  Meuse  and  Sambre — Battle  with  the  Nervii — Successful  Attempt  for 
the  Restoration  of  Cicero — Controversy  Relating  to  his  House — Repeated  Riots  of  Claudius- 
Trial  of  Milo. 


WHILE  the  transaction  which  terminated  in 
the  exile  of  Cicero  was  still  in  dependence,  Cae- 
sar, although,  by  assuming  the  military  character, 
he  had  disqualified  himself  to  take  any  part  in 
civil  affairs,  had  actually  gone  from  the  city  and 
embodied  his  legions,  yet  he  still  remained  in  the 
suburbs  of  Rome  to  observe  the  issue  of  that 
business,  and  to  direct  the  conduct  of  his  party. 
He  thought  himself  too  much  interested  in  the 
event  to  leave  it  entirely  under  the  direction  of 
Pompey,  with  whom  his  own  connexion  was 
precarious,  and  might  be  of  short  duration.  He 
was  inclined  to  ruin,  if  he  could  not  gain,  a  per- 
son whose  talents  and  character  made  him  of  so 


1  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iii.  epist.  3. 


much  consequence  to  the  parties  who  contended 
for  power  in  the  state.  Having  failed  in  his  at- 
tempt to  gain  him  as  a  dependent,  and  to  carry 
him  as  part  of  his  own  retinue  into  Gaul,  he  se- 
cretly promoted  the  designs  of  Clodius,  and  em- 
ployed his  own  retainers  and  friends  against  him, 
until  he  saw  the  purpose  accomplished. 

The  provinces  of  which  Caesar  had  obtained 
the  command,  comprehended,  as  has  been  observ- 
ed, under  the  denomination  of  the  two  Gauls, 
considerable  territories  on  both  sides  of  the  Alps. 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  which  was  joined  to  Italy,  ex- 
tended to  Lucca,  not  far  from  Pisa  on  one  side 


2  Ibid,  epist.  10. 

3  See  the  Book  of  Tuscular  Questions. 

4  Vid.  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iii. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


199 


of  the  Apennines,  and  to  the  Rubicon,  not  far 
from  Ariminum  on  the  other.  Beyond  the  Alps, 
the  whole  territory  from  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse,  was  known  by  the 
name  of  Gaul.  A  part  of  this  tract,  which  was 
bounded  by  the  Rhone,  the  mountains  of  Au- 
vergne,  the  Garonne,  and  the  Pyrenees,  was 
already  a  Roman  province,  including,  together 
with  Languedoc  and  Dauphine,  what,  from  its 
early  subjection  to  the  Romans,  is  still  named 
Provence. 

The  remainder  of  the  country  was  divided  into 
three  principal  parts,  occupied  by  the  Aquitani, 
the  Celtes,  and  the  Belga?,  nations  differing  in 
language,  establishments,  and  customs.  The  first 
division  extended  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Ga- 
ronne; the  second  from  the  Garonne  to  the  Seine; 
and  the  third  from  thence  to  the  Meuse  and  the 
Scheld. 

In  each  of  these  tracts  there  was  a  multiplicity 
of  separate  cantons  and  independent  communities, 
of  which  Csssar  had  occasion  to  enumerate  no 
less  than  four  hundred.  Even  the  smallest  of 
these  communities,  by  his  account,  was  broken 
into  parties  and  factions,  who  had  separate  ob- 
jects, and  were  engaged  in  opposition  to  each 
other.  The  people,  in  general,  were  held  in  a 
state  of  dependence  by  two  separate  orders  of 
men,  whose  condition  and  character  may  account 
for  the  manifold  divisions  and  animosities  that 
took  place  in  their  country.  One  order  was  eccle- 
siastical, composed  of  the  Druids,  who,  by  their 
profession,  had  the  keeping  of  such  mysteries, 
and  the  performance  of  such  rites  as  were  then 
in  use ;  and,  having  over  their  fellow-citizens  the 
claim  to  a  hierarchy,  had,  among  themselves,  in 
the  various  pretensions  to  preferment  and  rank 
in  their  own  order,  continual  objects  of  competi- 
tion, jealousy,  and  quarrels. 

The  other  order  was  entirely  military,  and 
consisted  of  persons  whose  principal  distinction 
arose  from  the  number  of  their  armed  adherents ; 
and  who,  therefore,  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
multitude  of  their  retainers,  or  in  the  force  of  their 
parties.5 

The  country,  we  learn,  in  general,  was  inter- 
spersed with  what  are  called  towns,  and  what 
were,  in  reality,  safe  retreats,  or  places  of  strength. 
It  abounded  in  corn  and  cattle,  the  resources  of  a 
numerous  people ;  armies  were  collected,  and  po- 
litical assemblies  were  statedly,  or  occasionally 
called :  but  how  the  people  were  accommodated, 
or  in  what  degree  they  were  supplied  with  the 
ordinary  productions  of  mechanic  or  commercial 
arts,  is  no  where  described. 

In  these  particulars,  however,  as  they  were 
probably  less  skilful  than  the  Italians,  so  they 
surpassed  the  Germans,  to  whom  they  yielded  in 
the  reputation  of  valour ;  and  they  were  now  in 
reality  on  the  eve  of  becoming  a  prey  to  the  ra- 
pacity and  ferocity  of  the  one,  or  to  the  ambition, 
refined  policy,  and  superior  arts  of  the  other. 

Among  parties,  who  were  already  so  numerous, 
and  likely  to  be  divided  indefinitely  by  family  or 
personal  jealousies,  Caesar  was  about  to  find  the 
occasions,  which  he  undoubtedly  sought  for,  of 
raising  his  reputation  in  war,  of  enriching  himself 
and  his  dependents,  and  of  forming  an  army 
inured  to  service,  and  attached  to  himself.  While 
he  was  yet  in  Italy,  he  had  intimation  of  a 


5  Cesar  de  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  vi.  c.  10—20. 


wonderful  project  formed  by  the  Helvetii,  native? 
of  the  tract  which  extends  from  the  Jura  to  the 
Alps,  and  of  the  valleys  which  divide  those 
mountains,  to  quit  their  own  country  in  order  to 
exchange  it  for  a  better  settlement,  in  a  less  in- 
clement region,  on  the  lower  and  more  fertile 
plains  of  Gaul. 

They  had  taken,  for  this  purpose,  an  exact  ac- 
count of  their  own  numbers  in  every  canton,  ana 
mustered  no  less  than  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  thousand  souls,  of  whom  ninety-two  thou- 
sand were  warriors,  or  men  fit  to  bear  arms.  To 
put  this  multitude  in  motion,  a  great  apparatus  of 
provisions,  of  horses,  and  of  carriages  was  neces- 
sary ;  and  they  allotted  two  years  for  the  necessa- 
ry preparations.  This  time  was  now  elapsed, 
and  the  swarm  began  to  dislodge  on  the  twenty - 
fifth  of  March  of  the  year  in  which  Csesar  was 
to  take  possession  of  his  province.  On  receiving 
the  alarm,  he  set  out  from  Italy,  and  with  hasty 
journeys  arrived  at  Geneva,  where  to  prevent 
surprise,  he  broke  down  the  bridge  of  the  Rhone, 
and  took  other  measures  to  preclude  the  access 
of  strangers  to  his  province. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Helvetians  sent  a  pacific 
message,  desiring,  that  they  might  be  allowed  to 
pass  the  Rhone,  and  giving  assurances  that  they 
would  abstain  from  every  sort  of  hostility  on  their 
march  through  the  Roman  province.  Ca?sar,  in 
order  to  gain  time,  affected  to  take  their  request 
into  consideration,  promised  to  give  them  an  an- 
swer by  the  middle  of  April;  and  in  this  manner 
amused  them,  while  he  assembled  the  legion,  that 
was  dispersed  in  different  parts  of  the  province, 
and  ordered  new  levies  to  be  made  with  the  great- 
est despatch.  At  the  same  time,  he  fortified  tho 
banks  of  the  river,  from  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  to 
the  narrow  pass6  at  which  the  Rhone  enters  be- 
tween the  Jura  and  the  Vuache,  and  from  thence 
running  under  cliffs,  and  steep  mountains,  ren- 
ders the  access  from  Helvetia  to  Gaul  either  im- 
practicable or  easily  obstructed, 

Being  thus  prepared  for  his  defence,  he,  on  the 
return  of  the  Helvetian  deputies,  gave  them  for 
answer,  That  the  Romans  never  allowed  strangers 
to  pass  through  their  country ;  and  that  if  any 
attempt  were  made  on  his  province,  he  should 
repel  it  by  force.  Upon  receiving  this  answer, 
the  Helvetians,  though  too  late,  endeavoured  to 
effect  the  passage  of  the  Rhone,  and  made  re- 
peated attacks,  either  where  the  river  was  ford- 
able,  or  where  it  admitted  the  use  of  rafts  or  of 
boats,  but  were  repulsed  in  every  attempt,  and 
were  at  last  obliged  to  turn  to  the  right,  where, 
by  the  consent  of  the  Sequani,  their  neighbours 
in  that  part  of  the  country,  they  passed  over  the 
Jura  into  Gaul. 

Caesar,  probably  not  more  alarmed  for  the  safety 
of  his  province,  than  desirous  to  render  it  a  scene 
of  action,  determined  to  observe  the  migrations  of 
this  enemy,  and  to  seize  the  occasion  they  fur- 
nished him  of  forming  his  troops  to  service.  For 
this  purpose  he  himself,  in  person,  repassed  the 
Alps,  and  without  any  regard  to  the  limitations 
of  his  commission,  which  restricted  his  military 
establishment  to  three  legions,  ordered  additional 
levies,  and  with  the  forces  assembled  near  Aqui- 
leia,  returned  to  his  northern  province.  In  this 
march  he  met  with  opposition  from  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  mountains,  who  endeavoured  to  ob- 


6  Fort  l'Ecluse. 


200 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


struct  his  way :  but  he  had  traversed  the  country 
of  the  Allobroges,  and  passed  the  Rhone  above  its 
confluence  with  the  Soane,1  when  he  had  intelli- 
gence, that  the  Helvetii,  having  cleared  the  passes 
of  Jura,  and  marched  through  the  country  of  the 
Sequani,  were  arrived  on  the  Soane ;  and  although 
they  had  hitherto,  agreeably  to  their  stipulations 
with  the  natives,  abstained  from  hostilities,  that 
they  threatened  the  nations  inhabiting  beyond 
this  river  with  fire  and  sword. 

Upon  application  made  to  him  for  protection 
from  the  natives  inhabiting  between  the  Soane 
and  the  Loire,  this  willing  auxiliary  continued 
his  march ;  and  being  informed,  that  of  the  Hel- 
vetii, who  had  moved  in  four  divisions  (this  being 
the  number  of  their  cantons,)  the  three  first  had 
already  passed  the  Soane;  and  that  the  fourth 
division  being  to  follow,  yet  remained  on  the 
nearer  bank  of  the  river,  he  marched  in  the  night 
with  three  legions,  surprised  this  rear-division  5 
and,  having  put  many  of  them  to  the  sword, 
forced  the  remainder  to  take  refuge  in  the  neigh- 
bouring woods. 

As  soon  as  the  main  body  of  Caesar's  army  ar- 
rived on  the  Soane,  he  constructed  a  bridge,  and 
passed  that  river  in  his  way  to  the  enemy.  The 
Helvetians,  sensible  of  their  loss  in  the  late  ac- 
tion, and  alarmed  at  the  rapidity  of  his  motions, 
he  having  executed  in  one  day  the  passage  of  a 
river  which  had  detained  them  above  ninety  days, 
sent  a  deputation  to  treat  with  the  Roman  pro- 
consul, and  to  obtain,  if  possible,  his  permission 
to  execute  their  project  of  a  new  settlement  on 
amicable  terms.  They  offered,  in  case  they  were 
allowed  to  sit  down  in  quiet,  to  leave  the  choice 
of  the  place  to  himself ;  bidding  him  remember, 
at  the  same  time,  that  "the  arms  of  the  Helvetii 
had,  on  former  occasions,  been  felt  by  the  Ro- 
mans. That  the  recent  fate  of  a  single  canton 
taken  by  surprise  ought  not  to  flatter  him  too 
much ;  that  the  Helvetians  had  learned  from  their 
fathers  to  rely  more  on  valour  than  on  artifice  or 
on  negotiation;  but  that  they  did  not  wish  to 
have  their  present  migration  signalized  with  any 
massacres,  nor  their  new  settlement  stained  with 
Roman  blood." 

To  this  message,  Caesar  replied,  "That  he 
could  recollect  to  have  heard  of  insults  which  had 
been  offered  to  the  Romans  by  their  nation,  and 
to  which  they  now  probably  alluded :  that  he 
likewise  had  more  recent  provocations  which  he 
knew  how  to  resent ;  nevertheless,  if  they  meant 
to  comply  with  his  demand,  to  repair  the  injuries 
they  had  done  to  the  Allobroges2  and  to  the  Edui3, 
and  to  give  hostages  for  their  future  behaviour,  that 
he  was  willing  to  grant  them  peace." 

Upon  this  reply  the  Helvetian  deputies  with- 
drew, saying,  That  it  was  the  practice  of  their 
countrymen  to  receive,  not  to  give  hostages;  and 
both  armies  moved  on  the  following  day :  the 
Helvetians,  in  search  of  some  quarter  where  they 
might  settle  without  interruption ;  and  Caesar,  to 
observe  their  motions,  and  to  restrain  them  from 
plundering  the  country  of  his  allies.  Both  continu- 
ed on  the  same  route  during  fifteen  days,  with  no 
more  than  an  interval  of  five  or  six  miles  between 
the  front  of  one  army  and  the  rear  of  the  other. 

1  Then  the  Arar. 

2  Inhabitants  of  what  is  now  the  territory  of  Gene- 
va, and  part  of  Savoy. 

3  Occupying  the  country  between  the  Soane  and  the 
Loire. 


On  this  march  Caesar's  cavafry,  having  rashly 
engaged  themselves  on  unfavourable  ground,  re- 
ceived a  check ;  and  he  himself,  being  obliged  to 
follow  the  course  of  the  Soane,  by  wnich  he  re- 
ceived his  provisions,  was  likely  to  lose  sight  of 
the  enemy,  when  he  had  intelligence,  that  they 
had  taken  post  at  the  foot  of  a  hill,  about  eight 
miles  in  his  front,  and  seemed  to  have  formed  a 
resolution  to  receive  him,  in  that  position,  if  he 
chose  to  attack  them.  Having  examined  the 
ground  on  which  they  were  posted,  and  observ- 
ing, that  the  height  in  their  rear  was  not  by  na- 
ture inaccessible,  nor  sufficiently  secured  against 
him,  he  despatched  Labienus  in  the  night  at  the 
head  of  two  legions,  with  orders  to  possess  him- 
self of  the  eminence,  and  to  fall  down  from  thence 
on  the  enemy's  rear  whenever  he  saw  them  at- 
tacked by  himself  in  front.  Labienus  accordingly 
got  possession  of  the  hill,  and  Cassar  advanced 
towards  the  foot  of  it  to  occupy  the  attention  of 
the  enemy,  and  to  attack  them  in  front.  But  the 
purpose  of  this  disposition  was  frustrated  by  the 
misinformation  of  an  officer  of  horse,  who,  being 
advanced  before  the  army,  reported,  that  the  ene- 
my still  appeared  on  the  height,  and  that  Labi- 
enus probably  had  failed  in  his  attempt  to  seize  it. 
Caesar,  disconcerted  by  this  information,  made  a 
halt,  in  which  he  lost  so  much  time  as  to  give  the 
enemy  an  opportunity  to  decamp,  and  to  retire  in 
safety.  He  nevertheless  continued  his  pursuit 
for  one  day  longer,  and  at  night  encamped  about 
three  miles  in  their  rear.  But  being  obliged,  on 
the  following  day,  to  alter  his  route  in  order  to 
receive  a  supply  of  provisions,  the  enemy  be- 
lieved that  he  was  retreating,  and  began  to  pur- 
sue in  their  turn.  He  halted  on  a  rising  ground 
to  perceive  them,  placed  his  new  levies  with  the 
baggage  on  the  higher  ground,  and  the  choice  of 
his  army  on  the  declivity  towards  the  plain. 
Here  the  enemy  advancing  to  attack  him,  after 
an  obstinate  engagement  which  lasted  from  one 
in  the  afternoon  till  night,  were  defeated  with  the 
slaughter  of  about  two  hundred  thousand  of  their 
people ;  and  the  remainder,  amounting  to  no  more 
than  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  souls,  re- 
duced to  despair  by  the  sense  of  their  losses,  and 
the  want  of  subsistence,  surrendered  at  discre- 
tion. Caesar  ordered  them  back  into  their  own 
country,  charging  the  Allobroges  to  find  them 
subsistence,  until  they  should  be  able  to  provide 
for  themselves.  The  Boii,  however,  a  part  of 
this  unfortunate  migration,  were  received  by  the 
Edui,  who,  to  gain  this  accession  of  people,  al- 
lotted part  of  their  own  lands  to  accommodate 
these  strangers.4 

•  At  the  end  of  this  first  operation  of  Caesar, 
while  great  part  of  the  summer  yet  remained, 
another  service  on  which  to  employ  his  army  soon 
presented  itself  The  nations  who  inhabited  the 
banks  of  the  Soane  and  the  Loire,  being  sensible 
of  the  deliverance  they  had  received  from  a  storm, 
which,  by  the  uncertainty  of  its  direction,  alarm- 
ed every  quarter  of  Gaul,  sent  deputies  to  con- 
gratulate the  Roman  general  on  his  late  victory, 
and  to  propose  that  they  might  hold,  under  his 
protection,  a  general  convention  of  all  their  states. 
The  object  of  their  meeting,  as  it  soon  appeared, 
was  to  obtain  some  relief  from  the  common  op- 
pression they  underwent  from  the  tyranny  of 


4  Cses.  de  Bell.  Gal.  lib.  i.  c.  28,  29. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC,  201 


Chap.  VL] 

Ariovistus,  a  German  chief,  who,  when  the  Gauls 
were  at  war  among  themselves,  had  been  invited 
as  an  auxiliary  to  one  of  the  parties,  and  had  ob- 
tained the  victory  for  his  allies  :  but  took  for  the 
reward  of  his  services  possession  of  one  third  of 
their  territory,  which  he  bestowed  on  his  own 
people,  and  assumed  for  himself  the  sovereignty 
of  the  whole.  His  force  was  daily  augmented  by 
the  continual  arrival  of  more  emigrants  from 
Germany ;  so  that,  from  fifteen  thousand  men, 
with  whom  the  chief  had  arrived,  his  followers 
had  multiplied  to  a  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand. To  accommodate  this  numerous  people, 
he  had  recently  made  a  demand  of  another  third 
of  the  territory  of  the  Sequani,  and  was  extend- 
ing his  possessions  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Rhine  to  the  Soane.  Most  of  the  nations  on  this 
tract  had  been  obliged  to  submit  to  a  contribution 
levied  by  these  strangers,  and  to  give  hostages  for 
the  regular  payment  of  it 

The  unfortunate  nations  who,  by  trusting  to 
the  protection  of  a  barbarous  prince,  had  exposed 
themselves  to  this  calamity,  now  applied  for  re- 
lief to  another  power,  whose  pretensions  in  the 
end  were  likely  to  be  equally  dangerous  to  their 
freedom.  Sensible  of  the  hazard  to  which  they 
exposed  their  hostages  by  entering  into  any  open 
concert  against  the  Germans,  they  made  their 
application  to  Caesar  in  secret,  and  found  him 
sufficiently  willing  to  embrace  every  opportunity 
of  rendering  his  province  a  theatre  of  action  to 
his  arm}',  and  of  renown  to  himself  He  sent 
without  delay  a  message  to  Ariovistus,  desiring 
to  have  a  conference  with  him  on  affairs  that 
concerned  the  general  interests  of  Gaul.  This 
haughty  chieftain  replied  with  disdain,  "  That  if 
the  Roman  general  meant  to  have  an  intcn  iew 
with  htm,  his  place  of  residence  was  known  ;  that 
he  neither  could  trust  himself  in  the  quarters  of 
Caesar,  without  an  army,  nor  would  be  at  the  ex- 
pense of  assembing  one,  merely  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  a  conference  with  him." 

Csesar  renewed  the  message  with  an  express 
requisition  that  the  hostages  of  the  Edui  should 
be  restored ;  that  Ariovistus  should  abstain  from 
hostilities  against  this  people,  or  against  any 
other  ally  of  the  Romans;  and  that  he  should 
not  suffer  any  more  of  his  countrymen  to  pass 
the  Rhine. 

To  this  message  Ariovistus  replied,  That  he 
had  conquered  the  possessions  which  he  held  in 
Gaul,  and  that  he  knew  of  no  power  who  had  a 
right  to  direct  him  in  the  use  of  his  conquests ; 
that  whoever  attacked  him  should  do  so  at  his 
peril ;  and  that  Caesar,  if  he  thought  proper,  might 
try  the  spirit  of  his  people ;  they  were  ready  to 
receive  him,  and  had  not  for  fourteen  years  slept 
under  any  cover. 

Caesar,  not  to  seem  backward  in  accepting  this 
challenge,  and  in  compliance  with  a  maxim 
which  he  often  observed  with  success,  That  his 
blows  sfwuld  anticipate  his  threats,  and  outrun 
the  expectations  of  his  enemy,  advanced  upon  the 
Germans  before  they  could  think  him  in  con- 
dition to  act  against  them.  For  this  purpose, 
without  communicating  his  design  to  any  person 
of  his  own  army,  he  repassed  the  Soane,  and 
ascended  by  the  course  of  the  Douse  to  Vesontio, 
now  Ber-ancon,  a  place  of  strength,  which  he  un- 
derstood Ariovistus  meant  to  seize,  as  the  prin- 
cipal resort  of  his  forces. 

Here,  for  the  first  time,  his  intention  of  mak- 
2C 


ing  war  on  the  Germans  began  to  be  suspected  in 
his  own  army;  and  the  legions,  taking  their  ac- 
count of  the  strength  and  ferocity  of  that  enemy 
from  the  report  of  the  Gaulish  auxiliaries,  were 
greatly  alarmed.  Many  citizens  of  distinction 
who  had  crowded  to  the  standard  of  Caesar,  as  to 
a  place  of  victory  and  honour,  now,  under  various 
pretences,  applied  for  leave  to  retire.  Their  ex- 
ample spread  a  kind  of  panic  in  the  army,  and 
both  men  and  officers  muttered  their  resolution 
not  to  obey,  if  they  should  be  ordered  upon  what 
they  were  pleased  to  consider  as  a  service  so  un- 
reasonable and  wild. 

Caesar  being  thus  called  upon  to  exert  that 
undaunted  courage  and  masterly  eloquence  by 
which  he  was  distinguished  on  many  occasion-, 
assembled  all  the  officers  of  his  army,  and  repri- 
manded them  for  attempting  to  penetrate  the  de- 
signs of  their  general,  or  for  pretending  to  ques- 
tion the  propriety  of  his  motions.  The  matter  in 
dispute  with  Ariovistus,  he  said,  might  be  termi- 
nated in  an  amicable  manner.  This  chieftain 
had  very  lately  made  advances  of  friendship  to 
the  Romans,  had  been  favourably  received,  and 
there  was  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  now 
wantonly  provoke  their  resentment.  "  But  if  he 
should j  of  whom  are  you  afraid.  Of  a  wretched 
remnant  of  the  Cimbri  or  Teutones,  already  van- 
quished by  Marius?  Of  a  people  confessedly  in- 
ferior to  the  Helvetians,  whom  you  have  sub- 
dued? But  some  of  you,  I  am  told,  in  order  t-> 
disguise  your  own  fears  under  the  affectation  of 
wisdom,  talk  of  difficulties  in  the  ways  by  which 
you  are  to  pass,  and  of  the  want  of  provisions 
which  you  are  likely  to  suffer.  I  am  not  now  to 
learn  from  such  persons  as  you  what  I  owe  to  my 
trust,  nor  to  be  told  that  an  army  must  be  sup- 
plied with  provisions.  But  our  allies  are  ready  to 
supply  us  in  greater  quantities  than  we  can  con- 
sume, and  the  very  country  we  are  to  pass  is  co- 
vered with  ripe  corn.  As  for  the  roads  you  shall 
speedily  see  and  judge  of  them.  I  am  little  af- 
fected with  what  I  hear  of  a  design  to  abandon 
me  in  case  I  persist  in  this  expedition.  Such  in- 
sults, I  know,  have  been  offered  to  commanders, 
who,  by  their  avarice  or  by  their  miscarriages, 
had  forfeited  the  regard  or  the  confidence  of  their 
troops  ;  what  will  happen  to  me  a  little  time  will 
discover.  I  meant  to  have  made  a  longer  halt  at 
this  place,  but  shall  not  defer  giving  you  an  op- 
portunity to  show,  whether  regard  to  your  duty, 
or  the  fear  of  a  supposed  enemy,  is  to  have  the 
greatest  effect  on  your  minds.  I  mean  to-morrow, 
at  two  in  the  morning,  to  decamp,  and  shall  pro- 
ceed, if  no  other  part  of  the  army  follows  me, 
with  the  tenth  legion  alone." 

This  speech  had  a  very  sudden  effect.  The 
tenth  legion,  hairing  been  formerly  distinguished 
by  their  general,  felt  this  expression  ot  confi- 
dence as  an  additional  motive  to  deserve  it,  and 
sent  a  deputation  of  their  officers  to  return  their 
thanks.  The  whole  army  soon  vied  in  excuses 
for  their  late  misbehaviour,  and  in  assurances  of 
their  resolution  to  support  their  general  in  any 
service  on  which  he  might  be  pleased  to  employ 
them.  Ho  accordingly  decamped  at  the  hour 
appointed ;  and  making  a  circuit  of  forty  miles, 
to  avoid  some  difficulties  which  lay  on  the  direct 
road,  after  a  continual  march  of  seven  days,  in 
which  he  was  conducted  by  Divitiacus,  a  native 
of  Gaul,  he  arrived  within  twenty-four  miles  of 
the  German  quarters, 


202  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


Upon  this  unexpected  arrival,  Ariovistus,  in 
his  turn,  thought  proper  to  desire  a  conference 
with  Caesar.  He  proposed  that  they  should  meet 
on  horseback,  and  be  attended  only  by  cavalry. 
In  this  part  of  his  army,  which  was  composed 
chiefly  of  Gaulish  horse,  Caesar  was  weak.  But, 
not  to  decline  the  proposal  that  was  made  to  him, 
he  mounted  his  supposed  favourite  legion  on  the 
horses  of  the  Gauls,  and  with  this  escort  came  to 
the  place  appointed  for  the  conference. 

It  was  an  eminence  in  the  midst  of  a  spacious 
plain,  about  half-way  between  the  two  armies. 
The  leaders,  each  attended  by  ten  of  his  officers, 
met  at  the  top  of  the  hill.  Their  escorts  drew 
up  at  the  distance  of  two  hundred  yards  on  each 
side- 
Caesar  began  the  conference,  by  reminding 
Ariovistus  of  the  honours  recently  bestowed  upon 
him  by  the  Roman  senate,  who  ordered  him  the 
usual  presents,  and  gave  him  the  title  of  king. 
"The  Edui,"  he  said,  "were  the  allies  of  the 
Roman  people  ;  they  had  formed  this  connexion 
in  the  height  of  their  prosperity,  and  when  they 
were  supposed  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  Gaulish 
nations ;  that  it  was  not  the  custom  of  the  Ro- 
mans to  let  nations  suffer  by  their  alliance,  but  to 
render  it  in  every  instance,  to  the  party  who  em- 
braced it,  a  source  of  prosperity  and  honour.  He 
therefore  renewed  his  former  requisition,  that 
Ariovistus  should  not  make  war  on  the  Edui,  or 
on  any  nation  in  alliance  with  Rome ;  that  he 
should  remit  their  tribute,  and  release  their  hos- 
tages ;  and,  if  he  could  not  send  back  into  their 
own  country  such  of  the  Germans  as  were  al- 
ready on  this  side  of  the  Rhine,  that  he  should  at 
least  prevent  the  arrival  of  any  more  from  that 
quarter." 

In  answer  to  these  propositions,  Ariovistus  re- 
plied, That  he  had  been  invited  into  Gaul  by  the 
natives  of  this  country ;  that  he  had  done  them 
services,  and  had  exacted  no  more  than  a  just  re- 
ward ;  that,  in  the  late  quarrel  betwixt  them  and 
himself,  the  Gauls  had  been  the  aggressors,  and 
had  suffered  no  more  than  the  usual  consequences 
of  a  defeat ;  that  to  indemnify  him  for  his  losses, 
they  had  subjected  themselves  to  a  tribute,  and 
had  given  hostages  for  the  regular  payment  of  it. 
"  Am  not  I  too,"  he  said,  "by  your  own  account, 
in  alliance  with  the  Romans'?  Why  should  that 
alliance,  which  is  a  safeguard  and  an  honour  to 
every  one  else,  be  a  loss  and  a  misfortune  to  me  ? 
Must  I  alone,  to  preserve  this  alliance,  resign  the 
advantage  of  treaties,  and  remit  the  payments 
that  are  due  to  me 7  No;  let  me  rather  be  con- 
sidered as  an  enemy  than  as  an  ally  upon  these 
conditions.  My  countrymen  have  passed  the 
Rhine,  not  to  oppress  the  Gauls,  but  to  defend 
their  leader.  If  strangers  are  to  be  admitted  here, 
the  Germans,  as  the  first  occupiers,  have  a  right 
prior  to  that  of  the  Romans.  But  we  have  each 
of  us  our  province.  What  do  Roman  armies  on 
my  territory  1  I  disturb  no  possession  of  yours. 
Must  I  account  to  you  likewise  for  the  use  which 
1  make  of  my  ownl" 

To  this  pointed  reply  Ariovistus  subjoined  a 
reflection,  which  showed  that  he  was  not  unac- 
quainted with  the  state  of  parties  at  Rome.  "I 
know,"  he  said,  "  that  the  Romans  are  not  in- 
terested in  this  quarrel,  and  that,  by  cutting  you 
off,  I  should  perform  an  acceptable  service  to 
many  of  your  countrymen.  But  I  shall  take  no 
part  in  your  internal  divisions.  Leave  me ;  make  I 


war  where  you  please ;  I  shall  not  interpose  in 
any  matter  which  does  not  concern  myself." 

Caesar  continued  to  plead  the  engagements 
which  the  Romans  had  contracted  with  many  of 
the  nations  who  now  claimed  their  protection. 
"  If  conquest  could  give  any  right  to  possession," 
he  said,  "  we  are  the  first  conquerors.  We  have 
long  since  subdued  the  Arverni ;  but  it  is  not 
our  practice  to  enslave  every  nation  we  vanquish, 
much  less  to  forsake  those  we  have  once  patro- 
nised." While  he  yet  spoke  the  German  horse 
had  advanced,  and  even  began  to  throw  darts, 
which  made  it  expedient  for  Caesar  to  break  up 
the  conference.  He  accordingly  withdrew,  giving 
strict  orders  to  his  people  not  to  return  the  in- 
sults of  the  enemy. 

In  a  few  days  after  this  conference,  the  Ger- 
man chieftain  proposed  another  personal  inter- 
view, or,  if  that  were  declined,  desired  that  some 
person  of  confidence  should  be  sent  with  whom 
he  might  treat.  Being  gratified  in  the  second  part 
of  this  alternative,  but  intending  no  more  by  this 
request  than  a  mere  feint  to  lull  the  enemy  into 
some  degree  of  security,  he  pretended  to  take 
offence  at  the  quality  of  the  persons  who  were 
sent  to  him,  ordered  them  into  custody,  and  on 
the  same  day  put  his  army  in  motion  upon  a  real 
design,  which  showed  that,  barbarian  as  he  was, 
he  understood  the  plan,  as  well  as  the  execution, 
of  military  operations.  Observing  that  the  Ro- 
mans derived  their  subsistence  from  the  country 
behind  them,  he  made  a  movement,  by  which  he 
passed  their  camp,  took  a  strong  post  about  eleven 
miles  in  their  rear,  and  by  this  means  intercepted 
their  ordinary  supply  of  provisions. 

Caesar  for  many  days  successively  endeavour 
ed,  by  forming  on  the  plain  between  the  two 
armies,  to  provoke  the  enemy  to  a  battle;  but 
having  failed  in  this  purpose,  he  was  obliged  to 
divide  his  army,  and  to  place  it  in  separate  posts, 
which  he  fortified,  in  order  to  recover  a  commu- 
nication with  the  country  behind  him.  He  learned 
that  the  Germans  had  borne  with  great  impa- 
tience the  defiances  he  had  given  them  ;  but  that 
they  were  restrained  from  fighting  by  the  predic- 
tions of  their  women,  who  foretold  that  their  own 
people  would  be  defeated,  if  they  should  hazard  a 
battle  before  the  change  of  the  moon. 

The  Germans,  notwithstanding  the  awe  in 
which  they  stood  of  this  prediction,  endeavoured 
to  dislodge  one  of  the  divisions  of  Caesar's  army, 
and,  having  failed  in  that  attempt,  were  afterwards 
attacked  by  the  Romans  in  their  camp,  and  de- 
feated with  great  slaughter.  Ariovistus  himself, 
with  the  remains  of  his  followers,  fled  to  the 
Rhine,  about  fifty  miles  from  the  field  of  battle, 
passed  that  river  in  a  small  canoe ;  numbers  of 
his  people  perished  in  attempting  to  follow  him, 
and  the  greater  part  of  those  who  remained  were 
overtaken,  and  put  to  the  sword  by  Caesar's  ca- 
valry. 

In  this  manner  Caesar  concluded  his  first  cam- 
paign in  Gaul ;  and  laid  the  foundation  of  his 
future  conquests  in  that  country,  by  stating  him- 
self as  the  protector  of  its  native  inhabitants 
against  the  Helvetii  and  the  Germans,  two  pow- 
erful invaders  who  were  likely  to  subdue  it.  He 
placed  his  army  for  the  winter  among  the  nations 
whom  he  had  thus  taken  under  his  protection,  and 
set  out  for  Italy,  under  pretence  of  attending  to  the 
affairs  of  his  province  on  that  side  of  the  Alps ; 
but  more  probably  to  be  near  to  Rome,  where  he 


ClIAP.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


203 


had  many  political  interests  at  stake,  friends  to 
support,  and  enemies  to  oppose,  in  their  canvass 
for  the  offices  of  state.  His  head  quarters  were 
fixed  at  Lucca,  the  nearest  part  of  his  province 
to  Rome ;  and  that  place  began  to  be  frequented 
by  numbers  who  were  already  of  his  party,  or 
who  desired  to  be  admitted  into  it,  and  with 
whom  he  had  previously  made  his  own  terms  in 
stipulating  the  returns  they  were  to  make  for  the 
several  preferments  in  which  he  undertook  to 
assist  them. 

At  the  election  of  consuls  for  this  year,  P.  Cor- 
nelius Lentulus  Spinther  was  joined  with  Gt. 
Caecilius  Metellus  Nepos,  of  whom  the  latter  had, 
in  the  capacity  of  tribune,  distinguished  himself 
as  an  instrument  of  the  most  dangerous  factions. 
Lentulus  had  lately  attached  himself  entirely  to 
Pompey,  and,  by  the  influence  of  this  patron, 
probably  now  prevailed  in  his  election.  He  had 
been  edile  in  the  consulate  of  Cicero,  and  had 
taken  a  vigorous  part  in  those  very  measures  for 
which  Cicero  was  now  suffering  in  exile.1  He 
was  likely  to  favour  the  restoration  of  that  in- 
jured citizen,  and  upon  this  account  was  now 
the  more  acceptable  to  Pompey,  who,  having  an 
open  rupture  with  Clodius,  was  disposed  to  mor- 
tify him  by  espousing  the  cause  of  his  enemies. 

Clodius,  soon  after  his  late  victory  over  Cicero, 
greatly  rose  in  his  presumption,  and,  forgetting 
that  he  prevailed  more  by  the  connivance  of 
Pompey  and  Caesar,  and  by  the  support  of  their 
friends,  than  by  any  influence  of  his  own,  ven- 
tured to  set  Pompey  himself  at  defiance,  to  ques- 
tion the  validity  of  his  acts  in  the  late  settlement 
of  Asia,  to  set  the  young  Tigranes,  still  the  pri- 
soner of  Pompey,  at  liberty,2  "and  proposed  to  re- 
store him  again  to  his  kingdom.  In  the  debates 
which  arose  on  these  measures  in  the  assembly 
of  the  people,  Pompey  had  the  mortification  to 
find  that  the  sarcasms  of  Clodius  were  received 
by  the  audience  in  general  with  applause,  as 
well  as  by  the  partizans  of  the  senate,  in  particu- 
lar, with  marks  of  satisfaction.  Chiefly  governed 
by  vanity,  and  impatient  of  obloquy,  he  absented 
himself  from  the  public  assemblies  "during  the  re- 
mainder of  Clodius's  term  in  office,  and  was 
ready  to  embrace  every  measure  by  which  he 
might  be  revenged  of  that  factious  tribune,  or 
regain  his  own  credit  with  the  more  respectable 
class  of  the  citizens.3 

Encouraged  by  this  division  among  their  ene- 
mies, the  majority  of  the  senate,  who  justly  con- 
sidered the  cause  of  Cicero  as  their  own,  had 
ventured,,  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  October,  while 
Clodius  was  yet  in  office,  to  move  for  his  recall. 
Eight  of  the  tribunes  concurred  in  urging  this 
motion,  and  it  was  rejected  only  in  consequence 
of  the  negative  of  iElius  Ligur,  one  of  the  college 
whom  Clodius  had  prepared  to  act  this  part,  and 
whom  he  was  ready  to  support  by  force,  if  the 
opposite  party  should  persist  in  their  motion.4 

Upon  the  election  of  the  new  consuls  and  tri- 
bunes for  the  following  year,  better  hopes  of 
success  were  entertained  by  the  friends  of  Cicero. 
Lentulus  declared  that  the  restoration  of  this 
exile  should  be  the  first  object  of  his  administra- 
tion ;  and  that  he  would  not  fail  to  move  it  on 
the  day  that  he  entered  on  office.    Metellus  too, 

1  Cicero  ad  Att.  iii.  lib.  ep.  22. 

2  Vid.  Ascon.  Padian.  in  Orat.  pro  Milone. 

3  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Cicer.  p.  475  et  476 

4  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iii.  ep.  2:3. 


j  the  brother-in-law  of  Clodius,  though  always  in» 
clined  to  favour  the  popular  faction,  could  not  in 

|  this  matter  set  himself  in  opposition  to  Pompey 
and  declared  his  intention  to  concur  with  the 
consul.5  Milo,  Sextius,  and  six  more  of  the  tri- 
bunes, with  ali  the  praetors  except  Appius  Clau- 
dius, the  brother  of  Publius,  declared  their  inten- 
tion to  take  an  active  part  in  forwarding  this 
measure. 

Encouraged  by  these  appearances,  Cicero  left 
his  retreat  at  Thessalonica,  and  arrived  at  Dir- 
rachium,  before  the  twenty-fifth  of  November,  to 
be  at  hand  to  consult  with  his  friends  on  the 
steps  that  were  to  be  previously  taken.  Mean- 
time the  consuls-elect  had  their  provinces  assign- 
ed. Lentulus  was  destined  to  command  in  Cilicia 
and  Cypress,  and  Metellus  in  the  farther  pro- 
vince of  Spain.  Both  were  amply  gratified  in 
every  article  of  their  appointments,  in  order  to 
confirm  them  in  the  interest  of  the  senate ;  but 
Cicero  expressed  great  anxiety  lest  these  conces- 
sions should  be  found  premature ;  and,  being 
made  before  the  new  tribunes  entered  on  office, 
or  could  have  their  voice  in  these  destinations, 
was  afraid  lest  it  might  alienate  their  affections 
from  his  party,  and  render  them  less  zealous  to 
move  for  his  recall.  The  consul, 
U.  C.  696.  Lentulus,  notwithstanding,  kept  his 
word  ;  and,  on  the  first  of  January, 
hiss's  i^ther  ^  ^ay  °*  ms  entcring  011  office, 
Q.  CaeU,  Mb-  moved  the  senate  to  resolve  that  Ci- 
tell.  Jfepos.  cero  should  be  immediately  recalled 
from  banishment ;  that  all  persons 
opposing  his  return  should  be  declared  enemies  to 
their  country ;  and  that  if  the  people  should  be 
disturbed  by  violence  in  passing  this  decree,  it 
should,  nevertheless,  be  lawful  for  the  exile  to 
avail  himself  of  it.6 

This  motion  was  received  in  the  senate  with 
general  applause.  Eight  of  the  tribunes  were 
zealous  in  support  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  two 
members  of  the  college,  Numerius  and  Serranus, 
were  gained  by  Clodius  to  oppose  it.  Serranus, 
however,  could  venture  no  farther  at  this  meeting 
than  to  plead  for  a  delay.  But  he  was  prevailed 
upon,  during  the  intervening  night,  to  interpose 
his  negative,  and  the  motion  accordingly  could 
proceed  no  farther  in  the  senate. 

It  was  resolved,  notwithstanding,  to  propose  a 
law  to  the  people  for  Cicero's  restoration  ;  and  a 
day  was  fixed  for  this  purpose.  Early  in  the 
morning  of  that  day  Fabricius,  one  o(  the  tri- 
bunes in  the  interest  of  the  exile,  ende  avoured  to 
occupy  the  place  of  assembly  with  an  armed 
force,  but  found  that  Clodius,  with  a  numerous 
troop  of  gladiators,  was  there  before  him.  A 
conflict  ensued,  in  which  Fabricius,  together  with 
Cispius,  another  of  the  tribunes  who  came  to  his 
assistance,  with  all  the  party  of  the  senate,  were 
driven  from  the  forum. 

Clodius,  at  the  head  of  his  gladiators,  with 
swords  already  stained  in  blood,  pursued  his  vic- 
tory through  the  streets.  The  temple  of  the 
nymphs,  in  which  were  kept  some  public  records 
which  he  wished  to  destroy,  was  set  on  fire  ;7  the 
houses  of  Milo  and  Caecilius  the  praetor  were  at- 
tacked.   "  The  streets,  the  common  sewers,  the 


5  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iii.  ep.  24. 

6  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iii.  ep  20.  et  in  Orat.  post  re- 
dituni. 

7  Cicero  pro  Milone,  27  Partd  4  d.  Haruspicum 

Responsio  27. 


204 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III, 


river,"  says  Cicero,  "  were  filled  with  dead  bodies, 
and  all  the  pavements  were  stained  with  blood." 
No  such  scene  had  been  acted  since  the  times  of 
Octavius  and  Cinna,  when  armies  fought  in  the 
city  for  the  dominion  of  the  empire.1 

CXuintus  Cicero  escaped  by  hiding  himself 
under  the  dead  bodies  of  his  own  servants;  who 
were  slain  in  defending  his  house.  The  tribune 
Publius  Sextius  actually  fell  into  the  hands  of  his 
enemies,  received  many  wounds,  and  was  left  for 
dead  among  the  slain.  This  circumstance,  how- 
ever, alarmed  the  party  of  Clodius  not  less  than 
it  alarmed  his  opponents.  The  odium  of  having 
murdered,  or  even  violated  the  person  of  a  tri- 
bune, was  likely  to  ruin  their  interest  with  the 
people ;  and  they  proposed  to  balance  this  out- 
rage by  putting  to  death  Numerius,  another  tri- 
bune, who,  being  of  their  own  side,  should  appear 
to  be  killed  by  the  opposite  party ;  but  the  in- 
tended victim  of  this  ridiculous  and  sanguinary 
artifice,  receiving  information  of  their  design, 
avoided  being  made  the  tool  of  a  party  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  life,  and  made  his  escape.2 

After  so  strange  a  disorder,  parties  for  some 
months,  mutually  afraid  of  each  other,  abstained 
from  violence.  The  tribune  Milo  commenced  a 
prosecution  against  Clodius  for  his  crimes  ;  but  it 
was  for  some  time  eluded  by  the  authority  of 
Appius  Claudius,  brother  of  the  accused,  who 
was  now  in  the  office  of  praetor  ;  and  the  courts, 
when  actually  called,  were  repeatedly  dispersed 
by  the  armed  party  of  gladiators,  with  which  Pub- 
lius Clodius  himself  infested  every  public  place. 
S3  was  vain  to  oppose  him  without  being  prepared 
to  employ  a  similar  force,  and  Milo  accordingly 
had  recourse  to  this  method.  He  purchased  a 
troop  of  gladiators,  and  of  bestiarii,  or  baiters  of 
wild  beasts,  and  the  remainder  of  those  who  had 
been  employed  by  the  ediles  Pomponius  and 
CosconiuSj  and  who  were  now  in  the  market  for 
sale.  He  ordered  the  bargain  to  be  secretly 
struck,  concealing  the  name,  of  the  buyer,  lest  the 
opposite  party,  suspecting  the  design,  should  in- 
terpose to  prevent  him. 

So  provided,  Milo  ventured  to  encounter  with 
Clodius.  Their  parties  frequently  engaged  in 
the  streets,  and  the  populace,  fond  of  such  shows, 
enjoyed  the  spectacle  which  was  presented  to 
them  in  every  corner  of  the  city.3 

While  the  disorders  which  thus  arose  from  the 
disputes  relating  to  Cicero's  festoration  were  daily 
augmenting,  he  himself  fell  from  the  height  of  his 
hopes  to  his  former  pitch  of  dejection  and  sorrow. 
The  attempt  which  had  been  made  in  his  favour 
might  have  succeeded,  if  Pompey  had  been  fully 
prepared  to  concur  in  it.  But  all  the  measures 
of  the  triumvirate,  being  concerted  at  the  quar- 
ters of  Csesar,  Pompey  was  obliged,  after  declaring 
his  own  inclinations  on  the  subject,  to  consult  his 
associate,  and  found  him  by  no  means  inclined  to 
restore  a  citizen  who  was  likely  to  be  of  so  much 
consequence,  and  who  was  to  owe  the  favour  of 
his  restoration  to  any  other  than  himself.  The 
tribune  Sextius,  before  the  late  dissolution,  had 
made  a  journey  into  Gaul,  to  obtain  the  consent 
of  Caesar  to  this  measure,  but  could  not  prevail ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  this  artful  politician  was 
unwilling  to  restore  an  exile  who  was  likely  to 


1  Orat.  pro  Sext.  c.  35,  36.  38. 

8  Cicero  pro  Sextio. 

3  Cicero  ad  Att.  Jib.  iv.  ep.  2. 


ascribe  the  principal  merit  of  that  service  to  Pom- 
pey, and,  by  his  own  inclinations  in  favour  of  the 
senate,  to  become  an  accession  to  a  party  which 
Csesar  wished  to  degrade  and  to  weaken  by  every 
means  in  his  power.  It  was  to  strengthen  him- 
self against  the  senate  that  Caesar  made  his  coali- 
tion with  Pompey  and  Crassus;  and  from  ani- 
mosity to  this  body,  he  wished  to  crush  every 
person  of  consequence  to  their  party,  and  to  fa- 
vour the  pretensions  of  every  ambitious  citizen 
who  ventured  to  act  in  open  defiance  of  their 
government, 

Pompey,  in.the  mean  time,  though  committing 
himself  as  a  tool  into  the  hands  of  Caesar,  was 
flattered  with  the  appearance  of  sovereignty  which 
he  enjoyed  in  the  city,  and  willingly  supported 
Csesar  in  every  measure  that  seemed  to  fix  his 
attention  abroad,  consented  to  the  repeated  aug- 
mentations of  the  army  in  Gaul,  and  approved 
of  every  enterprise  in  which  their  leader  was 
pleased  to  employ  them. 

In  this  year,  which  was  the  second  of  Caesar's 
command,  two  more  additional  legions  were  by 
his  orders  levied  in  Italy  ;  and  under  pretence  of 
an  approaching  war  with  the  Belgae,  a  nation 
consisting  of  many  cantons  in  the  northern  ex- 
tremities of  Gaul,  this  reinforcement  was  made 
to  pass  the  Alps  to  the  northward  in  the  spring, 
As  soon  as  the  forage  was  upr  he  himself  fol- 
lowed in  person,  took  the  field,  and,  hat  the  usual 
spirit  of  his  conduct,  endeavoured  by  the  rapidity 
of  his  motions,  to  frustrate  or  to  prevent  the  de- 
signs of  his  enemies. 

His  force  now  consisted  of  eight  Roman  le- 
gions, besides  numerous  bodies  of  horse  and  foot 
from  different  cantons  in  Gaul,  archers  from 
Crete  and  Numidia,  and  slingers  from  the  Bale- 
arian  islands ;  so  that  it  is  likely  the  whole  may 
have  amounted  to  about  sixty  thousand  men. 
The  greater  part  of  his  army  had  wintered  on  the 
Soane4  and  the  Douse,6  as  protectors,  not  as  mas- 
ters of  the  country,  being  received  only  in  the 
character  of  allies.  Caesar  having  now  taken 
numbers  of  their  people  into  his  army  as  auxilia- 
ries or  as  hostages,  and  having  spent  twelve  days 
in  preparing  for  his  march,  took  his  route  to  the 
northward,  under  pretence  of  carrying  the  war 
into  the  enemy's  country,  or  of  preventing  them 
from  gaining,  to  their  supposed  confederacy 
against  the  Romans,  any  of  the  nations  in  the 
southern  parts  of  Gaul. 

His  way  Jay  through  the  high,  though  level, 
countries,  now  termed  Burgundy  and  Cham- 

Kagne,  in  which  the  Soane,  the  Moselle,  the 
leuse,  and  the  Seine,  with  so  many  other  con- 
siderable rivers,  that  run  in  different  directions, 
have  their  source.  After  a  march  of  fifteen  days, 
he  arrived  in  the  canton  of  the  Remi,6  where  he 
found  a  people,  though  of  the  Belgic  extraction, 
disposed  to  receive  him  as  a  friend,  and  to  place 
themselves  under  his  protection. 

From  this  people  he  had  a  confirmation  of  his 
former  intelligence  relating  to  the  designs  of  the 
Belgic  nations,  and  an  account  of  the  forces 
which  they  had  already  assembled.  From  the 
track  of  country  that  is  watered  by  the  rivers, 
which  are  now  called  the  Oise,  the  Scheld  and 
the  Meuse,  he  understood  that  no  less  than  three 


4  Anciently  named  the  Arar. 

5  TheDubis. 

6  Now  the  district  of  Rheima. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


205 


hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  could  be  mus- 
tered, and  were  actually  assembled,  or  preparingto 
assemble,  against  him.  To  prevent  the  junction 
of  this  formidable  power,  or  to  distract  part  of  its 
force,  he  detached  part  of  his  Gaulish  auxiliaries 
to  make  a  diversion  on  the  Oise,  while  he  him- 
self advanced  to  the  Aisne,7  passed  this  river  and 
fortified  a  station  on  its  northern  bank.  Having 
a  bridge  in  his  rear,  he  left  six  cohorts  properly 
intrenched  before  it,  to  secure  his  communication 
with  the  country  behind  him. 

While  he  remained  in  this  post,  the  Belgae  ad- 
vanced with  a  great  army,  attacked  Bibrax,  a 
place  of  strength  about  eight  miles  in  his  front ; 
and  having  spent  many  hours  in  endeavouring  to 
reduce  it,  were  about  to  renew  their  assault  on 
the  following  day.  But  Caesar  having  in  the 
night  thrown  into  the  garrison  a  considerable  re- 
inforcement of  archers  and  slingers,  the  appear- 
ance of  this  additional  strength  on  the  battlements 
induced  the  enemy  to  desist. 

They  nevertheless  continued  to  advance,  laid 
waste  the  country,  and  came  within  two  miles  of 
his  camp.  They  had  a  front,  as  appeared  from 
their  fires,  extending  about  eight  miles. 

Caesar,  considering  the  numbers  and  reputation 
of  this  enemy,  thought  proper  to  proceed  with 
caution.  He  observed  them  for  some  days  from 
his  entrenchments,  and  made  several  trials  of . 
their  skill  in  partial  encounters  before  he  ven- 
tured to  offer  them  battle.  But  being  encouraged 
by  tfee  event  of  these  trials,  he  chose  a  piece  of 
sloping  ground  that  lay  before  bis  camp,  and  was 
fit  to  receive  his  army.  As  the  enemy's  front 
was  likely  to  extend  farther  than  his,  he  threw 
up  entrenchments  on  the  right  and  left  to  cover 
his  flanks ;  and  with  this  security,  to  prevent  his 
being  surrounded,  drew  forth  his  army.  The 
Belgae  too  were  formed  on  their  part ;  but  the 
ground  between  the  two  armies  being  marshy, 
neither  thought  proper  to  pass  that  impediment 
in  presence  of  the  other  ;  and  after  a  few  skir- 
mishes of  the  horse  and  irregular  troops,  the  Ro- , 
rnans  re-entered  their  camp.  The  enemy,  upon 
this  event,  disappointed  in  their  expectations  of 
a  battle,  took  their  way  to  the  fords  of  the  Aisne,8 
in  order  to  pass  the  river,  and  get  possession  of 
the  bridge  in  the  rear  of  the  Romans.  Caesar 
had  intelligence  of  this  movement  from  the  officer 
who  was  stationed  to  guard  that  post;  and 
marching  instantly  with  all  the  cavalry,  archers, 
and  slingers  of  the  army,  he  arrived  in  time  to 
overtake  them,  while  yet  entangled  in  the  fords, 
and  obliged  them  to  retire. 

The  Belgae,  having  made  these  successive  at- 
tempts with  much  impetuosity,  but  without  pro- 
per foresight,  soon  appeared  to  be  ill  qualified  to 
maintain  a  permanent  war  with  such  an  enemy. 
They  were  disheartened  by  their  disappointments, 
and  alarmed  by  the  rumour  of  a  diversion  which 
Cffisar  had  caused  to  be  made  in  a  part  of  their 
own  country.  They  had  exhausted  their  pro- 
visions, and  found  themselves  under  the  necessity 
to  break  up  their  camp.  It  was  therefore  resolved 
in  their  general  council,  that  their  forces,  for  the 
present,  should  separate ;  and  if  any  of  their 
cantons  should  be  afterwards  attacked  by  Caesar, 
that  the  whole  should  assemble  again  for  their 
common  defence. 


7  Jasara  and  Axona. 
b  Axona. 


With  this  resolution  they  decamped  in  the 
night,  but  with  so  much  noise  and  disorder  that 
Cajsar  suspected  a  feint,  or  an  intention  to  draw 
him  into  a  snare.  He  therefore  remained  in  his 
lines  till  the  morning,  when  it  appeared  that  they 
were  actually  gone,  and  were  seen  at  a  distance 
on  the  plain  moving  in  the  greatest  disorder,  and 
as  in  a  total  rout,  striving  who  should  soonest 
get  beyond  the  reach  of  their  enemies.  He  pur- 
sued them  with  his  cavalry  so  long  as  it  was  day, 
and,  though  with  great  bravery  resisted  in  his 
attacks  on  their  rear,  made  considerable  havoc. 
At  the  approach  of  night  he  discontinued  the 
pursuit,  and  withdrew  again  to  the  camp  he  left 
in  the  morning.  On  the  following  day  he  moved 
with  his  whole  army,  and,  that  the  enemy  might 
not  have  time  to  re -assemble  their  forces,  deter- 
mined to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  their  country. 
In  the  beginning  of  his  march  he  followed  the 
course  of  the  Aisne,  and  in  his  way  reduced  the 
Suessones  and  Bellovaci,  two  cantons  that  lay  on 
the  right  and  the  left,  near  the  confluence  of  this 
river  with  the  Oyse.  From  thence,  being  him- 
self to  march  to  the  northward,  to  visit  the  banks 
of  the  Sambre  and  the  Meuse,  he  detached  the 
young  Crassus,  with  a  considerable  force,  towards 
the  sea  coasts,  to  occupy  those  cantons  which 
now  form  the  provinces  of  Normandy  and  Bre- 
tanny. 

Part  of  the  country  through  which  the  Meuse 
and  the  Sambre  passed,  now  forming  the  dutchy 
of  Hainault,  was  then  occupied  by  the  jNervii, 
one  of  the  fiercest  of  the  Belgic  nations,  who, 
having  heard  with  indignation  of  the  surrender 
of  the  Bellovaci  and  Suessones,  their  neighbours, 
prepared  for  resistance,  sent  such  of  their  people 
as,  by  their  sex  or  age,  were  unfit  to  carry  arms 
into  a  place  of  security,  assembled  all  their  war- 
riors, and  summoned  their  allies  to  a  place  of 
general  resort.  They  took  post  on  the  Sambre, 
where  the  heights  on  both  sides  of  the  river  being 
covered  with  woods,  enabled  them  to  conceal  their 
numbers  and  their  dispositions.  They  had  in- 
telligence that  Caesar,  except  in  presence  of  an 
enemy,  usually  moved  his  legions  with  intervals 
between  them,  which  were  occupied  by  their  bag- 
gage ;  and  they  made  a  disposition  to  surprise 
him  on  the  march,  and  under  this  disadvantage. 
For  this  purpose  they  chose  their  ground  on  the 
Sambre,  and  agreed  that  the  van  of  the  Roman 
army  should  1h>  suffered  to  pass  unmolested,  but 
that  the  appearance  of  the  first  column  of  bag- 
gage should  be  the  signal  for  a  general  attack  to 
be  made  at  once  from  all  the  different  stations  in 
which  their  parties  were  posted. 

Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  about  three  days 
after  he  had  marched  from  Samarobriva,  now 
supposed  to  be  Amiens,  being  apprised  that  he 
was  come  within  ten  miles  of  the  river,  on  the 
banks  of  which  the  enemy  was  posted,  altered 
the  form  of  his  march,  placed  six  legions,  clear 
of  incumbrance,  in  the  van  of  his  army,  next  to 
these  the  whole  of  his  baggage,  and  in  the  rear 
the  two  legions  that  were  last  levied  in  Italy. 
When  he  entered  the  open  grounds  on  the  Sam- 
bre, a  few  parties  of  horse  appeared,  but  were 
soon  driven  into  the  woods  by  his  cavalry.  The 
legions  that  came  first  to  their  ground  began,  as 
usual,  to  intrench,  and  received  no  disturbance 
till  the  column  of  baggage  came  in  sight.  At 
this  signal  multitudes  of  the  enemy  presented 
themselves  on  every  side,  drove  in  the  cavalry 


206 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


that  were  posted  to  cover  the  working  parties, 
and  in  many  places  were  close  in  with  the  main 
body  of  the  army  before  the  infantry  had  time  to 
uncover  their  shields,  or  to  put  on  their  helmets. 
The  Roman  soldier,  nevertheless,  ran  to  his  co- 
lours, and,  without  waiting  for  the  orders  of  his 
general,  from  whose  abilities,  on  this  occasion,  he 
could  derive  no  advantage,  endeavoured  to  join 
his  companions  in  the  order  to  which  they  were 
accustomed. 

The  event  of  this  tumultuary  action  was  vari- 
ous in  different  places.  The  Nervii,  in  one  part 
of  the  action,  forced  the  imperfect  works  of  the 
Roman  camp :  but  in  another  part  of  it  were 
themselves  forced  from  their  ground,  and  driven 
in  great  numbers  into  the  river.  Some  of  the 
Roman  legions  were  broken,  lost  the  greater  part 
of  their  officers,  and  when  Caesar  arrived  to  rally 
them,  were  huddled  together  in  confusion.  He 
was  reduced  to  act  the  part  of  a  mere  legionary 
soldier,  and,  with  a  shield  which  he  took  from 
one  of  his  men,  joined  in  the  battle,  and  in  this 
manner,  by  his  presence  and  by  his  example, 
kept  the  enemy  at  bay,  until  he  was  relieved  by 
the  arrival  of  two  legions  of  the  rear-guard,  and 
of  two  others,  that  were  sent  by  Labienusto  sup- 
port him. 

This  seasonable  relief,  where  the  Romans 
were  most  distressed,  changed  the  fortune  of  the 
day ;  and  the  confusion,  which  in  the  beginning 
of  the  action  had  been  turned  to  so  good  account 
by  the  Nervii,  now  became  fatal  to  themselves. 
The  greater  part  of  them  fell  in  heaps  on  the 
ground  where  they  first  began  the  attack.  The 
few  who  attempted  to  fly  were  met  at  every 
opening  of  the  woods  by  parties  of  the  enemy,  by 
whom  they  were  forced  into  the  thickets  or  put 
to  the  sword ;  and  as  they  fell  in  the  end  with 
little  resistance,  many  became  a  prey  to  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  legions,  who  put  themselves  in  arms 
and  bore  a  part  in  the  massacre.  Of  four  hundred 
chiefs  only  three  escaped ;  and  of  an  army  of 
sixty  thousand  men,  no  more  than  five  hundred 
left  the  field  of  battle.  The  piteous  remains  of 
this  nation,  consisting  of  superannuated  men,  of 
women,  and  of  children,  sent,  from  the  marshes 
in  which  they  had  been  concealed,  a  message  to 
implore  the  victor's  mercy  ;  but  it  does  not  appear 
in  what  manner  he  disposed  of  them. 

Another  enemy  yet  remained  in  the  field.  The 
Attuatici,  descendants  of  the  Cimbri  and  Teuto- 
nes,  the  late  terrors  of  Gaul,  of  Spain,  and  of 
Italy,  being  settled  below  the  confluence  of  the 
Sambre  and  the  Meuse,  had  been  on  their  march 
to  join  the  Nervii,  when  they  heard  of  this  un- 
fortunate action ;  and  then  withdrew  to  their  own 
country.  Being  pursued  by  Caesar,  they  shut 
themselves  up  in  their  principal  fortress.  Here 
they  made  a  voluntary  submission ;  and  being 
commanded  to  lay  down  their  arms,  threw  such 
a  quantity  of  weapons  from  the  battlements,  as 
almost  filled  up  the  ditch  to  the  height  of  the 
ramparts.  But  Caesar,  having  delayed  taking 
possession  of  the  place  till  the  following  day,  the 
besieged,  whether  they  only  meant  to  deceive  him, 
or  repented  of  their  surrender,  took  arms  again 
in  the  night,  and  in  a  sally  endeavoured  to  sur- 
prise the  Roman  army.  But  four  thousand  of 
them  being  killed  in  this  desperate  attempt,  and 
the  remainder  being  forced  into  the  town,  were,  in 
consequence  of  their  former  breach  of  faith,  to  the 
amount  of  fifty  thousand  persons,  sold  for  slaves. 


Thus  Caesar  having,  in  the  second  year  of  his 
command,  penetrated  to  the  Meuse  and  the 
Scheld,  and  being  master  of  the  eastern  frontier 
of  Gaul  as  far  as  the  Rhine,  and  even  from  be- 
yond that  river  having  received  some  offers  of 
submission  ;  being  master  too  of  several  cantons 
in  Normandy  and  Bretanny,  which  had  submit- 
ted to  the  young  Crassus,  placed  his  army  for 
the  winter  in  the  midst  of  these  conquests,  and 
himself*  as  at  the  end  of  the  former  campaign, 
set  out  for  Italy  and  the  neighbourhood  of  Rome. 

Here  the  principal  point  which  he  left  in  con- 
test between  the  parties,  relating  to  the  restora- 
tion of  Cicero,  had  been  for  sometime  determined. 
Clodius  had  found  a  proper  antagonist  in  Milo, 
and,  as  often  as  he  himself,  or  any  of  his  party, 
appeared  in  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  or  in 
the  streets,  was  every  where  attacked  with  his 
own  weapons. 

Every  one  agreed,  that  if  the  laws  could  not 
give  protection  to  the  citizens  who  were  most 
willing  to  be  governed  by  them,  they  should  not 
by  their  formalities  screen  the  disorderly  and 
profligate  in  the  practice  of  every  species  of  crime. 

Clodius  had  now  for  some  months  lain  under 
an  impeachment  from  Milo,  and  had  declared 
himself  candidate  for  the  office  of  edile,  endeavour- 
ing by  violence,  and  by  the  artifices  of  his  brother, 
to  put  off  the  trial  till  after  the  elections,  when, 
if  he  should  be  vested  with  any  public  character, 
he  might  be  able  to  screen  himself  under  the 
privilege  of  his  office.  His  own  credit,  however, 
and  the  fear  which  citizens  entertained  of  his 
armed  banditti,  who  were  now  in  a  great  measure 
restrained  by  Milo,  had  abated  so  much,  that  the 
party  of  the  senate  determined  to  make  another 
vigorous  effort  for  the  restoration  of  their  exiled 
member. 

This  business  was  accordingly  again  moved  in 
the  senate ;  and  about  the  beginning  of  June  a 
decree  was  passed  in  the  fullest  terms  for  the  re- 
storation of  Cicero.  The  consul  was  charged 
with  the  farther  conduct  of  this  measure  as  of 
the  utmost  consequence  to  the  commonwealth. 
This  officer  accordingly  issued  a  proclamation,  in 
terms  employed  only  on  the  greatest  occasions, 
requiring  all  who  had  the  safety  of  the  republic 
at  heart  to  support  him  in  the  execution  of  this 
decree.  There  was,  in  consequence  of  this  pro- 
clamation, a  great  concourse  of  citizens  from  all 
parts  of  Italy.  The  enemies  of  the  measure 
shrunk  and  withdrew  their  opposition.  The  act 
passed  in  the  assembly  of  the  people  on  the  fourth 
of  August.  Cicero  had  been  so  confident  of  this 
event,  that  he  on  the  same  day  sailed  from  Dyr- 
rachium,  and  on  the  following  arrived  at  Brun- 
dusium.  On  the  eighth  day,  being  still  at  this 
place,  he  had  intimation  of  the  act  being  passed, 
set  out  for  Rome,  and  continued  his  journey 
through  multitudes  of  people,  who  were  assem- 
bled on  the  roads  to  testify  their  joy  upon  his 
return :  he  entered  the  city  on  the  fourth  of  Sep- 
tember. 

Next  day  he  addressed  the  senate  in  a  ha- 
rangue, which  is  still  extant,  composed  of  lavish 
panegyric  or  vehement  invective,  corresponding 
to  the  demerit  or  merit  of  parties  in  his  late  dis- 
grace and  restoration.  The  multitudes  that  were 
assembled  on  this  occasion,  their  impatience  to 
see  him,  their  acclamations  and  wonderful  una- 
nimity, raised  him  once  more  to  his  former  pitch 
of  glory,  and  appeared  to  repay  all  the  services 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


207 


lie  had  rendered  to  the  public,  and  to  compensate 
nil  the  sorrows  of  his  late  disgrace.  The  whole 
matter  was,  to  persons  of  reflection,  an  evidence 
of  that  weakness  with  which  this  ingenious  man 
suffered  himself  to  be  affected  hy  popular  opinion, 
and  of  the  levity  with  which  multitudes  run  into 
different  extremes. 

During  these  transactions  Caesar  was  at  a  great 
distance,  in  the  northern  extremities  of  Gaul, 
engaged  with  fierce  and  numerous  enemies,  and 
involved  in  difficulties,  concerning  which  there 
were  various  reports,  and  of  which  the  issue, 
with  respect  to  himself  and  his  army,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  uncertain.  In  these  circumstances, 
however  willing  Pompey  may  have  been  to  per- 
severe in  the  measures  concerted  with  Caesar,  it 
is  probable  that  he  found  himself  unable  to  re- 
sist the  force  of  the  senate,  which  was  now  ex- 
erted to  obtain  the  restoration  of  a  person  who 
had  taken  so  distinguished  a  part  in  their  mea- 
sures. 

It  is  possible  likewise,  that  in  these  circum- 
stances Pompey  may  have  taken  upon  him  to  act 
independently  of  Csesar,  though  he  afterwards, 
in  trying  to  gain  Cicero  to  the  party  of  the  tri- 
umvirate, affected  to  give  Caesar  equal  merit  with 
himself  in  procuring  his  recall,  and  he  appealed 
to  duintus,  the  brother  of  Marcus  Cicero,  for 
the  truth  of  this  assertion.1  Cicero  himself,  how- 
ever, was  not  disposed  to  give  Caesar  any  credit 
upon  this  account ;  and,  though  both  Caesar  and 
Crassus,  after  the  matter  was  decided,  affected  to 
concur  in  it,  yet  he  does  not  seem  to  have  believed 
them  sincere.  He  imputes  to  Caesar  an  active 
part  in  the  injury  he  had  received,  but  none  in 
the  reparation  that  was  done  to  him.2 

Pompey,  not  the  less  jealous  of  Caesar  for  their 
retended  union,  and  sensible  of  the  advantage 
e  had  gained  in  a  military  command  of  so  long 
a  duration  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  now  wished  to 
propose  for  himself  some  appointment  of  equal 
importance.  The  moment  of  cordiality  in  the 
senate  on  their  recovering  a  favourite  member, 
and  the  first  emotions  of  gratitude  in  the  breast 
of  Cicero,  whom  he  had  obliged,  appeared  to  form 
a  conjuncture  favourable  for  such  a  proposition ; 
and  he  laid,  with  his  usual  address  and  appear- 
ance of  unconcern,  the  plan  of  a  motion  to  be 
made  for  this  purpose. 

The  importation  of  corn  into  Italy  had  lately 
miscarried,  and  a  great  scarcity  and  dearth  had 
followed.  The  populace  being  riotous  upon  this 
complaint,  had  in  the  theatre  attacked  with  me- 
naces and  violence  numbers  of  the  wealthy  citi- 
zens who  were  present,  and  even  insulted  the 
senate  itself  in  the  capitol.  A  report  industriously 
raised  by  the  enemies  of  Cicero  was  propagated, 
to  make  it  be  believed  that  the  distress  arose  from 
his  engrossing  for  some  time  the  attention  of  the 
state;  and  it  was  represented,  in  opposition  to 
this  clamour,  that  the  late  corn  act  of  Clodius, 
and  the  misconduct  of  one  of  his  relations,  in- 
trusted by  him  with  the  care  of  the  public  grana- 
ries, was  the  cause  of  this  distress.  It  was  in- 
sinuated by  the  adherents  of  Pompey,  that  no 
man  was  fit  to  relieve  the  people  besides  himself ; 
that  the  business  should  be  committed  to  him 
alone  ;  and  Cicero  was  called  upon,  as  he  entered 
the  senate,  to  make  a  motion  to  this  purpose,  as 


1  Cicero  art  Familiar,  lib.  i.  ep.  9. 

2  Orat.  in  Senat.  post  Reditum,  c.  15. 


bound  to  procure  some  relief  to  the  people,  in  re- 
turn to  their  late  cordiality  in  his  cause. 

Cicero  had  probably  owed  his  recall  to  the  de- 
clarations of  Pompey  in  his  favour ;  and,  however 
little  reason  he  had  to  rely  on  his  friendship,  it 
was  convenient  to  appear  on  good  terms  with 
him.  He  suffered  himself,  therefore,  to  be  car- 
ried by  the  stream  that  seemed  to  run  in  favour 
of  this  fashionable  leader.  As  if  the  necessity 
of  the  case  had  suggested  the  measure,  he  moved 
the  senate  that  a  commission,  with  proconsular 
power  over  all  the  provinces,  should  be  granted 
to  Pompey  to  superintend  the  supplies  of  corn 
for  the  city.  The  senate,  either  of  themselves 
disposed  to  grant  this  request,  or  won  by  the  elo- 
quence of  their  newly  recovered  member,  in- 
structed the  consuls  to  frame  a  resolution  to  this 
purpose,  and  carry  it  to  the  assembly  of  the  peo- 
ple for  their  assent. 

Here  C.  Messius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  proposed 
to  enlarge  the  commission,  and  to  comprehend 
the  superintendency  of  the  revenue,  with  an  al- 
lotment of  fleets  and  armies  suited  to  the  extent 
of  this  unprecedented  trust.  Pompey,  observing 
that  this  additional  clause  was  ill  received,  denied 
his  having  any  share  in  proposing  it,  and  affected 
to  prefer  the  appointment  intended  for  him  in 
terms  of  the  act  which  had  been  proposed  to  be 
drawn  up  by  the  consuls.  His  partisans,  how- 
ever, still  pleaded  for  the  extension  of  the  com- 
mission as  proposed  by  Messius,  but  in  vain. 
The  extravagance  of  the  proposal  gave  a  general 
alarm,  not  only  to  the  senate,  but  even  to  the 
party  of  Caesar,  who  wished  to  employ  Pompey 
against  the  senate;  but  not  to  arm  him  with  a 
military  force,  or  to  give  him  in  reality  that  so- 
vereignty of  which  he  so  much  affected  the  ap- 
pearances. 

The  extraordinary  commission,  now  actually 
granted  to  Pompey,  although  it  was  exorbitant 
in  respect  to  the  influence  it  gave  him  over  all 
the  producers,  venders,  buyers,  and  consumers 
of  corn  throughout  the  whole  empire ;  yet,  as  it 
did  not  bestow  the  command  of  an  army,  fell 
short  of  the  consequences  which  Ca?sar  principal- 
ly dreaded  in  his  rival ;  and  thougft  probably  the 
cause  of  some  jealousy,  did  not  produce  any  im- 
mediate breach  between  them. 

Pompey,  being^  entitled  by  this  commission  to 
appoint  fifteen  lieutenants,  put  Cicero  at  the 
head  of  the  list ;  and  this  place  was  accepted  of 
by  him,  on  this  express  condition,  that  it  should 
not  prevent  his  standbier  for  the  office  of  censor, 
in  case  an  election  took  place  on  the  following 
year.3  He  was  now  in  the  way  of  recovering 
his  consideration  and  his  dignity,  but  was  likely 
to  meet  with  more  difficulty  in  respect  to  his  pro- 
perty, which  Clodius  had  taken  care  to  have  for- 
feited, having  even  demolished  his  house,  and 
consecrated  the  ground  to  pious  uses.  This  last 
circumstance  had  placed  a  bar  in  his  way,  which 
could  not  be  removed  without  a  formal  decree  of 
the  pontiffs. 

The  college  met.  on  the  last  of  September  to 
hear  parties  in  this  cause.  A  violent  invective 
having  been  pronounced  by  Clodius  against  his 
antagonist,  Cicero  replied  in  that  oration,  which 
is  still  extant  among  his  works  on  the  subject  of 
his  house.4    The  question  was,  Whether  the 


3  Cicero  Orat.  in  Senat.  post  Itertit.  c.  13.  art  Att. 

4  Pro  Domo  sua 


i; 


208 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  llf. 


ground  on  which  Cicero's  house  had  formerly 
stood,  being  formally  consecrated,  could  be  again 
restored  to  a  profane  or  common  use  1  The  pon- 
tiffs appear  to  have  been  unwilling  to  give  any 
explicit  decision.  They  gave  a  conditional  judg- 
ment, declaring,  that  the  consecration  of  Cicero's 
ground  was  void,  unless  it  should  be  found  that 
this  act  had  been  properly  authorized  by  the  peo- 
ple. Both  parties  interpreted  this  judgment  in 
their  own  favour ;  and  the  senate  was  to  deter- 
mine, whether,  in  the  act.  of  consecration,  the 
consent  of  the  people  had  been  properly  obtained. 

The  senate  being  met  on  the  first  of  October, 
and  all  the  parties  who  were  members  of  it  being 
present,  Lucullus,  in  the  name  of  the  pontiffs, 
his  colleagues,  reported,  That  they  had  been  una- 
nimous in  their  judgment  to  revoke  the  act  of 
consecration,  unless  it  should  be  found,  that  the 
magistrate,  who  had  performed  that  ceremony, 
had  been  properly  authorized  by  the  people ;  but 
that  this  was  a  question  of  law  now  before  the 
senate.  A  debate  ensued,  in  which  Lentulus 
Marcellinus,  consul-elect  for  the  following  year, 
gave  his  opinion  against  the  legality  of  the  con- 
secration :  he  was  followed  by  numbers,  and  the 
judgment  of  the  senate  was  likely  to  be  on  that 
side.  Clodius,  to  put  off  the  question,  spoke  for 
three  hours,  and  would  have  prevented  the  se- 
nate's coming  to  any  resolution,  if  the  members, 
becoming  impatient,  had  not  silenced  him  by  their 
interruptions  and  clamours. 

A  resolution  being  moved  for  in  the  terms  that 
had  been  proposed  by  Marcellinus :  the  tribune 
Serranus,  who  had  formerly  suspended  the  de- 
cree for  the  recall  of  Cicero,  now  again  interposed 
with  his  negative.  The  senate,  nevertheless,  pro- 
ceeded to  engross  the  decree,  in  which  it  was  re- 
solved, that  the  ground  on  which  Cicero's  house 
had  formerly  stood,  should  be  again  restored  to 
him  in  property  ;  that  no  magistrate  should  pre- 
sume to  contest  the  authority  of  the  senate  in  this 
matter ;  and  if  any  interruption  were  given  in  the 
execution  of  this  decree,  that  the  tribune,  who 
now  interposed  with  his  negative,  should  be  ac- 
countable for  the  consequences.  Serranus  was 
alarmed.  His  relation,  Cornicinus,  to  give  him 
the  appearance  of  greater  importance,  and  an  op- 
portunity to  recede  with  dignity,  laid  himself  on 
the  ground  at  his  feet,  and  besought  him,  by  his 
intreaties,  to  say,  that  he  would  not  insist  for  the 
present  on  the  negative  he  had  given;  but  he 
begged  the  delay  of  a  night  to  consider  of  the 
matter.  The  senate,  recollecting  the  use  which 
he  formerly  made  of  such  a  delay  on  the  first  of 
January,  was  disposed  to  refuse  it,  when,  upon 
the  interposition  of  Cicero  himself,  it  was  grant- 
ed ;  and  he  having  thought  proper  to  withdraw 
his  negative  entirely,  the  act  accordingly  passed 
on  the  second  of  October.  Cicero  was  allowed 
two  millions  Roman  money'  to  rebuild  his  house 
in  town;  five  hundred  thousand2  to  rebuild  his 
villa  at  Tusculum,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand3  to  rebuild  that  at  Formia?.  The  first 
sum  he  seems  to  have  considered  as  adequate  to 
his  loss,  but  complains  of  the  other  two.4  He 
proceeded,  without  delay,  to  take  possession  of 
his  ground,  and  to  employ  workmen  in  rebuilding 
his  house.    He  had  made  some  progress,  when 


1  About  16,145Z.  16s.  M.  2  About  4.036J.  5s. 

3  About  2,018Z.  4s.  6d. 

4  Ad  Alticuin,  lib.  iv.  cpist.  2. 


Clodius,  on  the  third  of  November,  came  with 
an  armed  force,  dispersed  the  workmen,  and  at-> 
tacked  the  house  of  duintus  Cicero  that  was  ad- 
joining, set  it  on  fire,  and  kept  a  guard  of  his 
retainers  in  the  streets  till  it  was  burnt  to  the 
ground.  By  this  act  of  violence,  Clodius  had 
rendered  his  cause,  in  the  criminal  prosecution 
which  still  hung  over  him,  in  a  great  measure 
desperate.  His  safety  required  the  actual  de- 
struction of  his  enemies,  and  he  had  no  scruple 
to  restrain  him  from  the  most  violent  extremes. 
He  accordingly  attacked  Cicero  as  he  passed  in 
the  streets  on  the  eleventh  of  November^  attended 
by  a  company  of  his  friends,  forced  them  into  a 
walled  court,  where  they  with  difficulty  defended 
themselves,  Clodius,  in  this  attack,  had  frequent- 
ly exposed  his  own  person,  and  might  have  been 
killed ;  but  Cicero  was  now  become  too  cautious 
for  so  bold  a  measure.  "  I  have  put  my  affairs, " 
he  writes  to  Atticus,  "under  a  gentle  regimen; 
and,  in  all  the  cures  I  am  to  apply  for  the  future, 
have  renounced  the  use  of  the  surgeon's  knife.'5 

Clodius,  upon  this  occasion,  being  disappoint- 
ed of  his  design  upon  Cicero's  life,  came  into  the 
streets  on  the  following  day,  which  was  the 
twelfth  of  November,  with  a  number  of  slaves 
provided  with  lighted  torches,  and  escorted  by  a 
party  armed  in  form  with  shields  and  swords. 
They  made  directly  for  a  house  belonging  to 
Milo,  with  intention  to  set  it  on  fire ;  took  pos- 
session of  that  of  P.  Sylla,  in  its  neighbourhood, 
as  a  fortress  in  which  to  defend  themselves,  and 
to  keep  off  all  assistance,  till  the  house  they  were 
to  set  on  fire  should  be  burnt  to  the  ground. 

While  they  were  about  to  execute  this  pur- 
pose, a  number  of  Milo's  servants,  led  by  one 
Flaccus,  sallied  forth  against  the  incendiaries, 
killed  several  of  the  most  forward,  put  the  rest 
to  flight,  and  would  not  have  spared  Clodius 
himself,  if  he  had  not  availed  himself  of  the  re- 
treat, which,  in  entering  on  this  design,  he  had 
prepared  for  his  party. 

On  the  following  day,  Sylla  made  his  appear- 
ance in  the  senate,  in  order  to  exculpate  himself ; 
but  Clodius  still  remained  shut  up  in  his  own 
house.  It  appears  scarcely  credible,  that  a  state 
could  subsist  under  such  extreme  disorders ;  yet 
the  author  of  them  had  been  long  under  prosecu- 
tion for  crimes  of  the  same  nature ;  and  if  was 
still  a  question,  whether  the  charge  against  him 
should  be  heard,  or  whether  he  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  take  refuge  in  one  of  the  offices  of  state, 
to  which  he  was  sure  of  being  named  by  the  peo- 
ple, provided  the  elections  were  allowed  to  pre- 
cede his  trial. 

Marcellinus,  the  intended  consul  of  next  year, 
moved  the  senate  to  hasten  the  prosecution,  and 
to  join  the  late  disorders  committed  by  the  crimi- 
nal to  the  former  articles  of  the  charge  which  lay 
against  him.  But  MeteJIus  Nepos,  one  of  the 
present  consuls,  and  the  relation  of  Clodius,  hav- 
ing formerly  found  means  to  put  off  the  trial,  was 
now  determined  to  prevent  it  altogether,  by  hast- 
ening the  election  of  ffidiles,  in  which  Clodius  was 
candidate,  He  endeavoured  to  prevent  any  im- 
mediate determination  of  the  senate  by  prolong- 
ing the  debate.  But  the  majority  of  the  members 
were  greatly  exasperated,  and  resolved,  that  the 
trial  of  Clodius  for  these  repeated  acts  of  violence 
and  outrage  should  precede  the  elections.  The 
consul  Metellus,  notwithstanding,  was  determined 
to  give  him  a  chance  to  have  refuge  from  this 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


209 


prosecution  in  the  public  office  to  which  he  as- 
pired, and  would  have  brought  on  the  elections  on 
the  nineteenth  of  November,  if  he  had  not  been 
prevented  by  Milo,  who  in  the  middle  of  the  pre- 
ceding night,  had,  with  an  armed  force,  occupied 
the  place  of  assembly,  and  was  prepared  to  ob- 
serve the  heavens,  and  to  announce  some  of  the 
celestial  presages  of  unfavourable  events,  in  case 
other  methods  to  suspend  the  elections  should  not 
have  prevailed. 

Metellus,  and  the  two  brothers,  Appius  the 
prstor,  and  Publius  Clodius,  being  apprised  of 
this  intention,  and  of  the  power  with  which  it  was 
supported,  did  not  make  their  appearance  in  the 
field,  and  Milo  kept  his  station  till  noon,  when  he 
withdrew  with  the  general  applause  of  the  senate, 
and  of  the  more  orderly  citizens. 

The  meeting,  or  assembly  of  the  people,  being 
adjourned  to  next  day,  Metellus,  in  order  to  lull 
the  vigilance  of  Milo,  assured  him,  that  there  was 
no  occasion  to  occupy  posts  in  the  dead  of  the 
night ;  that  he  meant  to  do  nothing  before  it  was 
day ;  that  if  any  one  meant  to  suspend  the  elec- 
tion, he  should,  in  the  morning,  be  found  in  the 
market-place,  and  there  submit  to  the  forms  which 
any  one  was  legally  entitled  to  plead  against  his 
proceeding.  Milo,  accordingly,  at  break  of  day, 
repaired  to  the  market-place,  where  he  expected 
to  be  joined  by  the  consul ;  but  soon  afterwards 
was  told,  that  Metellus  had  deceived  him,  was 
hastening  to  the  field  of  Mars,  where  the  elec- 
tions were  commonly  held,  and  would  instantly 
begin  to  call  the  votes,  when  it  would  be  too  late 
to  interpose  even  under  the  pretence  of  religion. 
Upon  this  information,  he  immediately  pursued 
and  overtook  him  before  the  election  began ;  and, 
by  declaring  his  intention  to  observe  the  heavens, 
once  more  frustrated  the  designs  of  the  faction. 

On  the  twenty-first,  the  people  could  not  as- 
semble by  reason  of  the  public  market ;  and  their 
meeting  being  called  for  the  twenty-third,  Milo 
again  took  possession  of  the  field  with  an  armed 
force ;  and  Cicero,  who  concludes  a  letter  to  At- 
ficus  with  describing  this  state  of  affairs,  made 


no  doubt  of  Milo's  success.5  What  passed  on  this 
day  is  uncertain  ;  but  it  is  known,  that  Clodius 
at  last  prevailed ;  that,  being  elected  sedile,  he 
was,  by  the  privilege  of  his  office,  screened  from 
the  prosecution  that  was  intended  against  him ; 

and  being  himself  safe,  did  not  fail, 
U.  C.  697.  upon  the  expiration  of  Milo's  tri- 
Cn.  Com.  bunate,  to  retort  the  charge  upon 
Lentulus         his  prosecutor;  and  accordingly 

LaMarTpShi  brought  him  to  trial  on  the  secona 
lippus.0  '  °f  February,  for  acts  of  violence 
and  breach  of  the  peace, 
Pompey,  as  well  as  Cicero,  appeared  in  de- 
fence of  Milo ;  and  they  succeeded  in  having 
him  acquitted,  while  they  incurred  a  torrent  of 
reproach  and  invective  on  the  part  of  the  prose- 
cutor. The  market-place  was  crowded  with  the 
partizans  and  retainers  of  Clodius  :  he  had  in- 
structed them  to  reply  to  his  interrogations,  and 
to  direct  all  their  abuse  on  Pompey.  "Who 
starves  the  people  for  want  of  corn'?  Pompey. 
Who  wants  to  be  sent  to  Alexandria?  Pompey." 
This  farce  greatly  disturbed  the  concerted  dignity 
of  this  politician.  His  principal  object  was  con- 
sideration, and  he  could  not  endure  contempt. 
He  was  on  bad  terms  with  the  senate;  and  they 
listened  to  the  invective  of  his  personal  enemies 
with  apparent  satisfaction.  He  complained  to 
Cicero  that  the  people  were  alienated  from  him  ; 
that  the  nobility  were  his  enemies  ;  that  the  se- 
nate was  adverse,  and  the  youth  in  general  ill  dis- 
posed to  him.6  He  had  indeed  submitted  to  be- 
come the  agent  of  Cssar  at  Rome  ;  and,  with  the 
friends  of  the  republic,  incurred  the  odium  of  their 
joint  measures,  while  the  other  was  rising  every 
day  in  military  reputation,  and  was  forming  an 
army  almost  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  with  which 
he  held  every  party  in  the  republic  in  awe.  Pom- 
pey, on  this  occasion,  really  did,  or  affected  to  be- 
lieve, that  a  design  was  formed  against  his  own 
life ;  he  assembled  a  numerous  party  of  his  re- 
tainers from  the  country,  and  absented  himself, 
during  some  time  from  the  senate  and  from  the 
assemblies  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Return  of  Cato  from  Cyprus — His  Repulse  at  the  Election  of  Prators — Arrival  of  Ptolemy 
Auletes  at  Rome —  Visit  of  Pompey  and  Crassus  to  Ccesar's  Quarters  at  Lucca — Renewal  of 
their  Association — Military  Operations  in  Cccsar's  Province — Violent  Election  of  Crassus  and 
Pompey — Provinces — Of  Crassus  in  Syria — Of  Pompey  in  Spain  for  Jive  years — Crassus 
departs  for  Syria. 


THE  particulars  we  have  related  in  the  last 
chapter  have  led  us  on  to  the  middle  of  February, 
in  the  consulate  of  Lentulus  Marcellinus  and  L. 
Marcius  Phi  lippus.  The  first  was  attached  to 
the  forms  of  the  republic,  and  was  a  strenuous 
partizan  of  the  senate.  His  election  was  proba- 
bly a  continuation  of  the  victory  which  this  party 
had  obtained  in  the  restoration  of  Cicero.  Phi- 
lippus  was  now  nearly  related  to  Caesar,  having 
married  his  niece,  the  widow  of  Octavius ;  and 
possibly  owed  his  preferment  in  part  to  that  con- 
nexion. He  was,  by  this  alliance,  become,  the 
step-father  of  young  Octavius,  now  a  boy  of  ten 
years  of  age,  brought  up  by  his  mother  in  the 
house  of  her  second  husband.    This  appears  to 


have  been  a  man  of  great  moderation,  no  way 
qualified  to  be  a  party  in  the  designs  or  usurpa- 
tions of  the  family  with  which  he  was  now  con- 
nected. 

Some  time  before  these  consuls  entered  on  office, 
in  the  end  of  the  preceding  year,  Marcus  Cato 
arrived  from  having  executed  his  commission  to 
Byzantium  and  Cyprus.  The  business  upon 
which  he  had  been  sent  to  the  first  of  these 
places,  was  to  restore  some  exiles  who  had  been 
driven  from  their  country  in  the  violence  of  fac- 
tion.   At  the  second  he  was  to  seize  the  treasure 


5  Cicero  n<l  Att.  lib.  iv.  epist.  3. 

6  Cicer.  ad  Uuint.  fiat.  lib.  li.  epist.  3. 


210 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  III. 


and  the  other  effects  of  Ptolemy,  and  to  reduce 
his  kingdom  to  the  form  of  a  Roman  province. 
This  measure,  by  all  accounts,  was  unjust,  and 
vhe  office  highly  disagreeable  to  Cato;  but  he 
was  determined  to  perform  it  with  the  punc- 
tuality and  respect  due  to  all  the  orders  of  the 
state.  While  he  himself  went  to  Byzantium,  he 
sent  forward  Canidius  to  Cyprus,  to  intimate  the 
commands  of  the  Roman  people,  and  to  exhort 
the  king  to  submission.  Upon  his  return  to 
Rhodes,  in  his  way  to  Cyprus,  he  had  intelli- 
gence, that  this  prince,  unable  to  bear  the  ruin 
of  his  fortunes,  had  in  despair,  killed  himself. 
His  treasure  was  seized,  and  his  effects  sold  :  the 
whole  yielded  to  the  treasury  about  seven  thou- 
sand talents  of  silver.  Upon  the  approach  of 
Cato  to  Rome,  the  magistrates,  the  senate,  and 
multitudes  of  the  people  went  forth  to  receive 
him.  The  senate  thought  proper  in  this  manner 
to  distinguish  their  friends,  and  to  favour  them 
with  some  marks  of  consideration,  in  order  to 
balance,  if  possible,  the  public  honours  that  were 
frequently  lavished  on  their  enemies.  For  the 
same  purpose  likewise  they  resolved  to  insert  the 
name  of  Cato  among  the  praetors  of  this  year ; 
but  this  honour  he  himself  rejected  as  unprece- 
dented and  illegal.  The  year  following,  however, 
when  he  stood  candidate  for  this  office  in  the  or- 
dinary form,  he  was  rejected ;  and  Vatinius,  the 
well-known  tool  of  Caesar,  who  had  been  em- 
ployed by  him  in  all  measures  that  were  too  mean 
for  himself  to  acknowledge,  was  chosen.1 

Csesar,  as  has  been  observed  on  different  occa- 
sions, had  a  serious  antipathy  to  Cato,  considered 
him  as  a  determined  and  resolute  opponent;  and 
accordingly  employed  all  his  influence  to  exclude 
him  from  the  offices  of  state,  and  probably  had  a 
particular  pleasure  in  procuring  him  a  repulse, 
by  the  preference  of  so  mean  an  antagonist  as 
Vatinius,  who  had  the  present  majority  of  votes 
against  him.  But,  in  mentioning  this  event, 
Valerius  Maximus  is  pleased  to  reverse  the  form 
of  expression,  usual  in  speaking  of  disappointed 
candidates,  saying,  "  That  the  list  of  praetors  for 
this  year  had  not  the  honour  of  Cato's  name."2 

Cato,  in  the  execution  of  his  late  commission, 
had  taken  exact  inventories  of  all  the  effects  sold 
at  Cyprus  ;  but  his  books  being  lost,  or  burnt  in  a 
vessel  that  took  fire  on  the  voyage,  Clodius  fre- 
quently threatened  him  with  a  prosecution  to 
account  for  the  sums  he  had  received ;  and  in 
this  he  was  seriously  instigated  by  Caesar,  who 
from  his  winter  quarters  at  Lucca,  watched  all 
the  proceedings  at  Rome. 

From  this  station,  the  proconsul  of  Gaul,  al- 
though he  could  not  attend  in  person,  sent  his 
agents  to  the  city,  took  part  in  every  transaction 
of  moment  that  related  to  his  adherents  or  to  his 
enemies.  It  appeared  to  be  his  maxim,  that  no 
man  should  be  his  friend  or  his  enemy  without 
feeling  the  suitable  effects.  Memmius,  who  had 
been  praetor  with  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  and 
who  had  joined  his  colleague  in  the  prosecution 
that  was  commenced  against  Caesar  at  the  ex- 
piration of  his  consulate,  having  since  been  praetor 
of  Bithynia,  and  accused  of  misconduct  in  his 
province,  was  attacked  by  him  in  a  memorial 
which  he  drew  up  to  be  employed  in  support  of 
the  charge.    Memmius,  in  defending  himself,  re- 


criminated, and  spared  no  kind  of  invective ;  and 
in  the  issue  of  this  matter  had  the  good  fortune  to 
escape  from  the  resentment  of  his  enemy. 

The  power  of  Caesar,  aided  by  his  influence  in 
so  important  a  station,  was  daily  increasing ;  and 
as  he  spared  no  pains  to  crush  those  whom  he 
despaired  of  gaining,  so  he  declined  no  artifice  to 
gain  every  one  else.  All  the  spoils  of  his  pro- 
vince were  distributed  in  gratuities  at  Rome.  He 
knew  the  state  of  every  man's  family,  and  where 
he  could  not  reach  the  master,  paid  his  court  to 
the  mistress,  or  to  the  favourite  slave.  While  in 
his  winter  quarters  at  Lucca,  many  senators  re- 
sorted from  Rome  to  pay  their  court ;  of  these  no 
less  than  two  hundred  were  said  to  have  been 
present  at  one  time;  and  so  many  of  them  in 
public  characters,  that  the  lictors,  who  paraded  at 
the  entrance  of  his  quarters  with  the  badges  of 
office,  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-3 

During  this  winter,  a  question  relating  to  the 
restoration  of  Ptolemy  Auletes  to  the  throne  of 
Egypt,  gave  rise  to  warm  debates  in  the  senate. 
This  prince  had  been  dethroned  by  his  subjects ; 
and,  conceiving  that  he  had  sufficient  credit  with 
many  persons  at  Rome,  who  had  experienced  his 
bounty,  he  repaired  thither  to  solicit  his  own  re- 
storation. In  his  way  he  had  an  interview  with 
Marcus  Cato  at  Cyprus,  and  was  advised  by  him 
to  return  to  Egypt,  and  to  accept  of  any  terms 
from  his  own  people,  rather  than  to  enter  on  such 
a  scene  of  anxiety  and  mortification,  as  he  should 
find  every  suitor  for  public  favour  engaged  in  at 
Rome.  The  giddiness  of  the  multitude,  the  vio- 
lence of  the  parties  of  which  one  was  sure  to 
oppose  what  the  other  embraced,  the  avarice  of 
those  who  might  pretend  to  be  his  friends,  and 
whose  rapacity  the  treasures  of  his  kingdom 
could  not  assuage,  were  sufficient  to  deter  the 
king  from  proceeding  on  his  voyage.  But  the 
importunity  of  his  attendants,  who  wished  to 
have  him  restored  without  any  concessions  to  his 
subjects,  confirmed  him  in  his  former  resolution. 
He  accordingly  proceeded  to  Rome ;  and,  to  the 
great  encouragement  of  his  hopes,  was  favourably 
received  by  Pompey,  who  was  then  possessed  of 
the  reigning  influence  in  the  city,  and  who  con- 
sidered this  as  a  proper  opportunity  to  have  a 
military  commission  joined  to  the  civil  one  of 
which  he  was  already  possessed. 

In  the  mean  while  the  people  of  Alexandria, 
not  knowing  to  what  place  their  king  had  with- 
drawn, imagined  that  he  was  dead,  and  put  his 
daughter  Berenice  in  possession  of  the  kingdom. 
Being  afterwards  informed,  that  he  had  steered 
for  Italy,  and  was  likely  to  engage  the  Romans 
against  them,  they  sent  a  deputation  to  counteract 
his  solicitations  in  the  Roman  senate.  But  these 
deputies  being  intercepted,  and  murdered  by  his 
order,  he  proceeded,  without  opposition,  in  his 
application  at  Rome,  and  obtained  a  decree  for  his 
restoration  to  the  crown. 

The  king  of  Egypt,  by  having  procured  an 
act  in  his  own  favour,  yet  made  but  a  small  pro- 
gress in  the  business  on  which  he  was  come. 
New  difficulties  arose  in  the  choice  of  a  person 
to  carry  the  decree  of  the  senate  into  execution, 
which  greatly  retarded  its  effect. 

Soon  after  this  decree  had  passed,  Lentulus 
Spinther,  consul  of  the  present  year,  being  des- 
tined at  the  expiration  of  his  magistracy  in  the 


1  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Catonis,  et  Cicero  in  Vatinium. 

2  Val.  Max.  lib.  vii.  c.  5 


3  Plutarch,  in  Cresare. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


211 


city  to  command  in  Cilicia  and  Cyprus,  had  in- 
serted the  business  of  restoring  the  king  of  Egypt 
as  a  part  of  his  own  commission.  But  after  Len- 
tulus  was  gone  for  his  province,  this  part  of  the 
commission,  probably  by  the  influence  of  Pom- 
pey,  who  had  views  on  that  expedition,  as  the 
object  of  a  military  command  for  himself,  was  re- 
called. A  strong  party  of  the  nobles,  however, 
being  jealous  of  the  state  which  Pompey  affected, 
and  of  his  continual  aim  at  extraordinary  powers, 
conceived  an  expedient  to  disappoint  him  on  this 
occasion,  or  to  render  the  commission  unworthy 
of  his  acceptance.  In  visiting  the  books  of  Sybils, 
verses  were  said  to  be  found,  containing  an  in- 
junction to  the  Romans,  not  indeed  to  withhold 
their  friendship  from  a  king  of  Egypt  soliciting 
their  protection,  but  "to  beware  how  they  at- 
tempted to  restore  him  with  a  military  force." 
The  authenticity  of  this  oracle  was  acknow- 
ledged, or  declared  by  the  augurs ;  and  the  tribune 
Cams  Cato,  who  was  averse  to  the  cause  of 
Ptolemy,  availed  himself  of  it,  to  suspend  the 
effect  of  the  resolution  which  had  been  already 
taken  in  favour  of  that  prince.  The  senate  and 
people  were  divided  in  their  opinions.  One  party 
urged  that  Pompey  should  be  appointed  to  re- 
store the  king  of  Egypt  to  his  throne;  others 
agreed  that  he  might  be  appointed,  provided  that 
he  undertook  the  commission,  as  proconsul,  at- 
tended by  two  lictors,  and,  in  the  terms  of  the 
oracle,  without  any  military  force.4  Pompey  him- 
self affected  to  think,  that  the  business  should 
have  been  left  as  it  was  in  the  department  of 
Lentulus  the  proconsul  of  Cilicia  and  Cyprus ; 
but  his  retainers,  so  long  as  they  had  any  hopes 
of  rendering  this  a  military  commission,  or  of 
making  it  a  pretence  for  placing  their  patron 
again  at  the  head  of  an  army,  never  ceased  to 
urge  that  he  should  be  employed  in  it. 

Ptolemy  himself  likewise  wished  to  have  this 
business  devolve  upon  Pompey,  as  the  most 
likely  person  to  command  the  force  of  the  com- 
monwealth, and  to  employ  it  effectually  in  his 
favour.  But  both  despairing  at  last  of  success, 
Ptolemy  retired  to  Ephcsus ;  and,  fearing  the  re- 
sentments he  had  provoked  in  the  contest  with 
his  own  people,  and  in  the  late  murder  of  their 
deputies,  he  took  refuge  in  the  temple  of  Diana ; 
a  retreat  from  which  he  was  conducted,  about 
two  years  afterwards,  by  Gabinius,  and  replaced 
on  his  throne.5 

Pompey  was  disgusted  with  his  disappointment 
in  not  being  named  to  this  service,  and  probably 
more  by  the  little  respect  that  was  paid  to  him  by 
all  parties  while  he  lay  under  the  lash  of  con- 
tinual invectives  from  Clodius,  and  from  Caius 
Cato.  Having  obtained,  on  the  fifth  of  April,  a 
grant  of  some  money  towards  executing  his  office 
of  general  surveyor  of  corn  for  the  people;  and 
having  heard  his  own  and  Caesar's  embezzlement 
of  the  public  treasure,  especially  in  the  alienation 
of  the  revenues  of  Campania,  severely  censured 
in  the  senate,6  he  left  Rome  on  pretence  of  ap- 
plying the  sums  with  which  he  was  now  en- 
trusted for  the  purchase  of  corn  in  Sardinia  and 
Sicily.  In  his  way  he  passed  by  Lucca,  and,  to- 
gether with  Crassus,  augmented  the  number  of 


4  Dio.  lib.  xxxix.  c.  12— 16.  Cicero  ad  Lentulum. 
Epist.  ad  Familiares,  lib.  vii. 

5  Liv.  Epitom.  Decad.  xi.  lib.  5. 

6  Cicero  ad  Quint,  frat.  lib.  ii.  cp.  5  et  G. 


attendants  who  paid  their  court  at  the  quartern 

of  Caesar. 

At  an  interview  of  these  three  leaders  they  re 
newed  their  former  confederacy ;  and  it  being 
known  that  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  was  to  stand 
for  the  next  election  of  consuls,  Caesar,  considering 
how  much  a  citizen  so  determined  in  opposition 
to  himself,  instigated  by  Cato,  and  supported  by 
the  party  of  the  senate,  might  attempt  or  execute 
against  him  in  his  absence,  proposed,  that  the  op- 
position to  this  candidate  should  not  be  committed 
to  any  person  of  inferior  consideration  in  their 
party;  but  that  Pompey  and  Crassus  should 
themselves  enter  the  lists,  in  order  to  exclude 
Domitius  from  the  consulate.7 

It  was  agreed  likewise,  at  this  conference,  that, 
upon  the  expiration  of  the  term  for  which  they 
were  to  hold  this  office,  Pompey  should  have  the 
province  of  Spain,  Crassus  that  of  Syria,  each 
with  a  great  army  :  that  Caesar  should  be  con- 
tinued in  his  present  command,  and  have  such 
additions  to  the  establishment  of  his  province  as 
might  enable  him  to  support  an  army  of  eight 
Roman  legions,  with  the  usual  accompaniments 
of  auxiliaries  and  irregular  troops.  Such  was 
already  the  state  of  his  forces,8  including  a  legion 
of  native  Gauls;  he  having,  contrary  to  the  ex- 
press limitation  of  his  commission,  by  which  he 
was  restricted  to  three  legions,  made  this  enor- 
mous augmentation.  This  convention,  like  the 
former,  was  for  some  time  kept  a  secret,  and 
only  began  to  be  surmised  about  the  usual  time 
of  the  elections. 

Soon  after  these  matters  were  settled,  Crassus 
being  to  remain  in  Italy,  Pompey  proceeded  on 
his  voyage  to  Sardinia,  and  Caesar  repaired  to 
his  army  in  Gaul,  where  the  war  in  different 
places  had  been  renewed  in  his  absence.  Among 
the  dispositions  he  had  made  for  the  winter,  the 
young  Crassus  was  left  to  command  on  the  coasts 
of  the  British  channel ;  and  Galba,  another  of 
his  lieutenants,  was  posted  among  the  Alps  to 
protect  the  traders  of  Italy  at  a  principal  pass  of 
these  mountains.  This  officer  had  dislodged  the 
natives  from  many  of  their  strong  holds,  whence 
they  were  accustomed  to  infest  the  highways, 
and  to  lay  such  as  panned  into  Italy  under  con- 
tributions; and  he  took  hostages  for  their  good 
behaviour  for  the  future.  He  fixed  his  quarters, 
during  the  winter,  at  Octodorus,  now  supposed  to 
be  the  village  of  Martinach  in  the  Valle,  situated 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  over  which  travellers 
pass  in  the  route  of  the  greater  abbey  of  St.  Ber- 
nard. Here  he  remained  for  some  time  in  quiet 
possession  of  his  post;  but  the  natives  observing, 
that  the  legions  under  his  command  had  been 
greatly  reduced  by  the  services  of  the  preceding 
campaign,  and  by  the  detachments  which  he  had 
recently  made  from  his  quarters,  formed  a  design 
to  surprise  and  to  cut  him  off.  For  this  purpose, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  village  in  which  he  was 
quartered  suddenly  withdrew  from  him,  and  soon 
after  appeared  with  multitudes  of  their  country- 
men on  the  neighbouring  mountains.  From 
thence  they  made  a  furious  attack  on  the  Roman 
entrenchment,  continually  sending  fresh  numbei  > 
to  relieve  those  who  became  fatigued,  or  who  had 
exhausted  their  weapons. 

The  Romans,  on  the  first  prospect  of  this  at 


7  Suet,  in  Cirsare,  c  24. 

8  Ibid. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


tack,  had  deliberated,  whether  they  should  not 
abandon  their  post ;  but  had  resolved  to  maintain 
it,  and  were  now  become  sensible  that  they  must 
perish,  if  they  could  not,  by  some  impetuous 
sally,  disperse  the  numbers  that  were  assembled 
against  them.  For  this  purpose,  they  determined 
to  break  from  their  lines,  and  to  mix  with  the 
enemy  sword  in  hand ;  a  manner  of  fighting,  in 
which  by  the  superiority  of  the  Roman  shield 
and  sword,  they  always  had  a  great  advantage. 
They  accordingly  sallied  from  their  entrench- 
ment, and,  with  the  slaughter  of  ten  thousand  of 
the  enemy,  Who  began  the  attack  With  thirty 
thousand,  obliged  them  to  retire.  Galba,  never- 
theless, not  thinking  it  prudent  to  remain  in  a 
situation  in  which  he  had  been  exposed  to  so 
much  danger,  retired,  for  the  remainder  of  the 
winter,  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Geneva. 

The  war  had  broke  out  at  the  same  time  in  the 
quarters  of  Crassus,  at  the  other  extremity  of  the 
province  Some  nations,  who  had  made  their 
submission,  and  given  hostages  at  the  end  of  the 
preceding  campaign,  repented  of  this  step,  and 
entered  into  a  concert  to  recover  their  liberties. 
They  began  with  seizing  the  Roman  officers  who 
had  been  stationed  among  them  as  commissaries 
to  provide  for  the  subsistence  of  the  army,  and 
they  detained  them  as  pledges  for  the  recovery  of 
their  own  hostages. 

The  principal  authors  of  this  revolt  were  the 
inhabitants  of  what  is  now  termed  the  coast  of 
Britanny,  between  the  rivers  Vilaine  and  Blavet. 
They  trusted  to  the  strength  of  their  situation  on 
small  islands,  or  peninsulas,  that  were  joined  to 
the  continent  only  by  some  narrow  beach  or 
isthmus,  which  the  sea,  at  high  water,  over- 
flowed. They  depended  likewise  on  the  strength 
of  their  shipping,  in  the  use  of  which,  by  the 
practice  of  navigation  on  that  stormy  sea,  and  by 
their  frequent  voyages  even  to  Britain,  they  were 
extremely  expert.  They  supplied  the  want  of 
canvass  and  hempen  cordage  with  hides  and 
thongs  of  leather,  and  the  want  of  cables  with 
iron  chains,  to  which  they  fastened  their  anchors. 

Caesar,  having  received  intelligence  of  this 
enemy,  while  he  remained  in  his  quarters  at 
Lucca,  sent  orders  to  build  as  many  ships  as  pos- 
sible upon  the  Loire,  and  to  assemble  mariners 
from  the  neighbouring  coasts.  Apprehending,  at 
the  same  time,  a  general  defection  of  the  province, 
and  perhaps  a  descent  from  the  Germans,  that 
were  ever  ready  to  profit  by  the  distress  or  di- 
visions of  their  neighbours,  he  sent  Labienus 
with  a  large  body  of  horse  to  the  Moselle,  at 
once  to  awe  the  Belgic  nations,  and  to  guard  the 
passage  of  the  Rhine,  He  sent  also  Titurius 
Sabinus  with  a  proper  force  into  Normandy, 
where  the  natives  were  already  in  arms ;  and  the 
young  Crassus  to  the  Garonne,  to  give  the  natives 
of  Gascony  sufficient  occupation  in  their  own 
country,  and  to  prevent  their  junction  with  the 
authors  of  this  revolt. 

He  himself  made  haste  to  join  the  troops  that 
were  stationed  in  Britanny,  and  ordered  Decimus 
Brutus  to  assemble  his  fleet,  and  to  make  sail 
Without  loss  of  time  for  the  bay  of  Vannes. 
After  his  arrival  on  the  coast,  he  met  with  all  the 
difficulties  which  he  had  reason  to  expect  from 
the  nature  of  the  country,  and  from  the  disposition 
and  skill  of  its  inhabitants.  The  enemy  had  re- 
tired from  the  continent  to  their  strong  holds  on 
the  promontories  or  head-lands,  in  which  they 


were  periodically  surrounded  by  the  sea.  Being 
attacked  at  one  station,  they  withdrew  in  their 
boats  to  another ;  and  by  their  situation  seemed 
to  be  secure  from  any  enemy,  who  was  not  in  a 
condition  to  make  his  attack,  at  once,  both  by  sea 
and  by  land.  They  eluded  a  land  attack  by  em- 
barking on  board  of  their  vessels ;  and  an  attack 
from  the  sea,  by  landing  from  their  boats,  which 
they  drew  up  on  the  beach. 

Caesar,  to  decide  the  event  of  this  singular  con- 
test, was  obliged  to  wait  the  arrival  of  his  shipping. 
As  soon  as  it  appeared,  the  natives,  sensible  that 
their  fate  depended  on  the  event  of  a  sea-fight, 
embarked  the  most  expert  of  their  warriors,  got 
under  sail  with  all  their  force,  amounting  to  two 
hundred  and  twenty  vessels,  and  steered  directly 
for  their  enemy.  While  the  fleets  drew  near  to 
each  other,  the  shores  were  crowded  with  specta- 
tors; and  the  army  with  Caesar  himself  came 
forth  on  the  heights,  from  which  they  could  be- 
hold the  scene. 

The  Romans  being  inferior  to  their  enemy  in 
the  use  of  their  sails,  as  well  as  in  the  strength  of 
their  vessels,  endeavoured  to  supply  their  defect, 
as  usual,  by  an  effort  of  address  and  unexpected 
contrivance.  They  had  provided  themselves  with 
scythes,  fastened  to  shafts  of  a  proper  length,  in 
order  to  cut  the  enemy's  rigging,  and  let  loose  or 
discompose  their  sails;  and  having  thus,  in  the 
first  encounter,  disabled  many  of  their  ships,  they 
grappled  with  them,  and  boarded  them  sword  in 
hand. 

The  Gauls,  seeing  a  great  part  of  their  fleet 
thus  irrecoverably  lost,  would  have  escaped  with 
the  remainder;  but  were  suddenly  becalmed, 
and  being,  from  ten  in  the  morning  till  night, 
continually  exposed  to  the  attack  of  the  Romans, 
were  all  either  taken  or  destroyed ;  and  the  na- 
tion thus  bereft  of  its  principal  strength  and  the 
flower  of  its  people,  surrendered  again  at  discre- 
tion. 

Under  pretence  that  they  had  violated  the  law 
of  nations,  in  seizing  the  persons  of  officers  wht 
were  stationed  among  them  in  a  public  character, 
their  leaders  were  put  to  death,  and  their  people 
sold  for  slaves. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  lower  banks  of  the 
Seine,  at  the  same  time  having  been  defeated  by 
Titurius,  returned,  agreeably  to  what  was  said 
to  be  the  character  of  Gaulish  nations,  to  their 
former  submission,  with  the  same  levity  with 
which  they  had  thrown  it  aside. 

The  nations  inhabiting  the  banks  of  the  Ga- 
ronne were  still  inclined  to  resist  the  approaches 
of  Crassus  to  their  country.  To  the  advantage  of 
numbers,  they  joined  a  lively  courage,  of  which 
the  Romans  themselves  had  frequently  felt  the 
effects.  Every  chief  was  attended  by  a  number 
of  followers,  whom  he  called  his  soldurii,  and 
who  had  devoted  themselves  to  his  service. 
While  the  chieftain  lived,  the  soldurii  fared  in 
every  thing  alike  with  himself ;  but  if  he  perished 
by  violence,  they  too  must  die,  and  there  was  no 
instance  of  their  failing  in  this  part  of  their  en- 
gagement 

Crassus  being  arrived  on  the  Garonne,  and 
warned  by  the  example  of  other  Roman  officers, 
who  had  fallen  or  miscarried  in  this  service,  de- 
ferred passing  the  river  till  he  had  augmented 
his  force  by  the  junction  of  some  troops  from 
Toulouse,  and  other  parts  of  the  Roman  province. 
Being  thus  reinforced,  he  proceeded  against  the 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


213 


natives  who  were  divided  into  many  little  hordes, 
of  which  Caesar  has,  on  this  occasion,  enume- 
rated twelve,  jealous  of  each  other,  and  unwilling 
to  join  even  in  their  common  defence.  They 
accordingly,  notwithstanding  their  valour,  fell 
separately  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  and 
in  the  end  were  vanquished^  or  made  their  sub- 
mission. 

By  these  conquests,  the  former  acquisitions  of 
Csesar  on  the  Seine  and  the  Marne,  had  a  direct 
communication  with  the  districts  of  Toulouse 
and  Narbonne,  or  what  was  already  called  the 
Roman  province  of  Gaul.  Caesar  himself,  hav- 
ing re-established  peace  in  those  tracts  which  are 
now  termed  Britanny  and  Normandy,  closed  the 
campaign  with  a  march  northward,  where  he 
penetrated  through  the  marshes  and  woods  into 
Brabant ;  but  being  stopped  by  heavy  rains,  and 
the  approach  of  winter,  he  returned  on  his  route, 
without  making  any  settlement ;  and  having  put 
his  army  into  winter  quarters  among  the  nations 
who  had  lately  revolted,  he  set  out  as  usual  for 
Italy.  There  his  presence  was  greatly  wanted 
by  Pompey  and  Crassus,  who,  on  the  approach 
Di"  the  elections,  were  likely  to  meet  with  unex- 
pected difficulties  in  executing  the  plan  lately 
concerted  between  them. 

At  Rome,  the  spring  and  part  of  the  summer 
had  passed  in  disputes  between  persons  connected 
with  the  opposite  parties.  Clodius  had  attacked 
Cicero  in  his  own  person,  in  his  effects,  and  in 
the  persons  of  his  friends.  P.  Sextius,  who,  in 
the  character  of  tribune,  had  been  so  active  in  the 
recall  of  this  injured  exile,  and  who  had  exposed 
his  life  in  the  riots  to  which  that  question  gave 
rise,  was  now  accused,  and  brought  to  trial  for 
supposed  acts  of  violence  committed  by  him  in 
the  course  of  those  contests.  He  was  defended 
with  great  zeal  by  Hortensius,  and  with  a  proper 
gratitude  by  Cicero ;  and  by  their  joint  endea- 
vours was,  on  the  twelfth  of  March,  acquitted  by 
the  unanimous  verdict  of  his  judges.1 

After  this  trial  was  over,  "a  piece  of  superstition, 
curious  as  it  forms  a  picture  of  the  age,  gave  oc- 
casion to  a  fresh  dispute  between  Cicero  and  his 
enemy  Clodius.  Upon  a  report,  that  horrid 
noises  and  clashing  of  arms  had  been  heard  un- 
der ground  in  one  of  the  suburbs,  the  senate 
thought  proper  to  take  the  subject  under  consi- 
deration, and  they  referred  it  for  interpretation 
to  the  college  of  Aruspices.  This  body  delivered 
in  judgment,  that  the  gods  were  offended,  among 
other  things,  by  the  neglect  and  profanation  of 
the  holy  rites'  and  by  the  prostitution  of  sacred 
places  to  profane  uses.  This  response  Clodius 
endeavoured  to  apply  to  the  case  of  Cicero's  house, 
once  consecrated  and  set  apart  for  religion,  and 
now  again  profaned  by  being  restored  to  his 
former  owner.  Cicero  endeavoured  to  remove  the 
charge  of  profanation  from  himself  to  Clodius, 
by  reviving  the  memory  of  his  famous  adventure 
in  Caesar's  house.  "  If  I  quote  any  more  recent 
act  of  impiety,"  says  he,  "  this  citizen  will  recall 
me  to  the  former  instance,  in  which  he  intended 
no  more  than  adultery."  He  proceeded,  how- 
ever, to  apply  the  response  of  the  Augurs  to  a 
late  intrusion  of  Clodius  in  rushing  into  the  the- 
atre with  an  armed  rabble,  while  the  games  were 
celebrating  in  honour  of  the  great  goddess. 

The  senate  for  two  days  together  listened  to 


I  Cicero  ad  Ciuin.  Frat.  lib.  ii.  epist.4.  Orat.  pro  Sext. 


the  mutual  invectives  of  both  parties,  and  were 
entertained  with  their  endeavours  to  surpass  each 
other  in  declarations  of  zeal  for  religion.  Cicero, 
however,  by  the  goodness  of  his  cause,  the  force 
of  his  admirable  talents,  and  perhaps  still  more 
by  the  aid  of  the  triumvirate,  whose  favour  he 
earnestly  cultivated,  prevailed  in  the  contest. 

This  martyr  in  the  cause  of  the  senate,  ever 
since  his  return  from  banishment,  courted  the 
formidable  parties,  whose  power,  at  least  to  hurt, 
he  had  experienced.  He  committed,  or  affected 
to  commit,  himself  entirely  into  the  hands  of 
Pompey ;  and,  with  a  declaration  of  much  attach- 
ment also  to  Caesar,  composed  a  flattering  pane- 
gyric, which  this  leader  received  with  great  plea- 
sure,2 probably  more  on  account  of  the  breach  it 
was  likely  to  make  among  his  opponents  in  the 
senate,  than  on  account  of  the  satisfaction  he  re- 
ceived from  it,  or  of  any  real  accession  of  strength 
it  gave  him  in  the  pursuit  of  his  designs.  By 
this  conduct  Cicero  disgusted  his  former  friends, 
and  felt  his  situation  in  the  city  so  painful,  that 
he  absented  himself,  during  great  part  of  the 
summer,  from  Rome ;  a  circumstance  which  in- 
terrupted the  course,  or  changed  the  subject,  of 
those  letters  to  which  we  are  indebted  for  the 
best  record  of  the  times. 

We  have  indeed  great  reason  to  regret  any  in- 
terruption of  materials  from  which  the  history  of 
this  consulate  might  be  collected.  The  republic 
seems  in  part  to  have  recovered  its  dignity  by  the 
able  and  resolute  conduct  of  Marcellinus,  and  by 
the  tacit  concurrence  of  his  colleague  Philippus, 
who,  though  connected  with  Caesar,  did  not  co- 
operate in  the  execution  of  his  designs.*  By  the 
influence  of  these  consuls,  the  applications  made 
to  the  senate  by  Gabinius,  now  commanding  in 
Syria,  for  certain  customary  honours  were  re- 
jected.4 This  refusal  was  intended  to  mortify 
Pompey,  who  protected  Gabinius,  and  who  him- 
self was  commonly  treated  by  Marcellinus  with 
great  freedom  and  severity.  The  aristocratical 
party  recovered  their  courage,  and  Doniitius 
Ahenobarbus,  by  their  influence,  was  in  a  fair 
way  to  succeed  in  his  election  for  consul  of  the 
following  year. 

The  tribunes,  excited  chiefly  by  Caius  Cato, 
espoused  the  opposite  interest,  and  proposed  many 
resolutions  to  the  people,  in  order  to  favour  their 
designs.  The  consul  Marcellinus  endeavoured 
to  interrupt  them  by  the  appointment  of  fasts  and 
holidays,  in  which  it  was  not  lawful  to  transact 
affairs  in  the  assembly  of  the  people.  The  tri- 
bunes, in  their  turn,  suspended  the  election  of 
consuls,  and  in  this  were  encouraged  by  Pompey 
and  Crassus,  who  feared  the  effect  of  a  choice  to 
be  made  under  the  direction  of  Marcellinus,  and 
had  not  even  openly  declared  their  own  inten- 
tions to  offer  themselves.  Their  late  interview 
with  Caesar,  and  the  part  they  since  took,  hud 
created  suspicion  of  their  views.  Marcellinus 
put  the  question  to  Pompey  in  the  senate,  whe- 
ther lie  desired  the  consulate  for  himself?  And 
this  politician,  long  unaccustomed  to  make  plain 
declarations,  answered  indirectly,  That  if  there 
were  no  ill-disposed  citizens  in  the  common- 
wealth, he  should  have  no  such  desire.  Crassus, 
to  the  same  question,  made  a  like  evasive  reply, 
That  he  should  be  governed  by  what  he  judged 


2  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  ep.  5. 

3  Cic.  ad  Quint.  Frat.  lib.  ii.  ep.  6.        4  Ibid.  ep.  7 


214 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  III. 


best  for  the  state.  Both  appear  to  have  perceived 
that  they  were  to  rely  for  success  chiefly  on  popu- 
lar tumults;  and  as  these  would  come  to  be  em- 
ployed with  great  disadvantage  against  such  an 
able  and  resolute  magistrate  as  Marcellinus,  they 
took  measures  to  defer  the  elections  until  the  term 
of  the  present  consuls  in  office  should  expire.1 

They  found  the  tribune  Caius  Cato,  a  proper 
instrument  for  their  purpose,  secured  his  nega- 
t've,  and  employed  it  repeatedly  to  suspend  the 
elections.  The  republic,  upon  the  approach  of 
the  new  year,  being  to  lose  its  former  magis- 
trates, without  any  succession  of  new  ones,  was 
likely  to  fall  into  a  state  of  great  confusion.  The 
senate  went  into  mourning,  and  discharged  every 
member  from  assisting  at  any  of  the  public  diver- 
sions. In  this  state  of  suspense  arid  public  alarm, 
Publius  Clodius,  who  had  for  some  time  been  at 
variance  with  Pompey,  as  if  gained  by  the  sym- 
pathy of  measures  on  this  occasion,  was  recon- 
ciled to  him,  and  attacked  Marcellinus  with  con- 
tinual invectives. 

In  this  manner  the  year  was  suffered  to  elapse 
without  any  election  of  consuls.  The  fasces 
dropped  from  the  hands  of  Marcellinus  and  Phi- 
lippus,  and  an  interregnum  ensued.  Pompey 
and  Crassus  then  openly  appeared  as  candidates 
for  the  vacant  offices  of  state.  Young  Crassus 
came  from  the  army  in  Gaul,  attended  by  a 
numerous  body  of  citizens  then  serving  under 
Caesar :  they  brought  a  considerable  accession  of 
votes  to  the  party  of  their  general,  and  were 
themselves  not  likely  to  be  outstripped  by  their 
opponents  in  acts  of  sedition  and  the  use  of  force. 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus  alone,  supported  by  the 
councils  of  his  kinsman  Marcus  Cato,  had  the 
courage  to  persist  in  a  contest  with  these  power- 
ful and  dangerous  antagonists.  The  time  of  elec- 
tion being  fixed,  he  went  before  break  of  day  to 
occupy  his  place  in  the  field  of  Mars,  but  found 
his  way  already  obstructed  by  a  disorderly  popu- 
lace, and  even  by  men  in  arms.  The  slave  who 
carried  a  light  before  him  was  killed.  Some  of 
his  friends,  particularly  Marcus  Cato,  was  wound- 
ed ;2  and  his  adherents  not  being  in  condition  to 
dispute  the  ground  with  the  force  that  was  as- 
sembled against  them,  retired  to  their  own  houses, 
leaving  Pompey  and  Crassus  to  be  named  with- 
out opposition. 

In  the  same  manner  the  faction  of  the  trium- 
virate overruled  every  other  election,  procured 
the  preference,  which  has  already  been  mention- 
ed, of  Vatinius  to  Cato,  and  filled  every  office 
with  their  own  creatures.  They  carried  the  ap- 
pointment of  ediles  by  actual  force,  and  at  the 
expense  of  the  lives  of  some  of  those  who  op- 
posed them.  Pompey  himself  having  been  en- 
tangled in  one  of  these  tumults,  retired  to  change 
his  clothes,  which  were  stained  with  blood.  They 
were  disappointed  in  the  nomination  only  of  two 
of  the  tribunes,  Publius  Acquilius  Gallus  and 
Ateius  Capito,  who  were  of  the  opposite  party. 

These  events,  however,  were,  by 
U.  C.  638.    the  contest  which  arose  on  every 
question,  deferred  for  all  the  months 
Ca.  Pompeius  of  winter  and  s?T[n„     The  offices 
.Magnus.  2ao ;    c  c  ,  Fn   i        1  a 

M  Licinius  of  praetor  were  not  filled  up  by  the 
Crassus.        middle  of  May.3  The  elections  had 


1  Dio.  lib.  xxxix.  c.  37. 

2  Plutarch  in  Crass.  Pompeio,  &c. 

3  Qj«ei\  ad  Quint.  Frat.  lib.  ii.  ep.  9. 


begun  for  this  purpose  some  time  before ;  but 
it  being  observed  that  Marcus  Cato  had  the 
first  centuries,  Pompey,  under  a  pretence,  al- 
lowed by  the  Roman  superstition,  that  he  was  to. 
observe  the  heavens,  interposed  to  suspend  the 
ballot.  The  faction  employed  the  time  which 
they  obtained  by  this  delay  in  procuring  votes, 
and  were  so  unguarded  in  giving  money,  that 
they  laid  themselves  open  to  a  criminal  prosecu- 
tion, and  had  reason  to  apprehend  that  whatever 
election  they  made  would  be  disputed  at  law.  To 
prevent  this  consequence,  Afranius,  a  person  en- 
tirely under  the  direction  of  Pompey,  moved  in 
the  assembly  of  the  people  for  a  dispensation 
from  the  statute  of  bribery  in  the  case  of  elections 
then  depending  for  the  office  of  praetor ;  and  having 
obtained  this  extraordinary  indulgence,  secured 
to  the  party  the  fruits  of  their  influence  and  of 
their  money.4 

Among  the  acts  of  Pompey  and  Crassus,  in 
their  second  consulate,  are  mentioned  some  regu- 
lations respecting  the  courts  of  justice  by  which 
the  juries,  though  taken  in  equal  numbers  from 
the  senate,  the  equestrian  order,  and  the  mass  of 
the  people,  were  nevertheless  limited  to  persons 
of  considerable  property.  There  are  likewise 
mentioned  some  resolutions  then  passed  to  enforce 
the  laws  against  murder,  and  to  amend  those 
against  bribery  by  additional  penalties,  together 
with  a  sumptuary  law  to  check  the  extravagance 
and  prodigality  of  the  age.  "  So  willing  were 
these  magistrates,"  said  Hortensius,  "to compen- 
sate by  their  acts  for  the  defects  of  their  practice, 
that  they  made  laws  even  to  limit  the  expense  of 
the  table."  Such  professions  to  reform  the  age 
were  probably  intended  to  retrieve  the  character 
which  the  popular  leaders  had  lost  by  the  violence 
and  bare-faced  corruption  of  their  recent  canvass, 
and  to  mark  their  administration  with  some  mea- 
sures that  might  seem  to  disprove  the  imputations 
commonly  laid  to  their  charge. 

Pompey,  at  the  same  time,  had  an  opportunity 
to  signalize  his  consulate,  by  opening,  during  the 
present  year,  the  magnificent  theatre  which  he 
himself,  or  his  freedman  Demetrius,  had  erected 
for  the  accommodation  of  the  people  at  their  pub- 
lic shows.  At  this  solemnity  were  exhibited 
many  dramatic  performances  and  entertainments 
of  every  sort.  Among  these,  in  the  course  of 
five  days,  no  less  than  five  hundred  lions  were  let 
loose  and  killed  by  African  huntsmen  ;  and  the 
whole  concluded  with  the  baiting  of  eighteen  ele- 
phants, animals  that  seemed  to  have  sagacity 
enough  to  be  conscious  of  the  indignity  and  the 
wrong  which  they  suffered.  By  their  piteous 
cries  they  moved  compassion  in  the  breasts  even 
of  that  barbarous  rabble,  for  whose  entertainment 
they  were  slain.5 

The  allotment  of  provinces,  which  was  the 
principal  object  of  this  consulate,  was  for  some 
time  kept  from  the  view  of  the  people.  Pompey 
continued  to  profess  that  he  did  not  intend  to 
accept  of  any  province  whatever.  But  the  pub- 
lic gave  no  credit  to  such  declarations  on  his  part ; 
and  his  own  partizans  were  accustomed  to  press 
upon  him  what  he  affected  to  decline.6  Every 
one,  therefore,  in  all  conversations,  endeavoured 
to  accommodate  him  in  a  province,  some  with 

4  Cicer.  ad  Quint.  Frat.  lib.  ii.  ep.  9. 

5  Dio.  lib.  xxxix.  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  vii.  Plin. 
lib.  viii.  c.  7. 

6  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  ep.  9. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


216 


Syria,  others  with  Spain  and  Africa;  to  all 
which  suggestions,  or  officious  projects,  he  af- 
fected indifference,  or  even  aversion.  Trebonius, 
however,  at  this  time  tribune  of  the  people,  made 
a  motion,  which  was  soon  understood  to  be  the 
real  mind  of  Pompey,  and  the  actual  result  of  his 
counsels:  that  the  province  of  Syria  should  be 
assigned  to  Crassus ;  that  of  Spain,  together  with 
Africa,  to  himself;  each  in  imitation  of  Caesar's 
appointment  in  Gaul,  to  continue  for  five  years, 
with  such  establishments  of  men  and  of  money 
as  the  necessity  of  the  service  during  that  period 
might  require.  This  motion  was  made  in  exe- 
cution of  the  original  plan  concerted  with  Caesar, 
and  it  served  to  bring  to  light  the  object  of  their 
late  conference  at  Lucca,  which  had  so  much 
alarmed  the  friends  of  the  republic. 

On  the  day  that  this  motion  was  made  in  the 
assembly,  Marcus  Cato,  by  means  of  the  tribunes 
Atteius  Capito  and  Acquilius  Gallus,  obtained 
leave  to  address  the  people.  He  endeavoured  to 
disappoint  the  purpose  of  the  meeting,  by  occu- 
pying so  much  of  their  time  as  to  prevent  their 
coming  to  any  decision.  Being  commanded  si- 
lence, and  persisting  to  speak,  he  was  ordered  by 
Trebonius  into  custody.  In  this  manner,  how- 
ever, the  first  day  was  spent,  and  the  assembly 
adjourned  to  the  next  morning. 

The  tribunes  Atteius  and  Gallus,  suspecting 
that  means  might  be  used  to  exclude  them  from 
the  assembly  which  was  then  to  be  held,  took 
measures  to  secure  their  admission.  For  this 
purpose  Gallus  remained  all  night  in  the  senate- 
house,  which  fronted  the  Comitia  or  place  of  as- 
sembly. But  this  device  was  turned  against 
himself ;  the  opposite  party  having  placed  a  guard 
to  confine  him  in  that  place  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  following  day.  His  colleague  Atteius, 
with  Cato,  Favonius,  and  some  others,  eluded  the 
parties  that  were  placed  to  intercept  them,  and 
found  their  way  to  the  place  of  assembly.  When 
the  question  was  put,  Cato,  being  lifted  up  into 
view  by  those  of  his  friends  who  were  about  him, 
gave  an  alarm  that  it  thundered ;  an  intimation 
ever  held  by  the  religious  customs  of  the.  Romans 
to  be  ominous,  and  sufficient  to  suspend  their 

!)rocedure  in  any  business  of  state.  He  was, 
lowever,  on  this  occasion  forced  from  the  comi- 
tium  with  the  slaughter  of  some  of  his  friends, 
who  resisted  the  force  that  was  employed  against 
them.  About  the  same  time  the  tribune  Acqui- 
lius was  wounded  in  forcing  his  way  from  the 
senate-house,  and  a  great  concourse  of  people 
was  forming  round  him  as  he  stood  bleeding  in 
the  streets.  Violence  to  the  person  of  a  tribune 
was  still  considered  with  religious  horror,  and 
the  consuls,  in  whose  behalf  this  tumult  had  been 
raised,  fearing  the  consequence  of  suffering  such 
a  spectacle  to  remain  in  the  view  of  the  people, 
ordered  the  multitude  to  withdraw,  and  removed 
the  tribune,  still  bleeding  of  his  wounds,  from  the 
public  view. 

In  the  sequel  of  these  operations,  Pompey  and 
Crassus  obtained  the  provinces  in  question,  and 
m  the  terms  proposed ;  they  proceeded  to  fulfil 
their  part  of  the  late  engagement  to  Caesar,  by 
moving  that  his  command  should  be  continued 
during  an  additional  term  of  five  years  more. 
"Now,  indeed,"  said  Cato,  addressing  himself  to 


Pompey,  "the  burden  is  preparing  for  your  own 
shoulders.  It  will  one  day  fall  on  the  republic, 
but  not  till  after  it  has  crushed  you  to  the  ground.' ' 

These  arrangements  being  made,  the  officers 
thus  appointed  proceeded  to  take  charge  of  their 
trust.  Pompey,  the  newly  named  proconsul  of 
Spain,  under  pretence  of  a  war  subsisting  with 
the  Vaccei,  raised  the  establishment  of  his  pro- 
vince to  four  legions,  two  of  which  Caesar  soon 
after,  under  pretence  of  more  urgent  service  in 
Gaul,  had  the  address  to  borrow  from  him. 

Pompey  either  had  not  yet  begun  to  perceive 
what  Cato  suggested  to  him,  that  the  greatest 
difficulty  he  had  to  fear,  in  preserving  the  emi- 
nence to  which  he  aspired,  was  the  emulation  of 
Caesar ;  and  that  the  sword  must  determine  the 
contest  between  them ;  or  he  flattered  himself 
that,  like  the  person  who  stays  at  the  helm,  he 
was  to  command  the  vessel ;  and  by  remaining 
at  the  seat  of  government,  while  his  associates 
and  rivals  accepted  of  appointments  at  a  distance, 
that  he  continued  to  preside  as  sovereign,  and 
supreme  dictator  of  the  whole.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  these  conceptions,  although  his  proper 
station  was  Spain,  he  either  procured,  or  at  least 
availed  himself  of,  a  motion  that  was  made  by 
some  of  the  tribunes  to  detain  him  in  Italy  ;  and 
fancied,  while  he  sent  his  own  lieutenants,  Afra- 
nius  and  Petreius,  as  private  agents  for  himself 
into  that  province,  that  even  Caesar  and  Crassus, 
though  in  a  more  public  character,  were  however 
to  act  in  a  subordinate  station  to  himself. 

Crassus  ever  considered  riches  as  the  chief 
constituents  of  power,  and  he  expected,  with  the 
spoils  of  Asia,  to  equal  the  military  or  political 
advantages  that  were  likely  to  be  acquired  by  his 
rivals  in  Europe.  From  the  levies  and  other  pre- 
parations which  he  made  for  his  province,  it  soon 
appeared  that  he  intended  a  war  with  the  Par- 
tisans, the  only  antagonists  which  the  Romans 
had  left  on  the  frontier  of  Syria.  Observing  that 
he  was  likely  to  meet  with  an  opposition  to  this 
design  from  the  senate  and  from  the  tribunes, 
who  exerted  their  powers  to  interrupt  his  prepa- 
rations, and  took  measures  to  detain  him  at  home, 
he  became  the  more  impatient  to  set  out  for  his 
province,  and  left  Rome  before  the  expiration  of 
the  year  for  which  he  was  elected  into  the  office 
of  consul.  The  tribune  Atteius  endeavoured  to 
stop  him,  first  by  his  tribunitian  negative,  next 
by  actual  force,  and  last  of  all  by  solemn  impre- 
cations, devoting  the  consul  himself,  and  all  who 
should  follow  him  on  that  service,  to  destruction. 

While  Crassus  passed  through  the  gates  of 
Rome,  on  his  intended  departure  for  Asia,  this 
tribune,  with  a  lighted  lire,  the  usual  form  of 
devoting  a  victim  to  the  infernal  gods,  denounced 
a  curse,  which  greatly  alarmed  many  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  Crassus.  This  piece  of  superstition  he 
might,  in  his  own  mind,  have  justly  contemned  : 
but  it  was  imprudent  to  slight  the  effects  of  it  on 
the  minds  of  the  people,  and  on  the  minds  of  his 
own  army.  In  the  apprehension  of  both  he  was 
by  this  form  doomed  to  destruction,  and  proceeded 
in  the  war  at  the  head  of  troops  ill  prepared  to 
ward  off*  calamities,  which  they  were  thus  made 
to  believe  hung  over  them,  in  consequence  of  im- 
precations of  which  they  did  not  question  the 
efficacy. 


THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  AXD  TERMINATION 


OP  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC- 


book  IV. 


CHAPTER  I. 

State  of  the  Commonwealth — Administration  of  the  Provinces — Operations  of  Ccesar  in  Gaul% 
Germany,  and  Britain — State  of  Pompey  at  Rome — Progress  of  Crassus  into  Syria — King- 
dom of  Parthia — Invasion  of  Crassus  beyond  the  Euphrates — Second  Invasion  of  Ccesar  in 
Britain. 


THE  provincial  appointments  of  Pompey  and 
Crassus,  with  that  which  was  at  the  same  time 
prolonged  to  Caesar,  seemed  to  dismember  the 
empire,  if  not  to  expose  the  republic  itself  to  great 
danger. 

Of  these  three  adventurers,  Pompey  and  Caesar, 
apart  from  the  evil  particularly  apprehended  in 
any  of  their  measures,  were  in  themselves  sub- 
jects of  a  very  dangerous  character:  neither 
possessed  that  dignity  of  mind  which  fits  the  citi- 
zen for  the  equality  of  persons  in  a  republican 
state  ;  neither  could  acquiesce  in  the  same  mea- 
sures of  consideration  or  power  which  other  sena- 
tors had  enjoyed  before  him ;  neither  could  be  at 
ease  where  he  did  not  command  as  master,  or  ap- 
pear at  least  as  the  principal  object  in  every  scene 
in  which  he  was  employed. 

This  paltry  ambition,  some  ages  before,  might 
have  been  held  in  contempt  by  the  meanest  of 
the  people,  or  must  have  shrunk  before  that  noble 
elevation  of  mind  by  which  the  statesman  con- 
ceived no  eminence  besides  that  of  high  personal 
qualities  employed  in  public  services,  or  before  the 
austere  virtue  which  confined  the  public  esteem 
to  acts  of  public  utility,  supported  by  unblemished 
reputation  in  private  life.  But  in  the  present 
age,  there  was  a  fashion  which  set  such  antiquated 
notions  at  defiance,  controlled  the  authority  of 
the  state  itself,  and  bestowed  on  private  adven- 
turers the  attachment  which  belonged  to  the 
commonwealth,  and  the  deference  which  was  due 
to  its  legal  head. 

In  the  progress  of  this  republic  the  character 
of  parties  has  already  repeatedly  changed,  and 
the  danger  to  be  apprehended  from  them  accord- 
ingly varied. 

216 


In  the  first  periods  of  its  history,  citizens  were 
divided  on  the  supposed  distinctions  of  birth ;  and, 
in  the  capacities  of  patrician  or  plebeian,  strove 
for  prerogative  or  privilege  with  much  emulation, 
as  separate  orders  of  men  in  the  commonwealth, 
but  with  little  jealousy  of  personal  interests. 

In  a  subsequent  period,  when  the  invidious 
part  of  the  former  distinction  was  removed,  citi- 
zens having  no  longer  the  same  subject  of  ani- 
mosity, as  being  born  to  different  pretensions, 
they  entered  more  fully  on  the  competition  of  in- 
dividuals, and  the  formation  of  separate  factions. 
They  strove  for  the  ascendant  of  aristocratical  or 
democratical  government,  according  to  the  inte- 
rest they  had  formed  to  themselves  in  the  preva- 
lence of  either.  They  were  ready  to  sacrifice  the 
peace  and  honour  of  the  public  to  their  own  pas- 
sions, and  entered  into  disputes  accordingly, 
which  were  in  the  highest  degree  dangerous  to 
the  commonwealth.  They  thought  personal  pro- 
vocations were  sufficient  to  justify  public  dis- 
orders ;  or,  actuated  by  vehement  animosities, 
they  signalized  their  victories  with  the  blood  of 
their  antagonists.  But,  though  sanguinary  and 
cruel  in  their  immediate  executions,  they  formed 
no  deliberate  plans  of  usurpation  to  enslave  their 
country,  nor  formed  a  system  of  evils  to  continue 
beyond  the  outrage  into  which  they  themselves 
were  led  by  their  supposed  personal  wrongs  or 
factious  resentments. 

We  are  now  again  once  more  to  change  the 
scene,  and  to  have  under  our  consideration  the 
conduct  of  men  who  were  in  reality  as  indifferent 
to  any  interest  of  party  as  they  were  to  that  of 
the  republic,  or  to  any  object  of  state ;  who  had 
no  resentments  to  gratify,  or  who  easily  sacrificed 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


217 


those  which  they  felt  to  the  purposes  of  a  cool 
and  deliberate  design  on  the  sovereignty  of  their 
country.  Though  rivals,  they  could  occasionally 
enter  into  combinations  for  mutual  support,  fre- 
quently changed  their  partizans,  and  had  no  per- 
manent quarrel  hut  with  those  who  uniformly 
wished  to  preserve  the  republic.  They  were  sur- 
rounded by  persons  who  admired  the  advantages 
of  Wealth  or  of  power  which  were  gained  at  the 
expense  of  their  country,  and  who  indeed  were 
ready  to  extol  the  virtues  of  any  adventurer  who 
led  a  numerous  list  of  retainers  to  share  in  the 
spoils  of  the  commonwealth. 

Peace  had  now,  for  some  years,  except  in  that 
part  where  Caesar  commanded,  been  established 
throughout  the  empire.  Instead  of  military  ope- 
rations, the  state  was  occupied  in  directing  the 
farms  of  the  revenue,  in  hearing  complaints  of 
oppression  from  the  provinces,  and  in  appointing 
the  succession  of  military  governors.  Besides 
the  disputes  which  have  been  mentioned  relating 
to  the  provincial  appointments  of  Crassus  and 
Caesar,  there  arose  a  question  on  the  subject  of 
provinces  to  be  assigned  to  their  immediate  pre- 
decessors in  the  consulate,  Marcellinus  and  Phi- 
lippus.  It  was  strongly  urged  that  Piso,  Gabinius, 
and  even  Caesar  should  be  recalled  to  make  way 
for  officers  who  were  entitled  to  similar  command 
in  their  turns.  This  measure  was  supported  in 
part  by  Cicero,  who  vehemently  contended,  that 
Piso  and  Gabinius  should  be  superceded;  but 
urged  the  continuance  of  Caesar  in  his  station,  a 
circumstance  for  which  this  able  adventurer  had 
taken  sufficient  precaution  not  to  leave  it  in 
hazard  from  the  issue  of  this  debate. 

Piso,  the  nearer  relation  of  Causar,  in  the  event 
of  these  deliberations,  was  actually  recalled,  and, 
upon  his  return  to  the  city,  complained  to  the 
senate,  in  terms  of  great  asperity,  of  the  injury 
done  to  his  character.  Cicero  had  ever  treated 
Piso  and  Gabinius,  though  in  reality  but  the  in- 
struments of  Pompey  and  Caesar,  as  the  princi- 
pal authors  of  his  late  calamities  ;  and,  upon  the 
present  occasion,  had  pronounced  against  Piso 
that  violent  invective  which  still  remains  among 
his  works,  and  which  the  subsequent  conduct  of 
the  person  against  whom  it  was  directed  in  a  great 
measure  disproved. 

Gabinius  had  for  some  years  enjoyed  the  go- 
vernment of  Syria,  and  during  this  tiim*  bad 
ventured  to  employ  the  force  of  his  province  in 
a  manner,  whieh,  together  with  some  other 
offences,  drew  upon  him,  at  his  return  to  Rome, 
the  animadversion  of  the  senate. 

It  has  been  mentioned  that  Ptolemy  Aulctes, 
king  of  Egypt,  in  exile  from  his  kingdom,  had 
applied  to  the  Romans  for  aid  in  recovering  his 
crown ;  that  his  suit  had  been  granted,  but  ren- 
dered ineffectual  by  the  regard  which  was  paid  to 
a  supposed  oracle,  which  forbade  his  being  rein- 
stated with  a  military  force;  that  he  had  with- 
drawn to  Ephesus,  and  taken  sanctuary  in  the 
temple,  where  he  waited  for  some  change  of  for- 
tune in  his  favour.  Lentulus,  the  governor  of 
Cilicia,  to  whom  the  business  of  restoring  him, 
though  without  military  force,  had  been  com- 
mitted by  the  senate,  deliberated  whether  he 
should  not  venture  to  disregard  the  restriction 
imposed  upon  him ;  march  with  an  army  to  re- 
store the  king  of  Egypt ;  possess  himself  of  the 
wealth  which  was  to  be  found  in  effecting  such 
a  revolution,  and  trust  to  the  influence  of  his 
2  E 


friends  at  Rome  in  procuring  his  pardon  from  the 
senate,  and  even  their  approbation  of  what  he 
should  have  done. 

Upon  this  question,  Cicero  advised  Lentulus, 
if  he  had  a  force  sufficient  to  undertake  the  enter- 
prise, not  to  lose  an  opportunity  of  performing  a 
service  which,  though  not  authorised,  could  be 
afterwards  vindicated.  But  the  business  still  re- 
mained in  suspense,  when  Gabinius  arrived  in 
Syria,  and  probably,  by  an  advice  from  Pompey 
to  the  same  purpose  with  that  of  Cicero  to  Len- 
tulus, undertook,  in  opposition  to  a  decree  of  the 
senate  and  of  the  augurs,  the  restoration  of  this 
exile  to  his  throne.  Having  received  or  bar- 
gained for  a  great  sum  of  money  in  return  for 
this  service,  he  advanced  with  a  fleet  and  an  army 
towards  Egypt,  passed  through  Palestine,  and  on 
his  way  raised  a  contribution  in  that  country. 

Berenice,  the  daughter  of  Ptolemy,  now  in 
possession  of  the  crown,  had  married  Archelaus  ; 
and,  in  order  to  strengthen  her  hands  against  her 
father,  had  assumed  her  husband  as  a  partner  in 
the  throne.  But  the  forces  of  these  associated 
sovereigns  were  defeated  by  Gabinius,  and  Ptole- 
my was  restored  to  his  kingdom.  Gabinius,  with 
the  treasure  amassed  on  this  occasion,  hoped  to 
be  secure  against  the  attacks  which,  at  his  re 
turn  to  Rome,  were  likely  to  be  made  upon  him, 
for  his  contempt  of  the  senate,  and  of  the  oracle, 
and  for  the  extortion  of  which  he  was  accused  at 
the  same  time  in  Palestine,  a  part  of  his  own 
province 

In  this  busy  time  of  Caesar's  faction  at  Rome, 
he  himself  upon  an  alarm  of  an  invasion  from 
Germany,  had  been  called  to  defend  the  northern 
extremity  of  Gaul.  Two  separate  hordes,  the 
Tenehteri  and  Usupetes,  pretending  to  be  driven 
by  superior  force  from  the  usual  tract  of  their 
migrations,  had  united  together,  and  presented 
themselves  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  The 
native  inhabitants  of  the  ri^ht  of  that  river  in- 
stantly abandoned  their  habitations,  and  collect- 
ing all  the  boats  that  could  be  found  on  it  to  the 
opposite  side,  made  a  disposition  to  stop  the  pas- 
sage of  these  invaders. 

The  Germans,  observing  the  precautions  which 
were  taking  against  them,  aflected  to  lay  aside 
the  design  of  passing  the  Rhine;  and,  by  chang- 
ing their  course,  made  a  feint  to  divert  the  attention 
of  their  antagonists.  In  execution  of  this  pur- 
pose, they  continued  for  three  days  to  retire  Inm 
the  river.  At  the  end  of  this  time,  supposing 
that  their  opponents  would  be  off  their  guard, 
and  returned  to  their  ordinary  way  of  life,  they 
suddenly  turned  their  whole  cavalry,  and  in  one 
night  repassed  the  ground  over  which  they  had 
marched  on  the  three  preceding  days,  surprised  a 
sufficient  number  of  boats  with  which  to  accom- 
plish their  passage,  dislodged  the  natives  of  the 
country  on  the  left  of  the  river  before  them,  and 
from  thence  continued  their  migrations  betwixt 
the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse,  over  what  is  now 
called  the  dutchies  of  Juliers,  of  Limburg  and 
Luxemburgh. 

These  invaders  amounted,  by  Cffsar's  account, 
to  upwards  of  four  hundred  thousand  souls;1  a 
number  which  exceeds  that  of  the  inhabitants  of 
any  city  in  Europe,  besides  London  and  Parisj 
and  which  may  perhaps  raise  some  suspicion  of 


1  Caesar  de  Boll.  Gall.  lib.  iv.  c.  15; 


218 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


error  in  copying  the  text,  or  of  exaggeration  in 
the  commentary,  which  was  itself  intended  to 
raise  the  character  of  Caesar  at  Rome.  On  the 
question  relating  to  the  probability  of  so  great  a 
number,  it  may  be  observed,  that  those  migrating 
nations,  certainly  unacquainted  with  many  of  the 
arts  which  are  practised  to  supply  and  accom- 
modate populous  cities,  were  likewise  exempt 
from  the  want  of  such  supplies,  and  acquiesced 
in  what  was  necessary  to  mere  subsistence.  Such 
nations  have  less  skill  and  industry  than  the 
manufacturer  and  the  trader  in  a  settled  and  well 
regulated  city  ;  but  they  have  less  waste  and  less 
misapplication  of  labour  to  superfluous  and  un- 
profitable purposes  than  take  place  in  great  cities. 

The  German  nations  of  this  age,  although  they 
had  opportunities  to  observe  among  their  neigh- 
bours the  advantages  of  land  property,  and  of 
agriculture  supported  by  skill  and  industry,  yet 
frequently  preferred  the  state  of  migration,  and 
from  policy  declined  making  any  permanent  set- 
tlement, lest  the  care  of  property,  and  the  study 
of  unnecessary  accommodation,  should  corrupt  or 
enervate  their  people.,  Their  favourite  occupation 
was  hunting,  which  they  considered  as  a  prepa- 
ration for  war.  They  traversed  the  woods  and 
pasture  lands,  with  numerous  herds,  and  subsist- 
ed chiefly  by  milk,  flesh,  and  game.  They  like- 
wise knew  the  use  of  corn,  of  which  they  some- 
times took  a  crop  from  favourable  lands ;  but 
without  remaining  any  longer  than  one  season 
to  cultivate  any  particular  portion  of  ground. 

They  moved  in  great  and  numerous  bodies, 
that  must  to  a  great  extent  have  covered  the  face 
of  the  country  over  which  they  passed  ;  but  the 
body  thus  moving  together  were  distinguished 
into  separate  clans  and  fraternities,  led  by  their 
headmen  or  chiefs,  who  kept  order  in  their  seve- 
ral divisions.  They  allowed  private  parties  to 
make  war  beyond  the  limits  of  their  own  coun- 
try, and  to  choose  their  leaders  for  this  purpose. 
In  peace,  the  separate  clans  had  no  band  of  con- 
nexion. If  they  had  at  any  time  a  general 
government  which  comprehended  the  whole  of 
their  tribes,  it  was  but  a  temporary  expedient,  to 
which  they  had  recourse  in  war,  and  on  other 
pressing  occasions. 

Under  such  equality  of  condition,  every  indi- 
vidual, who  was  of  a  proper  age,  was  obliged  to 
labour  for  himself,  and  to  subsist  by  what  he 
procured ;  and  he  employed  his  labour  only  in 
procuring  what  was  necessary.  In  these  circum- 
stances, it  was  not  likely  that  commodities  should 
accumulate;  but  the  numbers  of  the  people,  if 
we  may  rely  on  the  testimony  of  Caesar  in  this 
place,  or  on  the  evidence  of  ancient  history  in 
general,  was  certainly  great,  i 

The  Suevi,  before  whom  the  present  invaders 
of  Gaul  had  retired,  were  said  to  consist  of  a 
hundred  cantons,  each  furnishing  annually  a 
thousand  men  for  war,  and  a  like  number  for 
the  care  of  their  herds  and  domestic  concerns. 
Such  clouds  gathering  on  the  frontiers  of  Caesar's 
province,  required  his  presence.  He  accordingly 
assembled  his  army,  and  advanced  between  the 
Rhine  and  the  Meuse. 

The  Germans,  in  general,  were  accustomed  to 
despise  the  Gauls,  and  the  present  invaders  ex- 
pected no  formidable  opposition  on  this  side  of  the 


1  Cxsar  de  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  iv.  vi. 


I  Rhine ;  they  had  ventured  to  divide  their  forces, 
and  had  sent  the  great  body  of  their  horse  upon 
|  an  excursion  beyond  the  Meuse  to  scour  the  lower 
parts  of  the  country,  and  upon  Caesar's  approach, 
they  offered  to  treat  with  him.  "  They  neither 
sought  (they  said)  nor  would  they  decline  a  war 
with  the  Romans.  It  was  their  way  to  repel  in- 
juries with  the  sword,  not  to  elude  them  by  ne- 
gotiation. But  in  the  present  case,  they  should 
nevertheless  condescend  so  far  as  to  assure  the 
Roman  general,  that  they  had  passed  the  Rhine 
from  necessity,  and  not  with  any  intention  to  in- 
vade his  province.  That  if  he  were  pleased  to 
receive  them  as  friends,  they  were  in  condition 
to  merit  this  titler  should  be  content  with  the 
ground  they  had  gained,  or  accept  of  any  other 
which  he  might  choose  to  assign  them."  Caesar 
replied,  "  That  while  they  remained  in  Gaul,  he 
could  not  consider  them  as  friends.  That  if  they 
repassed  the  Rhine,  he  had  allies  in  Germany, 
with  whom  he  should  endeavour  to  join  them  in 
a  league  of  defence  against  the  common  enemy, 
by  whom  they  had  been  thus  forced  to  relinquish 
their  usual  bounds." 

Having  received  this  answer,  the  German  de- 
puties, to  make  their  report,  and  to  receive  the 
command  of  their  nations,  desired  a  cessation  of 
arms  for  three  days.  But  Caesar  suspecting  that 
they  only  meant  to  amuse  him,  and  to  gain  time 
for  the  junction  of  all  their  forces,  refused  to  com- 
ply with  this  request,  and  continued  his  march. 
Being  arrived  within  twelve  miles  of  their  camp, 
he  was  again  met  by  their  deputies,  with  fresh 
intreaties  that  he  would  advance  no  farther,  at 
least,  that  he  would  give  to  the  cavalry,  who  made 
the  vanguard  of  his  army,  orders  to  abstain  from 
hostilities  for  three  days :  that  in  this  time,  they 
might  have  an  answer  from  the  German  nations 
mentioned  in  their  last  conference,  and  know 
whether  such  a  league  could  be  formed,  as  was 
then  proposed,  to  give  them  some  prospect  of 
safety  in  returning  to  their  usual  haunts. 

Caesar,  upon  this  occasion,  seems  to  have 
granted  a  cessation  of  arms ;  though  on  account 
of  what  afterwards  happened,  he  is  willing  to 
diminish  the  extent  of  his  own  engagement,  and 
to  impute  the  breach  of  faith  which  followed  to 
his  enemies.  He  agreed  to  advance  no  farther 
than  four  miles  for  the  convenience  of  water,  and 
sent  an  order  to  his  vanguard  to  abstain  from 
hostilities.  This  order,  however,  had  no  effect. 
His  advanced  guard,  consisting  of  five  thousand 
horse,  had  an  encounter  with  eight  hundred  of 
the  enemy. 

When  this  encounter  happened,  the  Germans 
were  not  yet  joined  by  the  great  body  of  their 
horse.  They  had  earnestly  sued  for  a  cessation 
ol  hostilities ;  it  was  not  likely  that  they  would 
have  begun  the  attack.  Yet  Caesar  accused  them 
of  a  design,  with  this  small  party,  to  surprise  the 
whole  of  his  cavalry. 

On  the  day  which  followed  this  skirmish  of 
the  cavalry,  the  leaders  and  principal  men  of  the 
Germans  leaving  their  own  camp  unfurnished 
with  officers,  in  perfect  security,  came  in  great 
numbers  to  that  of  Caesar  to  exculpate  them- 
selves, to  convince  him  of  their  pacific  disposi- 
tions, and  to  prevent  the  farther  progress  of  his 
army.  This  he  thought  a  favourable  opportunity 
to  cut  off",  by  a  complete  surprise,  this  enemy  en- 
tirely, and  to  finish  the  war.  Having  accordingly 
secured  the  persons  of  their  leaders,  who  had  thus 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


219 


Eut  themselves  in  his  hands,  he  advanced  with 
is  whole  army  directly  to  their  camp,  easily  over- 
came the  few  that  took  arms  to  oppose  him,  and 
without  distinction  of  sex  or  age,  put  the  whole 
to  the  sword.  The  country,  over  all  the  ways 
by  which  they  endeavoured  to  escape  from  the 
camp,  at  which  the  slaughter  began,  to  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse,  was  strewed 
with  the  slain.2 

The  Roman  people,  though  seldom  sparing  of 
the  blood  of  their  enemies,  were  shocked  at  the 
recital  of  this  extraordinary  massacre;  and  when 
Caesar,  on  account  of  this  victory,  applied  for  a 
thanksgiving,  and  for  the  usual  honorary  decrees 
of  the  senate,  he  was  charged  with  having  wan- 
tonly invaded  the  nations  of  Gaul,  and  of  having 
dishonoured,  by  an  act  of  treachery,  the  arms  of 
the  Republic.  It  was  proposed  to  deliver  up  his 
person  to  those  injured  nations,  that  he  might 
expiate,  by  his  own  sufferings,  so  many  acts  of 
injustice  and  impiety,  which  the  gods  might 
otherwise  avenge  on  his  country. 

The  German  horse,  that  by  their  absence  had 
escaped  this  calamity  which  befel  their  country- 
men, appear  soon  after  to  have  repassed  the 
Rhine,  and  to  have  taken  refuge  with  some  of 
the  hordes  who  lived  near  the  sources  of  the 
Roer  and  the  Lippe.  Thither  Caesar,  to  spread 
the  terror  of  his  arms,  soon  afterwards  pursued 
them ;  and  passed  the  river,  not  in  boats  and  by 
surprise,  as  the  Germans  were  accustomed  to  do, 
but  in  a  manner  which  he  seems  to  have  chosen, 
as  better  suited  to  the  dignity  of  the  Roman  state; 
he  projected  a  bridge,  which  was  executed  in  ten 
days,  with  much  ingenuity,  and  some  ostentation 
of  his  power  and  skilL  This  work  being  finished, 
he  placed  proper  guards  at  both  its  extremities, 
and  advanced  with  the  main  body  of  his  army 
into  the  contiguous  parts  of  Germany,  where,  on 
accourrt  of  the  reception  given  in  that  quarter  to 
the  cavalry  who  had  escaped  the  late  massacre  on 
the  Mcuse,  he  laid  the  country  under  military 
execution. 

Caesar,  from  the  place  at  which  he  had  passed 
the  Rhine,  appears  to  have  gone  up  the  eastern 
side  of  the  river,  where  he  visited  the  Ubii,  a  na- 
tion inhabiting  over  against  what  are  now  the 
cities  of  Bonne  and  Cologn.  Here  he  had  in- 
telligence, that  the  Suevi,  a  nation  consisting, 
as  has  been  observed,  of  a  hundred  cantons,  and 
mustering  two  hundred  thousand  warriors,  who 
were  divided  into  two  squadrons  that  took  the 
field,  aad  conducted  the  domestic  affairs  of  the 
nation  by  turns,  were  preparing  to  oppose  him ; 
that  they  had  actually  sent  their  wives,  children, 
and  superannuated  men  into  places  of  safety, 
and  had  assembled  their  warriors  to  meet  him. 
This  nation,  having  an  ascendant  over  all  the 
cantons  of  Germany,  considered  it  as  a  proof  of 
their  valour,  that  no  nation  could  pretend  to  settle 
on  the  tract  of  their  migrations,  or  within  reach 
of  their  excursions ;  and  that  the  eountry,  to  a 
great  distance  around  them,  was  accordingly 
waste.  In  their  own  movements,  they  never 
halted  above  a  year  to  raise  a  single  crop  from 
fields,  which,  to  keep  up  the  martial  spirit  of 
their  nation,  and  to  preclude  the  desire  of  pro- 
perty, with  the  other  passions  that  accompany 
settlement,  they  successively  abandoned. 


2  That  branch  of  the  Rhine  which  falls  into  the 
Meuse,  changes  its  name  for  that  of  Wall. 


Caesar,  not  being  prepared  to  enter  on  a  war 
with  such  an  enemy,  and  being  sensible  that  a 
defeat  might  expose  his  army  to  ruin,  while  even 
a  victory  could  procure  him  no  adequate  advan- 
tage, having  remained  eighteen  days  on  that  side 
of  the  Rhine,  and  employed  no  more  than  twenty- 
eight  days  in  the  whole  service,  chose,  while  he 
still  had  the  reputation  of  victory  unimpaired,  to 
repass  that  river,  and  to  break  down  his  bridge. 

This  singular  man,  whose  abilities  were  equal 
to  any  task,  and  who  had  no  occasion  to  court 
the  public  admiration  by  measures  concerted  on 
purpose  to  obtain  it,  was,  nevertheless,  not  above 
ostentation,  and  gave  way  to  it  not  only  where 
it  might  contribute  to  impose  on  an  enemy,  but 
even  where  it  would  do  no  more  than  gratify  his 
own  vanity,  or  increase  the  fame  of  his  actions 
at  Rome.  To  this  motive  we  may  venture  to 
impute  the  design,  which,  at  an  advanced  season 
of  the  year,  and  at  the  end  of  the  same  summer 
in  which  he  had,  between  the  Meuse  and  the 
Rhine,  vanquished  the  numerous  army  of  the 
Tenchteri  and  Usepetes,  in  which  he  had  passed 
the  Rhine,  and  insulted  the  warlike  nations  of 
Germany,  even  on  their  own  ground,  he  now 
projected  the  invasion  of  Britain,  though  sur- 
rounded by  the  ocean,  and  untouched  by  the 
arms  of  any  foreign  invader.  To  carry  this  de- 
sign into  immediate  execution,  as  soon  as  he  had 
repassed  the  Rhine,  he  continued  his  march 
through  the  low  countries,  and  collected  his 
forces  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Portus  Itius 
and  Gesoriacum.3  While  we  perceive  the  fea- 
tures of  vanity  in  the  leader,  we  must  admire 
the  hardiness  and  vigour  of  the  troops  who  could 
accomplish  these  services. 

The  extent  of  this  island,  the  numbers  and 
character  of  its  [>eople,  were  then  unknown  on 
the  continent  Csssar  having  in  vain  endeavoured 
to  procure  information  in  these  particulars,  sent 
a  galley  with  orders  to  explore  the  coast,  and  to 
observe  the  countenance  01  the  natives.  He  or- 
dered all  his  shipping,  and  even  those  vessels 
which  he  had  employed  the  preceding  year 
against  the  Veneti,4  to  sail  round  the  Cape  of 
Britanny  into  the  British  channel,  and  repair  to 
the  straits  which  separate  this  island  from  the 
continent. 

On  the  report  of  these  preparations,  which 
evidently  pointed  at  Britain,  some  of  the  natives, 
willing  to  avert  by  negotiation  the  storm  which 
threatened  them,  sent  to  the  Roman  proconsul  a 
submissive  message,  and  offered  to  come  under 
his  protection. 

Caesar,  founding  a  claim  to  the  possession  of 
the  island  on  these  advances  which  were  made  to 
him,  proceeded  with  more  boldness  to  the  execu- 
tion of  his  enterprise.  That  the  natives  of  the 
country  he  was  leaving  might  not  create  any 
trouble  in  his  absence,  he  obliged  them  to  give 
hostages,  and  made  a  proper  disposition  of  his 
army  to  keep  them  in  awe.  He  had  assembled 
at  the  most  convenient  haven  on  the  Gaulish 
side,  now  supposed  to  be  the  Wissan,  between 
Calais  and  Boulogne,5  eighty  transports  or  ships 
of  burden,  with  a  number  of  galleys  to  accommo- 
date the  officers  of  rank,  and  their  equipage. 
The  remainder  of  his  shipping  was  yet  detained, 


3  Calais  and  Boulogne. 

4  In  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  about  Vannes. 

5  Sre  Danville's  Geography  of  ancient  Gaul. 


5220 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


by  contrary  winds,  in  a  creek  at  some  miles  dis- 
tance, supposed  to  be  Boulogne  ;  thither  he  sent 
his  cavalry,  with  orders  to  embark  on  board  the 
ships  where  they  lay.  He  himself  went  on  board, 
with  the  infantry  of  two  legions,  at  the  former 
haven,  and  having  found  a  favourable  wind  and 
moderate  weather,  weighed  about  ten  at  night, 
and  reached  the  coast  of  Britain,  on  the  following 
day,  at  ten  in  the  morning.  The  cliffs,  where 
he  first  came  near  to  the  shore,  were  high  and 
strep,  and  the  hills  were  covered  with  numerous 
bodies  of  foot,  of  men  on  horseback,  and  even  in 
wheel  carriages,  from  which  the  natives  of  this 
country  were  accustomed  to  make  war.  It  being 
impossible  to  land  under  such  difficulties,  and  in 
the  face  of  this  opposition,  he  bore  away,  as  it  is 
probable,  to  the  northward  about  eight  miles,  with 
a  favourable  wind,  to  some  part  of  the  flat  shore1 
which  surrounds  the  Downs;  and  here,  in  the 
manner  of  ancient  debarkations,  for  which  the 
shipping  of  those  times  was  built,  ran  his  trans- 
ports aground,  and  prepared  to  land. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Britons,  who  in  their 
march  on  the  hills  had  kept  pace  with  the  Ro- 
man galleys,  came  down  to  the  strand,  and  ad- 
vanced even  some  way  into  the  water  to  oppose 
the  descent.  As  the  surf  on  that  shore  usually 
runs  high,  and  the  Romans,  from  where  their 
vessels  struck,  had  some  way  to  wade  in  water 
that  was  too  deep  to  allow  them  the  free  use  of 
their  weapons,  they  remained  on  board,  and  durst 
not  meet  the  enemy  under  such  disadvantages. 
Caesar  seeing  his  men  unusually  backward,  did 
not  think  proper  in  these  circumstances  to  urge 
them  farther ;  but  ordered  some  of  the  lightest 
vessels,  which  were  mounted  with  missile  en- 
gines, or  manned  with  archers  and  slingers, 
to  row  as  near  to  the  shore  as  they  could  on  the 
right  and  the  left  of  the  landing-place,  and  from 
then  ;e  to  gall  the  enemy.  This  disposition  suc- 
ceeded so  well,  that  the  beach  close  to  the  water 
was  presently  cleared,  and  the  Romans  were  left 
to  descend  from  their  ships,  and  to  wade  undis- 
turbed to  the  land. 

The  Britons,  seeing  their  enemy  in  possession 
of  the  shore,  offered  to  surrender,  and  were  about 
to  deliver  their  hostages,  when  an  accident  hap- 
pened, which  encouraged  them  again  to  take 
arms.  On  the  fourth  day  after  the  Roman  in- 
fantry had  landed,  a  second  division  of  ships, 
with  the  cavalry,  appeared  in  sight?  but  before 
they  could  reach  the  land,  were  dispersed  by  a 
violent  storm;  part  was  driven  back  on  the  coast 
of  Gaul,  part  carried  down  the  British  channel, 
and  cast  in  distress  on  the  contiguous  shores. 
Even  the  shipping,  from  which  the  legions  had 
disembarked,  lying  aground  in  the  surf;  or  at  an- 
chor in  a  high  sea  and  spring-tide,  with  which  the 
Italians  were  unacquainted,  were  set  adrift,  or 
filled  with  water,  many  of  them  beat  to  pieces  or 
greatly  shattered,  and  rendered  unserviceable. 

By  these  misfortunes,  Caesar,  although  he  had 
made  no  provision  to  subsist  for  the  winter  in 
Britain,  was  in  danger  of  being  obliged  to  remain 
in  it  for  want  of  shipping.  The  natives  retracted 
their  late  submission,  began  to  drive  away  the 
cattle,  and  to  lay  waste  the  country  within  reach , 
of  the  Roman  camp.  They  flattered  themselves 
that  the  enemy  would  be  obliged  to  depart,  or 


1  Planum  et  §pertum  littus.  See  Cassar's  Commen- 
turk-d. 


must  perish  for  want  of  provisions;  and  tha 
they  would,  by  the  example  of  so  vain  and  ca- 
lamitous an  attempt,  deter  every  stranger  for  the 
future  from  invading  their  island. 

Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  while  he  employed 
all  his  workmen  with  the  greatest  diligence  in 
repairing  his  ships,  endeavoured  to  collect  some 
provisions,  and  to  form  a  magazine.  The  na- 
tives assembled  in  great  bodies  to  intercept  his 
foragers,  and  obliged  him  to  cover  them  with  the 
whole  force  of  his  army;  The  legions  were  at 
first  greatly  disconcerted  by  the  unusual  effect  of 
the  British  chariots,  and  by  the  want  of  their 
own  cavalry ;  but  as  they  prevailed  in  every 
close  fight,  the  Britons  were  soon  obliged  to  re- 
new their  former  submission,  and  became  bound 
to  deliver  double  the  number  of  hostages  they 
had  formerly  stipulated.  But  Ca;sar  not  think- 
ing it  proper,  with  shattered  vessels,  at  the  mercy 
of  autumnal  winds  and  stormy  seas,  to  await  the 
performance  of  this  article,  ordered  the  hostages  to 
be  sent  after  him  into  Gaul,  re-embarked  with  his 
army,  and  with  the  first  favourable  wind  repassed 
to  the  continent.  At  his  arrival,  he  found  that 
the  Gauls,  upon  the  report  of  his  late  misfortunes, 
had  revolted  ;  that  one  of  his  transports,  with 
three  hundred  men  on  board,  having  parted  with 
the  fleet,  and  landing  at  a  separate  place,  were 
attacked  ;  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  send  the 
remains  of  his  cavalry  to  their  relief.  The  Mo. 
rini,  inhabiting  what  are  now  the  districts  of 
Calais  and  Dunkirk,  with  other  nations  of  the 
low  countries,  had  taken  arms  against  the  officers 
he  had  stationed  to  keep  them  in  awe.  The 
campaign  therefore  concluded  with  the  operations 
which  were  necessary  to  quell  this  revolt.  La- 
bienus  subdued  the  Morini.  GLuintus,  Titurius, 
Sabinus,  and  Lucius  Cotta  having  laid  waste 
great  part  of  the  low  countries,  fell  back  to  the 
coast. 

The  Roman  army  was  soon  after  put  into  win- 
ter quarters  :  and  Caesar,  as  if  sensible  that  he 
had  made  his  attempt  on  Britain  with  too  small 
a  force,  and  whatever  representation  he  might 
give  of  particulars,  had  incurred  the  imputation 
of  a  miscarriage,  gave  orders  to  refit  his  fleet, 
and  to  add,  during  the  winter,  as  many  more 
ships  as  possible,  built  upon  a  construction  more 
fit  for  that  service,  broader,  and  more  capacious 
in  the  hull,  for  the  reception  of  men  and  horses, 
and  lower  in  the  gunwale,  for  the  convenience  of 
landing.  The  timber  was  probably  taken  from 
the  neighbouring  forests;  but  the  materials  of 
his  rigging,  it  is  said,  were  brought  from  Spain. 
Having  taken  these  measures  to  enable  him  at  a 
more  convenient  season  to  renew  his  expedition 
into  Britain,  he  set  out  as  usual  for  Italy,  and  for 
the  neighbourhood  of  Rome. 

Here  he  found  Pompey  and  Crassus  employed, 
as  has  been  already  related,  in  obtaining  for  them- 
selves, and  for  him,  the  objects  which  they  had 
severally  in  view.  Crassus  had  fixed  his  thoughts 
on  the  treasures  of  the  &>  st,  and  projected  the  sale 
of  kingdoms,  of  which  he  hoped  to  have  the  dispo- 
sal in  that  part  of  the  world.  Pompey  too  was  gra- 
tified in  his  wishes,  had  got  the  command  of  an 
army  an(i  the  patronage  of  a  great  province, 
while  he  continued  at  Rome  to  enjoy  his  con- 
sideration, and  was  vested  with  a  species  of 
monarchy,  in  wielding  the  united  powers  of  the 
party.  Caesar  had  provided,  what  he  knew  in 
the  end  was  to  decide  every  controversy  a  great 


Chap.  1.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


221 


army,  inured  to  service,  and  in  a  station  which 
gave  an  easy  access  to  Italy,  and  the  command 
of  Rome.    As  if  secure  of  their  interests,  they 

permitted  the  election  of  consuls  to 
U  C  699.  P^ceed  without  disturbance;  and 

suffered  Lucius  Domitius  Aheno- 
^henobar  Darkus,  a  professed  partizan  of  the 
bus  jlpp.'  senate,  together  with  Appius  Clau- 
KJlaud.  Pul-  dius,  to  be  elected  consuls ;  Marcus, 
eker.  Cato,  and  Milo,  to  be  placed  in  the 

list  of  praetors ;  and  several  citizens, 
well  affected  to  the  senate,  to  be  admitted  into 
the  college  of  tribunes. 

The  winter  and  spring,  however,  were  inac- 
tive on  the  part  of  the  aristocracy.  Cato,  proba- 
bly, did  not  see  any  public  object  in  which  to  en- 
gage with  advantage  beyond  the  duties  of  his 
office,  in  which  he  endeavoured  to  restrain  by 
his  authority,  and  by  his  example,  the  extrava- 
gance and  luxury  of  the  age.  The  dangerous 
powers  which  had  been  recently  granted  to  per- 
sons, from  whose  ambition  the  republic  had  much 
to  fear,  no  doubt  greatly  alarmed  the  senate ;  but 
this  body,  though  led  by  Domitius,  one  of  the 
consuls,  by  Cato  and  Milo,  two  of  the  praetors, 
and  supported  by  many  of  the  tribunes,  did  not 
think  themselves  entitled  to  dispute  the  validity 
of  those  grants,  nor  to  attempt  the  revocation 
of  what  had  been  so  recently  confirmed  by  the 
people. 

Pompey,  now  master  of  Spain  and  part  of 
Africa,  with  an  adequate  army,  still  under  the 
pretence,  as  has  been  mentioned,  of  his  com- 
mission to  furnish  the  public  granaries  with  corn, 
remained  in  Italy,  and  passed  the  greater  part  of 
his  time  among  his  country  villas,  executing  the 
duties  of  general  purveyor  with  the  assistance  of 
his  lieutenants,  and  managing  his  intrigues  in 
the  city  by  means  of  his  agents  and  friends.  He 
"was  attended  by  numbers  of  every  rank  and 
condition,  who  resorted  to  him  with  the  assiduity 
of  real  courtiers,  and  with  a  servility,  which,  in 
a  republic,  implied  the  utmost  corruption  of  man- 
ners. He  even  maintained  the  appearances  of 
royalty  in  the  state  which  he  assumed,  as  well 
as  in  the  influence  he  acquired.  While  he 
himself  affected  reserve  and  moderation,  in  order 
to  appear  worthy  of  his  rank,  his  retainers  ever 
treated  him  as  a  great  prince,  and  with  his  con- 
nivance fomented  disorders  tending  to  shake  the 
government  of  the  senate ;  to  the  end  that  the 
republic  might  be  foreed  to  rely  on  him  for 
support,  while  he  himself  affected  to  decline  the 
burden. 

In  the  management  of  these  intrigues,  and  in 
the  full  hopes  of  their  success,  Pompey  was  now 
left  by  Crassus,  as  well  as  by  Caesar.  The  first, 
in  his  impatience  to  take  possession  of  his  govern- 
ment, had  broken  through  all  the  impediments 
that  were  placed  to  hinder  his  departure  from 
Rome,  made  haste  to  Brundusium  with  his  army, 
■embarked,  notwithstanding  the  unfavourableness 
of  the  season,  and  with  considerable  loss,  both  of 
men  and  of  shipping  in  a  storm,  made  his  pas- 
sage into  Macedonia.  The  prohibition  of  the 
proctor  still  sounded  in  his  ears.  He  dreaded  a 
vote  of  the  senate  or  people  to  recall  his  com- 
mission. It  appears,  that  soon  after  his  departure, 
a  motion  had  been  actually  made  for  this  purpose; 
and  that  Cicero,  though  formerly  on  ill  terms 
with  Crassus,  being  taught  by  his  late  sufferings 
to  court  the  favour  of  those  who  could  cither  hurt 


or  protect  him,  appeared  on  this  question  in  his 
favour,  and  claimed  a  share  in  the  merit  of  ob- 
taining the  decision  that  was  given  to  confirm 
his  commission.2 

But  without  attending  to  the  state  of  these  de- 
liberations at  Rome,  Crassus  continued  his  march, 
by  Macedonia  and  the  Hellespont  into  Asia.  In 
passing  through  Galatia,  finding  Dejotarus,  sove- 
reign of  that  principality,  then  of  an  advanced 
age,  occupied  in  a  work  that  is  becoming  at  every 
age,  building  a  new  city,  and  making  a  settle- 
ment for  more  people;  he  is  said  to  have  ob- 
served to  the  prince,  that  it  was  somewhat  too 
late,  at  his  age,  to  form  projects  of  new  settle- 
ments;  "nor  are  you  very  early,"  replied  the 
other,  "in  your  undertaking  the  conquest  in 
Parthia." 

Crassus  was  turned  of  sixty,  and  having  ever 
considered  riches  as  the  surest  means  of  arriving 
at  eminence  and  power,  now  joined,  to  the  ra- 
pacity of  a  youthful  ambition,  the  avarice  of  age. 
Upon  his  arrival  in  Syria,  he  pillaged  the  temple 
of  the  Jews,  and  laid  hold  of  treasure  wherever 
else  he  could  find  it.  He  made  a  pretence  of  the 
military  levies  to  be  made  in  the  provinces  for  ex- 
torting money ;  and  afterwards,  reserving  the 
money  he  had  raised  for  his  own  use,  neglected 
the  levies.  He  required  of  the  different  district* 
of  his  province,  and  of  the  neighbouring  allies, 
large  quotas  of  men,  and  military  stores,  merely 
that  they  might  buy  exemptions  with  proportional 
sums  of  money.3  In  the  same  spirit  of  avarice 
and  rapacity,  he  invaded  the  Parthians  without 
any  authority  from  the  state,  and  even  without 
the  pretence  of  a  quarrel. 

The  Parthians,  like  other  dynasties  which  be- 
fore or  since  have  arisen  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Euphrates  and 
the  Tigris,  were  of  Scythian  extraction.  On  the 
decline  of  the  Macedonian  power,  about  two 
hundred  years  before  the  present  date,  a  swarm 
from  the  north  had  migrated  to  the  lower  banks 
of  the  Tigris,  overran  the  country  round  Ctesi- 
phon,  continued  to  harass  the  neighbourhood  by 
their  depredations;  and,  at  last,  being  commanded 
by  Arsaces,  the  founder  of  this  new  kingdom, 
took  possession  of  an  extensive  country,  and 
though  under  a  new  name,  in  fact  restored  the 
monarchy  of  Persia.4 

The  Parthian,  or  new  Persian  monarchy, 
being  yet  in  its  vigour,  was  the  most  formidable 
power  that  now  any  where  appeared  within 
reach  of  the  Roman  arms.  Its  forces  consisted 
almost  entirely  of  horse.  Part  intended  lor  regu- 
lar charges,  cased  in  heavy  armour,  and  using 
the  lance;  part  mounted  in  a  lighter  manner  for 
expedition  and  swiftness,  and  using  the  bow. 
While  in  the  field  they  were  attended  by  herds  of 
spare  horses,  which  they  pastured,  or  drove  in  the 
rear  of  their  armies.  With  this  supply,  ujnm  any 
occasional  loss,  they  new-mounted  their  cavalry, 
or,  having  reliefs  of  fresh  horses,  performed 
amazing  marches,  and  frequently  presented  them- 
selves to  their  enemies,  where  it  was  not  expected 
they  could  appear.  They  had  different  notions 
of  victory  and  defeat  from  other  nations ;  they 
always  counted  it  a  victory,  when,  by  their  flights, 
they  drew  an  enemy  into  straits  by  hasty  and 


2  Cicero  ad  Faiuil.  lib.  v  ep.  8.  ad  Ciassum. 

3  Plut.  in  Crasso,  11.   Dio.  Cass.  lib.  iv.  c.  13. 

4  Justin,  lib.  lxi.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xl,  xli. 


223 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


unguarded  pursuits,1  and  often  enjoyed  the  great- 
est advantage  when  they  seemed  to  be  routed  and 
to  fly. 

When  Crassus  advanced  to  the  Euphrates, 
Orodes  king  of  Parthia,  then  engaged  in  a  war 
with  Artabazes,  on  the  side  of  Armenia,  sent  a 
deputation  to  expostulate  with  the  Roman  gene- 
ral on  the  cause  of  his  hostile  approach ;  Crassus 
made  answer,  that  he  would  give  the  reasons  of 
his  coming  when  he  arrived  at  Seleucia,  "  here," 
said  one  of  the  Parthian  messengers  (showing  the 
palm  of  his  hand,)  "hair  will  grow  before  you 
shall  arrive  at  Seleucia."  Crassus  proceeded  in 
his  march,  passed  the  Euphrates,  and  ravaged 
Mesopotamia  without  any  resistance.  Having 
continued  his  operations  until  the  end  of  the 
season,  he  returned  for  the  winter  into  Syria.2 
Upon  his  arrival  in  this  province,  he  was  joined 
by  his  son  Publius,  who  had  served  some  years  in 
a  considerable  rank  in  the  army  in  Gaul,  and  was 
now  detached  by  Caesar  with  a  thousand  horse, 
and  many  marks  of  honour,  to  act  under  his 
father  in  Syria. 

This  invasion  of  Mesopotamia,  after  the  season 
had  become  far  spent,  served  only  to  alarm  and 
provoke  the  enemy,  without  procuring  any  ad- 
vantage to  the  arms  of  the  Romans ;  and  hostili- 
ties were  likely  to  proceed  in  the  spring  with 
great  animosity,  when  Crassus  was  to  prosecute 
the  war  which  he  had  thus  commenced  on  such 
dangerous  ground. 

Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  found  continual  occu- 
pation for  his  troops  in  Gaul,  or  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  that  province.  He  himself,  with  his  usual 
activity,  having  been  in  Italy  in  the  beginning  of 
winter,  and  having  conferred  with  the  persons 
with  whom  he  entrusted  the  management  of  his 
affairs  at  Rome,  proceeded  to  Illyricum,  upon  a 
report,  that  this  part  of  his  province  was  infested 
by  the  incursions  of  the  Pyrustae,  a  warlike  tribe 
on  the  frontier.  Upon  his  arrival,  the  invaders 
withdrew,  and  were  disowned  by  their  nation. 
The  state  denied,  that  they  had  ever  given  a 
commission  to  make  war  on  the  Roman  province, 
became  bound  for  the  future  to  restrain  the  depre- 
dations of  private  adventurers,  and  gave  hostages 
for  the  observance  of  this  article. 

Early  in  spring,  Caesar  returned  from  this  ex- 
pedition to  the  quarters  of  his  army  in  the  low 
'Countries,  and  found,  that  in  consequence  of  the 
orders  he  had  given  at  the  end  of  the  preceding 
campaign,  no  less  than  six  hundred  transport 
vessels,  and  twenty-eight  galleys,  were  actually 
built  in  different  harbours  from  Ostend  to  Bou- 
longe,  and  in  a  few  days  might  be  ready  for  sea. 
He  accordingly  ordered  them  to  be  launched,  and 
directed  the  whole  to  assemble  at  the  same  port 
from  which  he  sailed  on  the  preceding  year,  in 
order  to  receive  the  army  on  their  intended  inva- 
sion of  Britain.  But,  before  his  departure,  being 
informed  that  certain  nations  on  the  Moselle 
were  meditating  a  revolt,  and  were  soliciting  the 
Germans  to  come  over  the  Rhine  to  their  assist- 
ance, to  the  end  that  he  might  not  leave  any  ene- 
my on  foot  in  his  rear,  and  that  he  might .  ecure 
the  peace  of  Gaul  in  his  absence,  he  marched  to 
the  Moselle  with  four  legions  and  eight  hundred 
horse.  Upon  his  arrival  he  had  the  good  fortune 
to  find  the  people  divided  between  two  leaders, 


1  Dio.  Cass,  lib.  xl.  c.  15. 

2  Dio.  lib.  xl.   Plut.  in  Crasso. 


who,  being  jealous  of  each  other,  made  their  sub- 
mission separately,  and  gave  the  necessary  hos- 
tages as  a  pledge  for  their  future  behaviour. 

With  these  securities,  Caesar  returned  to  the 
coast,  found  all  his  armed  galleys  and  five  hun- 
dred and  sixty  of  his  transports  actually  assem- 
bled ;  the  other  forty  transports  had  been  put 
back  by  contrary  winds,  and  were  still  retained 
at  the  port  at  which  they  had  been  built.  The 
force  intended  for  this  expedition  to  Britain  con- 
sisted of  five  legions,  amounting  possibly,  on  the 
probable  supposition  that  they  were  not  complete, 
to  about  twenty  thousand  men,3  together  with  a 
body  of  Gauls,  including  many  of  their  chiefs, 
whom  Caesar  chose  to  retain  with  his  army,  ra- 
ther as  hostages  for  the  fidelity  of  their  country- 
men, than  as  auxiliaries  in  the  war.  The  fleet 
consisted  of  five  hundred  and  sixty  transport  ves- 
sels, twenty-eight  armed  galleys,  with  many  ten- 
ders and  small  craft,  provided  by  officers  for  their 
own  conveniency,  and  for  the  reception  of  their 
equipages ;  in  all  eight  hundred  sail. 

The  wind  being  northerly  for  five-and-twenty 
days4  after  'the  fleet  was  assembled,  the  troops 
still  remained  on  shore.  At  the  expiration  of  this 
time  the  wind  changed,  and  the  troops  began  to 
embark,  but  were  suddenly  interrupted  by  the 
desertion  of  a  Gaulish  chief,  who,  being  averse  to 
the  service,  thought  this  a  favourable  opportunity 
to  disengage  himself  with  his  followers.  Ceesar 
considered  this  desertion  as  a  declaration  of  war, 
and  being  sensible  of  the  danger  he  might  incur 
in  case  of  any  disaster,  by  having  such  enemies  in 
his  rear,  suspended  the  embarkation,  and  sent  a 
party  of  horse  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitive,  who, 
being  overtaken,  was  killed  in  attempting  to  de- 
fend himself.  His  followers  were  brought  back 
and  obliged  to  embark  for  Britain. 

On  the  return  of  the  party  employed  in  this 
service  the  embarkation  proceeded,  and  being 
completed  at  sunset  of  the  same  day,  the  wind 
being  still  fair,  the  fleet  weighed,  and  got  into  the 
channel ;  but  the  wind  soon  after  having  failed, 
or  shifted  more  to  the  west,  and  the  tide  being 
set  to  the  northward,  they  were  carried  a  consider- 
aole  way  in  that  direction  past  the  port  for  which 
they  had  steered.  At  day-break,  they  saw  the 
land  of  Britain  on  their  left,  and  seemed  to  leave 
some  conspicuous  part  of  the  island,  probably  the 
south  foreland,  astern  :  but  with  the  turn  of"  the 
tide,  and  the  help  of  their  oars,  they  arrived  at 
noon  at  a  convenient  part  of  the  coast  not  far  dis- 
tant from  the  landing-place  of  the  former  year, 
but  less  exposed  to  the  sea.  This  place  we  may 
suppose  to  have  been  Pigwell  Bay,  beyond  the 
mouth  of  the  Stour,  or  the  entry  to  Sandwich 
Haven.5 


3  The  legions,  at  the  end  of  this  campaign,  were  re- 
duced to  3.500. 

4  See  Caesar's  Commentaries. 

5  Mr.  (PAnville,  on  a  supposition  that  Ceesar  must 
have  passed  into  Britain  by  the  shortest  possible  line, 
fixes  upon  Hith,  about  eight  miles  west  of  Dover,  as 
the  place  of  his  landing  in  his  first  invasion  of  Britain  , 
and,  consequently^on  some  other  contiguous  part  as 
the  place  of  his  landing  in  the  second  invasion ;  but 
this  does  not  agree,  either  with  the  description  of  the 
coast,  being  planum  et  apertum  littus,  or  with  the  se- 
quel of  the  story,  which  places  some  such  river  as 
the  Stour  to  be  passed  in  his  march,  about  twelve 
miles  from  the  shore.  The  coast  at  Hith,  though  not 
altogether  inaccessible,  is  steep  and  hilly,  and  would 
have  exposed  Caesar  to  difficulties  in  his  first  opera- 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


223 


The  Britons  had  assembled  as  formerly  to  op- 
pose the  descent  of  the  Romans ;  but,  on  the 
appearance  of  so  great  a  fleet,  were  intimidated, 
and  withdrew  from  the  coast 

Caesar,  flattering  himself  that  he  had  found  a 
safer  road  for  his  ships  than  that  at  which  he  had 
stationed  them  in  the  preceding  year,  left  his  fleet 
at  anchor,  and  guarded  against  any  attempts  of 
the  natives  by  a  body  of  ten  cohorts  and  three 
hundred  horse,  that  were  properly  entrenched  on 
the  shore.  Being  informed  that  the  Britons  had 
their  forces  assembled  on  a  small  river  (probably 
the  Stour),  at  the  distance  of  ten  or  twelve  miles 
from  his  landing-place,  he  put  his  army  in  motion 
in  the  night,  and  at  break  of  day  came  up  with 
them,  dislodged  them  from  their  post,  and  obliged 
them  to  withdraw  to  a  place  of  retreat  in  that 
neighbourhood,  which,  on  occasion  of  their  own 
wars,  had  been  fortified  in  their  manner  with  a 
moat,  and  ramparts  of  wood.  To  reduce  them  in 
this  strong  hold,  he  erected  some  works,  and  made 
regular  approaches ;  but  as  he  had  not  invested 
the  place,  the  only  effect  of  his  attack  was,  to 
force  the  enemy  to  abandon  it,  and  to  continue 
their  retreat.  He  had  taken  his  resolution  to 
pursue  them  on  the  following  day,  and  had  begun 
his  march  in  three  divisions,  when  it  appeared, 
that  the  element  which  is  the  safeguard  of  Bri- 
tain, though  not  always  sufficient  to  keep  its  ene- 
mies at  a  distance,  yet  is  subject  to  accidents 
which  render  the  attempt  of  invaders  very  diffi- 
cult, and  their  condition,  even  when  on  shore, 
sufficiently  hazardous.  To  this  purpose  a  mes- 
senger overtook  Caesar  on  his  march  with  tidings, 
that  all  his  ships,  in  a  storm  which  arose  in  the 
preceding  night,  had  been  driven  from  their  an- 
chors, had  run  foul  of  each  other,  that  many  of 
them  were  stranded  and  wrecked,  and  all  of  them 
greatly  damaged. 

Caesar,  on  this  report,  suspended  his  march, 
and,  having  fixed  the  main  body  of  his  army  in 
a  well-fortified  camp ;  he  himself,  with  a  proper 
escort,  returned  to  the  coast.  At  his  arrival,  he 
found  that  forty  of  his  ships  were  irrecoverably 
lost ;  but  that  the  remainder,  though  greatly  da- 
maged, might  be  refitted.  For  this  purpose  he 
gave  orders  in  his  army,  that  all  who  had  been 
instructed  in  the  trade  of  a  carpenter  should  re- 
pair to  the  sea-port  to  be  employed  in  refitting 
the  fleet ;  he  called  many  workmen  likewise  from 
Gaul,  and  gave  directions  for  building  a  number 
of  new  vessels  on  different  parts  of  that  coast ; 
and  to  guard,  for  the  future,  against  such  acci- 
dents as  had  lately  befallen  his  ships,  he  ordered 
that  they  should  be  drawn  on  shore.  In  this 
work  the  army  was  incessantly  employed  for  ten 
days,  and  without  intermission  even  in  the  night. 
The  fleet,  at  length,  being  in  this  manner  secured 
from  the  dangers  of  the  sea,  and  covered  by  an 
entrenchment  on  the  side  of  the  land,  he  returned 
to  his  camp,  and  resumed  the  operations  of  his 
army. 

It  appears  that  the  natives  of  Britain,  being 
divided  into  many  small  cantons,  or  separate 
principalities,  and,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  fre- 
quently at  war  among  themselves,  had  been  ac- 
tually at  variance  when  Caesar  arrived ;  but, 
during  the  short  respite  which  the  disaster  that 
had  befallen  his  fleet  had  given  them,  that  they 


tions  on  shore,  which  lie  could  not  possibly  have  omit- 
ted to  mention 


had  agreed  to  suspend  their  own  quarrels,  and 
were  assembled  in  greater  numbers  than  formerly, 
under  Cassivelaunus,  a  chieftain  of  Middlesex, 
or,  as  Caesar  describes  him,  a  prince  residing  on 
the  northern  banks  of  the  Thames,  and  at  about 
seventy  or  eighty  miles  from  the  sea. 

This  chieftain  brought  into  the  field  a  nume- 
rous army  of  infantry,  of  horsemen,  and  armed 
chariots.  His  knowledge  of  the  woods  enabled 
him  to  harass  the  Romans  on  their  march,  and, 
following  the  tracts  that  were  clear  of  underwood, 
not  only  to  gall  them  with  missiles  from  the 
thickets,  but  to  charge  them  likewise  with  his 
horsemen  and  chariots,  even  in  places  where  the 
ground  seemed  least  fitted  for  the  movement  of 
such  bodies.  Encouraged  with  his  success  in 
this  species  of  warfare,  he  ventured  to  attack  the 
whole  cavalry  of  the  Roman  army,  which,  being 
on  a  foraging  party,  were  supported  by  an  entire 
legion.  But  the  Britons  being,  in  this  attempt, 
defeated  with  great  slaughter,  their  chief  lost 
courage,  or  was  deserted  by  his  followers,  and 
never  more  attempted  to  face  the  Romans. 

Caesar,  finding  this  enemy  remit  his  ardour, 
advanced  with  a  quicker  pace.  From  his  silence 
on  the  subject  of  any  difficulty  in  passing  the 
Medway,  we  must  suppose  him  to  have  followed 
the  vale  of  the  Stour  to  Ashford,  and  from  thence 
to  have  kept  on  the  plains  to  Maidstone,  near  to 
which  place  the  river  Medway  is  everywhere 
naturally  fordable;  and  from  the  length  of  his 
march,  being  about  eighty  miles  from  the  sea, 
when  he  came  upon  the  banks  of  the  Thames, 
we  may  suppose  him  to  have  arrived  on  that  river 
at  the  reach  which  runs  from  south  to  north, 
somewhere  between  Kingstone  and  Brentford. 
There  he  observes,  thaPihe  only  ford  in  the  river 
was  fenced  and  guarded;  that  a  row  of  sharp 
stakes  was  driven  under  water;  that  the  opposite 
bank  was  lined  with  a  palisade,  and  manned  by 
a  numerous  body  of  the  natives.  He  neverthe- 
less proceeded  to  force  his  way,  and  by  the  im- 
petuosity of  his  attack,  drove  the  enemy  from 
their  post,  and,  without  any  loss,  effected  his 
passage,  although  his  men  were  obliged  to  wade 
up  to  the  chin. 

Cassivelaunus  had,  for  some  time,  made  no 
attempt  to  resist  the  Roman  army  ;  he  had  con- 
tented himself  with  observing  their  motions,  and 
with  endeavouring  to  strip  the  country  before 
them  of  every  particular  by  which  they  could 
profit  on  their  march.  Caesar,  on  his  part,  ad- 
vanced with  the  precautions  necessary  against 
such  an  enemy,  and,  as  they  had  destroyed  what 
could  be  of  immediate  use  to  his  army,  he  de- 
stroyed what  was  left,  in  order  to  force  the  na- 
tives to  submission.  In  this  state  of  the  war, 
having  leisure  and  opportunity  to  observe  the 
condition  of  the  country  and  the  manners  of  the 
people,  he  gives  the  following  account  of  both : 
"  That  on  the  coast  there  were  colonies  from  the 
neighbouring  continent,  still  distinguished  by  the 
names  of  the  countries  from  whence  they  had 
come ;  that  these  colonies  being  possessed  of  agri- 
culture, and  well  stocked  with  cattle,  were  ex- 
tremely populous ;  that  they  had  money  made  of 
iron  or  brass ;  the  first  of  which  metals,  with  great 
quantities  of  tin,  were  found  in  their  own  Island  ; 
the  other  metal  was  imported  from  abroad ;  that 
the  winter  was  milder  here  than  in  Gaul ;  that 
the  woods  of  Britain  furnished  the  same  timber 
with  those  of  G°ul,  except  the  lirand  the  beech; 


224 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


and  that  the  houses  Were  built  in  the  same  man- 
ner in  both  countries."  From  this  account  of 
the  coast  he  proceeds  to  observe,  "  That  the  in- 
land parts  were  occupied  by  the  original  natives, 
who,  with  little  corn,  subsisted  chiefly  by  milk 
and  the  other  produce  of  their  herds ;  that,  by  a 

E articular  superstition,  although  possessed  of 
ares,  of  geese,  and  other  fowls,  they  were  forbid 
to  eat  of  these  animals ;  that  they  were  curious  in 
the  ornaments  of  the  person ;  affected  to  have 
bushy  whiskers,  and  long  hair ;  that  they  stained 
or  painted  their  bodies  of  a  blue  colour,  and  had 
no  clothes  besides  the  skins  of  beasts ;  that  they 
associated  in  small  clubs  or  fraternities  of  ten  or 
a  dozen  in  number."  And  adds  a  circumstance 
in  which,  if  he  were  not  deceived,  as  is  common 
enough  to  foreigners,  by  some  appearances  which 
were  not  sufficiently  explained  to  him,  he  gives  a 
striking  example  of  the  diversity  which  takes 
place  among  mankind  in  settling  the  canon  of 
external  actions.  The  brothers,  the  father,  and 
the  son,  though  separately  married,  and  reputed 
the  parents  of  children,  brought  forth  by  their 
respective  wives,  yet,  without  jealousy  or  im- 
putation of  evil,  lived  with  those  wives  in  com- 
mon.1 

Caesar,  being  on  the  left  of  the  Thames,  made 
an  alliance  with  the  Trinobantes,  supposed  to 
have  been  the  inhabitants  of  Essex  and  Suffolk. 
The  sovereign  of  this  canton  having,  in  some 
quarrel  with  his  own  people,  been  expelled  from 
his  dominion,  had  taken  refuge  with  Caesar 
in  Gaul,  and  was  now,  by  force  of  the  Roman 
arms,  restored  to  his  kingdom.  Five  other  prin- 
cipalities made  their  submission  at  the  same  time. 


Cassivelaunus  retired  to  his  principal  fortress, 
which,  consisting  of  a  palisade  and  a  ditch  situated 
in  the  least  accessible  part  of  the  Woods,  was  by 
the  natives,  as  Caesar  is  pleased  to  express  him- 
self, called  a  town,  and  was  in  reality,  in  case  of 
alarm,  a  place  of  retreat  for  themselves  and  their 
cattle,  On  the  approach  and  attack  of  Caesar  on 
one  side,  Cassivelaunus  retired  by  an  outlet  on 
the  other,  leaving  some  herds  of  cattle,  and  many 
of  his  men,  to  fall  into  the  enemy's  hand. 

After  this  defeat,  the  British  prince  endeavoured^ 
as  a  last  resource,  to  give  Caesar  some  trouble  in 
his  rear ;  and  for  this  purpose  sent  an  order  to 
the  four  princes  of  Kent,  to  assemble  their  people, 
and  endeavour  to  force  the  Roman  station,  and 
destroy  the  Roman  shipping,  where  they  lay  on 
the  coast.  They  accordingly  attacked  the  in- 
trenchment,  but  were  repulsed ;  and  Cassivelaunus 
himself,  reduced  to  despair  by  the  defection  of  so 
many  of  his  countrymen,  and  by  his  repeated  de- 
feats, determined  to  make  his  submission.  The 
season  of  the  year  being  far  advanced,  and  Caesar, 
desirous  to  retire  with  honour  from  a  country  in 
which  he  was  not  prepared  to  make  any  settle- 
ments, accepted  this  on  easy  terms. 

A  certain  tribute  was  imposed  on  the  nations 
inhabiting  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  hostages 
taken  for  the  payment  of  it,  and  the  invaders, 
with  a  numerous  assemblage  of  prisoners,  then 
the  only  or  principal  spoils  of  this  island,  retired 
to  their  ships,  which,  not  being  sufficient  to  re- 
ceive them  at  one  embarkation,  were  obliged  to 
return  for  a  second;  and  in  this  way  succes- 
sively, without  any  material  accident,  transported 
the  whole  of  the  Roman  army  into  GauL 


CHAPTER  II. 

Death  of  Julia  the  daughter  of  Ccesar  and  the  wife  of  Pompey —  Trial  of  Gabinius — Detection 
of  an  infamous  Transaction  of  Memmius  and  Ahenobarbus — Revolt  of  the  Low  Countries — 
Military  Execution  against  the  Inhabitants  of  the  Country  betioeen  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse — 
Operations  of  Crassus  in  Mesopotamia — His  Death — Competition  for  the  Consulate — Death  of 
Clodius — Riot  in  the  City — Pompey  sole  Consul —  Trial  of  Milo. 


WHILE  the  Roman  army  was  in  Britain, 
there  happened,  by  the  death  of  Julia,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Caesar  and  the  wife  of  Pompey,  a  great 
change  in  the  discontinuance  of  the  relation 
which  subsisted  between  them,  and  in  the  sepa- 
ration of  their  supposed  political  interests.  The 
connection  which  then  came  to  be  dissolved,  had 
been  devised  as  a  bond  of  confederacy  between 
parties  Whose  interfering  objects  of  ambition  must 
have  otherwise,  on  many  occasions,  excited  their 
mutual  jealousy.  Neither  the  father-in-law,  nor 
the  son,  was  likely  to  sacrifice  his  ambitipn  to 
mere  affection,  but  each  may  have  expected,  that 
the  other  should  be,  in  some  degree,  the  dupe  of 
his  relation,  and  should  abate  a  little  of  the  jea- 
lousy to  which  he  was,  by  his  situation  and  his 
objects,  so  naturally  inclined.  This  passion, 
however,  we  may  believe  was  far  from  having 
been  extinguished  in  the  mind  of  either.  The 
choice  which  Pompey  made  of  Spain  for  his  pro- 
vince, with  a  military  command  for  a  term  of  five 


1  See  Caesar's  Commentaries  on  his  last  expedition 
to  Britain. 


years,  probably  proceeded  from  a  desire  to  retain 
his  superiority  over  Csesar,  and  to  have  in  his 
power,  in  case  of  a  breach  between  them,  a  pro^ 
vince,  though  less  contiguous  to  Italy  than  that 
which,  was  held  by  Caesar,  not  less  fitted  to  fur- 
nish formidable  armies  and  the  resources  of  war. 

Notwithstanding  these  effects  of  jealousy,  while 
the  familiar  relation  of  father-in-law  and  son  sub- 
sisted between  Csesar  and  Pompey,  and  While 
Crassus  continued  to  hold  a  species  of  balance  in 
their  councils,  they  seemed  to  acquiesce  in  a  par- 
ticipation of  consequence  and  power.  But  the 
death  of  Julia,  and  that  likewise  of  the  child  of 
which  she  had  been  delivered  only  a  few  days 
before  her  death,  put  an  end,  not  only  to  any 
real  cordiality  in  this  connection,  but  even  to  any 
semblance  of  friendship,  and  rendered  them,  from 
this  time  forward,  mutually  jealous  of  the  advan- 
tages they  severally  gained,  whether  in  respect 
to  force  in  the  provinces,  or  to  state  and  popu- 
larity at  Rome. 

It  is  observed,  that,  from  this  date,,  Csesar  be- 
came more  than  formerly  attentive  to  reports 
from  the  city,  and  more  careful  of  his  intelligenc  e 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


from  thence  ;2  and  that  he  endeavoured  to  gain 
every  person  who  might  be  of  consequence  in  de- 
ciding the  contest  which  he  perceived  must  arise. 
Among  these  he  paid  his  court  in  particular  to 
Cicero,  who  was  likely,  about  this  time,  to  devote 
himself  to  Pompey,  and  whom  he  wished,  at 
least,  to  keep  in  suspense  between  them  :  for  this 
purpose,  as  appears  from  their  correspondence, 
he  applied,  as  usual,  to  his  vanity,  and,  while  he 
was  piercing  the  woods  of  Britain  in  pursuit  of 
Cassivelaunus  and  his  painted  followers, s  affected 
to  read  and  to  admire  verses  which  were  sent  to 
him  by  a  person  much  more  esteemed  for  his 
prose  than  his  poetry. 

The  Roman  army  had  been  tempted  into  Britain 
by  the  hopes  of  finding  mines  of  silver,  but  were 
disappointed;  for,  besides  slaves,  they  found  no 
booty  in  that  island.  Such  probably  likewise 
were  the  principal  spoils  of  Gaul ;  yet  we  find 
their  general,  in  consequence  of  his  conquests  in 
that  country,  enabled  to  expend  great  sums  in 
supporting  his  influence  at  Rome.  While  Pom- 
pey procured  his  own  appointment  to  the  com- 
mand of  an  army,  in  order  to  keep  pace  with 
Caesar  in  the  provinces,  Caesar,  in  his  turn, 
projected  public  works  at  Rome  to  vie  with  the 
magnificence  of  Pompey,  and  with  that  of  other 
citizens,  who  made  such  works  a  part  of  their 
policy,  to  gain  the  people.  For  this  purpose 
Caesar  proposed  to  build  a  Basilica,4  and  to 
enlarge  the  forum,  at  an  expense  of  six  millions 
Roman  money,  or  about  fifty  thousand  pounds  ; 
to  rail  in  the  field  of  Mars  with  marble  ballis- 
ters,  and  to  surround  the  whole  with  a  colonade 
or  portico  extending  a  thousand  paces,  or  about 
a  mile. 

In  these  several  works  Caesar  affected  to  con- 
sult or  to  employ  Cicero  in  a  manner  which  flat- 
tered his  vanity,  and  renewed  his  hopes  of  being 
able  also  to  direct  his  councils,5  in  what  related  to 
matters  of  state. 

In  the  mean  time,  parties  in  the  city,  though 
engaged  on  the  side  of  different  competitors  for 
office  at  the  approaching  elections,  were  likewise 
intent  on  the  cause  of  Gabinius.  This  officer, 
while  yet  in  his  province,  had  heen  impeached 
for  disobeying  the  orders  of  the  senate,  and  for  con- 
tempt of  religion  in  his  expedition  to  Egypt.  But 
having,  by  the  influence  of  Pompey,  and  of  Caesar, 
eluded  his  first  attack,  he  set  out  for  Rome  in 
great  confidence,  and,  on  his  journey,  gave  out, 
that  he  was  to  demand  a  triumph.  But,  upon 
his  approach  to  the  city,  hearing  in  what  manner 
the  senate  and  people  were  affected  towards  him, 
he  thought  proper  to  make  his  entry  in  the  night; 
and  being- arrived,  on  the  eighteenth  of  Septem- 
ber, did  not  even  venture  to  appear  in  the  senate 
for  ten  days.  No  less  than  three  prosecutions 
were  preparing  against  him ;  for  treason,  for  ex- 
tortion in  his  province,  and  for  other  crimes. 
The  first  day  on  which  he  presented  himse'f  in 
the  senate,  the  consuls,  when  he  would  have 
withdrawn,  commanded  him  to  stay.  And,  hav- 
ing called  the  farmers  of  the  revenue  from  Syria, 
who  attended  with  a  complaint  from  the  province, 
bid  them  state  their  charge. 


2  Crcero  ad  Quint,  frat.  lib  ii.  ep.  15.  et  lib.  iii.  ep.  I. 

3  Ibid.  lib.  ii.  ep.  ult.   Ad  Atticmn,  lib.  iv.  ep.  16. 

4  What  the  Romans  called  a  Hasilica  or  palace,  was 
a  kind  of  exchange,  containing  porticoes  for  mer- 
chants, arrd  other  public  accommodations. 

5  Cicero  ad  AU.  lib.  iv.  ep.  16. 

2P 


An  altercation  ensued,  in  which  Cicero,  mind- 
ful of  the  injuries  he  had  received  from  Gabinius, 
took  a  principal  part  against  him,  and  pronounced 
an  invective,  which  the  other  returned  with  the 
abusive  appellation  of  fugitive,  in  allusion  to  his 
late  exile.6  Yet,  soon  after,  when  this  criminal 
was  brought  to  trial  for  extortion  in  his  province, 
Cicero,  as  will  afterwards  be  mentioned,  under- 
took, at  the  solicitation  of  Pompey,  to  appear  in 
his  defence. 

Before  thig  trial  for  extortion  took  place,  C. 
Memmius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  on  the  ninth  of 
October  delivered  to  the  people,  with  great  force, 
a  charge  of  treason  against  Gabinius.7  The 
judgment  of  the  tribes  being  called,  and  sentence 
of  condemnation  likely  to  pass,  while  the  lietors 
were  preparing  to  seize  their  prisoner,  his  son,  a 
young  man,  with  much  filial  piety,  a  virtue  highly 
esteemed  by  the  Romans,  threw  himself  at  the 
feet  of  the  tribune,  and  being  rudely  spurned  on 
the  ground,  happened  to  drop  his  ring,  the  badge 
of  Roman  nobility ;  the  spectators  were  moved  ; 
Lehus  Balbus,  another  of  the  tribunes,  interposed, 
and,  with  the  general  approbation  of  the  people, 
commanded  the  process  to  stop.8 

The  other  prosecutions  nevertheless  were  con- 
tinued against  Gabinius.  One  !*■  fore  the  praetor 
Alfius,  in  which,  though  the  majority  of  the 
judges  voted  to  acquit,  there  were  twenty-two, 
out  of  seventy,  who  voted  guilty.9  Another  be- 
fore Cato,  on  a  charge  of  depredation  in  his  pro- 
vince, to  the  amount  of  quater  millies,  four 
hundred  millions  Roman  money,  or  about  three 
millions  sterling ;  in  this  last  was  condemned,  and 
forced  into  exile.  At  this  trial,  Pompey  and 
Caesar  continued  to  employ  their  influence  in  his 
.favour.  And  Cicero,  although  he  had  hitherto 
treated  Gabinius  as  the  author  of  his  own  exile, 
l>eing  reconciled  to  Pompey  and  Caesar,  no  longer 
continued  at  variance  with  a  person,  who  had 
been  no  more  than  their  tool  or  instrument  in 
procuring  his  misfortunes,  and  condescended,  on 
this  occasion,  though  ineffectually,  to  plead  bin 
cause.10 

The  approaching  elections  gave  rise  to  compe- 
titions and  intrigues  more  connected  with  the 
state  of  the  republic,  and  moTe  an  indication  of 
the  manners  which  then  prevailed.  The  poorer 
citizens  came  to  depend  for  their  subsistence  on 
the  distributions  of  corn  and  other  (gratuities, 
which  were  made  or  procured  by  those  who 
courted  popularity,  or  who  aspired  to  the  offices 
of  state.  Corruption  became  every  day  more 
flagrant  and  less  disguised  ;  and  the  laws  against 
bribery  were  losing  their  force  for  want  of  per- 
sons to  prosecute  a  crime,  of  which  so  many 
either  wished  to  reap  the  Ixmcfit,  or  which  many 
were  so  strongly  tempted  to  commit.  To  supply 
this  defect,  Cato  moved  in  the  senate,  that  every 
one  elected  into  olfice  should  be  subjected  to  ail 
inquest,  even  if  no  one  should  prosecute;11  and 
actually  obtained  an  edict,  requiring  the  ordinary 
judges,  that  were  named  for  trials  within  the 
year,  to  take  cognizance  of  the  means  by  which 
candidates  succeeded  to  office ;  and  to  set  those 
aside  who  were  found  to  have  incurred  the  penal- 


G  Cicero  ad  Quint,  frat.  lib.  iii.  7  Ibid. 

8  Val.  Max.  lib.  viii.  c.  1 

9  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  ep.  16 

10  Dio.  lib.  xxxix.  c.  63.  Cicero  ad  Quint,  frat 
lib.  iii.  ep.  1  et  3. 

11  Plutarch.  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  <rp.  16. 


226 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV 


ties  of  corruption.1  The  tribunes  interposed  their 
negative,  or  suspended  the  effect  of  this  resolu- 
tion, until  an  act  of  the  people  should  be  obtained 
to  confirm  it.  The  proposal  gave  great  offence 
to  the  parties  concerned  ;  and  Cato,  being  at- 
tacked by  the  populace,  narrowly  escaped  with 
ilis  life.  He  afterwards,  in  a  full  assembly  of  the 
more  respectable  citizens,  was  favourably  heard 
on  this  subject.  But  Terentius,  one  of  the  tri- 
bunes, still  persisting  in  his  negative,  this  at- 
tempt to  restrain  the  corrupt  practices  of  those 
who  canvassed  for  office  had  no  effect. 

The  candidates  themselves,  in  the  mean  time, 
if  each  could  have  trusted  the  laws  for  restraining- 
others,  as  well  as  himself,  from  the  practice  of 
giving  money ;  or  if  any  number  of  them  could 
have  relied  upon  an  agreement  to  be  entered  into 
amnng  themselves  to  refrain  from  it,  would,  it  is 
probable,  have  been  glad  to  be  relieved  from  an 
abuse  which  rendered  their  pretensions  so  ex- 
pensive and  so  precarious.  Moved  by  these  con- 
siderations, candidates  for  the  office  of  the  tribune 
entered  into  an  agreement  not  to  bribe,  and  deposit- 
ed each  a  sum  of  money2  in  the  hands  of  Cato,  to 
be  forfeited  by  any  person  who  should  be  found 
acting  in  contravention  to  their  treaty.3  One  of 
them,  however,  was  detected  in  giving  money, 
and  accordingly  forfeited  his  pledge. 

In  the  competition  lor  the  consulate^  corruption 
was  carried  to  the  greatest  excess.  An  office 
was  opened,  at  which  the  candidates  dealt  out 
money  to  the  people,  who  came  in  the  order  of 
their  tribes  to  receive  it.4  A  gratuity  of  ten  mil- 
lions of  sesterces,5  was  offered  to  any  person  who 
should  secure  the  vote  of  the  first  century,  or,  as 
it  was  called,  the  Prerogativa.  The  demand  for 
money  to  be  employed  in  this  species  of  traffic 
became  so  great,  that  by  the  first  of  July,  interest 
rose  from  four  to  eight  per  cent.6  All  the  four 
candidates,  Memmius,  M.  Scaurus,  Cn.  Domi- 
tius, and  M.  Messala,  mutually  raised  prosecu- 
tions for  bribery  against  each  other ;  and  in  the 
course  of  these  transactions,  it  appeared  that  Caius 
Memmius,  once  a  vehement  partisan  of  the  senate, 
had  made  his  peace  with  Caesar,  and  was  now 
supported  by  his  party  at  Rome. 

Memmius,  it  may  be  remembered,,  having  been 
praetor  at  the  expiration  of  Caesar's  consulate, 
brought  a  charge  of  high  misdemeanour  in  office 
against  him.  And  Cssar  appeared  for  some  time 
to  resent  this  attack ;  but  was  in  reality  as  little 
to  be  diverted  from  his  purpose  by  resentment,  as 
he  was  by  affection,  and  knew  how  to  choose  his 
friends  from  among  those  who  had  the  resolution 
to  provoke,  as  well  as  from  among  those  who  in- 
clined to  serve  him.  Caesar  accordingly  made 
use  of  this  opportunity  to  separate  Memmius 
from  the  rest  of  his  enemies,  and  by  his  means 
brought  to  light  a  scene  of  corruption,  in  which 
Memmius  himself,  with  other  professed  sup- 
porters of  the  senate,  had  been  concerned,  and 
which  furnished  Caesar,  and  the  supposed  popular 
party,  with  a  great  triumph  against  these  pre- 
tenders to  purity  and  public  virtue. 

It  appeared  that,  among  other  irregularities  at 


1  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  ep.  16. 

2  Quingena,  500,000  Roman  money,  about  1000Z. 

3  Plutarch.  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  iv.  ep.  15  ad  Q.uint. 
frat.  lib.  ii.  c.  12. 

4  Ad  Att.  lih.  iv.  ep.  17.  5  About  80,000?. 

6  Ad  Quint  frat  lib  ii.  pp.  ]5.  Idibus  quintilibus 
fcpnus  fuit  bessib  is  ex  tria&te. 


Rome  in  the  administration  of  government,  even 
laws,  and  supposed  acts  of  the  senate  or  people, 
could  be  forged  or  surreptitiously  obtained.  The 
present  consuls,  Cn.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus, 
and  Ap.  Claud.  Pulcher,  entered  into  a  compact 
with  those  two  who  were  candidates  to  succeed 
them,  Caius  Memmius  and  C.  Domitius  Calvi- 
mis :  the  two  first,  to  secure  their  own  nomina- 
tion to  lucrative  provinces  at  the  expiration  of 
their  consulship :  the  two  others  now  standing 
for  this  office,  to  secure  their  elections.  The 
parties  agreed  to  forge  an  edict  of  the  senate  and 
of  the  people,  fixing  the  consular  provinces.  And 
a  sum  of  money  was  deposited  by  the  candidates 
in  the  hand's  of  the  consuls,  to  be  forfeited,  if  they 
did  not  support  this  forgery,  with  the  evidence  of 
three  augurs,  who  should  vouch  for  the  passing 
of  the  law  in  the  assembly  of  the  people,  and  two- 
senators  of  consular  dignity,  who  should  swear 
they  were  present  when  this  allotment  of  pro- 
vinces was  confirmed  by  the  senate,  although  it 
was  notorious  that  no  meeting  of  the  senate  had? 
been  held  for  this  purpose. 

Memmius  being  gained  by  the  parties  of  Cae- 
sar and  Pompey,  was  persuaded  to  sacrifice  his 
own  reputation  in  order  to  ruin  that  of  Domitius 
Ahenobarbus.  He  laid  this  strange  agreement, 
which  had  been  drawn  up  in  writing,  together 
with  the  bonds  which  had  been  granted  upon  it, 
before  the  senate.  Appius  Claudius  braved  the 
detection  ;  but  Ahenobarbus,  professing  himself 
to  be  of  a  party  which  contended  for  purity  and 
reformation  of  manners,  incurred  much  disgrace 
and  reproach. 

From  this  transaction  it  should  appear,  not 
only  that  the  assemblies  of  the  people  were  ex- 
tremely irregular  and  tumultuary,  and  might  be 
made  up  of  such  persons  as  were  by  any  party 
purposely  brought  to  the  comitium ;  but  that  even 
the  meetings  of  the  senate  might  be  packed  ;  that 
their  proceedings  were  carelessly  recorded,  and 
might  be  easily  forged..  The  numbers  required 
to  form  a  comitium  or  assembly  of  the  people  not 
being  fixed,  any  convention  of  persons  brought 
from  any  part  of  Italy,  occupying  the  usual  place 
of  assembly,  might  take  upon  them  the  designa- 
tion and  powers  of  the  Roman  people ;  and  as  the 
fluctuating  sovereignty  of  the  people  by  this 
means  passed  from  one  party  to  another,  its  or- 
ders were  often  surreptitious  and  contradictory, 
and  every  law  might  be  considered  as  the  mandate 
of  a  party  or  faction,  not  as  the  will  of  the  commu- 
nity.7 Great  as  these  disorders  were,  there  were 
at  all  times  numerous  parties  who  had  an  interest 
in  t  he  continuance  of  them ;  and  the  age,  though 
suffering  under  the  most  grievous  abuses,  was 
still  more  averse  to  the  necessary  reformations. 

The  infamy  of  this  recent  transaction  produced1 
a  delay  of  the  elections,  until  the  term  of  the 
present  consuls  in  office  was  expired..  An  inter- 
regnum accordingly  ensued.  The  partizans  of 
Pompey  hinted:  the  necessity  of  naming  a  dicta- 
tor. He  himself  affected  great  reserve,  in  expec- 
tation that  when  the  present  troubles  came  to 
their  height,  the  powers  necessary  to  suppress, 
them  would,  by  general  consent,  be  pressed  into 
his  hands. 

In  the  mean  time,  Caesar,  whose  councils  had 
so  great  a  share  in  determining  these  events,  was 
detained  in  the  northern  parts  of  Gaul,  and  waa 


7  Dion.  Cassius,  lib.  xxxix.  c.  65. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


227 


obliged,  contrary  to  his  usual  practice,  to  pass  the 
whole  winter  on  this  side  of  the  Alps.  On  his 
return  from  Britain,  finding  that  the  harvest  in 
Gaul  had  been  unfavourable,  he  was  tempted,  in 
order  to  facilitate  the  subsistence  of  his  army,  to 
extend  his  quarters  much  farther  than  had  been 
his  ordinary  practice.  Labienus,  with  one  divi- 
sion, was  sent  to  the  Moselle  ;  Titurius  Sabinus, 
with  another,  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Meuse, 
near  to  what  are  now  the  districts  of  Liege  and 
Maestricht.  Gluintus  Cicero  was  posted  on  some 
of  the  branches  of  the  Schcld  or  the  Sambre,  in 
the  county  of  Hainault.  And  the  whole  army 
by  this  disposition,  extended  from  the  Seine  to 
the  Meuse,  about  Maestricht,  and  from  the  sea 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  Treves.  The  distance 
at  which  the  posts  were  placed  from  each  other 
being  observed  by  the  natives,  who  still  bore  with 
impatience  the  intrusion  and  usurpation  of  these 
strangers,  tempted  them  to  form  a  design  against 
each  of  these  quarters  apart,  and  by  cutting  them 
oft',  to  rid  their  country  for  ever  of  these  imperious 
and  insatiable  guests,  who  acted  as  proprietors 
in  every  territory  on  which  they  were  received, 
and  branded  every  act  of  resistance  to  their  unjust 
usurpation  with  the  name  of  defection  and  rebel- 
lion. 

In  execution  of  this  design,  Ambiorix,  leader 
of  the  nations  which  were  situated  in  the  angle, 
above  the  confluence  of  the  Meuse  and  the 
Rhine,  and  round  the  quarters  of  Sabinus,  which 
are  supposed  to  have  been  at  a  place  which  is 
now  called  Tongres,  suddenly  presented  himself 
with  a  numerous  body  before  the  Roman  station, 
and  endeavoured  to  force  the  intrenchment ;  but 
being  repulsed,  had  .recourse  to  an  artifice  in 
which  he  succeeded.  Affecting  a  great  regard 
for  the  Romans,  he  desired  that  he  might  have 
an  opportunity  to  communicate  to  their  general 
a  matter  of  the  most  serious  importance.  An 
officer  being  sent  to  him  upon  this  request,  he 
pretended  to  disclose,  with  the  utmost  regret,  a 
-secret  design  formed  by  the  Gauls  to  cut  off  the 
Roman  army ;  gave  notice  that  a  great  body  of 
Germans  had  already  passed  the  Rhine  to  join 
in  the  execution  of  this  design ;  that  he  himself 
had  been  very  much  averse  to  the  project ;  but 
had  been  obliged  to  give  way  to  the  popular  im- 
petuosity of  his  countrymen,  which  he  could  not 
resist ;  that  all  he  could  do  was  to  warn  the  Ro- 1 
mans  of  their  danger,  to  the  end  that  they  might, 
in  the  most  effectual  manner,  consult  their  own 
safety.  If  they  chose,  while  it  was  in  their  power, 
to  withdraw,  and  to  gain  the  nearest  station  of 
their  own  people,  he  had  influence  enough  to 
hinder  their  being  molested  on  the  march :  but 
if  they  should  hesitate  for  any  time,  or  wait  till 
the  Germans  arrived,  it  would  no  longer  be  in 
his  power  to  avert  the  storm  with  which  they 
were  threatened. 

This  admonition,  even  from  an  enemy,  alter  a 
long  debate  in  the  council  of  war,  determined 
Sabinus  to  quit  his  present  situation.  He  ac- 
cordingly began  a  march  of  fifty  miles  towards 
the  quarters  of  Gluintus  Cicero.  And  falling  into 
a  snare,  which  the  treacherous  chieftain  had  laid 
for  him,  perished,  with  an  entire  legion  and  five 
cohorts,  of  whom  the  greater  part  were  put  to  the 
sword.  Some  got  back  to  the  station  they  had 
left,  but  finding  no  security  in  that  place,  killed 
themselves  in  despair.  A  verv  few  escaped,  by 
the  woods,  to  Labienus  on  the  Moselle. 


The  natives,  thus  encouraged  by  the  success  of 
their  first  operation,  pushed  on  to  the  quarters  of 
Gluintus  Cicero,  armed  and  assembled  the  coun- 
try as  they  passed,  and  arrived  with  such  expe- 
dition, that  they  intercepted  all  the  parties  which 
were  abroad  in  search  of  wood,  provisions,  or 
forage,  and  made  so  unexpected  an  attack  on  the 
Roman  station,  as  left  Cicero  scarcely  time  suffi- 
cient to  man  "his  entrenchments.  They  renewed 
the  artifice  which  they  had  practised  with  so 
much  success  against  Sabinus.  But  Cicero, 
though  unacquainted  with  the  manner  in  which 
that  officer  had  been  betrayed,  determined  to  re- 
main in  his  camp,  and  as  soon  as  possible  to  give 
intimation  of  his  danger  to  Caesar.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  strengthened  his  post  with  additional 
works,  and  published  a  reward  to  the  first  person 
who  should  succeed  in  carrying  intelligence  to 
the  nearest  quarter  of  the  Roman  army. 

The  enemy  being  about  sixty  thousand  men, 
formed  a  circle,  facing  to  the  centre,  quite  round 
the  Roman  intrenchment.;  and,  the  more  effec- 
tually to  cut  oil' all  communication  of  supplies  or 
intelligence  from  without,  effected  a  line  of  cir- 
cumvallation,  consisting  of  a  ditch  fifteen  feet 
wide,  and  a  breastwork  eleven  feet  high,  extend- 
ing over  a  circumference  of  fifteen  miles.8  In  this 
work,  being  unprovided  with  intrenching  tools, 
they  were  obliged  to  cut  the  turf  with  their  swords. 
But  having  begun  it  by  a  sufficient  number  of 
hands  in  all  its  parts  at  once,  they,  according  to 
Caesar's  account,  completed  the  whole  in  three 
hours. 

From  this  line,  which  they  formed  by  the  di- 
rection of  some  Italian  deserters,  they  made  regu- 
lar approaches  to  the  Roman  intrenchment;  and 
having  pushed  their  turrets  quite  up  to  the  ditch, 
threw,  by  means  of  their  slings,  red  hot  bullets 
and  burning  darts  into  the  thatch  with  which  the 
huts  of  the  camp  were  covered  ;  set  tliem  on  fire  ; 
and,  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  which  arose 
from  this  circumstance,  endeavourod  to  scale  the 
palisade  and  the  parapet 

While  Cicero  continued,  with  great  ability  and 
courage,  to  withstand  these  attacks,  the  persons 
who  endeavoured  to  carry  the  tidings  of  his  situa- 
tion to  Caesar  were  repeatedly  intercepted,  and 
cruelly  tortured,  to  deter  others  from  renewing 
the  same  attempt.  The  intelligence,  however, 
I  by  means  of  a  native  Gaul,  who,  availing  himself 
of  the  dress,  manners,  and  language  of  his  coun- 
try passed  unobserved  through  the  lines  of  the 
enemy,  was  at  last  carried  to  the  head  quarters 
of  the  Roman  army. 

Caesar,  as  usual,  trusting  more  to  despatch  and 
rapid  execution  than  to  the  numbers  of  his  men, 
left  a  legion -at  Samarobri  va9  to  guard  liis  stores, 
magazines,  and  baggage,  and  with  two  other  le- 
gions., not  exceeding  seven  thousand  men,  being 
all  that,  without  hazarding  an  improper  delay,  he 
could  assemble,  hastened  his  march  to  the  quar- 
ters of  Cicero.  He  despatched  two  messengers, 
one  to  Labienus,  with  orders,  if  possible,  to  put 
the  troops  under  his  command  in  motion  towards 
the  Meuse,  and  another  to  Gluintus  Cicero  him- 
self, with  hopes  of  assurances  of  immediate  relief. 
The  first  messenger  found  Labienus  beset  with 
a  numerous  army  of  Gauls,  and  therefore  unable 
to  move ;  the  other,  having  come  to  the  foot  of 


8  Cresarde  Bell.  Gallico,  lib.  v.  c.  42. 

9  Amiens, 


228 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


Cicero's  intrenchment,  cast  the  billet  which  con- 
tained the  intelligence,  wound  up  on  the  shaft  of 
a  dart,  against  one  of  the  towers,  where  it  stuck, 
and  hung  for  some  days  unobserved ;  but  being 
found  at  last,  it  was  carried  to  Cicero,  and  gave 
notice  of  Caesar's  approach.  At  the  same  time 
the  fire  and  the  smoke  of  his  camp  began  to  ap- 
pear on  the  plain,  and  gave  both  parties  equal 
intimation  of  his  coming. 

The  Gauls,  without  delay,  got  in  motion  with 
all  their  force,  and  having  abandoned  their  lines 
of  circumvallation,  advanced  to  meet  Caesar.  Ci- 
cero sent  him  intelligence  of  this  movement  of  the 
enemy.  The  armies  arrived  nearly  at  the  same 
time  on  the  opposite  sides  of  a  brook  running  in 
a  hollow  track  between  steep  banks,  which  nei- 
ther party  in  the  presence  of  the  other  could  ven- 
ture to  pass. 

Caesar,  supposing  that  the  great  inequality  of 
his  numbers  might  inspire  the  Gauls  with  con- 
tempt, endeavoured,  by  exceeding  his  usual  cau- 
tion, to  feed  their  presumption.  He  affected  to 
choose  a  ground  that  was  fit  to  secure  his  camp ; 
and  contracting  its  limits,  crowded  both  his  le- 
gions within  the  dimensions  which  were  usually 
occupied  by  one.  In  this  posture  he  meant  to 
await  the  effects  of  the  enemy's  temerity,  or,  if 
they  declined  passing  the  brook,  to  avail  himself 
of  the  security  they  were  likely  to  feel,  and  to 
attack  them  in  their  own  camp  by  surprise. 

The  event  justified  Csesar  in  his  expectation. 
The  Gauls,  trusting  to  the  superiority  of  their 
numbers,  thought  they  had  nothing  to  dread  but 
the  escape  of  their  enemy  5  and  they  accordingly 
passed  the  rivulet,  with  intention  to  force  his 
lines.  Instead  of  defending  his  camp,  he  poured 
forth  his  army  at  once  from  all  its  avenues,  and, 
with  the  advantage  of  a  surprise  upon  those  who 
came  to  attack  him,  and  by  the  great  superiority 
of  the  Romans,  when  mixed  sword  in  hand  with 
an  enemy,  routed,  dispersed,  or  forced  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  the  greater  part  of  this  multi- 
tude which  came  to  attack  him  with  so  much  fe- 
rocity and  confidence. 

By  this  victory  Caesar  not  only  relieved  Gluin- 
tus  Cicero,  whom  he  joined  the  same  evening, 
but  likewise  dispelled  the  cloud  which  hung  over 
the  other  quarters  of  his  army,  of  which  many 
had  been  at  the  same  time  invested  by  the  natives. 
These  insurrections,  however,  which  kept  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  low  countries  in  motion,  even 
in  the  most  unfavourable  season,  gaw  him  the 
prospect  of  an  early  and  a  busy  campaign,  and 
so  much  disconcerted  the  plan  which  he  had 
formed  for  the  winter,  that  he  was  hindered  from 
making  his  usual  journey  across  the  Alps. 

During  this  necessary  stay  in  Gaul,  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  interests  which  Csesar  commonly 
studied  were  suffering  in  any  considerable  degree 
at  Rome.  The  civil  government  in  the  city  was 
hastening  fast  to  its  ruin,  and  the  longest  sword 
was  soon  likely  to  decide  the  sovereignty  of  the 
empire.  The  office  of  consul  was  unoccupied, 
and  continued  to  lie  so  from  the  beginning  of 
January  to  the  middle  of  July.  In  all  this  time 
there  was  no  administration  of  justice,1  nor  any 
exercise  of  magistracy,  besides  that  of  the  inter- 
rex,  who,  during  the  five  days  of  his  appoint- 
ment, was  supposed  to  have  no  other  object  be- 
sides the  elections  of  consuls.    This  object  was 


1  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio,  p.  483. 


vainly  attempted  by  every  successive  interrex 
The  popular  tumults  were  fomented  by  the  tri- 
bunes who  were  in  the  interest  of  Pompey ;  and 
some  prodigy,  or  unfortunate  presage,  was  con- 
tinually alleged,  to  prevent  the  elections.  The 
senate  striving  to  put  an  end  to  these  disorders, 
even  ventured  to  commit  to  prison  Gt.  Pompeius 
Rufus,  a  tribune,  who  seemed  to  be  most  active 
in  disturbing  the  public  peace.  The  occasion 
seemed  ripe  for  the  execution  of  Pompey's  de- 
sign ;  and  accordingly  another  tribune,  Lucccius 
Hirrus,  known  to  be  in  the  secret  of  Pompey's 
intrigues,  moved  that  he  should  be  named  dicta- 
tor.2 He  himself,  as  usual  on  such  occasions, 
absented  himself  from  the  assembly,  and  still 
kept  it  in  his  power  to  avow  or  disown  the  mea- 
sures of  his  creatures. 

This  motion  was  strongly  opposed  by  Cato, 
and  appeared  to  be  extremely  disagreeable  to  all 
the  principal  members  of  the  senate.3  Pompey 
therefore  thought  proper  to  disclaim  it,  denied  his 
having  encouraged  the  tribune  to  make  it,  and 
even  refused  to  accept  of  the  dictatorship ;  adding, 
That  he  had  been  called  to  the  exercise  of  great 
powers  earlier  than  he  himself  had  expected  ; 
and  that  he  had  always  resigned  his  powers 
earlier  than  had  been  expected  by  any  one  else.4 
In  this  was  expressed  the  great  object  of  Pom- 
pey's ambition  ;  he  preferred  this  point  of  estima- 
tion to  the  possession  of  power.  The  odium  of  the 
proposed  measure  fell  upon  Lucceius  Hirrus,  the 
tribune  who  moved  it,  and  had  nearly  brought 
upon  him  a  deposition  or  degradation  from  his 
office.  Cato,  willing  to  gain  Pompey,  or  to  con- 
firm him  in  the  virtue  he  assumed,  pronounced  an 
encomium  on  this  act  of  moderation,  recommend- 
ed the  republic  to  his  care,  and  encouraged  him  in 
the  resolution  he  had  taken,  to  prefer  the  esteem 
of  his  fellow-citizens  even  to  the  power  of  dis- 
posing of  their  lives  and  fortunes  at  his  pleasure. 
Pompey  from  thenceforward  joined  with  the 
senate  in  bringing  on  the  elections  ; 
U.  C.  700.  and  accordingly,  after  seven  months 
interval  of  confusion  and  anxiety, 
nRi  D°m'  wr  Cn-  Domitius  Calvinus  and  M.  Va- 
VallMessala,  ,erius  Messala  were  chosen  and  en- 
Coss.  '  tered  on  office  in  the  month  of  July 

While  Pompey  was  endeavouring,  by  his  in 
trigues  in  the  city,  to  make  a  species  of  monarchy 
in  his  own  person  appear  to  be  necessary,  Caesar 
was  in  fact  providing  himself  with  the  only 
means  which,  in  so  distracted  a  state,  can  either 
acquire  or  preserve  such  a  power.  He  was  join- 
ing three  additional  legions  to  the  establishment 
of  his  province ;  and,  under  pretence  of  his  lata, 
loss  on  the  Meuse,  or  of  his  fears  of  a  general  de- 
fection in  Gaul,  he  had  the  address  to  bring  into 
his  own  service  a  legion  which  had  been  recently 
formed  in  Italy  under  the  commission  of  Pompey. 
These  he  now  borrowed,  and  either  actually  de- 
bauched, or  rendered  of  doubtful  fidelity,  if  ever 
it  should  be  proposed  to  recall  or  employ  them 
against  himself. 

While  he  took  these  measures  for  the  augment- 
ation of  his  forces,  and  before  the  end  of  winter, 
having  intelligence  that  the  Nervii,  or  the  inha- 
bitants of  the  county  of  Hainault,  held  frequent 
consultations  together,  and  were  about  to  take 


2  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio.  D.  Con.  Cicero  epi6t.  ad 
Quint,  frat.  lib.  iii.  ep.  9. 

3  Ibid.  4  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Pompeii. 


Chap.  II.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


229 


arms,  he  determined  to  prevent  them;  and  for 
this  purpose,  with  four  legions  drawn  from  the 
nearest  quarters,  he  marched  into  their  country, 
and,  without  meeting  with  any  opposition,  de- 
stroyed their  habitations,  moved  away  their  cattle, 
and  made  many  prisoners.  He  continued  these 
severities  until  the  natives,  reduced  to  great  dis- 
tress, implored  his  mercy,  and  gave  hostages  for 
their  future  submission. 

Having,  in  the  course  of  this  winter,  called  the 
nations  of  Gaul  to  a  general  convention  at  an 
island  in  the  Seine,5  he  began  the  operations  of 
the  following  summer  by  punishing  some  of  the 
cantons,6  who  had  absented  themselves  from  that 
assembly,  and  who,  by  this  act  of  disrespect,  had 
incurred  his  resentment,  or  given  him  suspicion 
of  hostile  intentions.  The  principal  object  of  the 
campaign,  however,  was  the  punishment  of  Am- 
biorix  and  his  countrymen,  by  whom,  as  has  been 
related,  Sabinus,  with  a  legion  and  five  cohorts, 
had  been  circumvented  and  cut  off  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  preceding  winter. 

As  the  Romans  scarcely  appear  to  have  con- 
ceived that  any  people  had  a  right  to  withstand 
their  invasions,  and  treated  as  rebellion  every 
attempt  a  nation  once  vanquished  made  to  reco- 
ver its  liberties,  Caesar  states  it  as  necessary  for 
the  credit  of  the  Roman  army,  for  the  security 
of  their  quarters,  and  for  preventing  such  acts  of 
supposed  perfidy  for  the  future,  that  the  subjects 
of  Ambiorix  should  suffer  an  exemplary  punish- 
ment. To  secure  this  effect,  he  projected  two 
expeditions;  one  to  the  right  and  the  other  to 
the  left  of  this  enemy's  country,  with  intention 
to  preclude  them  from  any  retreat  or  assistance 
on  either  side.  He  penetrated  into  the  woods  and 
marshes  of  Brabant,  or  on  the  left  of  the  Meuse, 
and  obliged  the  inhabitants  to  come  under  en- 
gagements not  to  assist  or  harbour  his  enemies. 

From  thence,  still  avoiding  to  give  any  alarm 
to  the  nation  which  was  the  principal  object  of 
these  operations,  and  having  formerly  sent  his 
baggage  under  an  escort  of  two  legions  to  the 
Moselle,  he  now  followed  in  the  same  direction 
with  the  whole  army;  and  finding  that  Labienus 
had,  by  a  recent  victory,  vanquished  all  his  ene- 
mies in  that  quarter,  he  continued  his  march  to 
the  Rhine,  constructed  a  bridge  on  that  river  a  lit- 
tle way  higher  up  than  the  place  at  which  he  had 
formerly  passed  it,  and  once  more  set  foot  upon 
German  ground. 

The  Suevi,  and  other  great  migrating  nations 
of  that  continent,  having  moved  to  the  east- 
ward, leaving  nothing  behind  them  but  deserts, 
on  which  no  army  could  subsist,  he  contented 
himself  with  exacting  hostages  from  the  Ubii 
and  other  contiguous  nations,  to  secure  their 
neutrality,  or  rather  to  make  sure  of  their  con- 
currence in  the  future  operations  of  the  war. 
An  I  with  these  pledges  here  passed  the  Rhine, 
broke  down  part  of  his  bridge,  and  left  a  guard 
of  twelve  cohorts  properly  intrenched  to  secure 
the  remainder. 

From  thence  he  sent  forward  his  cavalry,  with 
orders  to  make  quick  and  silent  marches  into  the 
countries  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse, 
and  himself  followed  with  the  infantry.  Hitherto 
Ambiorix  and  his  countrymen,  who  were  the 
principal  objects  of  all  these  operations,  had  taken 
no  alarm,  and  had  enjoyed  such  perfect  security, 


5  Now  Paris.  6  The  Scnones  and  Carnutes. 


that  the  leader  himself,  upon  the  arrival  of  Cae- 
sar's horse,  narrowly  escaped,  and  had  no  more 
than  time,  by  a  general  intimation,  to  warn  his 
people  to  consult  their  own  safety.  They  accord- 
ingly separated,  part  hid  themselves  in  the  con- 
tiguous marshes,  others  endeavoured  to  find 
refuge  with  some  neighbouring  nations,  or  fled 
to  the  islands  that  were  formed  at  the  confluence 
of  the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine, 

Caesar,  as  if  he  had  been  forming  a  party  of 
hunters,  separated  his  army  into  three  divisions; 
sent  Labienus  with  one  division  to  pursue  those 
who  had  fled  to  the  confluence  of  the  two  rivers ; 
Tribonius  with  the  second  up  the  course  of  the 
Meuse ;  and  he  himself,  in  pursuit  of  Ambiorix, 
directed  his  march  to  the  Scheld.  His  orders 
were,  that  each  division  should  put  all  they  met 
to  the  sword,  and  calculate  their  time  so  as  to  re- 
turn to  the  place  of  general  rendezvous  in  seven 
days. 

To  render  this  execution  the  more  complete, 
all  the  neighbouring  nations  were  invited  to  par- 
take in  the  spoils  of  a  country  that  was  doomed 
to  destruction.  Among  the  parties  who  were 
allured  by  this  invitation,  two  thousand  Ger- 
man horse  had  passed  the  Rhine,  and  continued 
to  ravage  all  before  them  in  a  body.  Caesar,  in 
making  a  disposition  for  his  present  march,  had 
lodged  the  whole  baggage  of  his  army  at  the 
station,  (supposed  to  be  Tongres)  which  in  the 
[♦receding  winter  had  been  fortified  for  the  quar- 
ters of  Sabinus.  Here  the  works  being  still  entire, 
he  left  a  guard  with  his  baggage  under  the  com- 
mand of  Uuintus  Tullius  Cicero. 

The  Germans,  in  the  present  instance,  know- 
ing no  distinction  of  friend  or  enemy,  ceased  to 
plunder  the  natives  of  the  country,  and  turned 
all  their  thoughts  on  seizing  the  baggage  of  the 
Roman  army.  Their  coming  was  so  little  ex- 
pected, that  the  traders  and  suttlers  who  had 
erected  their  stalls  and  displayed  their  merchan- 
dise, as  usual,  without  the  intrenehnient.  had  no 
time  to  save  their  effects.  Numbers  of  Cicero's 
baggage-guard  were  abroad  in  search  of  forage. 
The  remainder  with  difficulty  manned  the  ave- 
nues of  their  post,  and  must  have  been  forced,  if 
the  foragers,  upon  hearing  the  noise  with  which 
the  Germans  began  the  attack,  had  not  returned 
to  their  relief,  and  forced  their  way  through  the 
enemy,  who,  mistaking  them  for  the  vanguard  of 
Caesar's  army,  thought  proper  to  consult  their 
own  safety  by  an  immediate  flight. 

Cs?sar,  upon  his  return  to  the  post  at  which  he 
had  left  his  baggage,  censured  the  officer  com- 
manding the  guard  for  having  divided  his  party, 
and  for  having  omitted,  on  the  supposition  of  any 
degree  of  security  whatever,  any  part  of  the  pre- 
cautions usual  upon  such  a  duty.  He  proceeded 
to  complete  the  revenge  he  had  projected  against 
the  unhappy  followers  of  Ambiorix,  with  sending 
parties  in  every  direction  to  burn  every  house, 
and  lay  waste1  every  field  that  had  been  formerly 
spared  or  overlooked  ;  and  this  being  done  on  the 
approach  of  winter,  made  the  destruction  com- 
plete, as  the  few  who  escaped  the  sword  were 
certain  to  perish  by  famine,  or  by  the  asperity  of 
the  season. 

Caesar  having  in  this  manner  made  an  exam- 
ple, which  he  supposed  was  to  overawe  all  the 
nations  of  that  neighbourhood,  he  withdrew  with 
his  army  from  a  country  in  which  lie  had  made 
it  impossible  for  any  numbers  of  men  to  subsist ; 


230 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


and  having  stationed  two  of  his  legions  on  the 
Moselle,  and  the  remainder  on  the  Marne,  on  the 
Seine,  and  the  Loire,  he  himself  hastened  into 
Italy,  where  all  his  views  and  preparations  ulti- 
mately centred.  The  scene  of  political  intrigue, 
in  which  Crassus  had  hitherto  bore  a  part  with 
Pompey  and  himself,  was  now,  in  consequence  of 
recent  events  on  the  other  extremity  of  the  empire, 
about  to  undergo  a  great  change,  that  was  likely 
to  affect  the  conduct  of  all  the  parties  concerned. 

In  the  spring,  Crassus  had  taken  the  field  on 
the  frontier  of  Syria,  with  seven  legions,  four 
thousand  horse,  and  an  equal  number  of  light  or 
irregular  troops.  "With  this  force  he  passed  the 
Euphrates,  was  joined  by  an  Arabian  chieftain, 
who  is  mentioned  by  historians  under  different 
names,  of  Acbarus1  or  Ariamnes,  in  whom,  on 
account  of  his  supposed  knowledge  of  the  coun- 
try, the  Roman  general  had  placed  great  confi- 
dence. Here  he  expected  likewise  to  have  been 
joined  by  Artabazes,  king  of  Armenia?  but 
Orodes,  now  on  the  throne  of  the  Parthians,  pre- 
vented this  junction,  by  invading  the  kingdom  of 
Armenia  in  person,  while  he  left  Surena,  a  young 
warrior  of  great  reputation,  in  Mesopotamia,  to 
oppose  the  Romans. 

Crassus  intended  to  have  followed  the  course 
of  the  Euphrates  to  where  it  approaches  nearest 
to  Seleucia  and  Ctesiphon,  the  capital  of  the  Par- 
thian kingdom ;  but  was  dissuaded  by  Ariamnes, 
who  prevailed  on  him  to  direct  his  march  east- 
ward on  the  plains  to  meet  Surena,  as  not  in  a 
condition  to  oppose  him.  Some  parties  too,  that 
were  advanced  to  examine  the  country,  reported 
that  they  had  been  on  the  tract  of  departing  ca- 
valry, but  that  no  enemy  was  any  where  to  be 
seen.  Thus  Crassus  was  induced  to  quit  the 
Euphrates,  and  agreeably  to  the  directions  of  his 
guide,  took  the  rout  of  Carrae  eastward.  This 
place  he  fortified  in  his  way,  and  occupied  with  a 
garrison.  From  thence,  in  a  few  marches,  he 
arrived  in  sandy  and  barren  plains,  without  trees, 
herbage,  or  water.  While  the  army,  though  dis- 
couraged by  these  appearances,  still  continued  its 
march,  a  few  horsemen  belonging  to  the  advanced 
guard  returned  to  the  main  body  with  signs  of 
terror,  and  brought  an  account  that  their  division 
had  been  surrounded  by  numerous  bodies  of  horse, 
and  to  a  few  cut  off;  that  the  enemy  were  ad- 
vancing apace,  and  must  soon  appear.  Crassus 
at  first  fearing  to  be  outlined  by  the  enemy,  ex- 
tended his  front  as  far  as  he  possibly  could ;  but 
recollecting  that  the  Parthians  were  all  on  horse- 
back, and  by  the  rapidity  of  their  motions  might 
easily  gain  either  or  both  his  flanks,  so  that  it  was 
proper  to  present  a  front  in  every  direction,  he 
changed  his  disposition  from  a  line  to  a  square, 
having  his  cavalry  on  the  angles. 

The  Roman  army  being  thus  compacted,  the 
Parthians  appeared  on  every  side,  came  within 
reach  of  an  arrow  shot,  and  galled  them  without 
intermission.  The  weapons  of  the  Romans  in 
this  situation  availed  them  nothing ;  even  the 
shield  could  not  cover  them  from  arrows,  that 
showered  from  every  quarter,  and  in  many  dif- 
ferent directions.  They  stood,  however,  in  their 
place  with  some  degree  of  courage,  in  hopes  that 
the  quivers  of  the  Parthians  must  soon  be  ex- 
hausted, and  that  this  enemy  would  be  obliged 
either  to  join  them  in  close  fight,  or  to  retire. 


1  Plutarch,  et  Dion.  Cass. 


But  they  found  themselves  deceived  in  this  eX« 
pectation,  observing  that  the  enemy  had  a  herd 
of  camels  in  their  rear,  loaded  with  arrows,  and 
that  the  quivers  of  those  in  the  front  were  con- 
tinually replenished  from  thence.  At  the  same 
time  Ariamnes,  the  Arabian,  deserted,  and  was 
perceived  to  go  over  to  the  enemy.  The  deser- 
tion of  this  traitor,  by  discovering  that  his  pre- 
tended attachment,  and  his  counsel,  which  had 
been  unhappily  followed,  was  only  a  piece  of  bar- 
barous treachery  to  draw  the  army  into  its  pre- 
sent situation,  completed  the  general  discourage- 
ment which  the  Romans  had  already  begun  to 
feel.  They  crowded  together  in  despair,  and 
oppressed  with  heat  and  thirst,  or  stifled  with  dust, 
they  continued  for  a  while,  like  beasts  caught  in 
a  snare,  to  present  an  easy  prey  to  their  enemies. 

In  this  extremity,  Crassus  determined  to  make 
an  effort  with  his  cavalry  to  drive  the  enemy  so 
far  off,  as  not  to  be  able  to  reach  his  infantry  with 
their  arrows.  His  son  Publius  accordingly  formed 
the  Roman  horse  into  one  body,  and  made  a 
general  charge.  The  Parthians  gave  way  in 
seeming  disorder.  The  young  man  advanced 
with  great  impetuosity  as  against  a  flying  enemy, 
and  in  hopes  of  completing  his  victory :  but  the 
Parthians,  under  cover  of  the  dust  which  every 
where  arose,  instead  of  flying  before  him,  as  he 
supposed,  were  actually  turning  on  his  flanks, 
and  even  falling  behind  him  to  encompass  his 
rear.  The  legions  at  the  same  time,  happy  to  be 
relieved  from  the  attack  of  the  enemy,  quitted 
their  ground,  and  for  a  little  resumed  their  march, 
which  enabled  the  Parthians  the  more  effectually 
to  surround  the  horse ;  but  the  father,  recollect- 
ing the  danger  to  which  he  exposed  his  son, 
again  prevailed  on  them  to  halt.  In  this  situa- 
tion, a  few  of  the  horse  arrived,  with  accounts 
that  they  had  been  surrounded,  that  Crassus,  the 
son,  was  slain,  and  the  whole  cavalry  cutoff,  ex- 
cept a  few  who  escaped  to  the  father  with  these 
melancholy  tidings. 

Night,  however,  was  fast  approaching,  and  the 
Parthians,  on  a  sudden,  withdrew,  sensible  that 
their  way  of  fighting  would  expose  them  to  many 
disadvantages  in  the  dark.  It  was  always  their 
practice  to  retire  at  night  to  a  considerable  dis- 
tance from  the  enemy  whom  they  had  harassed 
by  day,  and  upon  these  occasions  they  generally 
fled  like  an  army  defeated,  until  they  had  removed 
so  far  as  to  make  it  safe  for  them  to  pasture  their 
horses,  and  to  store  up  their  arms.  Crassus,  ap- 
prised of  this  practice,  took  the  benefit  of  the 
night  to  continue  his  retreat,  and  abandoning  the 
sick  and  wounded  of  his  army,  made  a  consi- 
derable march  before  it  was  day.  But  the  ad- 
vance he  had  gained,  was  not  sufficient  to  hinder 
his  being  overtaken  by  the  same  enemy,  and  again 
involved  in  the  same  distress.  Having  his  de- 
feats and  his  flights  renewed  on  every  succeeding 
day,  he  arrived  at  last  at  the  post  which  he  had 
fortified  at  Carrse,  and  there  found  some  respite 
from  the  attacks  of  the  enemy.  At  this  place, 
however,  it  was  not  possible  to"  make  any  con- 
siderable stay,  as  the  whole  provisions  of  the 
army  were  lost  or  consumed,  and  such  supplies 
as  the  country  around  might  have  furnished,  were 
entirely  in  the  power  of  the  enemy.  Nor  was  it 
convenient  to  depart  immediately.  The  moon 
was  then  at  the  full,  and  night  was  almost  as 
favourable  to  the  Parthians  as  day.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances, it  was  determined  to  wait  for  the 


Chap.  II.] 

wane  of  the  m§on,  and  then,  if  possible,  to  elude 
the  enemy  again  by  marches  in  the  night. 

In  this  interval,  the  army  mutinied  against 
Crassus,  and  offered  the  command  to  Caius  Cas- 
sius ;  but  he,  although  desired  even  by  Crassus 
himself,  declined  to  accept  of  it.2  The  troops  of 
consequence  no  longer  obeyed  any  command,  and 
separated  into  two  bodies.  The  first  went  off' by 
the  plains  on  the  nearest  way  into  Syria :  the 
other  took  the  route  of  the  mountains  ;  and  if  they 
could  reach  them  before  the  enemy,  hoped  to 
escape  into  Cappadocia  or  Armenia.  The  first 
division  was  accompanied  or  commanded  by  Cas- 
sius,  who,  though  with  considerable  loss,  led 
them  back  to  Syria.  The  other,  with  Crassus, 
himself,  was  pursued  by  Surena,  and  harassed  on 
every  ground  where  the  Parthian  horse  could 
ply  on  their  flank  or  their  rear.  Being  exposed 
to  frequent  losses,  they  suffered  a  continual  di- 
minution of  their  numbers,  and  were  not  likely 
to  be  long  in  condition  to  avoid  the  enemy,  or 
make  any  resistance. 

Surena,  apprehending  that  these  remains  of  the 
Roman  army  might  gain  the  mountains  before 
he  could  force  them  to  surrender,  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  Crassus,  proposing  at  some  intermediate 
place,  between  the  two  armies,  a  conference,  to 
which  each  should  bring  a  stipulated  number  of 
attendants.  While  this  message  was  delivering, 
Surena  himself  appeared  at  a  little  distance  on  an 
eminence,  waved  with  his  hand,  and  in  token  of 
peace,  unbent  his  bow.  Crassus  distrusting  the 
faith  of  this  barbarous  enemy,  who  was  supposed 
to  hold  perfidy  lawful,  as  a  stratagem  of  war,  de- 
clined the  conference  ;  but  his  troops,  weary  of 
continual  fatigue  and  danger,  and  flattering  them- 
selves that  by  an  accommodation  an  end  might 
be  speedily  put  to  their  sufferings,  expressed  such 
a  desire  of  the  conference,  as  their  general,  in 
this  situation,  could  not  safely  withstand.  He 
put  himself,  therefore,  with  a  few  friends,  under 
the  direction  of  Surena's  messengers,  and  sub- 
mitted to  be  led  to  their  general ;  but  on  the  way, 
finding  himself  treated  as  a  prisoner,  he  refused 
to  proceed,  and  having  made  some  resistance, 
was  slain.  The  army  separated  into  sundry  di- 
visions, a  few  escaped  into  Armenia  or  Syria,  the 
greater  part  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands.3 

Thus  died  Crassus,  commonly  reputed  a  rare 
instance  of  ambition,  joined  with  avarice,  and  a 
mean  capacity.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  that  in 
point  of  ambition  he  even  rivalled  Pompey  and 
Caesar ;  and  it  is  probable,  therefore,  that  his 
avarice  was  merely  subservient  to  this  passion. 
It  is  quoted,  as  a  saying  of  his,  that  no  man  who 
aspired  to  a  principal  place  in  the  republic  should 
be  reputed  rich,  unless  he  could  maintain  an 
army  at  his  own  expense.'1  Such  was  the  use 
of  wealth,  which,  in  place  of  equipages,  horses, 
and  dogs,  occurred  to  a  rich  man  of  that  age  at 
Rome.  Of  his  capacity  we  cannot  form  a  nigh 
opinion,  either  from  the  judgment  of  his  contem- 
poraries, or  from  his  own  conduct.5  It  appears, 
indeed,  that  he  owed  his  consequence  more  to  his 
wealth,  than  to  his  genius  or  personal  qualities 
of  any  kind.    On  account  of  his  wealth,  proba- 


2  Dio.  lib.  iv.  c.  28. 

3  Pio  Cass.  lib.  xl.    Plutarch,  in  Crass. 

4  Cicero  de  orficiis,  lib.  i.  c.  8. 

5  Is  igiuir  mediocriter,  a  doctrina  instructus  ;  au- 
Riistius  etiam  a  natura,  <fcc.  Cicero  de  Claris  oratori- 
es, c.  GG.   Ad  Atticum,  lib.  iv.  ep.  13. 


231 

bly,  he  was  considered  by  Csesar  and  Pompey  as 
a  person,  who,  if  neglected  by  them,  might  throw 
a  weight  into  the  scale  of  their  enemies ;  and  he 
was  admitted  into  their  councils,  as  a  person  fit 
to  witness  their  transactions,  and  on  occasion  to 
hold  the  balance  in  suspense  between  them 
These  circumstances  placed  him  among  the  com- 
petitors for  the  principal  influence  at  Rome,  and 
makes  his  death  an  era  in  the  history  of  those 
factions  which  were  hastening  to  overwhelm  the 
republic.  By  this  event,  his  associates  Caesar 
and  Pompey,  already  disjoined  by  the  dissolution 
of  their  family  connection,  were  left  to  contend 
for  the  superiority,  without  any  third  person  tc 
hold  this  species  of  balance  between  them. 

The  calm  which  had  succeeded  the  late  elec- 
tion of  consuls  was  but  of  short  duration.  The 
time  of  electing  their  successors  was  fast  ap- 
proaching, and  the  candidates  Scipio,  Milo,  and 
Hypsams,  were  already  declared.  Clodius,  at  the 
same  time,  stood  for  the  office  of  prsefor.  Scipio 
was  by  birth  the  son  of  Metellus  Pius,  adopted 
into  the  Cornelian  family  by  Scipio  Nasica.  His 
daughter,  in  consequence  of  this  adoption,  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Cornelia,  the  widow  of  young 
Crassus,  was  recently  married  to  Pompey,  who, 
upon  this  connection,  supported  Scipio,  his  fa- 
ther-in-law, in  his  pretensions  to  the  consulate. 
Milo  had  a  powerful  support  from  the  senate,  in 
whose  cause  he  had  retorted  the  arts  and  violence 
of  the  seditious  demagogues  against  themselves. 
Clodius  had  great  interest  with  the  populace,  and 
from  inveterate  animosity  to  Milo  and  to  his 
party,  joined  all  his  interest  with  Scipio  and 
Hypsaeus  against  him. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  human  things  to  advance, 
in  accumulating  the  good  or  evil  to  which  they 
tend.  These  competitors,  in  contending  for  the 
streets  and  the  usual  places  of  canvassing  the 
people,  joined  to  the  former  arts  of  distributing 
money,  and  of  exciting  popular  tumults,  the  use 
of  an  armed  force,  and  a  species  of  military 
operations  in  the  city.  Three  parties  in  arms 
every  day  paraded  in  different  quarters  of  the 
town,  and  wherever  they  encountered,  violence 
and  bloodshed  generally  followed.  The  opposite 
parties  of  Hypsaeus  and  Milo  had  fought  a  battle 
in  the  Via  Sacra;  many  of  both  sides  were 
killed,  and  the  consul  Calvinus  was  wounded  in 
attempting  to  quell  the  riot. 

These  disorders  so  long  obstructed  the  elec- 
tions, that  the  term  of  the  present  consuls  in 
office  expired,  before  the  nomination  of  any  suc- 
cessors ;  and  every  legal  power  in  the  common- 
wealth being  suspended,  the  former  state  of 
anarchy,  with  accumulated  distractions,  again  en- 
sued. The  senate  and  the  other 
U.  C.  701.  friends  of  Milo,  would  gladly  have 
hastened  the  elections,  but  were  hin- 
dered by  the  partizans  of  the  other  candidates, 
The  populace  too,  enjoying  this  season  of  gratui- 
ties, of  entertainments,  and  of  public  shows,  in 
which  the  competitors  continued  to  waste  their 
fortunes,  were  glad  to  have  the  canvass  pro- 
longed.6 

When  the  senate  proposed  to  have  recourse  to 
the  remedy  usual  in  such  disorders  of  the  state, 
by  naming  an  interrex,  the  only  title  under  which 
any  person  could  preside  in  restoring  the  magis- 
tracy by  an  election  of  consuls,  they  were  forbid 


G  PwJianus  in  Argument.  Orat.  pro  Milone. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


by  the  tribune  Munatius  Plancus,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  co-operate  with  Pompey  in  some  design, 
to  be  favoured  by  deferring  every  measure  that 
was  proposed  for  the  restoration  of  order. 

In  the  midst  of  this  scene,  which  kept  the 
minds  of  men  in  fear  of  some  general  calamity, 
an  accident  happened  which  brought  the  disor- 
der to  a  height,  and  forced  every  party  to  accept 
of  a  remedy.  On  the  13th  of  the  kalends  of 
February,  or  the  20th  of  January,  Milo  going  to 
Lanuvium,  a  town  about  fifteen  miles  from  Rome, 
of  which  he  was  chief  magistrate,  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  met  with  Clodius  re- 
turning from  his  country  seat  at  Aricia.  Milo 
was  in  a  carriage  with  his  wife  Fausta,  the 
d  lughter  of  Sylla,  and  a  friend  Fusius,  He  had 
a  numerous  escort,  amounting  to  some  hundreds 
of  servants  in  arms,  and,  in  particular,  was  at- 
tended by  two  noted  gladiators,  Eudamus  and 
Birria.  Clodius  was  on  horseback,  with  a  reti- 
nue of  thirty  servants  likewise  in  arms.  It  is 
likely  that  this  encounter  was  altogether  acciden- 
tal ;  for  the  companies  continued  on  their  way 
without  any  disturbance,  till  Birria,  the  gladiator, 
unwilling  to  pass  without  giving  some  specimen 
of  his  calling,  as  he  straggled  a  little  behind  his 
party,  quarrelled  with  some  of  the  followers  of 
Clodius.  A  fray  ensued :  Clodius  himself  re- 
turned to  quell  it,  or  to  punish  the  authors  of  it ; 
but  meeting  with  little  respect  among  the  gladia- 
tors, received  a  wound  in  the  shoulder,  and  was 
carried  to  be  dressed  in  the  inn  at  Bovillse,  near 
to  which  place  the  disturbance  began.  Milo  be- 
ing told  of  what  had  passed,  likewise  returned  to 
the  place  ;  and  thinking  it  safer  to  end  their  quar- 
rels there,  than  await  the  revenge  of  an  enemy 
thus  provoked,  who  would  not  fail,  at  the  head 
of  his  faction  in  the  city,  to  rouse  the  fury  of  the 
populace  against  him,  encouraged  his  people  to 
pursue  their  advantage;  they  accordingly  forced 
their  way  into  the  inn,  dragged  Clodius  from 
thence,  and  having  killed  him,  and  dispersed  all 
his  followers,  left  him  dead  of  many  wounds  in 
the  highway. 

Sextus  Tedius,  a  senator,  happening  to  pass, 
put  the  body  into  his  own  carriage,  and  sent  his 
servants  with  it  to  Rome.  They  arrived  before 
six  at  night,  and  proceeding  directly  to  the  house 
of  the  deceased,  which  stood  on  the  palatine  hill 
over  the  forum,  laid  the  corpse  in  the  vestibule. 

The  servants  of  the  family,  and  multitudes 
from  the  streets,  immediately  crowded  to  see  this 
spectacle.  Fulvia,  the  wife  of  Clodius,  stood 
over  the  body,  and  with  loud  lamentations  un- 
covered and  pointed  out  the  wounds  of  her  de- 
ceased husband.  The  crowd  continued  to  in- 
crease all  night,  and  until  break  of  day,  when 
Gl.  Munatius  Plancus,  and  &.  Pompeius  Rufus, 
tribunes  of  the  people,  likewise  repaired  to  the 
same  place,  and  gave  orders  to  carry  the  dead 
body  naked  to  the  market-place,  and  there  to 
leave  it  exposed  to  public  view  on  the  rostra ;  and 
at  the  same  time  accompanied  this  spectacle  with 
inflammatory  harangues  to  the  people. 

Sextus  Claudius,  kinsman  of  the  deceased, 
soon  after  removed  the  body  from  the  market- 
place to  the  senate-house,  meaning  to  reproach 
t  he  order  of  senators  as  accessory  to  the  murder. 
The  populace,  who  still  followed  in  great  num- 
bers, burst  into  the  place,  tore  up  the  benches, 
and  brought  into  a  heap  the  materials,  with  the 
tables  and  desks  of  the  clerks,  the  journals  and 


records  of  the  senate,  and  having^ set  the  whole 
on  fire,  consumed  the  corpse  on  this*extraordinary 
pile.  The  fire  soon  reached  the  roof,  and  spread 
to  the  contiguous  buildings.  The  tribunes,  Plan- 
cus and  Rufus,  who  were  all  this  while  ex 
horting  the  people  to  vengeance,  were  driven 
from  the  rostra  by  the  flames  which  burst  from 
the  buildings  around  them.  The  senate-house, 
the  porcia  basilica,  and  other  edifices  were  re- 
duced to  ashes. 

The  same  persons,  by  whom  this  fire  had  been 
kindled,  repaired  to  the  house  of  M,  Lepidus, 
who,  upon  the  first  alarm  of  an  insurrection, 
had  been  named  interrex,  forced  into  the  hall, 
broke  down  the  images  of  the  family  ancestors, 
tore  from  the  looms  the  webs,  in  weaving  of 
which  the  industry  of  Roman  matrons  was  still 
employed,  and  destroyed  what  else  they  could 
reach.  From  thence,  they  proceeded  to  attack 
the  house  of  Milo,  but  there  met  with  a  more 
proper  reception.  This  house,  during  the  riots, 
in  which  the  master  of  it  had  borne  so  great  a 
part,  was  become  a  kind  of  fortress,  and  among 
the  other  provisions  made  for  its  defence,  waa 
manned  with  archers,  who  plied  those  who  at- 
tacked it  with  arrows  from  the  windows  and  ter- 
race, in  such  manner  as  soon  obliged  them  to 
withdraw. 

The  rioters  being  repulsed  from  the  house  of 
Mi!o,  crowded  to  the  temple^  in  which  the  con- 
sular fasces,  during  the  interregnum,  were  kept, 
seized  them  by  force,  and  carried  them  to  the 
houses  of  Scipio  and  Hypsaeus,  the  present  popu- 
lar candidates  for  the  consulate ;  these,  without 
any  other  form  of  election,  they  pressed  to  as- 
sume the  ensigns  of  consular  power.  But  not 
having  prevailed  in  this  proposal,  they  proceeded 
to  the  house  of  Pompey,  saluting  him  with  mixed 
shouts  of  consul  or  dictator,  according  as  they 
wished  him  to  assume  the  one  or  the  other  of 
these  titles  or  dignities. 

From  this  time,  for  some  days,  an  armed  po- 
pulace, mixed  with  slaves,  continued,  under 
pretence  of  searching  for  Mi!o  and  his  adherents, 
to  pillage  every  place  they  could  enter.1  And 
the  partizans  of  the  candidates,  Hypsaeus  and 
Scipio,  thinking  they  had  Milo  at  a  disadvantage, 
beset  the  house  of  the  interrex ;  and,  though  it 
was  not  customary  for  the  first  in  this  nomina- 
tion to  proceed  to  the  elections,  they  clamoured 
for  an  immediate  assembly  of  the  people  for  this 
purpose.  The  party  of  Milo,  though  professing 
likewise  to  join  the  same  clamour  for  an  imme- 
diate election,  came  to  blows  with  their  opponents, 
and  protected  the  house  and  the  person  of  the 
interrex  from  farther  violence. 

Milo,  himself,  who  was  at  first  supposed  to 
have  fled  or  gone  into  exiler  hearing  of  the  ex- 
cesses committed  by  the  opposite  party,  and  of 
the  general  inclination  of  the  more  sober  part  of 
the  citizens  to  check  and  disappoint  their  vio- 
lence, ventured  again  to  appear  in  the  city,  and  at 
the  head  of  his  friends  renewed  his  canvass.  A 
succession  of  officers,  with  the  title  of  interrex, 
continued  to  be  named  at  the  expiration  of  every 
usual  term  of  five  days ;  but  such  was  the  con- 
fusion and  distraction  of  the  scene,  that  no  elec- 
tion could  be  made.  The  senate,  under  the  great- 
est alarm,  gave  to  the  interrex,  and  to  the 
tribunes  of  the  people,  to  whom  they  joined 


1  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


233 


Pompey,  who,  by  virtue  of  his  proconsular  com- 
mission as  purveyor  of  corn  for  the  people,  held  a 
public  character  in  the  state,  the  usual  charge 
given  to  the  consuls,  to  watch  over  the  safety  of 
the  republic.  They  even  recommended  to  Pom- 
pey to  make  tile  necessary  levies  throughout 
Italy,  and  to  provide  a  military  force  to  act  for 
the  commonwealth,  in  repressing  the  disorders 
which  were  committed  by  the  candidates  for 
office. 

Under  the  protection  of  such  temporary  ex- 
pedients, to  restrain  the  violence  with  which  all 
parties  endeavoured  to  do  themselves  justice, 
some  applied  for  redress,  in  the  way  of  prosecu- 
tion and  civil  suit.  The  two  Claudii,  nephews 
of  the  deceased  Publius  Clodius,  demanded  that 
the  slaves  of  Milo,  or  those  of  his  wife  Fausta, 
should  be  put  to  the  torture,  in  order  to  force  a 
discovery  of  the  manner  in  which  their  uncle  was 
killed.  The  two  Valerii,  Nepos  and  Leo,  with 
Lucius  Herennius  Balbus,  joined  in  the  same 
demand.  On  the  opposite  party,  a  like  demand 
against  the  slaves  of  the  deceased  Pubh  us  I  !lo> 
dius  was  made  by  Cnelius,  one  of  the  tribunes; 
and  a  prosecution  for  violence  and  corruption 
was  entered  by  Mantilla  Cenianus  against  liyp- 
sneus  and  Scipio,  the  competitors  of  Milo,  for  the 
office  of  consul. 

Milo,  in  answer  to  the  demand  that  was  made 
to  have  his  slaves  put  to  the  torture,  pleaded  that 
the  persons,  now  demanded  as  slaves,  were  ac- 
tually freemen,  he  having  manumitted  them  as  a 
reward  for  their-fiithful  services  in  defending  his 
person  against  a  late  attempt  made  by  Clodius  on 
his  life.  It  was  alleged,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
they  were  manumitted  to  evade  the  law,  to  pre- 
serve them  from  the  torture,  and  to  screen  him- 
self from  the  evidence  which  they  might  in  that 
manner  be  obliged  to  give.  M.  Cielius  and  Man- 
lius  Cenianus  being  tribunes,  and  disposed  to  fa- 
vour Milo,  had  ventured  to  vindicate  him  to  the 
people,  anil  to  load  Clodius  as  the  aggressor,  and 
the  intended  assassin  in  the  fray  which  cost  him 
his  life.  Cicero  too,  with  great  zeal  and  courage, 
while  the  friends  of  Milo  were  yet  unsafe  in  tin- 
streets,  maintained  the  same  argument  in  the 
senate,  and  before  the  people.3  Milo,  however, 
would  have  been  glad  to  make  a  composition; 
and  as  Pompey  had  all  along,  in  the  competition 
for  the  consulate,  favoured  not  only  Scipio  but 
likewise  Hypsams  against  him,  he  offered  to  (hoi) 
his  pretension  in  favour  of  those  candidates,  if 
Pompey  would  agree  to  suppress  the  prosecutions 
that  were  commencing  against  him,  To  these 
proposals  Pompey  refused  to  listen,  l  ie  proba- 
bly thought  the  election  secure  for  his  friends, 
and  by  affecting  a  zeal  for  justice,  hoped  to  in- 
crease his  authority  with  the  people. 

The  partizans  of  Pompey,  in  the  midst  of  this 
wild  and  disorderly  state  01  affairs,  were  busy  in 
renewing  the  cry  which  they  had  raised  in  the 
former  interregnum,  that  he  should  be  named 
dictator,  for  the  re-establishment  of  order,  and 
the  restoration  of  the  public  peace.  Such  an 
extraordinary  power  had  never  been  at  any  time 
more  wanted  in  the  republic;  but  the  times,  in 
which  it  might  be  safely  applied,  were  no  more. 
The  name  of  dictator  recalled  the  memory  of 
Sylla's  executions,  and  it  appeared  to  be  uncer- 
tain against  whom  they  might  now  be  directed. 


2  Ascon.  Paedian  iu  Argument.  Orat  pro  Milone. 


To  avoid  the  title  more  than  the  power  of  dicta- 
tor, Mibulus  moved  in  the  senate,  that  all  the 
present  candidates  for  the  consulate  should  be  set 
aside,  and  that  the  interrex  should  assemble  the 
people  for  the  election  of  Pompey  sole  consul. 
Cato,  to  the  surprise  of  every  body,  seconded  this 
motion.  He  observed,  that  anv  magistracy  was 
preferable  to  none,  and  that  if  the  republic  must 
be  governed  by  a  single  person,  none  was  so  fit 
for  the  charge  as  the  person  now  proposed.  Pom- 
pey being  present,  thanked  Cato  for  this  declara- 
tion of  his  esteem,  and  said  he  would  accept  of 
the  charge,  in  hopes  of  being  aided  by  his  coun- 
sel. Cato  made  answer,  in  terms,  meant  to  be 
literally  interpreted,  but  which  in  other  instances 
of  the  same  kind,  under  an  aspect  of  sullenness, 
have  been  intended  to  flatter,  that  he  meant  no 
favour  to  Pompey,  and  deserved  no  thanks  from 
him:  that  his  intention  was  to  serve  the  republic. 

It  was  resolved,  in  terms  of  this  motion,  that 
Pompey  should  be  presented  to  the  people  as  sole 
candidate  for  the  office  of  consul,  and  that  after 
two  months  were  elapsed,  he  might  propose  any 
other  candidate  to  be  joined  in  this  office!  with 
himself.  The  election  was  accordingly  broupht 
on  by  the  interrex  Servius  Sulpitius,  on  the 
twenty-fourth  of  Februarv,  and  Pompey  de- 
clared sole  consul,4  with  a  cominis- 
Pompnj  sole  sion  from  the  senate  to  arm,  if  ne- 
Consul.  cessary,  the  inhabitants  of  Italy,  for 
the  better  establishment  of  order 

in  the  city. 

The  first  object  of  Pompey,  in  the  high  and 
unprecedented  dignity  which  was  now  conferred 
upon  him,  appears  to  have  been  the  framing  of 
some  laws  to  restrain  for  the  future  such  disorders 
as  had  lately  prevailed,  and  to  bring  criminals  to 
justice.  Vox  this  purpose,  lie  obtained  an  act  to 
enforce  the  laws  which  already  subsisted  against 
violence  and  corruption  ;  and  to  re  gulate  the 
form  of  proceeding  in  trials  on  such  criminal 
accusations. 

By  the  regulations  now  suggested  by  Pompey, 
every  trial  was  to  end  in  four  days.  The  examin- 
ation of  evidence  might  occupy  the  three  first ; 
the  hearing  of  parties,  and  the  judgment,  the 
fourth.  The  prosecutor  was  allowed  two  hours 
to  support  his  charge,  and  the  defendant  three 
hours  to  make  his  defence.  The  number  of  ad- 
vocates was  restricted,  anil  the  use  of  commenda- 
tory characters  prohibited.*  The  (jua'sitor,  or 
judge  criminal,  was  to  be  chosen  lrom  among 
those  who  had  held  the  olliee  of  consul,  and 
eighty  judges  or  jurors  were  to  be  impannelled, 
and  obliged  to  attend  the  trial.  After  the  evi- 
dence and  pleadings  were  heard,  the  parties  were 
then  allowed  each  to  challenge  or  reject  fifteen  of 
the  jury  or  judges,  or  five  from  each  of  the  orders 
of  which  th.  y  were  composed;  and  the  court 
being  thus  reduced  to  fifty-one,  they  were  to  be 
inclosed  and  to  give  judgment.8 

Corruption  was  become  so  fre<juerit,  and  so 
much  a  necessary  art  in  conducting  elections, 
that  it  was  difficult  to  find  any  one  willing  to 
prosecute  this  crime.  To  remedy  this  delect,  a 
clause  was  enacted  in  the  law  of  Pompey,  by 
which  anv  person  formerly  Convicted  of  bribery, 
might  obtain  a  remission  of  the  penalties  he  had 


3  Plutarch,  in  Yit.  Pomp,  et  Catonia,  Dio.  iit>.  xl. 
•t  h  con.  Psdian.  in  Argument.  Oral,  pro  Milone. 
5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xJ.  c.53.      o  Ascon.  Taut.  ibid. 


234 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


incurred  by  convicting  any  one  other  person  of  a 
crime  equal,  or  by  convicting  two  persons,  though 
of  a  crime  less  heinous  than  his  own.  By  these 
means,  it  was  proposed  that  one  conviction  should 
produce  still  more  in  succession.  That  convic- 
tion, in  every  instance,  should  be  attended  with 
infamy ;  but  that  the  pains  of  law  should  ulti- 
mately rest  on  such  a  person  as  could  not  find 
another  on  whom  to  shift  the  burden  from 
himself.1 

These  regulations  were  made  with  a  particular 
view  to  the  trial  of  Milo,  now  arraigned  on  the 
statutes  both  of  corruption,  and  of  violence  or  as- 
sassination. The  passing  of  these  laws  was  op- 
posed on  this  account  by  the  friends  of  the  ac- 
cused, who  alleged,  that  they  were  not.  acts  of 
legislation,  but  acts  of  attainder,  having  a  retro- 
spect to  the  case  of  a  party  concerned  in  a  past 
transaction.  Caelius  the  tribune,  and  Cicero, 
maintained  this  argument.  Pompey  replied  with 
impatience,  that  if  he  were  hindered  to  proceed  in 
a  legal  way,  he  should  employ  force.2  He  ap- 
peared to  entertain  some  animosity  against  Milo, 
such  at  least  as  they  who  love  to  govern,  have  to 
others  who  appear  not  to  be  easily  governed.  He 
either  had,  or  affected  to  have,  apprehensions  of 
danger  to  his  own  person,  confessed  or  affected 
this  apprehension  in  the  senate,  and  retired,  as  for 
safety,  to  his  own  house  in  the  suburbs  :  there  he 
retained,  for  the  guard  of  his  person,  a  party  of 
armed  men ;  and  there  too,  under  the  same  af- 
fectation of  withdrawing  from  violence,  he  caused 
the  assemblies  of  t  he  senate  to  be  held. 

The  aristocratical  or  senatorian  party  was 
much  interested  in  the  preservation  of  Milo : 
they  had  been  frequently  assailed  by  the  popular 
rioters,  who  set  the  laws  at  defiance;  and  as  the 
laws  had  not  always  been  of  sufficient  force  to 
pi-otect  their  persons,  it  was  their  interest  to  pro- 
tect those  who,  on  occasion,  had  set  aside  the 
.aws  in  their  defence.  The  argument,  in  equity, 
indeed  was  strong  on  the  side  of  Milo.  During 
the  late  suspension  of  government,  the  factions 
were  rather  separate  parties  at  war,  than  subjects 
enjoying  the  protection,  and  amenable  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  any  civil  power  whatever.  They 
who  procured  or  prolonged  this  state  of  anarchy, 
were  alone  chargeable  with  the  consequences. 
In  this  contest,  which  could  not  be  maintained 
without  force  or  violent  measures,  the  friends  of 
the  republic  and  of  the  senate  were  badly  cir- 
cumstanced. They  contended  for  laws,  and  a 
constitution  which  might  be  turned  against  the 
very  irregularities  which  had  been  necessary  to 
their  own  preservation,  while  the  opposite  faction, 
if  defeated,  might  claim  the  protection  of  forms, 
which  they  had  endeavoured  to  subvert. 

It  would  have  been  just,  perhaps,  to  have  closed 
the  late  scene  of  confusion  with  a  general  indem- 
nity, and  to  have  taken  precautions  for  the  regular 
uninterrupted  exercise  of  government  in  future. 
This,  however,  would  not  have  calmed  the  re- 
sentments of  those  who  were  aggrieved,  and 
Pompey  determined  to  signalize  his  government 
by  a  more  specious  appearance  of  justice.  Domi- 
tius  Ahenobarbus  was  chosen  commissioner  for 
the  trial  of  Milo,  on  the  charge  of  murder ;  and 
the  other  judges,  taken  from  among  the  most  re- 
spectable of  each  order  in  the  commonwealth, 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xl.  c  52. 

S.  Ascon.  Piedian.  in  Argument.  Orat.  pro  Milone. 


were  impannelled  in  terms  of  the  late  statute. 
The  criminal  was  cited  to  answer  this  charge  on 
the  fourth  of  April;  and  on  the  same  day,  to 
answer  a  charge  of  corruption  brought  against 
him  in  the  ordinary  court  of  the  praetor  Manlius. 
Marcellus  appeared  for  him  at  the  bar  of  the  prae- 
tor, and  procured  a  delay  until  the  other  trial 
should  be  ended. 

The  court,  it  appears,  was  assembled  in  the 
forum  or  open  market-place.  There  was  a  tri- 
bunal or  bench  railed  in  for  the  judges.  The 
whole  space  was  crowded  with  multitudes  of 
people.  The  prosecutors  began  with  examining 
Cassmius  Schola,  who  had  been  in  company  with 
Clodius  when  he  was  killed.  This  witness  gave 
direct  evidence  to  the  fact,  and  exaggerated  the 
atrocity  of  the  crime.  Marcellus  would  have 
cross-questioned  him ;  but  the  populace,  and  many 
others  who  assembled  in  the  crowd,  who  favoured 
the  prosecution,  raised  a  menacing  cry,  which 
alarmed  the  accused  and  his  counsel  so  much, 
that  they  claimed  the  protection  of  the  court. 
They  were  accordingly  received  within  the  rails, 
and  the  judge  applied  to  the  consul,  who  had  ta- 
ken his  station  near  to  the  place  of  assembly,  in 
order  to  restrain,  by  his  presence,  any  disorders 
that  might  arise  at  the  trial.  Pompey,  who  was 
then  attended  only  by  his  lictors,  was  himself 
likewise  alarmed  by  that  disorderly  shout,  and 
said,  that  for  the  future,  a  proper  force  should  be 
provided  to  keep  the  peace.  He  accordingly,  on 
the  following  day,  filled  every  avenue,  which  led 
to  the  forum,  with  men  under  arms ;  and,  upon 
some  tumult  among  the  populace,  gave  an  order 
that  the  place  should  be  cleared.  In  the  execu- 
tion of  this  order  numbers  were  killed. 

Under  the  impression  made  by  this  vigorous 
exertion  of  power,  the  witnesses  continued  to  be 
examined  for  two  days  without  any  disturbance. 
Among  these  the  inhabitants  of  Bovilke,  the  fa- 
mily and  relations  of  Clodius,  and  his  wife  Ful- 
via,  were  examined  on  the  several  circumstances 
that  fell  within  their  knowledge,  and  left  no 
doubt  remaining  with  respect  to  the  fact.  The 
minds  of  men  every  day  became  more  intent  on 
the  issue :  so  that,  on  the  fourth  day,  when  the 
parties  were  to  plead,  all  other  business  was  sus- 
pended in  the  city ;  the  shops  and  offices  were 
shut. 

There  appeared  for  the  prosecutors  Appius 
Claudius,  M.  Antonius,  and  Valerius  Nepos. 
They  began  at  eight,  and  spoke  till  ten.  For  the 
defender  appeared  Gt.  Hortensius,  M.  Marcellus, 
M.  Calidius,  Faustus  Sylla,  M.  Cato,  and  M. 
T.  Cicero,  of  whom  the  last  only  attempted  to 
speak.  Some  were  of  opinion,  that,  as  the  fact 
was  undeniable,  it  ought  to  be  justified  on  the 
plea  of  necessity  and  public  expedience.  Cicero 
himself  thought  this  too  bold  a  plea,  and  there- 
fore chose  that  of  self-defence,  alleging  that  Clo- 
dius was  the  aggressor,  and  intended  to  assassi- 
nate Milo.  It  is  remarked  of  this  celebrated 
orator,  that  he  began  all  his  orations  under  con- 
siderable solicitude  and  awe  of  his  audience.  On 
this  occasion,  when  he  stood  up  to  speak,  the  par- 
tizans  of  Clodius,  who  were  likewise  inveterate 
enemies  to  himself,  endeavoured  to  disconcert 
him  with  clamours  and  menacing  cries.  The 
unusual  sight  of  military  guards,  commanded  by 
an  officer,  who  was  supposed  to  be  prejudiced 
against  his  client,  it  is  said,  so  far  overcame  and 
sunk  his  spirit,  that  he  spoke  feebly,  and  con- 


Ciup.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


235 


eluded  abruptly ;  and  that  what  he  actually  de- 
livered was  far  short  of  that  masterly  oration 
which  he  composed,  and  afterwards  published 
under  the  title  of  Milo's  defence. 

The  accused,  however,  even  in  this  alarming 
3cene,  stood  at  the  bar  with  an  undaunted  coun- 
tenance ;  and  while  every  one  else,  in  imitation 
of  the  senators,  appeared  in  mourning,  he  alone 
appeared  in  an  ordinary  dress.  When  judgment 
was  given,  and  the  ballots  inspected,  it  appeared 
that,  of  the  senators,  twelve  condemned,  and  six, 
or  perhaps  rather  five,  acquitted  ;  of  the  knights, 
thirteen  condemned,  and  four  acquitted;  of  the 
Tribuni  iErarii,  or  representatives  of  the  plebeian 
order,  thirteen  condemned,  and  three  or  four  ac- 
quitted. And  Milo,  upon  the  whole,  was  con- 
demned by  thirty-eight  against  thirteen. 

Before  sentence  was  pronouneed,  being  still  at 
liberty  to  withdraw,  he  retired  into  exile,  and 
fixed  his  residence  at  Marseilles.  Thither  Cicero 
sent  him  a  copy  of  an  oration  in  his  defence, 
composed  at  leisure,  as  an  effort  of  his  eloquence, 
and  a  specimen  of  what  could  be  urged  in  the 
cause.    The  packet  containing  this  writing,  it 


seems,  was  delivered  to  read  to  Milo  while  he  sat 
at  dinner.  "How  lucky  it  was,"  he  said,  "that 
this  oration  was  not  actually  spoken,  I  should  not 
now  have  been  eating  these  excellent  fish  at  Mar- 
seilles."3 These  marks  of  indifference  make  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  figure  which  Cicero  him- 
self had  exhibited  in  his  exile.  If  he  could  have 
thus  trifled  with  apparent  or  unmerited  disgrace, 
that  single  addition  of  constancy  and  foroe  to  his 
character  would  have  undoubtedly  placed  him  as 
high  in  the  order  of  statesmen,  as,  by  the  other 
parts  of  his  character,  he  stands  in  the  list  of  in- 
genious men  and  virtuous  citizens. 

Milo  was  likewise  soon  after  condemned,  in 
absence,  by  the  praetor,  upon  a  charge  of  bribery 
and  corruption.  Some  of  his  competitors,  par- 
ticularly Hypsseus  and  Scipio,  were  brought  to 
trial  for  the  same  offence.  The  tribune  Muna- 
tius  Plancus  and  Pompeius  Rufus  were,  at  the 
expiration  of  their  office,  tried  and  condemned 
for  the  share  they  had  in  the  fire  which  con- 
sumed the  senate-house,  and  in  the  assault  which 
was  committed  on  the  house  of  M.  Lepidus  the 
interrex. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Character  of  Pompey  in  Capacity  of  sole  Consul — Privilege  of  Caesar  to  be  admitted  as  Candi- 
date for  Ike  Office  of  Consul,  without  resigning  liis  Province — General  Revolt  of  the  Gauls — 
Operations  in  that  Country — Blockade  and  Reduction  of  Alesia — Distribution  of  C<csafs 
Army  in  Gaul. 


POMPEY  in  his  dignity  of  sole  consul,  hav- 
ing joined  a  legal  authority  to  the  personal  eleva- 
tion which  he  always  affected,  possessed  much 
of  the  influence  and  consideration  of  a  real  mo- 
narch ;  and  it  would  have  been  happy,  perhaps, 
for  the  state,  if  he  could  have  made  such  a  digni- 
ty hereditary,  and  a  permanent  part  of  the  con- 
stitution, or  given  to  the  commonwealth  that 
reasonable  mixture  of  kingly  government,  of 
which  it  appears  to  have  stood  so  greatly  in  need. 
In  his  present  elevation  he  rose  for  a  while  above 
the  partialities  of  a  factious  leader,  and  appeared 
to  adopt  that  interest  which  the  sovereign  ever 
has  in  the  support  of  justice.  He  even  seems  to 
have  personated  the  character  of  a  prince,  or  to 
have  considered  himself  as  above  the  rank  of  a 
citizen.  Among  other  instances  to  this  purpose, 
is  mentioned  his  haughty  saying  to  Hypsa>us, 
late  candidate  for  the  consulate,  now  under  pro- 
secution for  bribery,  who,  as  Pompey  passed  from 
the  bath  to  supper,  put  himself  in  his  way  to 
implore  his  protection,  "  Detain  me  not,"  he  said, 
"you  only  make  supper  too  cool  for  no  purpose."4 
In  the  midst  of  the  solicitations  of  his  courtiers 
and  flatterers,  he  even  ventured  to  dispense  with 
his  own  regulations.  Contrary  to  the  rule  he 
himself  had  laid  down  for  the  direction  of  crimi- 
nal trials,  he  furnished  Munatius  Plancus,  when 
brought  to  the  bar,  with  a  commendatory  testi- 
mony, "  I  cannot  prefer  this  writing  of  Pompey," 
said  Cato,  "to  the  law  of  which  he  himself  is  the 
author."    On  account  of  this  saying,  Plancus, 

3  Asconius  Padianus  et  Argument,  et  Notis  in 
Orat.  pro  Mil.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xl.  Plut.  in  Pompeio, 
Uatone,  &c. 

4  Val.  Max.  lib.  ix.  c.  5. 


when  the  judges  came  to  be  inclosed,  thought 
proper  to  reject  Cato :  the  accused  was  neverthe- 
less condemned.5 

Besides  the  measures  taken  to  punish  past  of- 
fences, it  was  thought  necessary  to  devise  some 
laws  to  prevent  for  the  future,  or  to  lessen  the 
temptation  to  the  commission  of  such  dangerous 
crimes.  The  principal  source  of  the  late  disor- 
ders appeared  to  l>e  the  avidity  of  candidates  for 
those  offices  of  state,  which  led  immediately  to 
the  government  of  lucrative  provinces.  To  remove 
this  temptation,  it  was  ordained,  at  the  suggestion 
of  Pompey,  that  no  man  could  be  appointed  to  a 
province  till  five  years  after  the  expiration  of  that 
office,  whether  of  consul,  pra>tor,  or  qurcstor,  in 
virtue  of  which  he  claimed  a  proportionate  station 
in  the  provinces. 

Before  the  enacting  of  this  law,  however,  Pom- 
pey had  the  address  to  procure  lor  himself  a  pro- 
longation of  his  government  in  Spain  for  five 
years.  This  circumstance,  which  continued  to 
give  him  the  command  of  an  army  abroad,  while 
he  likewise  bore  the  highest  civil  office  in  the 
state  at  home,  set  a  very  dangerous  precedent  for 
the  commonwealth. 

Caesar's  command  in  Gaul  was  soon  to  expire  ; 
and,  according  to  the  laws  then  in  force,  he  must 
even  resign  it  before  he  could  aspire  to  the  con- 
sulate, or  pretend  to  cope  with  his  rival  in  civil 
preferments.  It  had  been  wisely  ordained  by  the 
laws,  that  the  persons  offering  themselves  as  can- 
didates for  the  office  of  consul,  should  appear  in 
person  to  sue  for  it ;  and  thnt  no  man,  without 
resigning  his  command  and  dismissing  his  army, 


5  Plutarch,  in  Pompeio,  p.  484. 


236 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


could  enter  the  city,  or  even  go  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  province  in  which  he  had  governed.  By  this 
regulation  it  was  intended  to  prevent  the  con- 
junction of  civil  power  in  the  state  with  the  com- 
mand of  an  army.  Pompey,  however,  though 
vested  with  such  a  command  in  Spain,  had  con- 
trived to  be  exempted  from  the  observance  of  this 
law ;  and,  under  pretence  that  his  office  of  gene- 
ral purveyor  of  corn  for  the  Roman  people  did 
not  confine  him  to  any  station,  and  in  reality  ex- 
tended to  the  whole  empire,  or  had  a  particular 
reference  to  Italy,  still  continued  to  reside  in  the 
city  of  Rome. 

Caesar,  to  keep  pace  with  his  rival,  openly 
aspired  to  the  same  privilege  with  Pompey,  and 
claimed,  as  a  mere  instance  of  equal  treatment, 
what  the  other  had  obtained ;  but  what,  if  be- 
stowed on  himself,  with  his  other  advantages, 
must  have  given  him  a  great  and  immediate  superi- 
ority. The  army  he  commanded  was  already  in 
the  most  advantageous  situation.  The  addition 
of  consular  power  at  Rome,  to  that  of  general  in 
both  the  Gauls,  was  joining  Italy  itself  to  his 
provinces,  and  putting  him  at  once  in  possession 
of  the  empire.  Any  opposition  made  to  his  au- 
thority as  consul  would  be  construed  as  rebellion 
against  the  state  itself.  Pompey  would  be  driven 
at  once  from  the  helm  of  affairs  to  the  command 
,of  a  distant  province,  in  which  he,  at  most,  could 
only  defend  himself;  but  not  entertain"  any  de- 
signs on  the  sovereignty  of  Italy,  which  would 
be  covered  from  his  attempts  by  the  Pyrenees  and 
the  Alps,  and  the  great  armies  of  Gaul. 

With  these  objects  in  his  view,  Caesar  in- 
structed his  partizans  among  the  tribunes  to 
move,  that,  being  continually  engaged  in  a  ha- 
zardous war,  which  required  his  presence,  and 
being  necessarily  detained  abroad  in  the  service 
of  his  country,  he  might  be  exempted  from  the 
law,  which  required  the  candidates  for  office  to 
attend  their  canvass  in  person,  and  might  there- 
fore be  elected  into  the  consulate  without  present- 
ing himself  to  the  people  for  that  purpose. 

This  proposition  was  sufficiently  understood 
by  the  leading  men  of  the  senate,  and  by  the  few 
who  joined  with  them  in  support  of  the  common- 
wealth. It  was  known  to  be  intended  that  Caesar 
should  have  a  privilege  of  being  elected  consul, 
without  resigning  his  province,  or  dismissing  his 
army ;  and  they  withstood  the  motion  as  of  the 
most  dangerous  consequence.  But  Pompey,  who 
ought  likewise,  for  his  own  sake,  to  have  been 
alarmed  at  the  progress  of  Caesar,  and  at  the  un- 
common advantage  at  which  he  now  aimed,  was 
either  lulled  into  security  by  the  artifices  of  his 
rival,  or  thought  himself  sufficiently  raised  above 
any  danger  from  this  or  any  other  quarter.  He 
had  accepted,  in  his  own  person,  many  unprece- 
dented honours,  and  was  possibly  unwilling  to 
contend  for  forms  which,  at  some  future  period, 
might  limit  his  own  pretensions.  Cato  loudly 
renewed  his  suspicion  of  Caesar's  designs.  Cicero 
could  not  be  neutral  in  any  dispute  that  should 
arise  between  Csesar  and  Pompey.  He  had  been 
banished  by  the  one,  and  restored  by  the  other. 
Besides  the  personal  consideration  he  owed  to 
Pompey  on  this  occasion,  his  natural  bias  was 
on  the  side  of  the  senate,  and  for  the  support  of 
the  forms  which  were  provided  for  the  safety 
of  the  commonwealth.  He  nevertheless  suffered 
Himself  to  be  dazzled  with  the  court  which  Caesar 
dad  paid  to  him  for  some  time,  with  a  view  to 


this  very  question  ;  he  condemned  the  indiscreet 
zeal  of  Cato,  who,  in  his  opinion,  was  ruining  the 
cause  of  the  republic  by  setting  both  Csesar  and 
Pompey  at  defiance,  while  he  himself,  by  tempo- 
rising, and  by  managing  the  inclinations  of  these 
parties,  had  secured  them  both  in  its  interests. 
He  stated  the  danger  of  a  quarrel  with  Caesar  at 
this  time,  supported  as  he  was  by  a  powerful 
army,  and  in  the  bowels  of  Italy ;  but  did  not 
consider  that  he  was  then  giving  up,  without  a 
quarrel,  all  that  any  quarrel  could  extort. 

The  army  of  Csesar  was  not  then  so  well  pre- 
pared to  follow  him  against  his  country,  nor  he 
himself  furnished  with  the  same  colours  of  jus- 
tice, under  which  he  afterwards  made  war  on  the 
commonwealth.  If  a  civil  war  were  to  be  dread- 
ed, to  temporise,  in  this  instance,  was  to  give  a 
delay  which  proved  favourable  to  the  enemy,  or 
rather,  in  effect,  to  deliver  up  the  republic,  with- 
out a  contest,  to  that  fate  which  the  prudent 
counsels  in  question  were  intended  to  remove. 
Under  colour  of  this  prudence,  nevertheless,  Ci- 
cero, as  well  as  Pompey,  supported  the  tribunes 
in  their  motion,  and  obtained  for  the  proconsul 
of  Gaul  the  dispensation  he  desired,  to  retain  his 
army,  while  he  offered  himself  a  candidate  for 
the  highest  office  of  the  state  at  Rome. 

Caesar,  immediately  upon  his  arrival  on  that 
side  of  the  Alps  in  the  beginning  of  winter,  ob- 
serving the  distractions  which  took  place  in  the 
city  upon  the  murder  of  Clodius,  affected  much 
zeal  for  the  laws  which  had  been  so  grossly  vio- 
lated in  that  instance ;  and,  under  pretence  of 
furnishing  himself  with  the  means  of  supporting 
the  state  against  those  who  were  inclined  to  dis- 
turb it,  ordered  new  levies  in  every  part  of  his 
provinces,  and  made  a  considerable  addition  to 
his  army  ;  but,  contented  for  the  present  with  the 
privilege  he  had  obtained  of  suing  for  the  consu- 
late, without  quitting  his  province,  or  resigning 
his  military  power,  he  left  the  state,  as  before,  ap- 
parently in  the  hands  of  Pompey ;  and,  in  the 
middle  of  winter,  on  the  report  of  a  general  de- 
fection of  all  the  Gaulish  nations,  repassed  the 
Alps. 

Most  of  the  nations  that  lay  beyond  the  moun- 
tains of  Auvergne,  the  original  limits  of  the  Ro- 
man province,  roused  by  the  sense  of  their  present 
condition,  or  by  the  cruel  massacre  lately  exe- 
cuted in  a  part  of  their  country,  were  actually  in 
arms.  They  had  submitted  to  Caesar,  or  were 
separately  gained  by  him,  under  the  specious 
pretence  of  alliance  or  protection  against  their 
enemies ;  and  with  the  title  of  ally,  suffered  him 
to  become  their  master.  But  the  violence  with 
which  he  had  threatened  the  canton  of  the  Car- 
nutes,1  for  absenting  themselves  from  the  con- 
vention which  he  had  assembled  on  the  Seine, 
and  the.  merciless  severities  executed  by  him 
against  the  unfortunate  natives  of  the  tract  be- 
tween the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse,2  convinced  all 
the  nations  of  Gaul  that  they  were  reduced  to  the 
condition  of  slaves  ;  and  that  every  exertion  they 
made  for  liberty  was  to  be  punished  as  a  crime. 
They  saw  the*  folly  of  their  former  dissentions, 
and  suspended  all  their  animosities  to  enter  into 
a  general  concert  for  their  common  safety.  The 
occasion,  they  said,  was  favourable  for  the  reco- 
very of  their  country.    The  Romans  were  dis- 


1  Now  Chartres. 

2  Now  chiefly  Liege  and  Cueklerland. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


237 


tracted  at  home,  and  Caesar  had  sufficient  occu- 
pation in  Italy.  His  army  could  not  act  in  his 
absence.  The  present  time,  they  concluded, 
was  the  favourable  opportunity  to  shut  out  the 
Romans  for  ever  beyond  the  Cevennes,  or  even 
to  force  them  to  retire  within  the  Alps. 

All  the  nations  on  the  Seine,  the  Loire,  and 
the  Garonne,  quite  round  to  the  sea-coast,  re- 
ceived these  representations  with  joy.  They 
held  private  meetings,  and  instead  of  exchanging 
hostages,  which  would  have  been  too  public  a 
measure,  and  have  led  to  a  discovery  of  their  de- 
signs, they  plighted  their  faith  by  a  more  secret 
form,  commonly  practised  among  them  on  great 
occasions,  that  of  pressing  their  banners  together. 

The  people  of  the  Carnutes3  undertook  to  be- 
gin hostilities ;  and  accordingly,  on  a  day  fixed, 
surprised  the  town  of  Genabum,4  where  they  put 
many  Roman  traders,  together  with  the  com- 
missary-general of  the  army,  to  death. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  Gauls  to  convey  in- 
timation of  such  events  by  means  of  a  cry  which 
they  raised  at  the  place  of  action,  and  repeated 
wherever  the  voice  was  heard,  till,  passing  almost 
with  the  velocity  of  sound  itself,  it  gave  the 
speediest  information  of  what  was  done.  In  this 
manner,  intelligence  of  what  had  been  trans- 
acted at  Genabum  at  the  rising  of  the  sun,  was, 
before  night,  propagated  in  every  direction  to  the 
distance  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  miles,  and  put 
all  the  nations  within  this  compass  in  a  ferment. 
Its  first  and  principal  effects,  however,  were  pro- 
duced in  the  country  of  the  Arverni.5  Here 
Vercingetorix,  a  youth  of  heroic  spirit  and  great 
capacity,  assembled  his  retainers,  took  possession 
of  Gergovia,  now  Clermont,  the  capital  of  his 
country,  and  from  thence  sent  messengers  in 
every  direction  to  urge  the  execution  of  the  mea- 
sure lately  concerted  for  the  general  freedom  of 
Gaul.  He  himself,  in  return  for  his  zeal,  being 
chosen  the  common  head  of  the  confederacy,  in 
this  capacity,  fixed  the  quota  of  men  and  of  arms 
to  be  furnished  by  eaeh  separate  canton,  and  took 
hostages  for  the  regular  observance  of  the  condi- 
tions to  which  the  several  parties  had  agreed. 

Vercingetorix  having  assembled  a  considerable 
army,  sent  a  part  of  his  force  to  act  on  the  Ga- 
ronne, and  to  harass  the  frontiers  of  the  Roman 
province,  while  he  himself  moved  to  the  Loire,  in 
order  to  rouse  the  nations  of  that  quarter,  who 
appeared  to  be  too  secure;  and  he  accordingly 
brought  to  his  standard  all  the  warriors  of  those 
cantons  that  lay  on  the  left  of  that  river.  His 
party  on  the  Garonne,  at  the  same  time,  wore 
joined  by  all  the  nations  of  Aquitania,  and,  in 
formidable  numbers,  threatened  with  immediate 
destruction  the  cities  of  Thoulouse  and  Nar- 
bonne,  or  such  part  of  their  districts  at  least  as 
were  open  to  invasion. 

Thither  Caesar,  with  all  the  forces  he  could 
assemble  upon  his  arrival  from  Italy,  immediately 
repaired ;  and,  having  put  the  province  of  Nar- 
bonne  in  a  condition  not  to  be  insulted,  proceeded 
to  give  the  enemy  an  alarm  in  their  own  country. 
His  object  was,  if  possible,  to  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  legions  which  he  had  left  on  the 
northern  frontiers  of  his  new  acquisitions.  He 
did  not  choose  that  those  legions  should  move  in 
his  absence  so  far  as  to  expose  themselves  to  be 
cut  olF  by  the  natives.    Nor  was  it  easy  for  him- 

3  Chartres  4  Orleans.  5  Auyergne, 


self,  with  the  force  under  his  command,  to  pene- 
trate through  so  many  enemies  as  lay  in  his  way 
to  join  them.  It  was  yet  winter,  and  the  moun- 
tains were  deeply  covered  with  snow.  This  cir- 
cumstance, which  increased  his  difficulties,  as  it 
was  likely  to  render  the  enemy  secure,  still  en- 
couraged him  to  make  his  attempt.  He  accord- 
ingly passed  the  mountains  6  which  lay  in  his 
way,  at  a  time  when  the  snow,  in  many  places, 
being  six  feet  deep,  must  be  removed  with  sho- 
vels, and  when  that  passage  was  supposed  to  be 
entirely  impracticable.  After  he  had  surmounted 
this  difficulty,  his  object  being  to  draw  the  atten- 
tion of  the  prince  of  the  Arverni  to  his  own 
country,  he  sent  his  cavalry  abroad  in  numerous 
parties  to  destroy  with  fire  and  sword  the  people 
with  their  habitations  and  possessions.  When 
he  thought  the  alarm  was  sufficiently  spread,  and 
must  have  reached  the  Gaulish  army  on  the 
Loire,  he  pretended,  that  his  presence  was  re- 
quired in  the  province  behind  him,  gave  the  com- 
mand of  the  troops  in  Auvergne  to  Decimus 
Brutus,  then  a  young  man ;  giving  him  orders 
at  the  same  time  to  keep  his  parties  abroad,  and 
to  continue  to  harass  the  country  as  he  himself 
had  done. 

Having  taken  these  measures  to  fix  the  atten- 
tion of  the  enemy  in  one  quarter,  Caesar,  with  a 
few  attendants,  made  haste  to  pass  in  a  different 
direction  to  Vienna  on  the  Rhone,  where  he  was 
received  by  a  party  of  horse,  which  he  had  ap- 
pointed at  that  place  to  wait  his  orders;  and, 
under  this  escort,  without  halting  by  day  or  by 
night,  he  passed  by  Bibracte7  and  the  country  of  the 
Lingones,8  to  the  nearest  quarter  of  his  army  on 
the  Seine,  and  while  he  was  yet  supposed  to  be 
in  Auvergne,  had  actually  assembled  his  legions 
which  had  been  distributed  on  the  course  of  that 
river. 

Vercingetorix  having  notice  that  Caesar,  ir 
this  manner,  had  passed  him,  and  that  the  Ro- 
man army  on  the  Seine  was  in  motion,  }>erceived 
that  the  invasion  of  his  own  country  had  been  no 
more  than  a  feint,  and  that  the  chief  force  of  the 
enemy  was  to  be  expected  from  a  different  quar- 
ter, he  resumed  the  operations  which  he  had  in- 
termitted on  the  Loire,  and  endeavoured  to  j>ossess 
himself  of  a  post  in  the  territory  of  Bibracte, 
where  the  people  still  professed  themselves  to  be 
in  the  alliance  of  the  Romans. 

Caesar,  notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  pro- 
curing provisions  and  forage  so  early  in  the  sea- 
son, thought  himself  under  a  necessity  of  oppos- 
ing the  progress  of  the  enemy.  For  this  purpose 
he  left  his  baggage,  under  the  guard  of  two  le- 
gions, at  Agendicum  ;9  and  from  thence,  with  the 
remainder  of  the  army,  proceeded  to  Genabum,10 
leaving  Trebonius  by  the  way  to  take  possession 
of  a  town  which  the  natives,  after  a  little  show  of 
resistance,  had  surrendered. 

Upon  his  arrival  before  Genabum,  the  Gauls, 
who  were  in  arms  at  that  place,  resolved  to  aban- 
don the  town  ;  and  shutting  the  gates  against  the 
Romans  on  one  side,  endeavoured  to  escape  by 
the  bridge  of  the  Loire  on  the  other.  But  Caesar, 
having  notice  of  their  design,  forced  open  their 
gates,  and  overtook  them,  while  crowded  to- 
gether in  the  entrance  of  the  bridge,  and  in  the 


0  The  Cevennes. 

7  Afterwards  Au^ustudonnm,  now  Autun. 

8  I, angles.  9  Sens.  10  Orleaus. 


238  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


narrow  streets  which  led  to  it,  put  the  greater 
part  to  the  sword,  and,  under  the  pretence  of  re- 
venging the  massacre  of  the  Roman  traders,  who 
had  been  put  off  at  this  place,  ordered  that  the 
town  should  be  destroyed.  From  thence  he  pene- 
trated into  the  country  of  the  Bituriges,1  on  the 
left  of  the  Loire  ;  and,  on  his  way  towards  Ava- 
ricum,2 the  capital  of  that  district,  forced  every 
place  that  opposed  his  passage. 

Vercingetorix,  observing  the  rapid  progress  of 
the  Romans,  and  knowing  that  the  Gauls,  being 
without  order  or  discipline,  could  not  withstand 
them  in  battle,  declined  an  engagement,  but  en- 
deavoured to  distress  the  enemy  by  delays  and 
want  of  provisions.  He  had  authority  enough 
with  his  own  people  to  persuade  them  to  lay  their 
country  waste  every  where  within  many  miles  of 
Caesar's  route.  Twenty  towns  of  the  Bituriges 
were  burnt  in  one  day.  Avaricum  alone,  con- 
trary to  the  opinion  of  Vercingetorix,  and  at  the 
earnest  request  of  its  inhabitants,  who  undertook 
to  defend  it  to  the  last  extremity,  was  spared. 

Thither,  accordingly,  Caesar  advanced  as  to  the 
only  prize  that  was  left.  He  attacked  the  place, 
under  great  disadvantages,  in  the  midst  of  a 
country  that  was  entirely  laid  waste,  and  trusting 
for  the  daily  subsistence  of  his  army  to  the  iEdui 
beyond  the  Loire,  who,  notwithstanding  their 
professions,  were  far  from  being  hearty  in  his 
cause,  or  diligent  in  sending  their  supplies  of 
provisions  to  his  camp.  Such  as  they  sent  were 
intercepted  by  Vercingetorix,  who  had  occupied 
a  strong  post  with  his  army,  and  infested  the 
highways  with  his  parties.  In  these  circum- 
stances, Caesar's  army  was  sometimes  reduced  to 
great  distress,  he  himself,  to  pique  the  resolution 
of  his  soldiers,  affected  a  willingness  to  raise  the 
siege,  whenever  they  were  pleased  to  intimate, 
that  they  could  endure  it  no  longer ;  "  We  are 
got  into  a  difficult  situation,"  he  used  to  observe ; 
"  if  the  troops  are  discouraged,  I  shall  withdraw." 
To  this  affected  tenderness  for  the  sufferings  of 
his  men,  he  was  every  where  answered,  with  in- 
treaties  that  he  would  not  dishonour  them,  by 
supposing  that  any  hardships  could  oblige  them 
to  forfeit  the  character  they  had  acquired  by  the 
labour  of  so  many  successful  campaigns.  He  ac- 
cordingly continued  the  attack  of  Avaricum  under 
all  his  discouragements. 

The  place  was  covered  on  two  sides  by  a  river 
and  a  morass,  and  was  accessible  only  on  the  third. 
The  walls  of  the  town  were  ingeniously  con- 
structed with  double  frames  of  wood,  having  com- 
partments or  pannels  filled  up  with  masonry  and 
large  blocks  of  stone.  The  masonry  secured  the 
timber  from  fire,  and  the  frames  preserved  the 
masonry  against  the  effects  of  the  battering  ram, 
which  could  act  only  on  the  stones  contained 
within  a  single  pannel  or  division  of  the  frame, 
without  ruining  at  once  any  considerable  part  of 
the  wall,  or  effecting  a  breach.  The  Roman  ar- 
my approached  to  this  wall  by  the  most  laborious 
jtnd  difficult  methods  which  were  practised. 
They  began,  in  the  ancient  form  of  attack,  at  a 
proper  distance,  and  on  a  breadth  of  eighty-three 
feet,  to  lay  a  sloping  mound,3  which  rising  by  de- 
grees on  the  plain,  formed,  as  it  advanced,  an  easy 
ascent  to  the  level  of  the  battlements.  The  earth 
on  the  sides  of  this  mound  was  supported  by 
timbers,  hurdles,  and  faggots,  and  the  workmen 


I  Now  Berri.  2  Bourges.         3  The  Agger. 


in  front  were  covered  with  mantlets  and  moveable 
penthouses.  The  besieged,  that  they  might  still 
overtop  the  besiegers,  raised  their  walls  by  addi- 
tional frames  of  wood,  which  they  covered  with 
raw  hides,  as  a  security  against  the  burning  ar- 
rows and  shafts  which  were  darted  against  them. 

In  this  contest  the  works  on  both  sides  were 
raised  about  eighty  feet,  and  the  besieged  endea- 
voured to  keep  the  advantage  of  superior  height, 
not  only  by  raising  their  own  walls,  but  likewise 
by  undermining  and  sinking  the  mound  of  the 
besiegers.  They  made  galleries  under  the  foun- 
dation of  their  own  wall  to  the  bottom  of  the 
enemy's  mound,  by  which  they  endeavoured  to 
remove  the  earth  and  other  materials  from  below, 
as  fast  as  they  were  accumulated  above.  They 
came  from  their  sally-ports  on  different  sides  of 
the  mound,  and  endeavoured  to  set  fire  to  the 
wood  by  which  the  earth  was  supported.  In  all 
these  particulars  showing  that  they  possessed  the 
arts  of  defence  in  common  with  ancient  nations.4 
Vercingetorix,  in  the  mean  time,  continued  to 
harass  the  Roman  army  from  without,  intercepted 
their  supply  of  provisions,  and,  by  means  of  the 
river  and  the  morass,  maintained  his  communica- 
tion with  the  town,  and  sent  in  frequent  relief. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  difficulties,  Caesar 
by  degrees  brought  forward  and  raised  his  mound 
of  approach  to  the  height  of  the  battlements ;  so 
that  by  a  single  assault  he  might  determine  the 
fate  of  the  town.  And  while  both  parties  were 
preparing  for  a  last  effort,  he  took  the  opportunity, 
as  he  frequently  did,  of  a  heavy  rain  to  make  his 
attack.  The  besieged,  as  he  supposed,  had  taken 
shelter  from  the  weather,  and  were  in  that  instant 
put  off  their  guard.  He  got  possession  of  the 
battlements  with  little  resistance,  and  drove  the 
parties  who  manned  them  before  him  from  the 
walls.  The  inhabitants  formed  in  the  streets,  and 
the  Romans  who  had  entered,  extending  their  line 
to  right  and  left  along  the  ramparts,  were  about 
to  occupy  the  battlements  over  the  whole  circum- 
ference of  the  place,  when  the  garrison,  observing 
their  danger,  began  to  escape  by  the  gates.  In 
the  confusion  that  followed,  the  town  was  sacked, 
and  could  make  no  resistance.  Of  forty  thousand 
persons  who  had  taken  shelter  in  it,  no  more  than 
eight  hundred  escaped.  This  massacre  was  joined 
to  that  lately  performed  at  Genabum,  under  the 
pretence  of  completing  the  vengeance  which  was 
due  for  the  murder  of  the  Roman  traders  who 
were  put  to  death  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
present  revolt. 

The  Gauls,  as  usual  on  every  calamitous  event, 
were  greatly  disheartened,  and  were  about  to  de- 
spair of  their  cause,  when  their  leader  reminded 
them,  that,  contrary  to  his  judgment,  they  had  re- 
served this  place  from  the  general  devastation, 
and  had  themselves  undertaken  to  defend  it ;  that 
what  they  suffered  was  the  consequence  of  a  mis- 
take, and  might  be  retrieved  by  abler  conduct. 
His  authority  as  usual  rose  on  the  ill-success  of 
counsels  which  he  had  not  approved,  and  brought 
an  accession  of  numbers  to  his  standard. 

Caesar,  finding  a  considerable  supply  of  stores 
and  provisions  at  Avaricum,  remained  some  days 
to  relieve  and  to  refresh  his  army.  The  country 
around  him,  however,  being  entirely  laid  waste, 
or  occupied  by  parties  of  the  enemy,  it  became 


4  Cffisar  de  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  vii.  c.  22,  &c.  Vifl.  Thu 
cidid.  lib.  ii.  in  the  siege  of  Platsea. 


Chap.  III.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


239 


necessary  for  him  to  repass  the  Loire,  and  to  open 
his  communication  with  a  country  of  which  the 
inhabitants  still  professed  to  be  in  alliance  with 
the  Romans,  and  having  had  their  possessions 
covered  by  the  river  from  the  incursions  of  the 
enemy  in  their  late  devastations,  were  still  in 
condition  to  supply  his  camp.  As  in  this  move- 
ment he  seemed  to  retire  and  to  give  up  the 
ground  he  had  disputed  with  the  prince  of  the 
Arverni,  he  pretended  that  he  was  called  to  set- 
tle a  dispute  which  had  arisen  among  the  iEdui, 
relating  to  the  succession  of  the  chief  magistrate, 
or  head  of  their  canton.  Having  repassed  to  the 
right  of  the  Loire  without  any  loss,  he  made  a 
demand  on  his  allies  of  that  side  for  ten  thousand 
men  on  foot,  and  all  the  horses  they  could  furnish. 

He  now  had  enemies  on  every  quarter,  and  it 
was  good  policy  to  keep  them  divided,  and  to  oc- 
cupy them  separately.  For  this  purpose  he  sent 
four  legions  towards  the  Seine ;  while  he  himself 
took  the  route  of  Noviodunum,5  at  the  confluence 
of  the  Loire  and  Allier;  and  there  leaving  his 
money,  spare  horses,  and  unnecessary  baggage, 
he  continued  his  march  on  the  banks  of  the  Allier, 
with  intention  to  pass  that  river,  and  to  invade 
the  Arverni,  from  whom  this  revolt  had  originated, 
and  whose  chief  was  now  at  the  head  of  it.  This 
prince,  knowing  that  the  river  Allier  is  never 
fordable  till  autumn,  and  till  the  melting  of  snows 
on  the  Cevennes  begin  to  abate,  ordered  all  the 
bridges  upon  it  to  be  demolished,  and  hoped  to 
prevent  the  Romans  from  passing  it  during  the 
greater  part  of  summer.  As  soon  as  Caesar 
marched  from  Noviodunum,  he  presented  himself 
on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river,  and  regulated 
his  motions  by  that  of  the  enemy.  The  two  ar- 
mies commonly  decamped,  marched  and  encamp- 
ed again  in  sight  of  each  other ;  and  Caesar  never 
affected  to  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  Gauls,  till  he 
saw  an  opportunity  to  do  so  with  advantage. 

It  happened  that  one  of  the  bridges  of  the 
Allier  had  been  but  imperfectly  destroyed  ;  most 
of  the  piles  were  yet  fast  in  the  ground,  and  ap- 
peared above  water ;  so  that  a  passage  might  be 
effected  in  a  few  hours.  The  country  around 
was  woody,  and  furnished  cover,  or  a  place  of 
ambush,  to  any  number  of  men.  From  these 
circumstances  Caesar  conceived  the  design  to 
over-reach  the  enemy.  He  put  his  army  in  mo- 
tion as  usual,  but  himself  remained  with  a  suf- 
ficient detachment  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
ruined  bridge,  which  he  meant  to  repair.  In  order 
that  the  Gauls  might  not  be  led  to  suspect  that 
any  part  of  his  army  was  left  behind,  he  ordered 
that  those  who  were  to  move  should  divide,  and 
present  the  same  number  of  separate  bodies,  the 
same  distinction  of  colours  and  standards,  which 
they  were  accustomed  to  show  on  a  march  of  the 
whole  army ;  at  the  same  time,  as  he  knew  that 
the  Gauls  would  endeavour  to  keep  pace  with  his 
people,  in  order  to  hasten  and  increase  their  dis- 
tance, he  ordered  them  to  make  a  quicker  and  a 
longer  march  than  usual.  When  he  supposed 
that  this  feint  or  stratagem  had  taken  its  full 
effect,  he  began  to  work  on  the  piles  which  were 
left  in  the  river,  and  in  a  few  hours  repaired  the 
bridge  so  effectually,  that  he  passed  with  a  di- 
vision of  the  army  he  had  reserved  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  instantly  fortified  a  post  to  cover  them 


on  the  opposite  bank.  From  thence  he  sent  or- 
ders to  recall  the  main  body  ;  and  before  the  ene- 
my were  apprised  of  his  design,  had  re-united  all 
his  forces  on  the  left  of  the  river. 

Vercin<retorix,  as  soon  as  he  had  intelligence 
that  the  Romans  had  passed  the  Allier,  fell  back 
to  Gergovia,6  the  capital  of  his  own  principality,  in 
order  to  take  measures  for  the  safety  of  that  piace. 
It  being  situated  on  a  height  having  an  ascent, 
of  above  a  mile  from  the  plain,  and  surrounded 
by  other  hills,  which  made  part  of  the  same  ridge, 
he  ordered  a  stone  wall  to  be  built  six  feet  high 
about  half  way  up  the  ascent  to  the  town,  and 
encamped  as  many  as  the  space  could  contain 
within  the  circuit  of  this  wall.  He  occupied  the 
other  hills  at  the  same  time  with  separate  bodies, 
having  communications  with  each  other  and  with 
the  town.  By  this  disposition  Caesar  found  all  the 
approaches  of  the  place  commanded,  and  no  pos- 
sibility of  investing  the  whole  by  lines  of  cireum- 
vallation,  or  by  any  chain  of  posts.  He  pitched 
his  camp  at  some  distance  from  the  foot  of  the 
hill,  and  from  thence  in  a  few  days  got  possession 
of  a  height  in  his  way  to  the  town,  on  which  he 
posted  two  legions,  with  a  line  of  communication, 
fortified  on  both  its  flanks,  leading  from  this  ad- 
vanced station  to  his  main  encampment. 

In  this  posture  Caesar  foresaw,  that  all  the 
heights  in  his  neighbourhood  l>eing  in  possession 
of  the  enemy,  while  he  pressed  upon  the  town, 
he  himself  might  be  hemmed  in,  and  cut  off  from 
all  the  supplies  necessary  for  the  support  of  his 
army.  To  preserve  his  communication,  there- 
fore, with  the  Allier  and  the  Loire,  he  orden  d 
his  allies  from  the  opposite  side  of  these  rivers  to 
advance  with  the  forces  he  had  formerly  required 
of  them,  to  occupy  the  country  in  his  rear,  and  to 
cover  his  convoys.  They  accordingly  took  the 
field  ;  but  their  leaders  having  been  for  some  time 
inclined  to  favour  the  general  cause  of  the  Gauls, 
they  thought  this  a  favourable  opportunity  to 
declare  their  intentions.  Being  arrived  within 
thirty  miles  of  Cesar's  army,  they  halted  ;  and, 
upon  a  report  which  was  industriously  spread 
amongst  them,  that  he  had  murdered  some  of 
their  countrymen  who  were  already  in  his  camp, 
they  put  all  the  Romans  in  their  company  to 
death,  and  took  measures  to  join  their  country- 
men who  were  assembled  for  the  defence  of 
Gergovia.  They  had  not  yet  moved  to  execute 
this  resolution,  when  Caesar  had  notice  of  what 
was  intended,  and  with  his  usual  diligence  ar- 
rived, after  a  march  of  thirty  miles,  with  four  le- 
gions and  all  his  cavalry,  in  time  to  prevent  its 
effects,  He  presented  himself  as  a  friend  ;  and 
thinking  it  safest  for  the  present  to  disguise  his 
resentment,  he  produced  into  public  view  all  the 
persons  who  were  said  to  have  been  killed  by  his 
orders,  convinced  such  as  had  been  deceived  of 
their  error,  and  brought  them,  with  the  seeming 
cordiality  of  allies,  to  his  camp. 

Caesar  made  a  merit  with  the  iEdui  of  this  act 
of  clemency  towards  their  people  ;  but  found  that 
the  spirit  of  defection  was  not  confined  to  these 
detachments;  that  it  had  pervaded  the  nation; 
that  the  violence  committed  in  the  camp  was  an 
effect  of  the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  whole 
people;  that,  in  pursuance  of  the  same  measures, 
his  purveyors  and  commissaries  had  been  assault- 


5  Nevers. 


6  Now  supposed  to  be  the  neighbourhood  of  Ck>i 
mom. 


240 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV 


ed  and  pillaged  even  where  they  thought  them- 
selves secure,  as  in  a  friend's  country;  and  that 
he  could  no  longer  rely  on  the  affections  of  any 
nation  in  Gaul. 

The  leaders  of  the  iEdui,  however,  on  hearing 
of  the  lenity  that  was  shown  to  such  of  their  peo- 
ple as  were  in  the  power  of  Caesar,  pretended  to 
return  to  their  duty  ;  and  Caesar,  not  to  break  at 
once  with  the  only  supposed  ally  which  remained 
to  him  beyond  the  Cevennes,  affected  to  consider 
the  late  disorders  as  the  effect  of  a  mere  popular 
tumult,  and  declared  himself  willing  to  rely  on 
the  wisdom  of  the  state  itself  for  the  reparation 
of  wrongs  which  a  few  ill-advised  persons  of 
their  country  had  committed. 

This  able  commander  appears,  on  many  occa- 
sions, to  have  trusted  greatly  to  the  superiority 
of  the  Roman  soldiers,  as  well  as  to  that  of  his 
own  reputation  and  conduct  as  a  general.  His 
confidence  in  both  was  required  in  the  highest 
degree  to  support  him  in  continuing,  or  even  in 
attempting,  a  siege  under  his  present  difficulties, 
beset  by  numerous  enemies,  who  were  in  appear- 
ance ably  conducted ;  while  he  himself  was  de- 
serted by  those  who  were  reputed  his  friends. 

In  his  last  march  to  repress  the  defection  of  his 
allies,  he  had  left  his  camp  exposed  to  the  attacks 
of  the  enemy,  and  defended  only  by  two  legions 
against  the  whole  force  of  so  many  nations  as 
were  assembled  for  the  defence  of  Gergovia. 
These  seized  their  opportunity  in  his  absence, 
made  a  vigorous  attack,  and  must  have  prevailed, 
if  he  had  not  returned  with  the  utmost  celerity  to 
relieve  his  camp. 

"With  the  same  confidence  in  the  superiority 
of  his  men,  Caesar  soon  afterwards  made  an  at- 
tempt to  force  the  wall,  which,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned, the  Gauls  had  built  on  the  ascent  of  the 
hill  which  led  to  the  town ;  and  having  made  a 
feint  on  the  opposite  side  with  part  of  his  horse, 
joined  by  the  followers  of  the  army  mounted  on 
horseback,  who  showed  themselves  at  a  distance 
to  appear  like  cavalry,  he  drew  the  enemy  from 
the  place  he  meant  to  attack,  actually  passed  the 
wall,  and  made  himself  master  of  part  of  their 
camp.  A  few  of  his  men  penetrated  even  into 
the  town ;  but  not  being  supported  were  sur- 
rounded and  slain  ;  even  those  who  had  succeeded 
at  first  under  favour  of  the  feint  by  which  he  had 
drawn  off  the  enemy,  were,  upon  the  return  of 
the  Gauls  to  the  defence  of  their  camp,  repulsed 
with  considerable  loss.  In  consequence  of  this 
defeat,  it  was  no  longer  doubtful  that  Caesar 
would  be  under  the  necessity  of  raising  the  siege. 

In  order  to  begin  his  retreat  without  any  ap- 
pearance of  fear,  he  formed  his  army  two  da}7s 
successively  on  the  plain  before  his  entrenchment, 
and  offered  the  enemy  battle.  On  the  third  day 
he  decamped;  and,  with  the  credit  he  derived 
from  this  species  of  defiance  or  challenge,  in  three 
days  he  arrived  at  the  Allier,  repaired  his  bridge, 
and  repassed  undisturbed  by  the  enemy.  His 
passage,  of  the  same  river,  a  short  time  before, 
was  esteemed  as  a  victory,  and  his  return,  with- 
out having  gained  any  advantage,  and  merely  for 
the  safety  of  his  army,  was  undoubtedly  consi- 
dered as  a  defeat.  The  low  state  of  his  fortunes, 
checked  and  baffled  by  a  Gaulish  leader,  yet  a 
youth,  and  unexperienced,  encouraged  the  na- 
tions on  the  right  of  the  Loire,  even  while  he  was 
advancing  towards  them,  to  declare  for  the  liber- 
ties of  Gaul ;  and  as  a  commencement  of  hostility,  j 


they  carried  off  or  rifled  the  treasure  he  kept  for 
the  pay  of  his  army,  and  seized  all  the  spare  horses 
and  baggage  which  he  had  left  at  Noviodunum,' 
as  at  a  place  of  security  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Allier  and  the  Loire. 

He  himself  was  yet  inclosed  between  these 
two  rivers,  having  enemies  on  every  side,  and  no 
magazines  or  stores  for  the  supply  of  his  army. 
He  deliberated  whether  he  should  not  fall  back 
on  the  province  of  Narbonne ;  but  the  danger  to 
which  he  must  expose  Labienus,  commanding  a 
division  of  the  Roman  army  on  the  Seme,  the 
difficulty  of  passing  the  mountains  of  Auvergne, 
then  occupied  by  his  enemies,  and  the  discredit 
which  his  arms  must  incur  from  such  a  retreat, 
prevented  him.  He  determined,  therefore,  to  ad- 
vance ;  passed  the  Loire  by  a  ford  above  its  con- 
fluence with  the  Allier ;  found  a  considerable 
supply  of  provisions  and  forage  in  the  country  of 
the  iEdui,  and  continued  his  march  from  thence 
to  the  Seine. 

Labienus,  with  the  troops  he  commanded  in 
that  quarter,  had  besieged  Lutetia,  the  original 
germ  from  which  the  city  of  Paris  has  grown, 
then  confined  to  a  small  island  in  the  Seine,  and 
had  made  some  progress  in  the  siege,  when  he 
heard  of  Caesar's  retreat  from  Gergovia,  of  the  de- 
fection of  the  JEdui,  and  of  preparations  which 
were  making  by  the  nations  on  his  right  against 
himself.  In  these  circumstances,  he  laid  aside  his 
design  on  Lutetia,  and  ascended  by  the  left  of  the 
Seine  to  the  country  of  the  Senones,  through 
which  Caesar  was  now  advancing  to  meet  him. 
In  passing  the  river  at  Melodunum,2  he  was  at- 
tacked by  the  enemy,  but  obtained  a  considerable 
victory ;  and,  with  the  credit  of  this  event  in  his 
favour,  continued  his  march  to  a  place  which  is 
now  called  Sens,  near  to  which  he  was  soon  af- 
terwards joined  by  Caesar. 

While  the  Romans  were  thus  re-uniting  their 
forces  on  the  Seine,  Vercingetorix  had  passed  the 
Loire,  and  held  a  general  convention  of  the  Gaul- 
ish nations  at  Eibracte.  He  was  attended  by  de- 
puties of  all  the  cantons  from  the  Moselle  to  the 
Loire,  except  the  Treviri,  Remi,  and  Lingones.1 
The  first  stood  in  awe  of  the  Germans,  who 
kept  them  in  continual  alarm.  The  two  last 
professed  an  attachment  to  the  Romans,  who 
were  still  masters  of  the  field  in  their  neighbour- 
hood 

The  leader  of  the.  Gaulish  confederacy  being 
at  this  meeting  confirmed  in  his  command,  made 
a  requisition  for  an  augmentation  of  force,  chiefly 
of  cavalry,  and  accordingly  increased  this  part  of 
his  army  to  fifteen  thousand.  To  the  end  that 
he  might  give  the  Romans  sufficient  occupation 
in  their  own  defence,  he  projected  two  separate 
invasions  of  the  province  of  Narbonne :  one  to 
be  executed  by  the  nations  which  lay  between 
the  Rhone  and  Garonne,  towards  Thoulouse 
the  other,  from  the  Soane  and  the  upper  parts  of 
the  Loire,  towards  Geneva  and  the  left  of  the 
Rhone.  He  himself,  though  still  determined  to 
avoid  any  general  action,  was  to  harass  the  enemy 
in  their  movements,  and  to  cut  off  their  supplies 
of  provisions. 

Caesar,  on  his  part,  wished  to  open  his  com- 
munication with  the  Roman  province,  that  he 
might  have  access  to  cover  it  against  the  designs 


]  Nevers.  2  Now  Melun. 

3  Now  Treves,  Rheims,  and  Langre. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  m 


Chap.  III.] 

of  the  enemy,  and  to  avail  himself  of  its  resources 
for  the  subsistence  of  his  army.    For  this  pur- 

gose,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  return,  by  the 
oane  and  the  Rhone,  through  a  level  country 
which  was  in  possession  of  the  enemy,  to  whom 
he  was  greatly  inferior  in  cavalry.  He  sent  into 
Germany  for  a  reinforcement  of  horse ;  and  the 
natives  of  that  part  of  the  continent  being  al- 
ready sensible,  that  wherever  they  were  admitted 
to  act  as  soldiers  of  fortune,  they  were  qualifying 
themselves  to  act  as  masters,  without  scruple  be- 
stowed their  services  for  or  against  any  cause ; 
two  thousand  of  them  joined  Caesur,  but  so  ill 
mounted  that  he  was  obliged  to  supply  them  with 
horses,  by  borrowing  such  as  belonged  to  his 
officers  of  infantry,  and  as  many  as  could  be 
spared  from  his  cavalry.  To  compensate  their 
defect  in  horse,  the  men  were  brave,  and,  in 
many  of  the  operations  which  followed,  turned 
the  event  of  battles,  and  determined  the  fate  of 
the  war. 

The  Roman  army  being  thus  reinforced,  Caesar 
began  his  march  to  the  southward ;  and  having 
passed  the  heights  at  the  sources  of  the  Seine, 
found  the  Gauls  already  posted  in  three  separate 
divisions,  contiguous  to  the  different  routes  he 
might  take,  with  numerous  flying  bodies  of  horse, 
ready  to  harass  him  in  any  movement  he  should 
make  in  their  presence.  By  continuing  his  march, 
he  soon  gave  their  leader  an  opportunity  to  try 
his  fortune  in  a  sharp  encounter,  in  which  the 
whole  cavalry  of  both  armies  came  to  be  engaged. 
The  Gauls  were  routed  chiefly  by  the  valour  and 
address  of  the  Germans,  to  whom  Caesar  im- 
puted his  victory.  This  event  was  decisive  in 
respect  to  the  cavalry,  that  part  of  both  armies 
on  which  it  was  supposed  that  the  fate  of  the 
war  must  turn.  And  Vercingetorix,  not  to  ex- 
pose his  infantry  to  the  necessity  of  a  general 
action,  instantly  retired  to  the  heights  from  which 
the  Seine,  and  a  number  of  other  rivers  which 
mix  with  it  before  its  confluence  with  the  Marne, 
have  their  source.  Caesar,  no  longer  apprehen- 
sive of  the  enemy's  horse,  resumed  the  confidence 
with  which  he  always  pursued  his  advantages, 
and  followed  his  flying  enemy  into  this  retreat. 

Vercingetorix,  with  his  very  numerous  army, 
took  post  at  Alesia,  a  place  raised  on  a  hill  at  the 
confluence  of  two  rivers;  the  point  on  which  it 
stood  being  the  termination  of  a  ridge  which  se- 
parated the  channels  by  which  these  rivers  de- 
scended to  the  plain.  The  fields  on  one  side  were 
level,  on  the  other  mountainous.  The  Gauls 
were  crowded  together  on  the  declivity  of  the 
hill  of  Alesia,  under  the  walls  of  the  town,  and 
in  that  position  thought  themselves  secure  from 
any  attack.  But  not  aware  of  the  resources,  en- 
terprise, and  genius  of  their  enemy,  while  they 
endeavoured  to  render  themselves  inaccessible, 
they  had  got  into  a  place  in  which  they  might 
be  cooped  up;  and  Caesar  immediately  began 
to  surround  them,  making  a  proper  distribution 
of  hjs  army,  and  employing  working  parties 
at  once  on  a  chain  of  twenty-three  posts  and 
redoubts. 

Vercingetorix,  though  too  late,  perceiving  the 
enemy's  design,  sent  his  cavalry  to  collect  what 
provisions  could  be  found  in  the  neighbouring 
country ;  but  these  troops,  in  oonsequence  of  their 
late  defeat,  not  being  able  to  keep  the  field  against 
the  Roman  and  German  horse,  he  proposed  to 
diminish  the  consumption  within  his  lines  by 
2  H 


dismissing  them  altogether,  giving  them  instruc- 
tions to  make  the  best  of  their  way  to  their  seve- 
ral cantons,  and  there  to  represent  the  situation 
in  which  they  had  left  the  army,  and  the  necessi- 
ty of  making  a  great  and  speedy  effort  from  every 
quarter  to  relieve  it.  He  had  eighty  thousand 
men  under  his  command,  and  might  be  able  to 
subsist  them  for  thirty  days,  and  no  longer. 

Caesar,  from  the  enemy's  having  sent  away 
their  cavalry,  concluded  that  they  meant  to  act 
on  the  defensive,  and  to  remain  in  their  present 
situation  until  they  should  be  relieved.  With  little 
apprehension  of  disturbance,  therefore,  from  with- 
in his  lines,  he  proceeded  to  execute  amazing 
works;  at  once  to  secure  his  prey  and  to  cover 
himself  against  any  attempts  which  might  be 
made  to  rescue  them.  This  great  commander 
owed  many  of  his  distinguished  successes  to  the 
surprising  works  which  he  executed ;  so  far  ex- 
ceeding the  fears  or  apprehensions  of  his  enemy, 
that  they  found  themselves  unexpectedly  forced 
into  difficulties  with  which  they  were  not  prepared 
to  contend. 

The  Roman  armies  in  general,  and  those 
which  served  under  Caesar  in  particular,  had 
learned  to  make  war  with  the  pick-ax  and  the 
shovel,  no  less  than  with  the  javelin  and  the 
sword,  and  were  inured  t<>  prodigies  of  labour  as 
well  as  of  valour.  In  the  present  case  they  were 
made  to  execute  lines  of  circumvallation  and 
countervallation  over  an  extent  of  twelve  or  four- 
teen miles.  They  began  with  digging,  quite 
round  the  foot  of  the  hill,  a  ditch  twenty  feet 
wide,  with  perpendicular  sides,  in  order  to  pre- 
vent any  surprise  from  the  town.  At  the  dis- 
tance of  four  hundred  feet  from  this  ditch,  and 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  enemy's  missiles,  was 
drawn  the  line  of  countervallation,  consisting  of 
a  ditch  fifteen  wide,  and  a  rampart  twelve  feet 
high,  furnished,  as  usual,  with  a  palisade.  At  a 
proper  distance  from  this  first  line  which  fronted 
the  town,  so  as  to  leave  a  proper  interval  for  the 
lodgement  and  forming  of  his  army,  he  drew 
another  line,  consisting  of  the  same  parts  and  di- 
mensions, fronting  the  field.  From  the  nature 
of  the  ground,  part  of  these  works  were  upon 
the  hills,  and  part  in  the  hollows  or  valleys;  and 
the  ditches,  wherever  the  level  permitted,  or 
could  not  parry  off'  the  water,  were  allowed  to  be 
filled, 

As  he  had  reason,  at  least  after  the  distress  of 
a  blockade  began  to  be  felt,  to  expect  from  a  gar- 
rison, which  exceeded  his  own  army  in  numtars, 
the  most  vigorous  sallies  from  within ;  and,  by 
the  united  exertions  of  all  the  Gaulish  nations  in 
behalf  of  their  friends,  every  effort  that  could  be 
made  from  without ;  and  as  his  own  army,  con- 
sisting of  no  more  than  sixty  thousand  men, 
could  not  equally  man,  in  every  place,  works  of 
such  extent,  he  thought  it  necessary  to  cover  his 
lines  with  every  species  of  outwork  then  practised 
in  the  art  of  attack  or  defence,  the  cippi,  lilice, 
and  the  stimuli. 

The  first  were  forked  stakes,  or  large  branches 
of  trees  planted  in  rows  in  the  bottom  of  a  ditch 
five  feet  wide,  bound  together  to  prevent  their 
being  pulled  up  separately,  and  cut  short  and 
pointed  to  wound  the  enemy  who  should  attempt 
to  pass  them. 

The  second,  or  lilise,  consisted  of  single  stakes 
sharpened  and  made  hard  in  the  fire,  planted  in 
the  bottom,  of  tapering  or  conical  holes,  of  which 


242 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


there  Were  many  rows  placed  in  quincunx;  so 
that  a  person  who  had  passed  in  the  interval  of 
any  two  must  necessarily  fall  into  a  third.  This 
device  was  commonly  masked  or  concealed  with 
slender  brushwood  covered  with  earth. 

The  last,  or  the  stimuli,  were  wooden  shafts 
set  in  the  ground  and  stuck  thick  with  barbed 
hooks,  to  fasten  or  tear  the  flesh  of  those  who 
attempted  to  pass  them  in  the  night,  or  without 
the  necessary  precautions. 

All  these  several  works,  it  appears,  the  Roman 
army  completed,  considerably  within  the  thirty 
days  for  which  Vercingetorix  had  computed  that 
his  provisions  might  last.  Both  parties  concern- 
ed in  this  blockade,  without  any  attempt  to  hasten 
the  event,  seemed  to  wait  for  the  several  circum- 
stances on  which  they  relied  for  the  issue.  Caesar 
trusted  to  the  effects  of  famine,  and  the  Gauls  to 
the  assistance  of  their  friends,  who  were  in  reality 
assembling  in  great  numbers  from  every  quarter 
to  effect  their  relief.  They  are  said  to  have  mus- 
tered at  Bibracte1  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  foot,  with  eight  thousand  horse. 
But  if  these  numbers  are  not  exaggerated,  they 
may  be  considered  as  a  proof  how  far  those  na- 
tions were  ignorant  of  the  circumstances  on  which 
the  fortunes  of  armies  really  turn.  The  supreme 
command  of  this  multitude  was  given  to  Comius, 
a  chieftain  of  one  of  the  northern  cantons,  who 
having  some  time  made  war  in  conjunction  with 
the  Romans,  owed  the  rank  which  he  held  in  his 
own  country  to  the  favour  of  Ca;sar,  but  could 
not  resist  the  contagion  of  that  general  ardour 
with  which  his  countrymen  now  rose  to  recover 
their  freedom. 

While  this  great  host  was  assembling,  the  un- 
happy garrison  of  Alesia  received  no  tidings  of 
relief.  Their  provisions  being  near  exhausted, 
they  began  to  despair  of  succour.  A  council  was 
held  to  deliberate  on  their  conduct,  and  to  form 
some  plan  of  escape.  Some  were  of  opinion 
that  they  ought  to  surrender  themselves,  and  to 
implore  the  victor's  mercy.  Others,  that  they 
should  make  a  general  sally,  endeavour  to  cut 
their  way  through  the  enemy,  and  escape  or  pe- 
rish with  swords  in  their  hands.  Critognatus,  a 
warrior  of  rank  from  the  canton  of  the  Arverni,2 
treated  the  opinion  of  those  who  proposed  to 
surrender  as  mean  and  dastardly ;  that  of  the 
second,  as  brave  rather  in  appearance  than  in 
reality.  "Bravery,"  he  said,  "does  not  consist 
in  sudden  efforts  of  impatience  and  despair,  but. 
in  firmly  enduring  for  any  length  of  time  what 
the  circumstances  of  war  may  require.  Shall  we 
think  merely,  because  we  have  no  communication 
with  our  friends,  that  they  have  deserted  us,  and 
do  not  intend  to  make  any  effort  to  save  us? 
Against  whom  do  you  think  Caesar  hath  con- 
structed so  many  works  in  his  rear?  Against 
whom  does  he  man  them  in  your  sight  with  so 
much  care  1  He  has  intelligence,  although  you 
have  not,  that  a  powerful  army  is  preparing  to 
relieve  you.  Take  courage,  and  wait  the  coming 
of  your  friends.  Even  if  your  provisions  should 
fail,  the  example  of  former  times  will  point  out  a 
resource.  Your  ancestors,  being  surrounded  by 
the  armies  of  the  Cimbri  and  the  Teutones, 
rather  than  surrender  themselves,  fed  on  the 
bodies  of  those  who  were  unserviceable  in  the 
war ;  and  by  this  expedient  held  out  till  the  ene- 


l  Autuu.  2  Auvergne. 


my  was  obliged  to  retire.  And  yet,  on  that  oc- 
casion, our  ancestors  had  less  cause  than  we  have 
to  make  every  effort  of  constancy  and  fortitude. 
Their  enemies  were  passing,  and  meant  only  to 
plunder  a  country  which  they  were  soon  to  aban- 
don ;  our  enemies  come  to  bind  us  in  perpetual 
chains,  and  to  establish  a  dominion  at  which  hu- 
man nature  revolts." 

The  Gauls  kept  their  resolution  to  hold  out, 
but  rejected  the  means  that  were  proposed  to 
supply  their  necessities,  or  reserved  them  for  a 
time  of  greater  extremity.  The  proposition  of 
Critognatus  is,  by  Caesar,  who  was  himself  the 
unprovoked  author  of  so  much  distress,  and  who 
continued,  without  remorse,  to  gratify  his  ambi- 
tion at  the  expense  of  so  much  blood,  mentioned 
with  horror  as  an  act  of  nefarious  cruelty.5  So 
much  are  men  affected  with  appearances  which 
shock  the  imagination  more  than  with  the  real 
measure  of  what  is  hurtful  to  mankind.  What 
followed,  however,  was  probably  no  less  cruel  on 
the  part  of  the  Gaulish  army  than  it  was  on  the 
part  of  Csesar ;  the  first,  to  lessen  the  consump- 
tion of  food,  turned  out  the  women,  children,  and 
unarmed  inhabitants  of  the  town  to  the  mercy  of 
the  enemy;  and  Caesar,  in  order  to  accumulate 
the  sufferings  of  the  besieged,  would  neither  re- 
lieve nor  suffer  them  to  pass.  From  these  cir- 
cumstances we  may  presume,  although  it  is  not 
mentioned,  that  they  must  have  perished  a  specta- 
cle of  extreme  anguish  and  suffering  in  the  pre- 
sence of  both  armies. 

In  the  midst  of  these  extremities,  Comius,  with 
the  united  force  of  the  Gaulish  nations,  at  last 
appeared  for  the  relief  of  Alesia,  and  with  their 
multitudes  covered  the  neighbouring  hills.  Being 
favoured  by  the  nature  of  the  ground,  they  were 
enabled  to  advance  within  five  hundred  paces,  or 
less  than  half  a  mile,  of  Caesar's  lines.  On  the 
following  day  the  cavalry  on  both  sides  began  to 
act.  The  Gaulish  horse,  trusting  to  their  supe- 
riority in  number,  or  to  the  defensive  plan  which 
the  Romans  were  likely  to  follow  on  the  present 
occasion,  drew  forth  on  tht  plain  below  the  town, 
and  proposed  to  encourage  their  friends  by  braving 
the  enemy.  Csesar  thought  it  necessary  to  repel 
this  species  of  insult,  and  sent  his  cavalry  to  ac- 
cept the  challenge.  An  action  began  about 
noon,  and  lasted  till  the  setting  of  the  sun,  when 
the  Gaulish  horse,  who  till  then  had  maintained 
the  fight  with  great  obstinacy  and  valour,  being 
taken  in  flank  by  the  Germans  in  Caesar's  service, 
were  obliged  to  give  way.  Both  sides,  on  this 
occasion,  had  mixed  parties  of  infantry  with 
their  horse ;  and  the  Gaulish  foot,  who  were  en- 
gaged in  this  action,  being  now  abandoned  to  the 
swords  of  the  enemy,  fledln  the  utmost  confusion 
to  the  rear  of  their  own  army. 

After  this  action  nothing  passed  for  a  day  and 
a  night ;  but  it  appeared  that,  during  this  time, 
the  Gaulish  army  in  the  field  were  collecting  fag- 
gots and  hurdles  to  fill  up  the  trenches  of  Caesar, 
and  preparing  graplings  to  tear  down  the  pali- 
sade and  the  parapet ;  and  that  they  only  waited 
till  these  preparations  should  be  finished  to  make 
a  vigorous  attempt  to  raise  the  siege.  They  ac- 
cordingly came  down  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
and,  with  a  great  shout,  the  only  signal  they  sup- 
posed could  be  understood  by  their  friends  in 

3  Nec  pnetereunda  videtur  oratio  Critognati  propter 
ejus  singularem  ac  nofariam  crudeJitatein.  De  Bell. 
GaTl  lib.  vii.  c.  76. 


Chap.  111.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


243 


town,  gave  a  general  assault  on  Caesar's  line  of 
circumvallation,  as  far  as  their  numbers  could 
embrace  it,  and  without  any  choice  of  place. 

Caesar  had  assigned  to  every  legion  and  sepa- 
rate body  of  men  their  station,  and  had  repeat- 
edly, to  render  them  familiar  with  his  disposition, 
given  the  alarm,  and  taught  them  to  repair  to 
their  posts;  he  had  placed  Mark  Antony  and 
Trebonius,  with  a  body  of  reserve,  to  succour 
any  part  of  the  lines  that  might  be  in  danger  of 
being  forced.  So  prepared,  he  now  received,  with- 
out any  surprise,  the  general  assault  of  the  Gauls. 
His  men  suffered  considerably  from  the  first 
shower  of  missiles  that  came  from  so  numerous 
an  enemy;  but  as  soon  as  the  assailants  ad- 
vanced to  the  outworks,  and  felt  themselves  en- 
tangled in  the  snares  which  had  been  laid  for 
them,  and  against  which  they  had  taken  no  pre- 
caution, they  were  sensible  that  they  fought  at  a 
great  disadvantage,  and  desisted  at  once  from  this 
rash  and  inconsiderate  attempt. 

The  besieged,  in  anxious  expectation  of  what 
was  to  pass  in  the  field,  hearing  the  shout  that 
was  raised  by  their  friends,  returned  it  to  make 
known  their  intention  to  co-operate  in  every 
attack,  and  instantly  begun  to  employ  the  pre- 
parations which  they  likewise  had  made  to  fill  up 
the  trenches,  or  force  the  lines.  They  continued, 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  to  cast  such 
materials  as  they  could  throw  into  the  broad 
ditch  at  the  foot  of  the  hill ;  but,  when  day  ap- 
peared, seeing  that  their  friends  had  retired,  with- 
out making  any  impression  on  the  exterior  line, 
they  too,  not  to  expose  themselves  in  an  attempt 
in  which  they  were  not  to  be  seconded,  withdrew 
to  their  station  on  the  hill. 

From  this  disappointment  the  Gauls,  both 
within  and  without  the  blockade,  were  sensible 
of  their  error  in  having  made  an  attack  before 
they  had  examined  the  enemy's  works.  To  cor- 
rect this  mistake,  they  visited  the  whole  circum- 
ference of  Caesar's  lines.  They  observed,  in  a 
particular  place,  that  the  exterior  line  was  inter- 
rupted by  a  hill  which  it  could  not  embrace  with- 
out making  a  great  circuit.  That  Caesar,  to 
avoid  so  great  an  addition  to  his  labour,  and  so 
much  outline  to  defend,  had  encamped  two  le- 
gions in  that  place  with  their  usual  entrench- 
ment, which  formed  a  kind  of  fortress  on  the 
summit  of  the  hill,  trusting  to  this  camp  as  a  re- 
doubt that  would  connect  his  defence*  on  that  side. 

This  place  was  chosen  by  the  Gauls  for  a  se- 
cond and  better  concerted  attempt  than  the  first; 
and  they  determined,  instead  of  the  night  to  make 
their  attack  at  noon-day,  when  the  enemy  were 
most  likely  to  be  oft*  their  guard.  Five-and-fifty 
thousand  men  were  selected  for  this  service ;  and 
they  began  their  march  early  in  the  night,  ar- 
rived at  their  ground  before  break  of  day,  and  lay 
concealed  under  a  ridge  of  hills  till  noon.  At 
this  time  they  came  forward,  furnished  not  only 
with  grappling  irons  to  tear  down  the  palisade, 
which  was  formed  on  the  parapet,  but  with  hur- 
dles and  faggots  to  fill  up  the  ditch,  and  to  smo- 
ther the  stimuli  from  which  they  had  suffered  so 
much  in  their  former  attacks. 

Caesar,  though  not  thrown  off  his  guard,  either 
by  the  time  of  the  day,  or  by  his  former  success, 
was  sensible,  that  he  was  now  attacked  in  his 
weakest  place.  He  ordered  Labienus  instantly, 
with  six  cohorts,  to  support  the  legions  that  were 
posted  in  that  station  ;  and  as  he  had  reason  to 


expect,  at  the  same  time,  a  general  assault,  both 
from  within  and  from  without  his  lines,  to  fa- 
vour this  principal  attack,  he  ordered  every  sepa- 
rate body  to  its  post  of  alarm ;  and  he  himself, 
with  a  considerable  reserve,  took  a  station  from 
which  he  could  best  observe  the  whole,  and  be 
ready  to  sustain  any  part  that  was  pressed.  He 
had  given  Labienus  instructions,  in  case  he  found 
that  the  lines  could  not  be  defended,  to  sally 
forth,  and  to  bring  the  action  to  an  issue,  in 
which  the  Romans  were  generally  found  to  have 
an  advantage  by  mixing  with  the  enemy  sword 
in  hand. 

The  Gauls,  who  were  shut  up  on  the  heights 
of  Alesia,  only  waiting  to  second  the  attempts  of 
their  friends  in  the  field,  began  the  action  on 
their  part  nearly  about  the  same  time ;  and  the 
Romans,  being  alarmed  with  hostile  cries  and 
shouts,  at  once  both  in  their  front  and  in  their 
rear,  were  in  danger  of  being  seized  with  a  panic, 
from  which  the  best  troops,  on  occasion,  are  not 
exempted. 

Labienus  was  so  much  pressed  where  the 
Gauls  made  their  principal  effort,  that  Caesar  de- 
tached two  several  parties  from  his  reserve  to 
sustain  him.  First,  a  body  of  six  cohorts  under 
Decimus  Brutas,  and  afterwards  a  body  of  seven 
cohorts  under  Fabius.  At  length,  upon  receiv- 
ing information  that  Labienus  had  not  been  able 
to  prevent  the  enemy  from  passing  the  intrench- 
ment,  but  that  he  meant,  with  all  the  troops  who 
had  joined  him  from  different  stations,  amount- 
ing to  nine-and-thirty  cohorts,  to  make  a  general 
sally  according  to  his  instructions,  and  to  mix 
with  the  enemy  sword  in  hand  ;  he  himself  in- 
stantly moved  to  support  him. 

Caesar  had,  by  this  time,  observed,  that  the 
enemy,  by  a  gross  misconduct,  had  made  no  feint 
or  no  attempt  on  any  other  part  of  the  lines  to 
favour  their  principal  attack;  and  he  therefore, 
with  those  he  still  retained  as  a  body  of  reserve, 
not  only  left  the  post  of  observation  he  had  taken 
in  the  beginning  of  the  action,  but  ventured  even 
to  unfurnish  some  other  parts  of  the  line  as  he 
passed,  and  advanced  with  great  rapidity  to  join 
in  the  sally  which  Labienus  was  al>out  to  attempt. 
In  his  coming  he  was  known  from  afar  by  the 
conspicuous  dress  which  he  generally  wore  in 
time  of  battle ;  and  his  arrival,  on  this  occasion, 
with  the  reinforcement  which  he  brought,  ureatly 
animated  that  part  of  his  army,  which  had  began 
to  despair  of  the  event.  He  had,  in  this  critical 
moment,  with  his  usual  genius  and  presence  of 
inind,  ordered  his  cavalry  to  get  out  of  the  lines ; 
and,  while  the  foot  were  engaged  in  front,  to  take 
the  enemy  in  flank  or  in  the  rear.  If  the  event 
had  been  otherwise  doubtful,  this  mwement  alone, 
it  is  probable,  must  have  secured  it  in  his  favour. 
The  Gauls,  although  in  the  attack  they  had  acted 
with  ardour ;  yet  Tost  courage  when  pushed  to 
defend  themselves;  and,  upon  the  appearance  of 
Caesar's  cavalry  in  their  rear,  took  to  flight,  and 
were  pursued  with  great  slaughter. 

This  flight  at  once  decided  the  fate  of  both 
attacks ;  of  the  Gauls,  who  were  shut  up  in 
Alesia,  and  of  their  countrymen,  who  had  come 
to  their  relief.  During  the  night,  those  in  the 
field,  discomfited  by  their  repulse,  were  sepa- 
rating, leaving  their  chieftains,  and  dispersing  in 
different  directions.  Many  fell  a  prey  to  the  par- 
ties who  were  sent  in  pursuit  of  them.  Those 
from  within  the  lines,  who  had  suffered  so  long  a 


244 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


blockade,  now  seeii  w  all  their  hopes  of  relief  at 
an  end,  were  no  lor;  'er  disposed  to  contend  with 
their  fate.  Vercing  torix  having  assembled  the 
leaders  together,  told  them,  That,  as  he  had  un- 
dertaken this  war,  not  from  motives  of  private 
ambition,  but  from  an  earnest  desire  to  recover, 
if  he  could,  the  freedom  of  his  country,  so  he  was 
now  ready  to  become  a  sacrifice  to  the  safety  of 
his  countrymen,  and  in  any  manner  they  thought 
proper  to  dispose  of  him,  whether  dead  or  alive, 
was  willing  to  be  made  the  means  of  appeasincr 
the  victor's  revenge. 

At  this  consultation  it  was  determined  to  sur- 
render; and  Vercingetorix  suffered  himself  to  be 
delivered  up.  With  respect  to  the  treatment  he 
received,  Caesar  is  silent ;  but  it  is  probable,  that, 


like  other  captive  chiefs,  on  such  occasions,  he 
was  destined  to  grace  the  future  triumph  of  his 
conqueror;  though,  upon  a  fair  review  of  the 
parts  they  had  severally  acted,  likely  to  furnish  a 
comparison  not  altogether  to  his  advantage,  and 
in  some  respects  fit  to  obscure  his  glory. 

The  other  prisoners  also,  except  those  who  be- 
longed to  the  cantons  of  the  iEdui  and  Arverni, 
underwent  the  ordinary  fate  of  captives ;  and,  in 
this  capacity,  were  exposed  to  sale,  or  divided  as 
plunder  among  the  troops.  Caesar  reserved  the 
prisoners  of  the  iEdui  and  Arverni,  on  this  occa- 
sion, to  serve  him  as  hostages  in  securing  the 
submission  of  their  respective  cantons,  and  in 
obtaining  from  thence  an  immediate  supply  of 
provisions. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Caesar  remains  in  Gaul — Pompey  assumes  Piso  into  the  office  of  Consul — Succession  of  Servius 
Sulpicius  and  M.  Claudius  Marcellus — Arrangement  for  the  Provinces — Motion  to  recall  Cce- 
sar — Continued  Debates  in  the  Senate — Operations  of  Ccesar  in  Gaul — Intrigues  in  the  City — 
Affairs  in  the  other  Provinces — Campaign  of  Cicero — Succession  of  Consuls — State  of  Parties 
in  the  City  and  in  the  Senate — Arrival  of  Cazsar  in  Italy  in  the  Spring — Return  to  Gaul — 
Parts  with  two  Legions  to  Pompey  and  the  Senate — Alarm  of  Ccesar1 s  March —  The  Consul 
Marcellus  commits  his  Sword  to  Pompey. 


THE  seventh  and  the  most  difficult  campaign 
of  the  war  in  Gaul  being  now  at  an  end,  Caesar 
sent  Labienus,  with  two  legions  beyond  the 
Soane  ;*  Caius,  Fabius,  with  two  more,  to  the 
heads  of  the  Marne  and  the  Meuse ;  other  offi- 
cers with  separate  bodies,  amounting  in  all  to 
three  legions,  into  different  stations  beyond  the 
Loire  and  towards  the  Garonne ;  Gtuintus  Tul- 
lius  Cicero,  with  some  other  officers,  to  a  station 
allotted  them  on  the  Soane,  to  superintend  the 
formation  of  magazines  and  the  supply  of  pro- 
visions, which  were  chiefly  transported  by  the 
navigation  of  that  river. 

Caesar  himself  having  now  no  other  object  of 
equal  importance  with  that  of  securing  the  pos- 
session of  a  country  so  populous  and  of  so  great 
extent,  from  which  he  might  draw  such  resources 
of  men  and  of  revenue,  as  must  put  him  on  the 
foot  of  a  great  monarch,  determined  to  pass  the 
winter  on  this  side  of  the  Alps.  He  had  obtained 
a  dispensation  from  the  law  which  excluded  him 
from  the  consulate,  so  long  as  he  retained  his 
army ;  but  as  it  was  not  yet  time  to  avail  himself 
■of  his  privilege,  he  resolved,  by  remaining  at  a 
tlistance,  as  much  as  possible  to  shun  the  notice 
of  such  parties  at  Rome  as  were  known  to  ob- 
serve his  proceedings,  and  to  state  them  as  matter 
of  general  alarm.  He  nevertheless  did  not  suffer 
any  thing  of  moment  to  pass  in  the  city  without 
taking  some  part  by  means  of  his  agents  arid  par- 
tizans,  and  was  continually  employed  in  gaining 
to  his  interests  all  those  who  were  likely  to  come 
into  office,  or  who,  by  their  personal  consideration, 
were  of  any  importance  in  the  state,  and  ever 
strove  to  exclude  from  office  such  as  were  disin- 
clined to  himself,  or  who  could  not  be  gained. 

Pompey  had  now,  for  some  months,  exercised 
*he  office  of  sole  consul.    In  that  time  he  had,  in 


1  The  Arar. 


some  measure,  restored  the  authority  of  govern- 
ment, and  had  exercised  it  with  moderation.  He 
had  shown  himself  qualified  to  act  the  part  of  an 
excellent  prince,  though  ill  qualified  to  endure 
the  equality  which  is  claimed  by  the  citizens  of  a 
commonwealth.  His  continual  desire  of  unpre- 
cedented honours  was  one  of  the  evils  that  dis- 
tressed the  republic.  This  evil,  however,  was 
partly  mitigated  by  the  facility  with  which  he 
parted  with  power.  Having  enjoyed  his  present 
dignity  from  the  first  of  March  to  the  beginning 
of  August,  he  took  for  colleague  his  father-in- 
law  Metellus  Scipio,  suspending  the  prosecution 
under  which  he  then  lay>  for  bribery,  in  soliciting 
votes  at  a  preceding  election. 

The  newly  elected  colleague  of  Pompey,  desir- 
ous to  sigrialize  his  administration  by  some  act  of 
reformation,  moved  and  obtained  the  repeal  of  the 
act  in  which  Clodius  had  so  greatly  circumscribed 
the  power  of  the  censors ;  and  he  attempted  to 
revive  the  authority  of  this  magistracy,  but  in  vain. 
Few  citizens,  now  in  public  view,  could  bear  the 
rigorous  inspection  of  this  once  awful  tribunal,  as 
few  had  the  courage  to  undertake  or  to  exercise 
its  trust.  The  institution  accordingly  had  fallen 
into  disuse,  because  it  was  not  fitted  to  the  times. 
And  there  being  few  of  the  people  that  were  fit 
either  to  censure,  or  that  could  bear  to  be  cen- 
sured, it  was  not  in  the  power  of  laws  to  revive 
what  the  general  sense  and  manners  of  the  age 
had  abolished. 

Disorders  arising  from  the  weakness  of  go- 
vernment had  come  to  that  extreme  at  which 
states  must  either  correct  themselves,  or  undergo 
some  fatal  change.  The  example  of  punish- 
ments inflicted,  and  of  prosecutions  still  carried  on 
against  persons  lately  in  office,  for  the  illegal  me- 
thods employed  at  elections,  deterred  many  from 
offering  themselves  for  any  of  the  offices  of  state ; 
and  the  late  law,  excluding  consuls,  praetors,  and 
other  magistrates  from  any  provincial  appoint- 


Chap.  IV.] 

ments  for  five  years  after  the  expiration  of  their 
term,  removed  one  powerful  motive  by  which 
citizens  were  induced  to  seek  for  such  honours. 

At  the  elections  for  the  ensuing  year  only  three 
candidates  appeared ;  M.  Marcellus,  Servius  Sul- 
picius,  and  M.  Cato:  all  of  them  supposed  to  be 
of  the  senatorian  party  ;  but  very  differently  con- 
sidered by  those  who  now  endeavoured  to  rule  the 
state.  Marcellus  had,  in  fact,  recommended  him- 
self to  Pompey;  and  Sulpicius,  as  afterwards 
appeared,  had  been  gained  by  Caesar ;  and  both 
were  warmly  espoused  by  those  powerful  patrons 
in  the  present  contest  in  opposition  to  Cato, 
whose  success  might  have  proved  a  considerable 
obstruction  to  Caesar's  designs. 

It  is  observed  of  this  competition,  that  it  was 
carried  on  without  bribery  or  tumult.  As  the 
competitors  were  supposed  to  be  all  of  the  sena- 
torian party,  the  senators  thought  their  interest 
secure  whichever  of  the  candidates  should  pre- 
vail. And  as  the  senatorian  party  divided  upon 
the  occasion,  the  influence  of  Caesar  and  Pompey 
easily  cast  the  balance  on  the  side  of  Sulpicius 
and  Marcellus.  Cato,  during  the  competition, 
continued  in  the  same  habits  of  friendship  as 
usual  With  both;  and  when  the  choice  was  de- 
cided in  their  favour,  instead  of  withdrawing 
from  public  view,  as  was  common  under  such 
disappointments,  he  went  to  the  field  of  Mars  as 
usual  from  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  stript 
a'nd  went  to  exercise,  and  continued  from  thence 
forward  to  frequent  the  forum  in  his  common 
undress.  To  those  who  condoled  with  him,  or 
pressed  him  to  continue  his  suit  for  another 
year,  as  he  had  done  when  first  disappointed  of 
the  praetorship,  he  made  answer,  That  he  thought 
it  was  the  part  of  a  good  man  to  undertake  the 

fmblic  service,  whenever  he  was  intrusted  with 
t,  and  to  make  his  willingness  known,  but  not  to 
court  the  public  for  employments  as  a  favour  to 
himself.  "The  people,"  he  said,  "at  the  time 
that  they  refused  me  the  praetorship,  were  under 
actual  violence  :  in  this  case,  they  have  made  a 
free  choice,  and  it  appears  that  I  must  either 
violate  my  own  mind,  or  renounce  their  good- 
will. My  own  mind  is  of  more  consequence  to 
me  than  their  favour;  but,  if  I  retain  my  charac- 
ter, I  shall  not  be  so  unreasonable  as  to  expect 
consideration  from  persons  to  whom  it  is  not 
agreeable."2 

When  the  new  consuls  were  re- 
(J.  C.  702.  ceived  into  office,  their  immediate 
Serv.  Sulpi-  predecessors  being  by  the  late  act 
^Uud^Mar-  Precmded  for  five  years  from  hold- 
ers,' Coss'  ing  any  provincial  government,  it 
became  necessary  to  till  stations  of 
this  sort  with  those  who  had  formerly  been  in 
office,  and  who  hitherto  had  not  been  appointed 
to  any  command  in  the  provinces.  Accordingly 
Bibulus,  who  had  been  the  colleague  of  Caesar  in 
his  consulate,  was  appointed  to  the  government 
of  Syria,  vacant  by  the  death  of  Crassus.  ( licero 
was  named  to  succeed  Appius  Claudius  in  Cilicia 
and  Cyprus,  Accius  Varus  was  appointed  praetor 
in  Africa,  and  P.  Cornelius  Spinther  in  Achaia. 
Pompey,  who  had  hitherto  enjoyed  a  dispensation 
from  the  law,  in  continuing  to  hold  by  his  lieu- 
tenants the  government  and  command  of  the 
army  in  Spain,  while  he  filled  the  office  of  con- 
sul in  the  city,  now  professed  an  intention  to 


245 

take  possession  of  his  province  in  person,  and  ho 
actually  set  out  from  Rome  for  this  purpose  ;  but 
was  induced  to  suspend  his  journey  by  a  motion) 
which  was  made  in  the  senate  by  Marcellus, 
soon  after  his  accession  to  the  office  of  consul. 

Caesar  was  now  in  possession  of  a  very  im- 
portant privilege,  which  entitled  him  to  sue  for 
the  consulate,  without  resigning  the  command 
of  his  army.  His  view  in  coveting  this  privilege ; 
his  continual  augmentation  of  the  troops  in  his 
province ;  his  address  in  attaching  the  army  to 
himself  ?  his  insinuation ;  his  liberality ;  his  as- 
siduity to  gain  every  person  that  could  be  won, 
and  to  preclude  from  power  every  one  likely  to 
oppose  himself:  the  whole  tendency  of  his  con- 
duct, and  the  enormous  power  he  had  acquired, 
began  to  be  observed,  and  gave  a  general  alarm. 
What  Cato  had  so  often  represented  to  no  pur- 
pose, began  to  be  generally  perceived ;  and  per- 
sons, formerly  the  least  attentive  to  the  warnings 
they  received,  would  now  have  been  glad  to  re- 
move Caesar  from  the  post  of  advantage  they  had 
given  him. 

The  greater  part  of  the  senate  had  become  re- 
miss in  their  attendance,  and  regardless  even  of 
their  own  political  interests.  The  few  who  ex- 
erted themselves,  were  distracted  with  personal 
jealousies  and  distrust  of  each  other.  Cicero  in 
particular,  who  before  his  banishment  had  been 
strenuous  on  the  side  of  the  aristocracy,  now 
grown  timorous  from  the  sufferings  he  had  in- 
curred, was  chiefly  attentive  to  his  own  safety, 
which  he  studied  by  paying  his  court  to  the  pre- 
vailing powers.  There  was  no  bar  in  Caesar's 
way,  beside  the  great  consideration  and  the  jea- 
lousy of  Pompey,  who  had  nssisted  him  in  pro- 
curing his  privilege  to  stand  for  the  consulate  in 
absence ;  but  now  saw  its  tendency,  and  wished 
to  recall  it.  It  was  probably,  therefore,  with  the 
approbation  of  Pompey,  though  after  his  depart- 
ure from  Rome,  that  the  consul  Marcellus,  while 
the  senate  was  deliberating  on  the  other  removes 
and  appointments  in  the  provincial  governments, 
proposed  that,  the  war  in  Gaul  being  finished, 
Caesar  should  be  recalled ;  or,  if  his  friends  in- 
sisted on  his  being  continued  in  his  command, 
that  he  should  not  be  admitted  on  the  list  of  can- 
didates for  the  consulate,  until  he  presented  him- 
self personally  fortius  jnirpose. 

This  motion  gave  rise  in  the  senate  to  warm 
debates,  which  were  frequently  adjourned,  and  as 
often  resumed.  The  consul  Sulpicius,  supported 
by  numbers  of  the  tribunes  who  were  in  the  in- 
terest of  CteasSj  opposed  the  proceeding.  Pom- 
pey himself,  under  pretence  that  he  waited  the 
issue  of  these  debates,  stopped  short  in  his  jour- 
ney to  Spain,  passed  some  time  at  Ariminum  in 
reviewing  the  new  levies  which  were  destined  to 
reinforce  the  troops  of  his  province  ;  and  at  last, 
being  summoned  to  attend  the  senate  on  the  fif- 
teenth of  August,  to  consider  of  the  provincial 
arrangements,3  he  returned  to  Rome. 

On  this  day,  Pompey  affected  to  censure  the 
violence  with  which  it  had  l>een  proposed  to  re- 
call, before  the  expiration  of  his  term,  an  officer 
legally  appointed.  He  acknowledged  his  opinion, 
that  Caesar  ought  not  to  unite  the  government  of 
a  province,  and  the  command  of  an  army,  with 
the  dignity  of  consul;  but  dissuaded  the  senate 
from  taking  an  immediate  resolution  on  that 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


2  Plutarch,  in  Canton,  p.  268. 


3  Cicer.  Epist.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  viii.  ep.  4.  In  o 
Cass.  lib.  iv.  c.  58,  59. 


246 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


head.  The  debate  was  adjourned  to  the  first  of 
September.1  Then  no  meeting  of  the  senate 
could  be  formed ;  but  as  soon  as  the  subject  was 
again  resumed,  the  late  consul  Cornelius  Scipio, 
the  father-in-law  to  Pompey,  proposed,  that  on 
the  first  of  March,  when  the  persons  destined  to 
succeed  the  present  consuls  must  have  entered 
on  office,  a  day  should  be  fixed  to  consider  of  the 
province  of  Gaul,  and  moved  that  this  question 
should  be  resumed  in  preference  to  every  other 
business.2  Marcellus  accordingly  prepared,  and 
laid  before  the  senate,  a  decree  for  this  purpose  on 
the  last  of  September.  By  the  first  clause  of  this 
decree,  the  consuls  elected  for  the  following  year 
were  required,  on  the  first  of  March,  to  move  in 
the  senate  the  consideration  of  the  consular  pro- 
vinces, to  admit  no  other  business  to  precede  or  to 
be  joined  with  this,  and  to  suffer  no  interruption 
in  the  meetings  of  the  senate,  even  on  account  of 
the  assemblies  of  the  people.  By  the  same  clause, 
it  was  resolved,  That  the  three  hundred  senators, 
appointed  judges  for  the  year,  might  be  called  off' 
from  their  sittings  in  the  courts  to  attend  the 
senate  on  this  business ;  and  if  it  should  be  ne- 
cessary to  make  any  motion  on  this  subject  in  the 
assemblies  of  the  people  at  large,  or  of  the  Ple- 
beians3 separately,  that  the  consuls  Sulpicius  and 
Marcellus,  the  praetors,  the  tribunes,  or  such  of 
them  as  shall  be  agreed  upon,  should  move  ihe 
people  accordingly. 

To  this  clause  were  prefixed,  in  the  usual  ft  "m, 
the  names  of  twelve  senators,  as  the  author !  or 
movers  of  it. 

By  a  second  clause,  bearing  the  same  names,  a 
caution  was  entered  against  any  obstruction  to  be 
given  in  this  business  by  persons  empowered  to 
control  the  senate's  proceedings ;  and  it  was  re- 
solved, that  whoever  should  put  a  negative  on  this 
decree,  should  be  declared  an  enemy  to  his  coun- 
try; and  that  the  senate,  notwithstanding  any 
such  negative,  should  persist  in  recording  its  own 
decree,  and  in  carrying  its  purpose  into  execution. 
In  the  face  of  this  resolution,  the  tribunes  C. 
Caelius,  L.  Venicius,  P.  Cornelius,  C.  Vibius 
Pansa,  interposed  their  negatives. 

By  another  clause,  the  senate  resolved,  that  on 
the  same  day,  the  case  of  the  armies  of  the  re- 
public should  be  taken  into  consideration,  and  all 
who  claimed  their  dismission,  either  on  account 
of  the  length  of  service,  or  any  other  considera- 
tion, should  be  heard;  and  that  this  likewise 
should  be  entered  as  a  decree  of  the  senate,  not- 
withstanding any  negative  interposed  to  the  con- 
trary. Here  the  tribunes  C.  Caelius  and  C.  Pansa, 
again  forbad  the  decree.  The  last  clause  related 
to  the  mode  of  carrying  into  execution  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Pompeian  law,  with  respect  to  the 
nomination  of  propraetors  to  the  province  of  Ci- 
iicia,  and  the  other  eight  praetorian  provinces; 
and  on  this  clause  likewise,  the  two  last  mention- 
ed tribunes  entered  their  negative.4 

Thus  the  resolutions  of  the  senate,  though  pre- 
served in  their  own  records,  were,  by  the  continual 
interposition  of  the  tribunes,  prevented  from  hav- 
ing any  real  effect.  And  Caesar,  from  the  disputes 
which  had  arisen  on  his  account,  had  sufficient 
warning,  if  this  had  been  necessary,  to  prepare 
himself  for  an  approaching  conflict. "  It  is  indeed, 


1  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  viii.  ep.  9. 

2  Ibid.  3  Ad  Populum  Plebemve  ferrent.  Ibid. 
4  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  viii.  ep.  8. 


likely,  that  though  in  action  the  principal  cha- 
racters of  his  mind  were  decision  and  rapidity, 
yet  no  man  ever  laid  his  designs  more  deep, 
looked  forward  to  consequences  more  remote,  or 
waited  with  more  patience  the  proper  time  for  the 
execution  of  his  purpose.  He  had  now,  by  the 
unremitted  application  of  eight  years,  acquired 
the  advantage,  for  the  sake  of  which  he  had  co- 
veted the  command  in  Gaul ;  he  was  at  the  head 
of  a  numerous  army,  which  he  had  gradually 
augmented  from  two  or  three  legions,  the  esta- 
blishment of  his  province,  to  twelve,  well  inured 
to  service,  and  attached  to  his  person.  He  was 
in  possession  of  a  privilege  to  stand  for  the  con- 
sulate, without  disbanding  his  army;  and  when 
he  should  unite  the  first  civil  and  political  autho- 
rity in  the  state,  with  an  army  at  the  gates  of  the 
capital,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  might  be  con- 
sidered as  sovereign  of  the  empire.  His  apparent 
right  to  the  advantages  he  had  gained  was  such, 
that  the  resolutions  of  the  senate  against  him, 
however  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the 
commonwealth,  might  have  the  semblance  of  in- 
justice, and  were  likely  to  engage  both  his  own 
army  and  the  populace  of  Rome  in  his  quarrel. 
He  himself  prepared  for  the  issue,  by  removing 
every  cause  of  embarrassment  in  his  province, 
and  by  paying  fresh  court  to  the  legions  under 
his  command  with  gratifications  and  bounties. 

He  had  dispersed  or  destroyed  all  the  great 
armies,  which  the  utmost  efforts  of  the  Gaulish 
nations,  in  the  preceding  campaign,  had  been 
able  to  assemble  against  him ;  but  he  had  not 
reconciled  the  spirits  of  that  people,  nor  inured 
them  to  his  government.  He  had  a  plausible 
ground,  therefore,  from  which  to  refute  the  alle- 
gations of  the  senate,  who  proceeded  in  their  re- 
solutions against  him,  on  a  supposition,  that  the 
war  in  his  province  was  ended  ;  and  at  the  same 
time,  had  a  fair  pretence  to  gratify  his  army  with 
the  spoils  of  the  country.  For  these  purposes, 
soon  after  he  had  placed  his  army  in  winter  quar- 
ters, he  had  intelligence,  or  affected  to  believe, 
that  the  war  was  likely  to  break  out  afresh  in 
different  cantons ;  and  under  this  pretence,  took 
occasion  to  carry  his  legions  successively  into  ac- 
tion. Leaving  M.  Antony  to  command  at  Bi- 
bracte5  on  the  right  of  the  Loire,  he  himself,  with 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth  legions,  passed  that  river, 
took  the  canton  of  the  Bituriges  by  surprise, 
plundered  their  habitations,  carried  many  of  the 
people  into  captivity,  and  continued  to  lay  waste 
the  country,  until  they  and  ail  the  neighbouring 
cantons  on  the  left  of  the  Loire,  to  avert  these 
calamities,  surrendered  themselves  at  discretion. 

From  this  expedition,  in  which  he  spent  forty 
days,  he  returned  to  his  quarters,  and  ordered 
the  two  legions,  which  had  been  thus  employed, 
a  gratuity  of  two  hundred  sestertii,  or  about  thirty 
shillings  a  man  to  the  private  soldiers;  and  of 
about  two  thousand  sestertii,  or  sixteen  pounds, 
to  the  centurions.  This  money,  it  is  observed 
by  the  historian,6  was  not  immediately  paid  ;  but 
was  retained  by  Caesar  as  a  pledge  in  his  own 
hands,  or  remained  as  a  debt  due  to  the  army, 
giving  to  every  individual  a  special  interest  in  the 
safety  and  success  of  his  general. 

About  eighteen  days  after  this  first  division  of 
the  army  was  brought  back  to  its  quarters,  other 


5  Afterwards  Augustodunum,  now  Autun. 

6  Hist,  de  Bell.  Gallico. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


247 


two  legions  Were  employed  on  a  like  expedition 
between  the  Loire  and  the  Seine.7  The  inhabit- 
ants of  this  tract  were  to  suffer  military  execu- 
tion, upon  a  complaint  that  they  infested  the 
newly  acquired  subjects  of  Ceesar  beyond  the 
Loire.  He  accordingly  marched  to  protect  his 
new  allies ;  and  being  arrived  in  the  country, 
from  whence  they  were  said  to  be  invaded,  found 
the  supposed  enemy,  by  the  devastations  of  the 
preceding  campaign  which  had  ruined  their  towns 
and  villages,  reduced  to  live  in  temporary  huts, 
in  which  they  withstood  with  difficulty  the  in- 
clemency of  the  season,  and  were  rather  objects 
of  pity  than  of  hostile  resentment.  On  the  ap- 
proach of  the  Romans,  they  fled  to  the  woods, 
where  they  perished  in  great  numbers,  from  the 
effects. of  famine  and  cold.  To  force  them  to  an 
immediate  surrender,  or  to  cut  off  all  hopes  of 
advantage  from  delay,  Caesar  made  a  disposition 
to  prevent  their  having  any  respite  from  their 
present  sufferings.  He  ordered  the  ruins  of 
Genabum8  to  be  repaired  as  a  place  of  arms, 
quartered  his  legions  there,  and  kept  the  horse 
and  light  infantry  in  the  field  to  pursue  the  na- 
tives, to  seize  their  persons,  and  to  multiply  the 
evils  to  which  they  were  exposed.  In  this  ser- 
vice too,  it  was  likely  that  the  army  was  rewarded 
by  the  distribution  of  captives,  the  only  spoils  of 
such  an  enemy,  and  came  to  have  a  demand  on 
Caesar  for  gratuities  equal  to  those  which  had 
been  granted  to  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  legions. 

These  operations  led  on  to  the  spring,  when  a 
more  real  service  took  place  on  the  frontiers  of  the 
low  countries.  From  that  quarter,  the  people  of 
the  Remi9  had  given  information,  that  the  Bello- 
vaci,  or  inhabitants  of  what  is  now  called  the 
Beauvais,  with  other  cantons  on  the  right  of  the 
Oise,  were  actually  arming,  and  meant  to  make 
war  on  the  Romans  and  their  allies. 

On  this  intimation,  Caesar  thought  proper  again 
to  call  forth  the  eleventh  legion  into  service ;  and 
it  is  remarkable  that  this  legion,  though  now  in 
its  eighth  campaign,  is  expressly  said  to  have 
been  thus  employed  out  of  its  turn,  in  order  to 
improve  a  discipline,  in  which,  when  compared 
to  the  other  legions,  they  were  deemed  to  be  still 
defective.  The  eighth  and  ninth  legions,  the 
one  from  the  station  of  Fabius,  and  the  other 
from  that  of  Labienus,  were  ordered  to  join  tinea 
in  the  country  of  the  Suesones,10  near  the  conflu- 
ence of  the  Oise  and  the  Aisne.  With  this  force 
Caesar  passed  the  Oise;  but  arrived  too  late  to 
surprise  his  enemy.  The  Bellovaci,11  with  some 
of  their  neighbours,  apprehending,  from  the  fate 
of  the  nations  on  the  Loire,  that  they  could  not 
rely  for  safety  on  their  innocence,  nor  on  the 
care  which  they  had  taken  to  avoid  giving  offence 
to  the  Romans,  had  taken  arms  for  their  own  se- 
curity, and  had  retired  with  all  their  effects  to  a 
strong  post.  They  had  a  hill  in  their  front,  be- 
yond which  there  lay  a  morass,  and  in  that  situ- 
ation they  thought  themselves  sufficiently  secure 
without  any  artificial  work. 

Caesar  posted  himself  in  their  neighbourhood  ; 
tnd  supposing  that  the  superiority  of  their  num- 
>ers  would  inspire  them  with  confidence,  took 
neasures  to  augment  their  presumption,  and  to 
derive  some  advantage  from  the  errors  they  were 


7  To  the  country  of  the  Carnutcs. 

8  Novy  Orleans. 

9  Hheims.       10  The  Soissons.       11  TheBeauvais 


likely  to  commit,  under  the  effects  of  this  disposi- 
tion. He  affected  unusual  caution,  fortified  his 
camp  with  uncommon  care,  scarcely  ventured 
abroad  to  cover  his  foragers,  and  seemed  to  be  en- 
tirely occupied  in  securing  himself. 

The  enemy,  however,  continued  to  avoid  any 
general  action,  and  were  satisfied  with  the  suc- 
cessful war  they  were  suffered  to  make  on  the 
foraging  parties  which  were  sent  from  the  Roman 
camp.  Being  joined  by  five  hundred  German 
horse,  they  attacked  and  destroyed  the  cavalry, 
which  had  come  to  the  assistance  of  Caesar  from 
the  cantons  of  the  Remi  and  Lingones,12  and  on 
which  he  chiefly  relied  for  covering  the  avenues 
to  his  camp.  By  this  loss  he  might  have  been  in 
a  little  time  reduced  to  great  distress,  or  even 
forced  to  retire,  if  he  had  not  procured  a  speedy 
reinforcement,  by  ordering  Trebonius,  with  the 
two  legions  lately  stationed  at  Genabum,13  and  a 
third  from  Avaricum,i4  to  join  him  without  delay. 

The  Gauls,  on  hearing  of  this  great  accession 
of  strength  to  their  enemy,  and  recollecting  the 
fatal  blockade  and  ruin  of  their  countrymen  at 
Alesia,  determined  to  change  their  ground.  They 
began  to  execute  this  resolution  in  the  night,  by 
removing  their  sick,  wounded,  and  baggage ;  but 
had  made  so  little  progress  at  break  of  day,  that 
their  intention  was  discovered,  and  Caesar,  be- 
fore they  began  their  march,  had  time  to  pass  the 
morass,  and  to  take  possession  of  the  rising  ground 
in  their  front.  This  he  did  with  the  greatest  de- 
spatch; and  though  he  did  not  think  it  expedient 
to  attack  them  in  their  present  position,  he  had  it 
in  his  power  to  take  advantage  of  any  movement 
they  should  make,  and  continued  to  awe  them 
and  to  keep  them  in  suspense. 

The  Gauls,  therefore,  instead  of  being  able  to 
depart,  as  they  expected  before  day-light,  were 
obliged  to  continue  to  front  the  enemy,  in  order 
to  cover  the  retreat  of  their  baggage.  They  still 
flattered  themselves,  that  Caesar  before  night 
would  be  obliged  to  retire  to  his  camp ;  but  ob- 
serving, that  while  the  greater  part  of  his  army 
continued  in  readiness  for  action,  he  began  to 
entrench  himself  where  he  stood,  they  bethought 
themselves  of  a  stratagem  to  elude  his  design. 
They  brought  forward  the  wood  and  straw, 
which  remained,  as  usual,  on  the  ground  of  their 
late  encampment,  laid  them  in  a  continual  train 
along  the  front,  and  having  set  them  on  fire, 
produced  such  a  line  of  smoke,  as  darkened  the 
whole  fields  between  the  two  armies.  Under 
this  cover,  they  begin  their  retreat,  and  before 
Caesar  could  venture  to  penetrate  the  cloud  of 
smoke  in  pursuit  of  them,  had  gained  a  consider- 
able distance.  On  the  first  sight  of  this  uncom- 
mon appearance,  he  suspected  their  design,  and 
began  to  advance;  but  the  precautions,  which  he 
was  obliged  to  take,  in  order  to  guard  against  an 
ambuscade  or  surprise,  nave  the  Gauls  the  time 
they  wanted  to  effect  the  first  part  of  their  retreat 
undisturbed. 

Before  night  they  halted  again,  about  ten  miles 
from  their  former  station,  and  recurred  to  the 
same  means  they  had  hitherto  employed  to  dis- 
tress the  Roman  army.  They  succeeded  in  most 
of  their  attempts  on  the  parties  that  were  sent 
abroad  by  <  icesar  to  procure  him  provisions;  and 
having  reduced  him  to  the  necessity  of  depending 
entirely  for  the  subsistence  of  his  army  on  what 


1-2  Rheinis  and  Langres.    13  Orleans.    11  Bourses. 


248 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


a  particular  district  could  supply,  they  formed  a 
design,  with  the  choice  of  their  army,  to  surround 
and  cut  off  the  parties,  which  they  expected  he 
must  employ  on  that  service.  Caesar  had  intelli- 
gence of  their  design,  and  prepared,  in  his  turn, 
to  counteract  them.  He  placed  his  army  in  a 
proper  position  to  surprise  the  great  detachment 
they  had  made ;  and  having  thus  taken  or  de- 
stroyed the  flower  of  their  army,  obliged  the  re- 
mainder, who  were  thrown  into  despair  by  so 
great  a  loss,  to  surrender  themselves  at  discre- 
tion ;  in  consequence  of  this  surrender,  he  got 
possession  of  all  the  cantons  in  that  neighbour- 
hood. 

The  Belgic  nations  being  thus  finally  subdued, 
and  Csesar  having  no  longer  any  enemy  to  oppose 
him  in  the  field,  except  a  few  desperate  bands 
from  different  parts  of  the  country,  who,  either 
from  fear  of  his  severity,  or  aversion  to  his  go- 
vernment, had  deserted  their  settlements,  he  de- 
termined to  act  against  them  in  different  quarters 
at  once,  and  to  cut  off  the  retreats,  whicb>  in  case 
of  distress,  this  remnant  of  the  nations  who  lately 
opposed  him  mutually  gave  to  each  other.  He  sent 
C.  Fabius,  with  twenty-five  cohorts,, to  act  on  the 
left  of  the  Loire ;  the  twelfth  legion  towards  the 
sources  of  the  Garonne,  with  orders  to  cover  the 
approaches  to  Narbonne  from  the  incursions  of 
any  stragglers,  whom  his  intended  severities 
might  force  upon  desperate  attempts  on  that  side. 
He  himself,  with  Labienus  and  Mark  Antony, 
proceeded  to  the  Meuse,  where  the  territories  of 
the  late  unfortunate  Ambiorix,1  beginning  to  be 
re-peopled,  and  the  nation  reinstated  under  its 
former  leader,  were  become  again  the  object  of 
his  vengeance.  To  convince  this  unhappy  peo- 
ple, that  they  were  not  to  enjoy  peace  under  the 
government  of  a  prince  who  had  presumed  to 
circumvent  and  to  destroy  a  part  of  the  Roman 
army,  he  renewed  his  military  execution  against 
them,  issuing  his  orders,  as  in  the  former  instance, 
to  spare  neither  sex  nor  age. 

While  Csesar  himself  was  employed  in  this 
manner,  C.  Fabius  being  arrived  at  the  place  of 
his  destination,  between  the  lower  parts  of  the 
Loire  and  the  Garonne,  found  a  considerable 
force  in  arms  against  Caninius  Rebilus,  the  Ro- 
man officer,  who  was  stationed  in  that  quarter. 
The  natives  had  laid  siege  to  a  fortress  that  was 
in  possession  of  the  Romans  ;  but  alarmed  by  the 
approach  of  Fabius,  they  withdrew,  and  endea- 
voured to  pass  the  Loire  to  the  northward.  In 
this  attempt,  being  intercepted  in  their  march, 
and  obliged  to  fight  the  Roman  detachment,  they 
were  defeated  with  great  slaughter.  After  this 
calamity,  about  five  hundred,  who  escaped  from 
the  field  under  Drapes,  a  prince  of  that  country, 
formerly  distinguished  in  the  war  against  the 
Romans,  took  their  flight  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  proposed  to  attack  the  Roman  province  of 
Narbonne,  in  order  to  compensate  their  losses 
with  its  spoils. 

Fabius  in  consequence  of  his  victory,  received 
the  submission  of  all  the  nations  from  the  Loire 
to  the  Seine,  and  quite  down  to  the  sea  coast ; 
and  having  taken  measures  to  secure  his  con- 
quest, followed  Drapes  to  the  southward,  over- 
took him  beyond  the  Garonne,  and  obliged  him, 
being  no  longer  in  condition  to  make  any  attempt 
on  the  Roman  province,  to  take  refuge  at  Uxello- 

1  Now  Liege,  Juliers,  and  Guelderiand. 


dunum,2  a  place  of  strength,  situated  on  a  steep 
rock,  at  the  confluence  of  some  of  those  streams, 
which,  falling  from  the  Cevennes,  form  the  Ga- 
ronne by  their  junction. 

Here  Caninius  and  Fabius  having  joined  their 
forces  together,  made  dispositions  to  invest  their 
enemy ;  but  before  their  works  were  completed, 
Drapes,  while  he  had  yet  access  to  the  fields, 
willing  to  spare  the  magazines  which  he  had 
made  up  in  the  town,  ventured  abroad  with  a  de- 
tachment, at  the  head  of  which  he  was  surprised 
and  taken.  The  natives,  however,  who  remained 
in  the  place,  being  supplied  for  a  considerable 
time  with  provisions,  resolved  on  a  vigorou?  de- 
fence ;  and,  by  keeping  the  Roman  army  for 
some  time  at  bay,  began  to  raise  up  anew  the 
hopes  and  expectations  of  the  nations  around 
them.  Caesar  thought  the  reduction  of  this  place 
an  object  that  required  his  own  presence.  Having 
therefore  sent  Labienus  to  the  Moselle,  and 
having  left  M.  Antony  to  command  in  the  low 
countries,  he  himself,  with  his  usual  despatch, 
crossed  great  part  of  Gaul,  and  appeared  on  the 
Garonne,  equally  unexpected  by  his  own  people, 
and  by  the  enemy  who  were  besieged  in  the  town 
of  Uxellodunum. 

The  place  being  strong  by  nature,  and  in  no 
want  of  provisions,  could  be  forced  only  by  cutting 
off  its  access  to  water.  For  this  purpose  Caesar 
lined  the  banks  of  the  river  with  archers  and 
slingers,  and  effectually  prevented  the  besieged 
from  supplying  themselves  from  thence.  He 
proceeded  next  to  exclude  them  from  the  use  of  a 
spring  which  burst  from  the  rock  in  the  approach 
to  their  town  ;  for  having  got  the  command  of 
the  ground,  he  pushed  a  mine  to  the  source  from 
which  the  water  came,  diverted  it  from  its  former 
direction,  and,  by  depriving  the  besiegers  of  this 
last  resource,  obliged  them  to  lay  down  theix 
arms  and  trust  to  his  mercy.  In  this,  however, 
they  experienced  what  the  author,3  from  whom 
these  accounts  are  taken,  considered  as  more  than 
the  usual  severity  of  ancient  war.  Caasar,  ac- 
cording to  this  historian,  having  given  proof  of 
his  clemency,  bethought  himself  now  of  an  ex- 
ample of  justice;  and  for  this  purpose  ordered 
such  as  had  carried  arms  in  defence  of  Uxello- 
dunum to  have  their  hands  struck  off.4  And 
this  refined  act  of  cruelty  being  joined  to  the 
many  barbarous  executions  with  which  the  con- 
quest of  that  country  had  been  achieved,  thus 
ended  the  war  in  Gaul., 

The  usual  time  of  putting  the  troops  into  win- 
ter quarters  not  being  arrived,  Caesar  thought 
proper  to  visit  the  nations  upon  the  Adour,  or 
what  is  now  called  Gascony  ;5  the  only  part  of 
his  new  conquests  in  the  acquisition  of  which  he 
had  not  acted  in  person.  He  marched  through 
this  country  at  the  head  of  two  legions,  and  was 
every  where  received  with  the  most,  perfect  sub- 
mission. From  thence  he  repaired  to  Narbonne, 
the  capital  of  his  original  province,  held  the  usual 
meetings  for  the  despatch  of  civil  affairs,  and 
made  a  disposition  for  the  quarters  of  his  army 
during  the  winter.    By  this  disposition  two  le- 


2  Supposed  to  be  Cadenau. 

3  Hist,  de  Bell.  Gall,  lib  viii.  c.  44. 

4  Caesar  quum  suam  lenitatem  cognitam  omnibus 
sciret. — Omnibus  qui  anna  tulerant  manus  precidit. 
Vitam  concessit  quo  testator  esset  poena  improborum 
De  Boll  Gall.  lib.  viii.  c.44. 

5  Aquitania. 


Chap.  IV.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


24!) 


gions  were  stationed  in  the  high  country,  from 
which  spring  the  Garonne  and  the  Loire,  or  in 
the  territories  of  the  Limovaci  and  Arverni;6 
two  at  Bibracte.  between  the  Soarie  and  the 
Loire ;  two  between  the  Loire  and  the  Seine 
and  the  remaining  four  under  the  command  of 
Trebonius,  Vatinius",  and  GLuintus  Tullius  Ci- 
cero, in  different  parts  of  the  low  countries.  To 
this  extremity  of  his  new  conquests  he  himself 
repaired,  and  fixed  his  quarters  at  Nemetocenna,8 
in  the  centre  of  his  northern  stations. 

By  this  distribution  of  his  army,  Csesar  formed 
a  kind  of  chain  from  the  frontier  of  his  original 
province,  quite  through  the  heart  of  his  new  acqui- 
sitions to  the  Meuse  and  the  Scheld.  And  by  his 
seeming  anxiety  for  the  safety  of  the  northern 
extremities  of  his  province,  and  still  more  by  his 
own  distance  from  Italy,  he  probably  lulled  for  a 
while  the  vigilance  or  jealousy  of  his  principal 
opponents  at  Rome.  His  own  attention,  how- 
ever, to  the  state  of  politics  was  never  less  re- 
mitted, 

Mark  Antony,  a  person  profligate  and  dissi- 
pated, but  when  the  occasion  required  exertion, 
daring  and  eloquent,  destined  to  be  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  sequel  of  this  history,  now  be- 
gan to  be  employed  by  Caesar  in  the  affairs  of  the 
city;  and,  under  pretence  of  standing  for  the 
priesthood,  was  sent  from  Gaul,  where  he  had 
recently  served  in  the  army,  to  bear  a  principal 
part  among  the  agents  and  emissaries  of  his  gene- 
ral. These  agents  were  continually  busied  in 
magnifying  his  services,  and  in  gaining  to  his  in- 
terest every  person  of  consideration  who  could 
In  any  degree  advance  or  obstruct  his  designs. 
In  the  conquest  of  Gaul,  they  alleged  that  he 
added  to  the  patrimony  of  the  Roman  people  a 
territory  of  no  less  than  three  thousand  miles  in 
circumference,  and  a  revenue  of  forty  millions 
Roman  money.9  They  took  care  at  the  same 
time,  in  his  name  and  by  his  directions,  under 
the  pious  pretence  of  celebrating  the  memory  of 
his  daughter,  the  late  wife  of  Pompey,  to  cajole 
the  people  with  public  entertainments  and  feasts  ; 
anil  proceeded  to  execute,  at  a  great  expense,  the 
splendid  works  which  Caesar  had  formerly  or- 
dered. 

He  himself  at  the  same  time,  was  careful  to 
secure  the  affections  of  the  army  ;  doubled  their 
pay,  and  was  lavish  in  all  the  other  articles 
which  were  derived  from  his  bounty.  Besides 
his  occasional  liberality  to  the  legions  in  time  of 
the  war,  he  gave,  or  engaged  himself  to  pay,  to 
each  particular  soldier,  what  to  persons  of  that 
condition  was  a  considerable  object.  In  the  city 
he  even  entered  into  the  secrets  of  every  family, 
and,  as  has  been  mentioned,  gained  the  master 
by  courting  the  mistress  or  favourite  slave.  His 
purse  was  ever  open  to  gratify  the  covetous  with 
presents,  to  relieve  the  necessitous,  and  to  silence 
the  creditors  of  those  who  were  oppressed  with 
debt.  He  encouraged  the  prodigal  to  squander 
their  patrimonies,  and  freely  lent  them  the  aids 
which  their  extravagance  rendered  necessary  to 
them.  He  kept  a  correspondence  at  the  same 
time  with  dependant  and  foreign  princes;  and 
took  upon  him  the  protection  of  provincial  towns, 

^  6  Limoges  and  Auvergne.  7  At  Tours  and 

Chartres.  8  "Supposed  to  be  Arras. 

9  Plutarch  in  Vit.  Catonis,  p.  268.  Sueton.  in  Jul. 
r«Rs.  c.  25.  Between  about  three  and  four  hundred 
thousand  pounds. 

•2  I 


in  order  to  secure  their  affection  and  their  con- 
fidence,10 

While  Csesar  was  thus  extending  his  influence 
in  the  empire,  he  had  amused  Pompey  by  as- 
signing to  him,  in  all  their  arrangements,  what 
was  apparently  the  place  of  honour  and  of  import- 
ance at  the  head  of  affairs  at  Rome  ;  as  he  had 
gratified  Crass  us  likewise  by  leaving  him  to 
choose  the  most  lucrative  government,  while  he 
himself  submitted  to  be  employed  as  a  mere  pro- 
vincial officer,  to  explore  a  barbarous  country, 
and  to  make  war  with  its  natives.  But  by  thus 
yielding  the  supposed  preference  of  station  to  his 
rivals,  he  actually  employed  them  as  the  willing 
tools  and  ministers  of  his  own  ambition.  The 
former,  with  all  his  disposition  to  emulation  and 
jealousy,  and  perhaps  for  some  time  the  dupe  of 
these  artifices,  imagined  that  Csesar  advanced  by 
his  permission,  and  that  the  present  state  of  par- 
ties was  the  fruit  of  his  own  address.  As  he 
himself,  for  the  most  part,  endeavoured  to  obtain 
his  ends  by  means  indirect  and  artificial,  he  was 
the  more  easily  duped  by  those  who  affected  to 
be  deceived  by  him,  and  who  were  able  to  over- 
reach him.  Although  it  was  impossible  for  him 
now  to  remain  any  longer  insensible  to  the  supe- 
riority which  Caesar  had  acquired,  or  to  those 
still  more  important  objects  at  which  he  wus 
aiming,  yet  he  had  not  hitherto  taken  his  part 
openly  nor  directly  against  him,  but  contented 
himself  with  employing  others  in  ill-concerted 
and  ineffectual  attacks,  which  he  sometimes  dis- 
owned, and  always  feebly  supported.  At  last, 
and  in  the  prosecution  of  the  measures  of  which 
we  have  observed  the  beginning  in  the  senate,  he 
hazarded  the  whole  authority  of  that  body  against 
Caesar,  without  having  provided  any  military 
power  to  enforce  their  commands. 

Pompey  himself,  while  most  under  the  in- 
fluence' of  ambition,  and  when  he  had  it  most  in 
his  power  to  trample  on  the  civil  constitution  of 
his  country,  had  shown  a  respect  for  the  com- 
monwealth, which  kept  him  within  bounds  that 
were  consistent  with  this  species  of  government ; 
and  he  imagined  that  no  man  could  presume  to 
surpass  himself  in  pretensions  to  rise  alwve  the 
ordinary  level.  In  the  course  of  debates  relating 
to  the  present  state  of  affairs,  he  generally  spoke 
ambiguously,  or  affected  to  disbelieve  the  designs 
that  were  imputed  to  Caesar ;  but  finding,  on  the 
last  motion  which  was  made  to  recall  him  from 
Gaul,  that  the  eyes  of  the  whole  senate  were 
turned  upon  himself,  he  was  forced  to  break  si- 
lence \  and,  with  some  degree  of  embarrassment, 
said,  that  although  it  was  his  opinion,  that  the 
proconsul  of  Gaul  could  not,  in  consistence  with 
justice,  be  instantly  recalled,  yet  that  after  the 
first  of  March  he  should  have  no  difficulties  on 
the  subject.  "  But,"  says  one  of  the  senators, 
"  what  if  this  motion  should  then  have  a  nega- 
tive put  upon  it?"  "1  shall  make  no  distinc- 
tion," replied  Pompey,  "between  Caesar's  refusing 
to  obey  the  order  of  the  senate,  and  his  procuring 
some  one  here  to  forbid  that  order."  "  But  what 
if  he  persist  in  demanding  the  consulate  while  he 
retains  his  province  and  his  army  1"  "  What," 
replied  Pompey,  "if  my  own  child  should  offer 
me  violence 

After  the  attempt  which  had  been  made  to  fix 


10  Sueton.  in  Jul.  Caes.  c.  26.  27.  28. 

11  Cicer.  Epist.  ad  Fannliares,  lib.  viii.  cp.  8. 


250 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV 


the  question  of  Caesar's  recall  for  the  first  of 
March,  Pompey  being  at  Naples,  was  taken  ill, 
and  supposed  to  be  in  danger.  His  recovery 
gave  a  general  satisfaction,  of  which  he  had  after- 
wards very  flattering  proofs  in  his  progress 
through  Italy.  He  was  every  where  met  by 
processions,  found  the  ways  strowed  before  him 
with  flowers,  and  was  received  by  multitudes, 
who  appeared  to  be  frantic  with  joy  for  the  re- 
turn of  his  health. 

Whatever  part  Pompey  himself  or  his  emissa- 
ries may  have  had  in  procuring  these  demonstra- 
tions of  respect  and  affection,  it  is  probable  he 
was  highly  flattered  with  them,  and  either  mis- 
took them  himself,  or  hoped  that  others  should 
mistake  them,  as  the  proofs  of  a  consideration  and 
power  which  no  attempt  of  his  rival  could  overset 
or  impair. 

The  principal  attention  of  all  parties,  during 
this  summer  and  autumn,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned, had  been  turned  to  the  affairs  of  Caesar, 
and  the  dangerous  tendency  of  the  course  he  pur- 
sued :  and  they  were  bv_t  for  a  little  while  diverted 
from  this  object  by  an  alarm  on  the  side  of  Syria. 
The  Parthians,  encouraged  by  their  late  success 
against  Crassus,  passed  the  Euphrates  with  a 
great  army,  commanded  by  Pacorus,  son  to 
Orodes,  under  the  direction  of  Osaces,  a  veteran 
and  experienced  leader.  They  had,  during  the 
preceding  winter,  made  an  alliance  with  the 
king  of  Armenia,  and  were  to  be  joined  by  his 
forces  in  this  invasion.  The  disaster  of  Crassus 
had  rendered  the  Parthian  name  terrible  at  Rome ; 
and  this  intelligence  struck  a  momentary  panic 
in  the  city,  as  if  an  enemy  were  already  at  the 
gates.  Some  proposed  to  give  Pompey  the  com- 
mand in  Syria;  some  to  send  Caesar  thither; 
and  others,  to  send  both  the  present  consuls  to 
the  army  with  a  proper  reinforcement..1 

But  before  these  measures  could  be  determined, 
or  before  any  reinforcement  could  be  ready  to 
join  the  army  in  Syria,  the  people  were  relieved 
of  their  fears  by  Caius  Cassius,  the  general  then 
commanding  in  that  province,  who  had  obliged 
the  Parthians  to  withdraw  from  Antioch ;  in  their 
retreat  attacked  them,  and  made  great  slaughter. 
Osaces  in  that  action  received  some  wounds,,  of 
which,,  in  a  few  days  afterwards,  he  died,  and  the 
Parthian  army  continued  in  their  retreat  during 
the  following  year  beyond  the  Euphrates ;  sen- 
sible, in  their  turn,  that  a  war  carried  over  the 
wastes  of  that  desolated  frontier  might  be  ruinous 
to  any  power  by  which  it  was  attempted. 

Bibulus,  the  present  proconsul  of  Syria,  soon 
after  the  retreat  of  the  Parthians,  arrived  in  his 
province,  and,  according  to  the  established  prac- 
tice of  the  Romans,  laid  his  pretensions  to  a 
triumph  for  the  victory  which,  under  his  aus- 
pices, though  before  his  arrival,  had  been  obtained 
by  his  lieutenant. 

This  invasion  of  Syria,  as  well  as  some  dis- 
turbances in  his  own  province,  furnished  Cicero, 
at  the  same  time,  with  the  occasion  of  some 
military  operations,  of  which  we  have  a  particu- 
lar account,  in  his  letters,  and  which,  though  not 
material  to  the  military  history  of  the  times,  are 
not  unworthy  of  notice,  as  they  relate  to  this 
eminent  personage.  He  had  taken  possession  of 
his  command  in  Cilicia,  and  however  better  fitted 
by  his  habits  for  the  forum  and  the  political  as- 


semblies at  Rome  than  for  the  field,  possessed 
abilities  to  qualify  him  for  any  station,  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  an  army,  and  prepared  for  the 
defence  of  his  province.  He  had  set  out  from  Rome 
in  May ;  and  having  had  a  conference  with  Pom- 
pey at  Tarentum,.  arrived  at  Brundusium  on  the 
twenty -first  of  that  month.2 

The  military  establishment  of  Cilicia  being  no 
more  than  twelve  thousand  foot  and  two  thou- 
sand horse,  Cicero  applied  for  an  augmentation 
of  it,  and  on  the  fourth  of  June  was  still  at 
Brundusium,  waiting  for  an  answer  to  this  ap- 
plication. But  finding  that  his  request,  having 
been  opposed  by  the  consul  Sulpicius,3  was  un- 
successful, he  set  sail  from  that  place,  arrived  at 
Actium  on  the  fifteenth  of  that  month,  and, 
passing  through  Athens,  reached  his  province  on 
the  last  of  July.  Here  he  found  the  troops,  in 
consequence  of  a  mutiny  which  had  recently 
broke  out  among  themr  separated  from  their  offi- 
cers, dispersed  in  places  of  their  own  choosing, 
the  men  of  entire  cohorts  absent  from  their 
colours,,  and  considering  themselves  as  exempt 
from  any  authority  or  government  whatever. 
Trusting  to  the  respect  that  was  due  to  the  name 
and  commission  of  proconsul,  he  ordered  M. 
Annius,  one  of  his  lieutenants,  to  assemble  as 
many  as  he  could  of  the  mutinous  troops,  and  to 
encamp  at  Iconium  in  Licaonia.  There  he  joined 
them  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  August ;  and  having 
intelligence  of  the  Parthian  invasion,  took  mea- 
sures Tor  the  security  of  his  province  ;  marched, 
without  loss  of  time,  to  Cybistra,  on  the  frontier 
of  Cappadocia;  took  under  his  protection  the 
king  Ariobarzanes,  who  was  then  threatened  by 
a  powerful  faction  in  his  own  kingdom,  and  by 
receiving  him  as  a  prince  in  alliance  with  the 
Romans,  dispelled  the  storm  that  had  been  ga- 
thered against  him.  He  accepted,  at  the  same 
time,  of  the  offer  that  was  made  by  Dejotarus,  to 
join  him  with  all  his  forces ;  and  being  in  this 
situation  when  he  received  accounts  that  the 
Parthians  had  presented  themselves  before  An- 
tioch, he  supposed  that  his  presence  might  be 
wanted  to  cover  his  own  frontier  on  the  side  of 
Syria.  He  accordingly  moved  to  that  quarter,  in 
order  to  secure  the  passes  of  the  mountains. 
Here,  however,  he  learnt,  that  the  storm  had 
blown  over  ;  that  the  enemy  had  retired,  and  had 
sustained  a  considerable  loss  in  their  retreat  ;.  and 
that  Bibulus  was  then  at  Antioch.  This  intel- 
ligence he  communicated  to  Dejotarus,  intimat- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  that  his  assistance  was  no 
longer  necessary. 

The  province  of  Cilicia  had  been  for  some 
years  subject  to  the  Romans  ;  but  the  inhabitants 
of  the  mountainous  parts  had  never  acknow- 
ledged their  authority,  nor  even  that  of  their  own 
national  sovereigns.  Cicero,  on  his  arrival  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  their  country,  finding  that  the 
people  had  retired  to  their  strong  holds,  and  were 
still  determined  to  oppose  his  authority,  formed  a 
design  to  surprise  them  r  and,  for  the  better  exe- 
cution of  his  project,  made  a  feint  to  withdraw  to 
Epiphania,  where  he  halted  for  a  day,  as  if  to  re- 
fresh his  troops.  On  the  day  following,  which 
was  the  eleventh  of  October,  in  the  evening,  he 
put  his  army  again  in  motion  towards  the  moun- 
tains, and  before  morning  arrived  in  the  midst  of 
his  enemies,  who  by  this  time  had  returned  to 


J  Cicer.  Epist.  ad  Familiares.  lib.  viii.  ep.  10. 


2  Cicero  art  Familiar,  lib.  iii.  ep.  3. 


3  Ibid, 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


251 


their  usual  habitations ;  cut  them  off  separately, 
pursued  such  as  fled,  forced  their  strong  holds, 
and  in  about  sixty  days  reduced  some  towns  and 
a  considerable  tract  of  country,  which  had  never 
before  acknowledged  the  Roman  government 

The  troops,  on  this  occasion,  saluted  Cicero 
with  the  title  of  imperator  5  which,  being  usually 
given  to  victorious  leaders,4  was  commonly  un- 
derstood as  the  suffrage  of  the  army  for  obtaining 
a  triumph.  He  himself,  accordingly,  on  this  cir- 
cumstance, together  with  the  service  which  gave 
occasion  to  it,  afterwards  grounded  his  claim  of 
that  honour.  This  claim  he  scarcely  seems  to 
have  seriously  entertained ;  he  even  treats  it  as  a 
jest  in  some  of  his  letters;  yet  the  triumph  being 
in  these  latter  times  considered  rather  as  the 
means  of  acquiring  a  certain  rank  in  the  com- 
monwealth, than  as  the  just  reward  of  military 
merit,  he  submitted  his  claim  to  the  senate,  and 
urged  his  friends  to  support  it.  His  conduct  as 
governor  of  a  province,  at  a  time  when  this  sta- 
tion was  supposed  to  give  a  license  to  every  spe- 
cies of  rapine  and  oppression,  did  honour  to  his 
own  disposition,  and  to  those  literary  studies,  in 
which  he  was  taught  to  choose  the  objects  of  his 
ambition  and  his  habits  of  life.  In  this  character 
he  declined,  both  for  himself  and  for  his  attend- 
ants, all  those  presents,  contributions,  and  even 
supplies  of  provisions,  of  which  custom  or  law 
had  authorised  the  Roman  governors,  in  passing 
through  the  provinces,  to  avail  themselves.  In 
his  command  he  distinguished  himself  by  his 
humanity,  condescension,  and  disinterestedness ; 
was  easy  of  access  and  hospital' ^;  open,  in  par- 
ticular to  all  persons  of  literary  merit  and  in- 
genuity, whom  he  entertained  without  ostenta- 
tion. In  such  situations  other  Roman  generals, 
though  of  great  merit,  indulged  themselves  in 
what  was  the  custom  of  their  times  ;  they  drained 
ike  provinces  to  accumulate  their  own  fortunes, 
or  placed  their  money  there  at  extravagant  in- 
terest He  was  governed  by  different  maxims, 
and  wished  to  rise  above  his  contemporaries  by 
the  fame  of  his  disinterestedness,  as  well  as  of  his 
ingenuity  and  civil  accomplishments.  Other 
citizens  might  possess  greater  steadiness,  and 
force  or  elevation  of  mind ;  but  his  fine  genius, 
his  talents,  and  fair  disposition,  of  which  his 
weakness  indeed  often  prevented  the  full  effect, 
still  rendered  him  an  important  acquisition  to 
either  of  the  parties  in  the  commonwealth.  And 
as  they  endeavoured  to  gain,  so  they  even  seemed 
to  acquire,  his  support  in  their  turns. 

Whilst  the  affairs  of  the  respective  provinces 
were  thus  administered  by  the  commanders  to 
whom  they  were  intrusted,  the  usual  time  of 
elections  at  Rome  being  arrived,  L.  .flSmilius 
Paulus,  and  C.  Claudius  Marcellus  were  elected 
to  succeed  to  the  consulate  for  the  following  year. 
Soon  after  these  elections  attempts  were  made, 
though  without  effect,  to  carry  into  execution 
some  of  the  regulations  devised  by  Pompey,  in 
his  late  administrations,  to  check  the  corruption 
of  the  times.  Calidius  had  been  engaged  in  the 
'last  competition,  and  immediately  upon  his  disap- 
pointment was  brought  to  trial  for  illegal  means 
employed  in  his  canvass.  He  was  acquitted ;  and, 
in  resentment,  retorted  the  charge  on  Marcellus, 
in  order,  if  possible,  to  annul  his  election ;  but 
failed  in  the  attempt 


4  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xv.  ep.  4. 


Of  those  who  were  now  elected  consuls,  Caius 
Marcellus,  as  well  as  his  relation  and  immediate 
predecessor  Marcus  Marcellus,  was  understood 
to  be  in  the  interest  of  Pompey.  .^Emilius  Pau- 
lus, a  senator  of  rank,  and  of  course  interested  in 
the  preservation  of  the  republic,  the  honours  of 
which  he  was  so  well  entitled  to  share,  was  ex- 
pected to  support  the  measures  of  the  senate,  and 
adhere  to  the  established  forms.  Together  with 
internal  tranquillity,  the  government  seemed  to 
recover  its  ancient  severity.  Appius  Claudius, 
late  proconsul  of  Cilicia,  and  Calpurnius  Piso 
were  chosen  censors,  and  appeared  to  have  au- 
thority enough  to  carry  into  execution  the  pow- 
ers lately  restored  to  this  office  by  the  ordinance 
of  Seipio.  It  was  expected  that  these  censors 
would  hold  an  even  balance  between  the  factions. 
Appius  favoured  Pompey,  and  Piso,  from  his  re- 
lation of  father-in-law  to  Caesar,  was  necessarily 
disposed  to  check  the  partiality  of  his  colleague. 
The  hopes  of  the  senate  were  likewise  consider- 
ably raised  by  the  unexpected  nomination  of 
Caius  Scribonius  Curio  to  be  one  of  the  tribunes. 
Servius  Pola,  after  being  elected  into  this  office, 
had  been  convicted  of  bribery,  the  election  was  set 
aside,  and  Curio  substituted  in  his  place.  This 
young  man  was  of  an  honourable  family;  and 
possessing  talents  which  qualified  him  for  the 
highest  preferments,  naturally  set  out  on  a  foot  of 
independence,  and  joined  those  who  were  for 
maintaining  the  freedom  of  the  common  wealth, 
and  their  own  equal  pretensions  to  honour  and 
power.  Being  active  and  bold,  as  well  as  elo- 
quent, the  senators  were  fond  of  a  partizan  who 
was  likely  to  take  upon  himself  much  of  that  fa- 
tigue and  danger  which  many  of  them  were  wil- 
ling, even  where  their  own  estates  and  dignities 
were  concerned,  to  devolve  upon  others. 

The  new  magistrates  accordingly  entered  on 
office  with  high  expectations  that 
U.  C.  703.  the  dangerous  pretensions  of  ambi- 
L.  JEmilius  tipus  *****  particularly  those  of 
Paulus,  and  Caesar,  would  be  effectually  check- 
C.  Ciaudiut  ed.  The  consuls  were  possessed 
Marcellus.  0f  a  resolution  of  the  senate,  re- 
quiring them  to  proceed  to  the  busi- 
ness of  Caesar's  province  by  the  first  of  March. 
This  resolution  wanted  only  the  consent  of  the 
tribunes  to  render  it  a  formal  act  of  the  executive 
power,  of  which  this  branch  was  by  the  constitu- 
tion lodged  in  the  senate.  But  one  of  the  tri- 
bunes having  forbid  the  decree,  M.  Marcellus, 
late  consul,  moved  that  application  might  be 
made  to  this  officer  to  withdraw  the  negative, 
which  prevented  the  effect  of  what  the  senate 
had  resolved.  But  the  motion  was  rejected  by  a 
majority6  of  the  senate  itself ;  and  many  other 
symptoms  of  Caesar's  great  influence,  even  over 
this  order  of  men,  soon  after  appeared. 

This  able  politician,  probably  that  he  might 
not  seem  to  have  any  views  upon  Italy,  had  fixed 
his  quarters,  and  that  of  his  army,  in  the  low 
countries,  and  at  the  extremity  of  his  recent  con- 
quests. But  instead  of  seizing  every  pretence,  as 
formerly,  for  making  war  on  the  natives  of  Gaul, 
he  endeavoured  to  quiet  their  fears,  and  to  con- 
ciliate their  affections;6  and  while  he  kept  the 
whole  province  in  a  state  of  profound  tranquillity, 
collected  money,  provided  arms,  and  completed 


5  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib  viii.  op.  13. 

6  Hist,  de  Hell.  Gall.  lib.  viii.  a  49. 


252 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


his  legions,  as  if  preparing  for  a  dangerous  and 
important  war.  His  distance  from  Italy  lulled 
the  jealousy  of  his  opponents,  and  enabled  him  to 
carry  on  his  operations  unobserved.  He  spared 
no  expense  in  gaining  accessions  to  his  interest; 
and  when  promises  were  accepted,  seemed  to 
make  them  with  unbounded  confidence  in  the 
means  on  which  he  relied  for  the  performance  of 
them.  In  this  he  acted  as  on  the  eve  of  a  great 
revolution,  the  event  of  which  Was  to  raise  him 
above  the  want  of  resources,  or  above  the  neces- 
sity of  a  scrupulous  faith  with  private  persons. 
He  actually  remitted  at  this  time  great  sums  of 
money  to  Rome ;  and  no  less  than  fifteen  hun- 
dred talents,  or  about  289,500/,  to  the  manage- 
ment of  the  consul  iEmilius  alone,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  expend  this  money  in  erecting  public 
buildings  for  the  use  of  the  city.  But  not  being 
superior  to  corruption,  at  least  not  to  that  which 
was  addressed  to  his  vanity,  in  being  made  agent 
and  trustee  for  so  popular  a  leader  as  Caesar,  he 
disappointed  the  hopes  of  his  friends,  and  in  all 
the  contests  which  arose  during  his  consulate,1 
became  an  active  partizan  for  the  person  who  had 
honoured  him  with  so  flattering  a  trust. 

It  was  likewise  very  early  observed  in  these 
debates,  that  the  zeal  of  Curio,  who  set  out  with 
violent  invectives  against  Caesar,  began  to  abate  ; 
that  he  for  a  while  endeavoured  to  divert  the  at- 
tention of  the  public  to  other  objects  ;2  and  at 
last  fairly  withdrew  himself  from  the  support  of 
the  senate,  and  espoused  the  interest  of  Caesar  in 
every  .question.. 

This  interest  was  How  likewise  strengthened 
by  the  accessions  brought  to  it  in  consequence  of 
the  disputes  of  the  censors.  These  magistrates 
concurred  in  expurging  from  the  rolls  of  the 
senate  such  as  were  of  servile  extraction,  and 
many  even  of  noble  family,  on  account  of  some 
infamy  or  blemish  in  their  character.  But  Ap- 
pius,  having  carried  his  affectation  of  zeal  beyond 
what  the  age  could  bear,  and  being  suspected  of 
partiality  to  Pompey's  friends,  gave  offence  to 
Piso,  who,  by  protecting  many  citizens  who  were 
stigmatized  by  his  colleague,  gained  them  to  the 
interest  of  Caesar.  From  these  several  causes 
this  party  became  very  numerous  even  in  the 
senate,  and  continued  to  suspend  any  decrees 
that  were  proposed  to  deprive  Caesar  of  his  com- 
mand, or  to  recall  the  extraordinary  privilege 
which  had  formerly  been  granted  to  him. 

It  was  afterwards  discovered,  in  the  sequel  of 
these  transactions,  that  Curio,  some  time  before 
he  openly  declared  himself  for  Caesar,  had  been 
actually  gained  by  him.  This  young  man,  like 
the  youth  of  that  age  in  general,  had  dissipated 
his  fortune,  and  contracted  immense  debts.  His 
popularity  was  the  effect  of  his  profusion;  and 
the  load  of  his  debts  made  him  a  very  uncertain 
friend  to  government,  and  to  laws  which  support- 
ed the  just  claims  of  his  creditors  against  him. 
He  readily  listened  to  Caesar,  who  offered  to  relieve 
him  of  this  burden,  and  actually  paid  his  debts  to 
a  great  amount  ;3  according  to  some  reports,  to  the 
amount  of  ten  millions  Roman  money  ;4  accord- 
ing to  others,  of  six  times  that  sum.5 


1  Appian.  Plutarch. 

2  Cicero  ad  Familiar  lib.  viii.  ep.  6. 

3  Plutarch.    Dio.    Sueton.  Appias. 

4  Velleius,  lib.  ii.  c.  48.— 80,72M.  See  Arbuthnot's 
Tables. 

5  Valerius  Maxiraus,  lib.  i.x.  c  1. 


Curio,  after  he  took  his  resolution  to  join  Cae- 
sar, continued  to  speak  the  language  of  his  former 
party  and  to  act  in  concert  with  them,  until  he 
should  find  a  plausible  excuse  for  breaking  with 
them.  Such  a  pretence6  he  sought  by  starting 
many  subjects  of  debate  without  consulting  them, 
and  by  making  proposals  in  which  he  knew  that 
the  leading  men  of  the  senate  would  not  concur. 
To  this  effect  he  devised  a  project  for  the  repara- 
tion of  the  highways,  offering  himself  to  have 
the  inspection  of  the  work  for  five  years.  And 
when  much  time  had  been  spent  in  fruitless  de- 
bates on  this  subject,  he  insisted,  that  a  consider- 
able intercalation  should  be  made  to  lengthen  the 
year,  to  give  him  sufficient  time  to  ripen  his  pro- 
jects* Being  opposed  in  this  by  the  college  of 
Augurs,7  he  employed  his  tribunitian  power  to 
obstruct  all  other  business,  and  separated  himself 
entirely  from  his  friends  in  the  senate. 

Curio,  having  in  this  manner  withdrawn  him- 
self from  his  former  party,  did  not  at  once  openly 
join  their  opponents ;  but,  with  professions  of  in- 
dependence, affected  to  oppose  the  errors  of  both  ; 
and,  by  this  artful  conduct,  seemed  to  have  re- 
ceived the  instructions,  or  to  have  imitated  the 
policy  of  his  leader.  When  the  great  question 
of  Caesar's  recall  Was  revived,  he  inveighed,  as 
formerly,  against  the  exorbitant  powers  which 
had  been  committed  to  this  general,  and  urged 
the  necessity  of  having  them  revoked ;  but  sub- 
joined, that  the  powers  granted  to  Pompey  were 
equally  dangerous,  and  proposed,  that  both  should 
be  ordered  to  disband  their  armies,  and  return  to 
a  private  station.  The  partizans  of  Pompey  in- 
sisted, that  the  term  of  his  commission  was  not 
yet  expired  ;  nor  that  of  Caesar's,  replied  Curio. 
If  either  is  to  be  disarmed,  it  is  proper  that  both 
should  be  so  $  if  only  one  army  be  disbanded,  we 
are  certainly  the  slaves  of  that  which  remains. 

There  were  probably  now  three  parties  in  the 
state;  one  devoted  to  Caesar,  another  to  Pom- 
pey, and  a  third  that  meant  to  support  the  re- 
public against  the  intrigues  or  violence  of  either. 
The  latter  must  have  been  few,  and  could  not 
hope  to  be  of  much  consequence,  except  by  join, 
ing  such  of  the  other  two,  as  appeared  by  the 
character  of  its  leader  least  dangerous  to  the 
commonwealth.  Caesar  had  shown  himself  in 
his  political  course,  a  dangerous  subject,  and  an 
arbitrary  magistrate.  In  the  capacity  of  a  subject, 
he  had  supported  every  party  that  was  inclined 
to  commit  disorder  in  the  state,  or  to  weaken  the 
hands  of  government.  In  that  of  a  magistrate 
he  spurned  every  legal  restraint,  acted  the  part 
of  a  demagogue,  supporting  himself  by  popular 
tumults,  and  the  credit,  of  a  faction,  against  the 
laws  of  his  country ;  and  it  was  the  general  opi- 
nion of  considerate  persons,  that  his  thirst  of 
power  and  emolument  was  not  be  satiated  with- 
out a  total  subversion  of  government !  that  if,  in 
the  contest  which  seemed  to  impend,  his  sword 
should  prevail,  a  scene  of  bloodshed  and  rapine 
would  ensue,  far  exceeding  what  had  yet  been 
exhibited  in  any  calamity  that  had  ever  befallen 
the  republic.  The  description  of  his  adherents,8 
and  the  character  of  persons  that  crowded  to  his 
standard,  justified  the  general  fear  and  distrust 
which  was  entertained  of  his  designs.  All  who 
had  fallen  under  the  sentence  of  the  law,  all  who 

6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xi.  c.  (i!     Appian  de  Bello  Civile. 

7  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  viii.  ep.  Ii. 

8  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  vii.  ep.  7. 


Cuap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


253 


dreaded  this  fate,  all  who  had  suffered  any  dis- 
grace, or  were  conscious  they  deserved  it.;  young 
men  who  were  impatient  of  government ;  the 
populace  who  had  an  aversion  to  order ;  the  bank- 
rupt, to  whom  law  and  property  itself  were  ene- 
mies; all  these  looked  for  his  approach  with 
impatience,  and  joined  in  every  cry  that  was 
raised  in  his  favour. 

Pompey,  the  leader  of  the  opposite  party,  had 
never  ceased  to  embroil  the  state  with  his  in- 
trigues, and  even  invaded  the  laws  by  his  impa- 
tience for  extraordinary  and  unprecedented  ho- 
nours; yet,  when  possessed  of  power,  he  had 
employed  it  with  moderation,  and  seemed  to 
delight  in  receiving  these  singular  trusts  by  the 
free  choice  of  his  country ;  not  in  extorting  them, 
not  in  making  any  illegal  use  of  them,  nor  in 
retaining  them  beyond  the  terms  prescribed  by 
his  commission.  It  appeared,  that  in  nothing  he 
had  ever  injured  the  commonwealth  so  deeply, 
as  in  caballing  with  Caesar  while  he  rose  to  his 
present  elevation,  from  which  he  was  not  likely 
to  descend,  without  some  signal  convulsion  in 
the  stated 

This  comparison  of  the  parties  which  were 
now  to  contend  for  power  at  the  hazard  of  the 
republic,  made  it  easy  for  good  citizens  to  choose 
their  side.  But  they  nevertheless  naturally  wished 
to  prevent  the  contest  from  coming  to  extremities ; 
as  in  the  event  of  the  war,  which  they  dreaded, 
it  was  scarcely  possible  to  avoid  a  military  go- 
vernment. They  considered  the  proposal  of 
Curio  as  a  mere  pretence  to  justify  Ca?sar  in 
keeping  possession  of  his  army  ;  but  they  saw  that 
there  was  no  force  in  the  republic  sufficient  to 
resist  him.  They  wished  to  arm  Pompey  for 
this  purpose ;  but  were  prevented,  either  by  the 
confidence  which  he  still  gave  them  of  his  own 
superiority,  or  by  their  fear  of  precipitating  the 
state  into  a  civil  war,  by  seeming  to  take  any 
precautions  against  it. 

Caesar  would  have  considered  every  attempt  to 
arm  the  republic  as  a  declaration  against  himself ; 
and  was  ready  to  commence  hostilities  before  any 
such  measure  could  be  carried  into  execution. 
The  proposal  for  disarming  at  once  both  Caesar 
and  Pompey,  in  the  mean  time,  was  extremely 
acceptable  to  the  popular  party,  who  perpetually 
sounded  the  cry  of  liberty  against  the  senate, 
and  lately  too  against  Pompey  himself,  who,  on 
account  of  the  spirit  of  his  administration  when 
last  in  office,  and  the  severity  of  his  prosecutions 
against  bribery  and  other  offences,  which  are  not 
odious  to  the  vulgar,  was  become  in  a  consider- 
able degree  unpopular,  and  supposed  to  aim  at  a 
tyranny.  With  such  powers  as  Pompey  already 
possessed,  it  was  reckoned  an  effort  of  courage 
to  oppose  him.  And  Curio,  in  coming  from  the 
senate,  with  the  lustre  of  having  acted  so  bold  a 
part,  was  received  by  the  populace  with  shouts 
and  acclamations,  was  conducted  to  his  house 
over  ways  strewed  with  flowers,  and,  like  a  victor 
in  the  eireus,  presented  with  chaplets  and  gar- 
lands, in  reward  of  his  courageous,  patriotic  and 
impartial  conduct.  This  happened  about  the 
time  that  Pompey,  as  has  been  observed,  was 
making  a  show  of  his  great  popularity  in  the 
country  towns,  where  he  was  received  with  feasts, 
processions,  and  acclamations,  on  occasion  of  his 
recovery  from  a  supposed  dangerous  illness.  Caj- 


sar  too  had  a  like  reception  in  the  town?  of  the 
Cisalpine  Gaul;  but  it  is  likely,  that  of  these 
three  pretenders  to  popularity,  Pompey  was 
most  elated  with  his  share  of  the  public  favour, 
and  the  most  likely  to  mistake  these  appearances 
of  consideration  for  the  stable  foundations  of 
power.  Under  this  mistake  probably  it  was,  that 
when  one  of  his  friends  asked  him,  with  what 
force  he  was  to  oppose  Caesar  if  he  should  march 
into  Italy  with  his  army  7  "  In  Italy,"  he  an- 
swered, "  I  can  raise  forces  with  a  stamp  of  my 
foot."  He  was,  however,  greatly  alarmed  by  the 
motion  which  had  been  made  by  Curio,  and  by 
the  reception  it  met,  both  in  the  approbation  of 
the  senators,  and  in  the  acclamations  of  the  peo- 
plek  He  wrote  a  letter,  on  this  occasion,  to  the 
senate,  in  which  he  acknowledged  the  services  of 
Caesar,  and  mentioned  his  own.  "  His  late  con- 
sulate," he  said,  "was  not  of  his  seeking;  it  was 
pressed  upon  him  to  save  the  republic  in  the 
midst  of  great  dangers;  the  command  he  then 
bore  had  devolved  upon  him  in  consequence  of 
his  having  been  consul,  and  was  given  for  a  term 
of  years,  yet  far  from  being  expired  ;  but  he  was 
ready,  nevertheless,  without  waiting  for  the  ex- 
piration of  his  term,  to  resign  with  alacrity  what 
he  had  accepted  with  reluctance."  He  continued, 
on  every  occasion,  to  repeat  the  same  professions, 
adding,  "  That  he  made  no  doubt  his  relation  and 
his  friend  Caesar  would  cheerfully  make  a  like 
sacrifice  to  the  fears  and  apprehensions  of  his 
fellow-citizens ;  and  that,  after  many  years  of  hard 
struggle  with  warlike  enemies,  he  would  now 
hasten  to  retire  in  peace,  and  to  solace  himself  in 
the  midst  of  domestic  repose." 

Pompey,  for  the  most  part,  chose  to  dissemble 
his  sentiments,  and  advanced  to  his  purpose  by 
indirect  means;  he  was,  therefore,  like  most  art- 
ful men,  easily  over-reached  by  persons  who  per- 
ceived his  designs;  and  probably,  on  the  present 
occasion,  was  the  only  dupe  of  his  own  artifices, 
or  of  those  that  were  employed  against  him. 
Curio,  in  the  senate,  openly  attacked  this  part 
of  his  character,  insisting  that  actions,  and  not 
professions,  were  now  to  be  regarded :  that  the 
army  of  Caesar  was,  to  the  republic,  a  necessary 
defence  against  that  of  Pompey ;  that  neverthe- 
less, both  should  be  ordered  to  disband,  under 
pain  of  l>eing  declared,  in  case  of  disobedience, 
enemies  to  their  country ;  and  that  an  army  should 
be  instantly  levied  to  enforce  these  orders.  "  Now," 
said  he,  "is  the  time  to  reduce  this  assuming  and 
arrogant  man,  while  you  have  a  person  who  can 
dispute  his  pretensions,  and  who  can  wrest  those 
arms  out  of  his  hands,  which  he  never  would  have 
willingly  dropped." 

The  friends  of  Caesar,  in  the  senate,  offered  to 
compromise  the  dispute;  and  provided  Pompey 
retired  to  his  province,  and  Caesar  were  allowed 
to  retain  the  Cisalpine  Gaul  with  two  legions, 
they  proposed,  in  his  name,  to  disband  the  re- 
mainder of  his  army,  and  to  resign  the  other 
part  of  his  provinces.  "  Observe  the  dutiful  citi- 
zen and  good  subject,"  said  Cato,  "how  ready  he 
is  to  quit  the  northern  parts  of  Gaul,  if  you  only 
put  him  in  possession  of  Italy  and  of  the  city; 
and  how  ready  to  accept  of  your  voluntary  sub- 
mission, rather  than  employ  your  own  army 
against  you  to  enforce  it."10 

In  the  result  of  these  debates,  the  senate,  upon 


9  Cioero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  vii.  ep.  3. 


10  Plutarch,  in  Catone. 


254 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


the  motion  of  the  consul  Marcellus,  came  to  a 
vote  on  the  following  questions,  which  were  se- 
parately stated,  relating  to  the  appointments  both 
of  Csesar  and  of  Pompey.  On  the  first  question, 
Whether  Cssar  should  disband  his  army  7  the 
Ayes  were  general  throughout  the  house.  On 
the  second,  relating  to  Pompey,  the  Noes  greatly 
prevailed.  Curio  and  M.  Antony  insisted,  that 
the  questions  were  not  fairly  put ;  and  that  they 
did  not  collect  the  sense  of  the  senate ;  that  the 
majority  might  be  of  opinion,  that  both  should 
disband ;  and  that  both,  therefore,  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  same  question.  To  this  purpose, 
accordingly,  a  third  question  was  put ;  and  the 
senate  having  divided,  a  majority  of  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy  Ayes  appeared  against  twenty- 
two  Noes.1  Whether  these  proceedings  of  the 
senate  were  annulled  by  any  informality,  or  were 
deprived  of  effect  by  any  other  circumstance,  does 
not  appear.  The  only  immediate  consequence  they 
seem  to  have  produced,  was  an  order  to  Pompey 
and  C  aesar,  requiring  each  of  them  to  march  a  legion 
to  reinforce  the  army  in  Syria,  where  the  Parthi- 
ans,  though  repulsed  from  Antioch  in  the  preced- 
ing year,  had  wintered  in  the  Cyrrhestica,  a  dis- 
trict of  that  province,  and  threatened  to  repeat 
their  invasion  in  the  present  spring  and  summer ; 
and  this  appears  to  have  been  no  more  than  a 
feeble  attempt  to  strip  Caesar  of  two  legions,  of 
which,  when  it  came  to  be  executed,  he  well 
Knew  how  to  disappoint  the  effect. 

While  the  subject  of  Caesar's  appointments 
occupied  all  parties  at  Rome,  he  himself,  with  his 
army,  passed  a  quiet  winter  in  Gaul ;  and  at  the 
end  of  it,  or  early  in  the  spring,  set  out  for  Italy. 
He  employed,  as  a  pretence  for  this  journey,  the 
election  to  a  vacant  place  in  the  college  of  augurs, 
which  was  fast  approaching ;  and  for  which  his 
friend  Mark  Antony  was  a  candidate.  Many 
votes  were  to  be  procured  in  the  colonies  and  free 
cities  bordering  on  that  part  of  his  province  which 
was  beyond  the  Alps ;  and  he  made  his  journey 
with  uncommon  speed  to  secure  them  :  but  being 
informed,  on  the  road,  that  the  election  of  augurs 
was  past,  and  that  his  friend  Antony  had  pre- 
vailed, he  nevertheless  continued  his  journey,  and 
with  the  same  diligence  as  before  he  had  received 
this  information,  saying,  It  was  proper  he  should 
thank  his  friends  for  their  good  offices,  and  re- 
quest the  continuance  of  their  favour  in  his  own 
competition  for  the  consulate,  which  he  proposed 
to  declare  on  the  following  year.  He  alleged,  as 
a  reason  for  his  early  application,  that  his  ene- 
mies, in  order  to  oppress  him,  or  to  withstand  his 
just  pretensions,  had  placed  C.  Marcellus  and  P. 
Lentulus  in  the  magistracy  of  the  present  year, 
and  had  rejected  the  pretensions  of  Galba,  though 
much  better  founded. 

He  was  met  in  all  the  provincial  towns  and 
colonies  of  Cisalpine  Gaul  with  more  than  a 
kingly  reception,  with  sacrifices  and  processions 
every  where  made  by  innumerable  crowds,  which 
were  assembled  to  see  and  admire  him.  Having 
made  the  circuit  of  this  province,  and  sounded 
the  dispositions  of  the  people,  he  returned  with 
great  despatch  to  his  quarters  at  Nemetocenna,2 
in  the  low  countries,  where  he  likewise  wished  to 
know  the  disposition  as  well  as  the  state  of  his 
army ;  and,  for  this  purpose,  ordered  the  whole 
to  assemble  on  the  Moselle.    He  foresaw,  that 

1  Appian  tie  Bello  Civ.  lib.  ii.  Plutarch  in  Caesar 
p.  134.  2  Arras. 


the  senate  might  possibly  pass  a  decree  to  super- 
sede him ;  and  that  he  must  then  depend  upon 
the  attachment  of  his  legions,  and  make  war,  or 
submit,  as  he  found  them  inclined  ;  in  this,  how- 
ever, it  is  probable  he  was  in  a  great  measure  re- 
solved, or  had  no  doubt  of  their  willingness  to  be  • 
come  his  partners  in  a  military  adventure  for  the 
sovereignty  of  the  empire. 

In  this  state  of  affairs  he  assigned  to  Labienus 
his  station  within  the  Alps ;  and  seeming  to  have 
conceived  a  suspicion  of  this  officer,  or  rather 
knowing  that  he  was  not  disposed  to  follow  him, 
in  case  his  commission  should  be  withdrawn  by 
the  senate,  nor  to  co-operate  in  any  act  of  hos- 
tility against  the  republic,  he  wished  to  prevent 
the  disputes  which  might  arise  on  such  an  occa- 
sion, and  to  avoid  the  difficult  task  of  determin- 
ing how  he  should  deal  with  a  citizen,  who  being 
an  offender  against  himself,  was  nevertheless  in 
his  duty  to  the  state,  and  who  either,  by  his  im- 
punity or  by  his  sufferings,  might  start  dan- 
gerous questions,  and  divide  the  opinions  and 
affections  of  the  soldiers.  He  dismissed  him, 
therefore,  from  the  army  in  the  northern  Gaul, 
to  command  on  the  Po,  a  station  from  which  he 
could  easily  quit  the  province,  and  join  the  forces 
of  the  republic ;  and  by  this  means  rid  him  at 
once  of  a  person  on  whom  he  could  not  rely,  and 
whom  he  would  scarcely  dare  to  punish  for  de- 
fection. But  in  whatever  manner  we  understand 
this  separation,  it  is  noticed,  that  while  Caesar 
himself  remained  with  the  army  upon  the  Mo- 
selle, and  made  frequent  movements  merely  to 
exercise  the  troops  and  to  preserve  their  health,  a 
rumour  prevailed,  that  his  enemies  were  solicit- 
ing Labienus  to  desert  him,  and  to  carry  off  the 
troops  that  were  under  his  command.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  reported,  that  the  senate  was 
preparing  a  decree  to  divest  Caesar  of  his  govern- 
ment, and  to  disband  his  army.  These  insinua- 
tions he  affected  to  treat  as  groundless,  observing, 
that  he  could  not  believe  such  an  officer  as  La- 
bienus would  betray  his  trust ;  and  that  for  him- 
self, he  was  at  all  times  ready  to  submit  his  cause  to 
a  free  senate.  The  proposals  of  Curio,  and  his 
other  friends,  he  said,  had  been  so  reasonable, 
that  the  senate  would  have  long  ago  accepted  of 
them,  if  that  body  had  not  been  under  the  im- 
proper influence  of  his  enemies. 

About  the  same  time,  Caesar  received  the 
famous  order  of  the  senate  to  detach  a  legion 
from  his  army  to  be  transported  into  Syria,  and 
employed  in  the  Parthian- war ;  and  likewise  to 
restore  that  legion  which  he  had  borrowed  from 
Pompey.  It  is  probable,  that  he  had  desired  the 
last  might  be  sent  to  him  merely  to  take  off  a 
part  of  his  rival's  force.;  and  though  he  now., 
with  seeming  cheerfulness,  complied  with  the 
requisition  to  restore  them,  yet  he  afterwards 
complained  of  this  measure  respecting  the  two 
legions  in  question,  as  a  mere  artifice  to  turn  his 
own  forces  against  him.  In  compliance  with  the 
senate's  order,  he  sent  the  fifteenth  legion,  then 
upon  the  Po,  and  relieved  it  by  one  from  his  pre- 
sent camp.  In  dismissing  the  soldiers  of  Pom- 
pey, he  was,  under  pretence  of  gratitude  for  past 
services,  most  lavish  of  his  caresses  and  thanks  ; 
and  as  an  earnest  of  future  favour,  ordered  each 
private  man  a  gratuity  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
denarii.3  By  this  artful  conduct,  while  he  parted 
with  the  men,  he  took  care  to  retain  ther  afiec- 

3  About  51. 


Chap.  V.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


255 


tions,  and  sent  them,  together  with  his  own  le- 
gion, as  at  best  but  an  uncertain  and  dubious 
accession  of  strength  to  his  enemies.4 

The  officers  who  were  sent  to  make  these  de- 
mands, and  to  conduct  the  troops  into  Italy, 
brought  to  their  employers  a  very  flattering  report 
of  the  state  and  dispositions  of  Caesar's  army : 
that  they  longed  to  change  their  commander;  had 
a  high  opinion  of  Pompey ;  and,  if  marched  into 
Italy,  would  surely  desert  to  him;  that  Caesar 
was  become  odious  on  account  of  the  hard  ser- 
vice in  which  he  had  so  long  employed  them, 
without  any  adequate  reward,  and  on  account  of 
the  suspicion  that  he  aimed  at  the  monarchy.5 
It  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable,  that  their 
crafty  leader  employed  proper  persons  to  hold 
this  language  to  the  commissioners  of  the  senate, 
and  to  the  officers  of  Pompey ;  and  to  utter  com- 
plaints of  their  commander,  and  of  the  service,  on 
purpose  that  they  might  be  repeated  in  Italy.  His 
own  preparations  were  not  of  more  importance 
to  him  than  the  supine  security  into  which  he 
endeavoured,  by  this  and  every  other  measure,  to 
lull  his  enemies. 

On  the  approach  of  winter  he  conducted  his 
army  back  to  their  quarters  in  the  low  countries, 
and  the  interior  parts  of  Gaul.  Trebonius  was 
stationed  with  four  legions  on  the  Scheld  and 
the  Meuse,  and  Fabius,  with  other  four,  between 
the  Soane  and  the  Loire,  in  the  canton  of  Bi- 
bracte,  now  Autun.  This  disposition,  like  that 
of  the  former  winter,  was  calculated  to  avoid 
giving  any  alarm  to  his  opponents  in  Italy.  He 
himself  intended  to  winter  within  the  Alps,  but 
had  no  troops  on  that  side  of  the  mountains  that 
could  occasion  any  suspicion  j  only  one  veteran 
legion  is  mentioned,  the  thirteenth,  which  he  had 
sent  to  replace  the  fifteenth  ;  that,  upon  pretence 
of  the  Parthian  war,  had  been  called  away  from 
his  province.  Upon  his  arrival  in  Italy  he  affected 
surprise  upon  hearing  that  the  two  legions  lately 


demanded  from  him  had  not  been  sent  into  Asia, 
but  were  kept  in  Italy,  and  put  under  the  com 
mand  of  Pompey.  He  complained,  that  he  was 
betrayed  ;  that  his  enemies  meant  to  disarm  and 
circumvent  him.  "  But  while  the  republic  is 
safe,  and  matters  can  be  made  up  on  amicable 
terms,  I  will  bear,"  he  said,  "with  any  indignities, 
rather  than  involve  the  state  in  a  civil  war."  6 

While  the  factions  that  were  likely  to  divide 
the  empire  were  in  this  situation,  C.  Marcellus, 
now  third  of  this  name  in  the  succession  of  con- 
suls, together  with  Publius  Lentulus,  were  chosen 
for  the  following  year.  Before  they  entered  on 
office  a  rumour  arose,  that  Caesar,  with  his  whole 
army,  was  actually  in  motion  to  pass  the  Alps. 
Marcellus,  consul  of  the  present  year,  assembled 
the  senate ;  laid  before  them  this  report,  and 
moved,  that  the  troops  then  in  Italy  should  be 
prepared  to  act,  and  new  levies  should  be  ordered. 
A  debate  ensued,  in  which  Curio  contradicted 
the  report,  and,  by  his  Tribunitian  authority, 
forbade  the  senate  to  proceed  in  any  resolution 
upon  this  subject. 

On  this  interposition  of  the  tribune,  the  consul 
dismissed  the  assembly,  using,  together  with 
other  expressions  of  impatience,  the  words  follow- 
ing :  That  if  he  were  not  supported  by  the  senate, 
in  the  measures  which  were  necessary  for  the 
preservation  of  the  commonwealth,  he  should  put 
the  exercise  of  his  power  into  hands  more  likely 
to  make  the  state  be  respected  :  then,  together 
with  Lentulus,  one  of  the  consuls  elected  lor  the 
ensuing  year,  he  repaired  to  the  gardens  where 
Pomj>ey  resided ;  this  officer  being  obliged,  on 
account  of  his  military  command,  to  remain  with- 
out the  city;  and  presenting  his  sword,  bid  him 
employ  it  for  the  defence  of  his  country,  and  with 
it  to  assume  the  command  of  the  forces  then  in 
Italy.  To  this  a  ldress,  Pompey,  with  an  air  of 
modesty,  made  answer,  "  If  nothing  better  can  be 
devised  for  the  commonwealth." 


CHAPTER  V. 

Return  of  different  Officers  from  their  Provinces — Decree  of  the  Senate  to  supersede  Cecsar— 
Forbidden  by  the  Tribunes — Commission  to  the  Consuls  and  to  Pompey — Their  Resolutions — 
Flight  of  the  Tribunes  Antony  and  Quintus  Cassius — Speech  of  Ccesar  to  the  Legion  at  Ra- 
venna— Surprise  of  Ariminum — March  of  C&sar — Might  of  Pompey  and  the  Senate,  <f«c. — 
Approach  of  Ccesar — Embarkation  and  Departure  of  Pompey  from  Brundusium — Return  of 
Ccesar  to  Rome — Passes  by  Marseilles  into  Spain — Campaign  on  the  Scgra — Legions  of 
Pompey  in  Spain  conducted  to  the  Var. 


IN  this  posture  of  affairs,  the  officers,  who  had 
been  sent  in  the  preceding  year  to  the  command 
of  provinces,  were  returned  to  Rome,  and  some 
of  them  remained  with  their  ensigns  of  magis- 
tracy in  the  suburbs,  to  solicit  the  military  ho- 
nours to  which  they  thought  themselves  entitled 
by  their  services.  Bibulus,  though  not  present 
in  the  action  in  which  Cassius  defeated  the  Par- 
thians,  yet  being  then  governor  of  the  province, 
and  the  advantage  gained,  with  the  number  of 


4  Appian.  de  Bello  Civile,  lib.  ii.  Plutarch,  in  Vita 
Pompeii,  p.  435. 

5  Plutarch,  in  Vita  Caesaris,  p.  133,  et  in  Vita  Pom- 
peii, p.  486. 

6  llirtus  de  Bcllo  Gallico,  lib.  viii.  c.  46. 


the  enemy  slain,  coming  up  to  the  legal  descrip- 
tion of  those  services  for  which  the  triumph  was 
obtained,  he  entered  his  claim  :  and  was  accord- 
ingly, upon  the  motion  of  Cato,  who  probably 
wished  him  this  consolation  for  the  mortifications 
he  had  received  in  his  consulate,  found  to  be  en- 
titled to  this  honour.  It  had  been  long  appro- 
priated as  the  specific  reward  of  victories,  obtained 
by  the  slaughter  of  a  certain  number  of  ene- 
mies, and  would  have  been  preposterous  in  the 
case  of  any  other  merit:  Cicero,  nevertheless,  now 
likewise  applied  for  a  triumph,  partly  in  emula- 
tion to  Bibulus,  of  whom  he  expresses  some 
jealousy ;  and  partly,  that  he  might  have  a  pre- 
tence for  his  stay  in  the  suburbs,  and  for  absent- 
ing himself  from  the  senate,  and  from  the  assein- 


256 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


blies  of  the  people,  being  very  much  perplexed 
how  to  steer  between  the  parties  of  Caesar  and 
Pompey,  who  had  both  applied  to  him  by  letters 
to  join  them  in  the  present  dispute.1  He  had, 
some  time  before  his  departure  from  Cilicia  on 
his  return  to  Rome,  sent  an  account  of  his  mili- 
tary operations  to  Cato,  and  to  some  others  of 
his  friends,  with  an  earnest  request,  that  a  thanks- 
giving might  be  appointed  for  the  victory  he  had 
obtained.  Such  an  appointment  was  reckoned 
one  of  the  greatest  honours  which  a  Roman  offi- 
cer could  receive  in  absence,  and  might  lead  to  a 
triumph.  Cato  replied  in  terms  that  were  polite ; 
but  carrying  some  degree  of  indirect  reproof  for 
the  improper  ambition  which  Cicero  betrayed  in 
this  request,  intimating  that  his  merit  was  not  so 
much  that  of  a  general,  as  that  of  a  humane,  up- 
right, and  able  magistrate ;  that  he  had  moved 
the  senate  to  pass  a  decree  to  this  purpose  in  his 
favour,  as  thinking  it  more  honourable  than  a 
thanksgiving,  which  always  had  a  reference  to 
some  event,  depending  on  chance  or  the  valour 
of  an  army  ;  but  that,  since  Cicero  had  chosen 
to  put  his  services  on  the  last  footing,  he  had  a 
double  satisfaction,  that  of  having  done  what  he 
thought  incumbent  on  himself,  and  that  of  find- 
ing that  the  desire  of  his  friend  was  gratified.2 

Cicero  at  first  received  this  declaration  of  Cato 
as  a  proper  expression  of  friendship,  and  in  the 
highest  degree  honourable  to  himself;3  but  on 
hearing  of  the  military  honours  which  were  de- 
creed to  Bibulus  upon  Cato's  motion,  he  was 
greatly  provoked,  and  considered  this  conduct 
as  partial  to  his  rival,  and  invidious  to  himself.4 
He  was  instigated  or  confirmed  in  these  senti- 
ments by  Caesar,  who  gladly  seized  the  opportu- 
nity to  incite  him  against  Cato.  "  Observe,"  he 
said,  in  one  of  his  letters,  which  is  quoted  by 
Cicero  on  this  subject,  "  the  malice  of  the  man, 
he  affects  to  give  you  the  commendations  of 
clemency  and  integrity,  which  yon  did  not  desire, 
and  withholds  a  piece  of  common  respect,  which 
you  had  asked.  This  conduct,"  continues  Ci- 
cero to  Atticus,  "  bespeaks  the  envy  from  which 
it  proceeds.  It  is  not  sufferable,  nor  will  I  en- 
dure it.  Caesar,  in  his  letter  to  me,  has  not 
missed  the  proper  remarks."  Such  were  the 
concerns  that  distracted  the  mind  of  this  inge- 
nious but  weak  man,  even  while  he  himself 
foresaw  a  conflict,  in  which  the  republic  itself, 
and  all  the  honours  it  could  bestow,  were  pro- 
bably soon  to  perish. 

In  the  present  situation  of  affairs,  every  reso- 
lution which  the  friends  of  the  republic  could 
take  was  fraught  with  danger,  and  every  day  in- 
creased their  perplexity.  To  leave  Caesar  in  pos- 
session of  his  army,  and  to  admit  him  with  such 
a  force  to  the  head  of  the  commonwealth,  was  to 
submit,  without  a  struggle,  to  the  dominion  he 
meant  to  assume.  To  persist  in  confining  him 
to  one  or  other  of  these  advantages,  was  to  fur- 
nish him  with  a  pretence  to  make  war  on  the  re- 
public. The  powers  which  were  necessary  to 
enable  Pompey  to  resist  Caesar,  might  be  equally 
dangerous  to  the  republic  in  the  possession  of  the 
one,  as  they  were  in  that  of  the  other.  This 
person,  on  whom  the  state  was  now  to  rely,  even 
while  his  own  consideration,  with  that  of  every 


1  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  vii.  ep.  I. 

2  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xv.  ep.  5.  3  Ibid.  ep.  6. 
4  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  vii.  ep.  2 


other  senator,  was  at  stake,  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  act,  until  all  the  powers  that  were  wanting  tc 
gratify  his  ambition  should  be  put  into  his  hands. 
With  an  appearance  of  ease  and  negligence,  he 
went  upon  parties  of  pleasure  through  Italy, 
while  every  one  else  apprehended  that  Rome  it- 
self, as  well  as  Italy,  must  soon  become  a  scene 
of  blood.  At  an  interview  with  Cicero,  whom, 
on  his  way  to  the  city,  he  met  near  Naples,  he 
himself  spoke  of  a  civil  war  as  unavoidable.5 
Upon  his  return  to  Rome,  on  the  twenty-sixth 
of  December,  he  even  seemed  averse  to  any  ac- 
commodation. He  declared  his  mind  openly 
that  if  Caesar  should  obtain  the  consulate,  even 
upon  laying  down  his  arms,  the  state  must  be 
undone ;  that  in  his  opinion,  whenever  a  vigorous 
opposition  appeared,  Caesar  would  choose  to  re- 
tain his  army,  and  drop  his  pretensions  to  the  con- 
sulate: but,  continued  he,  if  Caesar  should  pro- 
ceed headlong,  and  bring  matters  to  the  decision 
of  the  sword,  how  contemptible  must  he  appear,- 
a  mere  private  adventurer  against  the  authority 
of  the  state,  supported  by  a  regular  army  under 
my  command. 

To  justify  this  security,  or  presumption  on  the 
part  of  Pompey,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
while  Cassar  wa&  forming  an  army  in  Gaul. 
Pompey,  by  means  of  his  lieutenants,  likewise 
formed  a  great  army  of  six  complete  legions,  and 
many  auxiliaries,  in  Spain  ;  and  that  if  Caesar 
should  make  any  attempt  upon  Italy,  it  is  proba- 
ble he  intended  that  his  army  should  pass  the 
Pyrennees  as  fast  as  that  of  Csesar  passed  the 
Alps,  occupy  his  province,  cut  off  his  resources, 
and  while  Pompey  himself  received  him  with  the 
forces  of  Italy,  that  the  Spanish  army  should 
press  upon  his  rear,  and  place  him  at  once  be- 
tween two  attacks.  It  ought  likewise  to  be  con- 
sidered, that  although  few  troops  were  then 
actually  formed  in  Italy,  yet  this  was  the  great 
nursery  of  soldiers  for  the  whole  empire,  and 
multitudes  could,  on  any  sudden  emergency,  be 
embodied  in  every  part  of  that  country.6 

Pompey,  with  these  securities  in  his  hands  for 
the  final  success  of  his  views  against  Caesar,  suf- 
fered this  rival  to  run  his  career,  leaving  the 
senate  exposed  to  the  dangers  which  threatened 
them ;  and  under  the  influence  of  apprehensions, 
which  he  expected  would  render  them  more 
tractable,  and  more  ready  in  every  thing  to  com- 
ply with  his  own  desires,  than  he  had  generally 
found  them  in  times  of  greater  security. 

In  the  same  strain  of  policy,  Pompey  had  fre- 
quently ventured  to  foment  or  to  connive  at  the 
growing  troubles  of  the  republic,  in  order  to  ren- 
der himself  the  more  necessary,  and  to  draw  from 
the  senate  and  the  people  offers  of  extraordinary 
trust  and  power.  By  the  address  of  Cato,  and  of 
other  active  men  in  the  senate,  he  had  been 
obliged  on  a  late  occasion,  when  he  aimed  at  the 
powers  of  dictator,  to  be  content  with  those  of  sole 
consul.  It  is  probable,  that  he  had  entertained 
the  same  views  on  the  present  occasion^  and  per- 
mitted the  evils  to  accumulate,  until  the  remedy 
he  wished  for  should  appear  to  be  necessary.  He 
continued  accordingly  with  votes  and  resolutions 
of  the  senate  to  combat  Caesar,  who  was  at  the 
head  of  a  numerous  army,  ready  on  the  first 
plausible  pretence  to  fell  upon  Italy,  to  seize  the 


5  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  vii.  ep.  8. 

6  Cic.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xvi.  ep.  12. 


CflAK  V.] 

eeats  of  government,  and  avail  himself  of  that 
name  and  authority  of  the  republic,  on  which 
Pompey  himself  so  greatly  relied. 

Mean  time,  the  new  year  com- 
U  C.  704.  menced,  and  C.  Claudius  Marcellus 
C.  Claudius  w*tn  ^-  Cornelius  Lentulus,  entered 
MarcMuset  on  their  office  as  consuls.  Both 
L.  Cornelius  parties  were  prepared  for  a  decisive 
Isntulus.  resolution  on  the  subject  of  Caesar's 
claims.  He  himself  for  some  years 
had  wintered  near  to  the  northern  extremity  of 
his  provinces.  He  was  now  at  Ravenna,  the 
nearest  station  of  his  army  to  Rome  ;  but  without 
any  troops,  besides  what  appear  to  have  been  the 
usual  establishment  of  the  Cisalpine  province; 
that  is,  the  thirteenth  legion,  which  had  been  sent 
thither  to  supply  the  place  of  a  legion,  with  which 
he  had  been  required  to  reinforce  the  army  of 
Syria,  and  three  hundred  horse,  making  in  all 
between  five  and  six  thousand  men/  Soon  after 
his  arrival  at  Ravenna,  he  had  been  visited  by 
Curio,  who,  at  the  expiration  of  his  tribunate, 
made  this  journey  to  receive  his  directions  in 
respect  to  the  future  operations  of  the  party  ;  and 
after  their  conference,  returned  to  Rome  with  a 
letter  from  Caesar,  addressed  to  the  senate,  which 
was  presented  on  the  first  of  January,  at  the  ad- 
mission of  the  new  consuls  into  office.8 

The  consul  Lentulus  moved,  that  prior  to  any 
other  business,  the  state  of  the  republic,  and  that 
of  the  provinces,  should  be  taken  under  con- 
sideration ;  and  alluding  to  the  resolutions  which 
were  already  on  record,  relating  to  Caesar's  pro- 
vince, said,  that  if  the  senate  stood  firm  on  this 
occasion  to  their  former  decrees,  his  services 
should  not  be  wanting  to  the  commonwealth. 
He  was  seconded  by  Scipio,  and  was  applauded 
by  the  general  voice  of  the  senate ;  but  Caesar 
had  procured  the  admission  of  Mark  Antony 
and  of  Gluintus  Cassius,  two  of  his  most  noted 
and  determined  partizans,  into  the  college  of  tri- 
bunes. These  could  make  riots,  or  furnish  the 
pretence  of  violence  in  the  city,  whenever  the 
military  designs  of  their  patron  were  ripe  for 
execution:  they  were  to  be  the  executors  of  what 
had  been  concerted  with  Curio,  or  whatever  else 
should  be  thought  proper  to  promote  Caesar's  de- 
signs. They  began  with  threatening  to  stop  all 
proceedings  of  the  senate,  until  Caesar's  letter 
was  read ;  and  prevailed  on  this  meeting  to  begin 
with  that  paper.  It  was  expressed,  according  to 
Cicero,  in  terms  menacing  and  harsh,9  and  con- 
tained in  substance  a  repetition  of  the  proposals, 
which  Caesar  had  been  all  along  making  through 
Curio,  and  his  other  adherents  at  Rome,  "That 
he  should  be  allowed  to  retain  the  honours, 
which  the  Roman  people  had  bestowed  upon 
him ;  that  he  should  be  left  upon  a  foot  of  equality 
with  other  officers,  who  were  allowed  to  join  civil 
office  at  Rome  with  military  establishments  in  the 
provinces;  and  that  he  should  not  be  singled  out 
as  the  sole  object  of  their  distrust  and  severity."10 

This  letter  was  considered  as  an  attempt  to 
prescribe  to  the  senate,  and  unbecoming  the  re- 
spect due  to  their  authority.  It  was  by  many 
treated  as  an  actual  declaration  of  war.  The 


7  Appian.  de  Bello  Civil,  lib.  ii.  p.  447.  Pint,  in 
Caesare. 

8  Dio.  Cassus,  lib  xli.  c.  1. 

9  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xvi.  ep.  12. 

10  Suetonius  in  Caesare,  c  29. 

2  K 


207 

debates  were  renewed  on  this  subject  for  some 
days  successively,  from  the  first  to  the  seventh  of 
January.  On  the  last  of  these  days,  a  resolution 
was  framed,  ordering  Caesar  to  dismiss  his  army, 
and  by  a  certain  day  to  retire  from  his  provinces, 
or  in  case  of  disobedience,  declaring  him  an 
enemy  to  his  country.  The  tribunes,  Mark  An- 
tony and  Gluintus  Cassius,  interposed  with  their 
negative. 

The  hands  of  the  senate  being  thus  tied  up  by 
the  prohibition  or  interdict  of  the  tribunes,  it  was 
moved  that  the  members  should  put  on  mourning, 
in  order  to  impress  the  people  with  a  deeper  sense 
of  the  calamity  which  was  likely  to  ensue  from 
the  contumacy  of  these  factious  officers.  This 
likewise  the  tribunes  forbad  ;  but  the  senate  being 
adjourned,  all  the  members,  as  of  their  own  ac- 
cord, returned  to  their  next  meeting  in  habits  of 
mourning,  and  proceeded  to  consider  in  what 
manner  they  might  remove  the  difficulty  which 
arose  from  this  factious  interposition  of  the  tri- 
bunes. In  the  conclusion  of  this  deliberation,  it 
was  determined  to  give  to  the  consuls  and  other 
magistrates,  together  w  ith  Pompey,  in  the  charac- 
ter of  proconsul,  the  charge  usual  in  the  most 
dangerous  conjunctures;  to  preserve  the  com- 
monwealth by  sxlcIi  means  as  to  their  discretion 
should  appear  to  be  necessary. 

This  charge  suggested  to  the  minds  of  the 
people,  what  had  passed  in  the  times  of  the 
Gracchi  of  Satuminus  and  of  Catiline.  The 
tribunes,  who  had  occasioned  the  measure,  either 
apprehended,  or  affected  to  apprehend,  immediate 
danger  to  their  own  persons :  they  disguised 
themselves  in  the  habit  of  slaves,  and,  together 
with  Curio,  in  the  night  fled  from  Rome  in  hired 
carriages."  The  consuls  repaired  to  Pompey  in 
the  suburbs;  and,  agreeably  to  the  order  of  the 
senate,  claimed  his  assistance  in  discharging  ti  e 
important  duties  with  which  they  were  jointly 
intrusted.  It  was  agreed,  in  concert  with  him, 
that  they  should  support  the  authority  of  the 
senate  with  a  proper  military  force,  that  they 
should  proceed  to  make  new  levies  with  the 
greatest  despatch ;  and  in  order  to  give  effect  to 
these  preparations,  that  Pompey  should  have  the 
supreme  command  over  the  treasury,  and  all  the 
forces  of  the  republic,  in  every  quarter  of  tho 
world. 

Winter  was  now  set  in,  or  fasf  approaching. 
The  season,  although  nominally  in  the  month  of 
January,  being  only  about  fifty" days  past  the  au- 
tumnal equinox,  or  about  the  twelfth  of  Novem- 
ber, Caesar  had  few  troops  on  the  side  of  Italy ; 
the  force  of  his  army  was  yet  beyond  the  Alps, 
and  the  officers  now  entrusted  with  the  safety  of 
the  commonwealth,  flattered  themselves  that  much 
time  might  be  found  to  put  the  republic  in  a  state 
of  defence,  before  his  army  at  this  season  could 
pass  those  mountains,  even  if  he  should  be  so 
desperate  as  to  make  war  on  the  commonwealth; 
which  Pompey  did  not  even,  in  this  state  of  af- 
fairs, appear  to  have  believed. 

When  Caesar  received  accounts  of  the  senate's 
resolution,  he  drew  forth  the  troops  then  at  Ra- 
venna, and  in  a  harangue  enumerated  the  wrongs 
which  for  some  years  he  alleged  had  been  done  to 
himself;  complained  that  his  enemies  had  now 
found  means  to  excite  against  him  even  I  ompe> , 


11  Appian.  de  Bello  Civili,  lib.  ii.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lli. 
I  c.  3.   Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  vvi.  ep.  12. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


253 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


a  person  whose  honour  he  had  always  promoted 
with  the  warmest  affection  ;  that  the  interposition 
of  the  tribunes,  in  behalf  of  the  army  and  of  him- 
self, had  been  defeated  by  means  of  threats  and  of 
actual  force ;  that  their  sacred  persons  had  been 
violated,  in  order  to  oppress  him;  that  resolutions, 
which  had  never  been  taken  but  in  the  most  dan- 
gerous and  threatening  conjunctures,  to  prevent 
ruinous  laws  from  being  carried  by  insurrection 
and  violence,  were  now  formed  against  peaceable 
magistrates,  and  in  times  of  profound'  tranquillity ; 
he  therefore  exhorted  the  army  to  maintain  the 
honour  of  an  officer,  under  whom  they  had  now, 
for  nine  years,  faithfully  served  the  republic; 
under  whom  they  had  gained  many  victories  in 
Gaul  and  in  Germany,  and  reduced  a  most  war- 
like province  into  a  state  of  absolute  submission. 
He  was  answered  with  a  shout  of  applause,  and 
a  general  acclamation  from  the  ranks,  that  they 
were  ready  to  avenge  the  injuries  done  to  their 
general,  and  to  the  tribunes  of  the  people. 

On  receiving  these  assurances  from  the  troops 
then  present,  Caesar  immediately  despatched  an 
express  to  the  quarters  of  the  twelfth  legion, 
which,  from  the  time  at  which  it  afterwards 
joined  him,  appears  to  have  been  already  within 
the  Alps  with  orders  to  march.  The  remainder 
of  his  army  being  supposed  in  the  low  countries, 
or  in  the  heart  of  Gaul,  it  would  not  have  appear- 
ed to  an  ordinary  capacity,  that  even  in  case  of 
hostilities  any  decisive  operation  could  take  place 
before  the  spring.  At  that  season,  indeed,  the 
measures  now  taken  by  both  parties  seemed  to 
threaten  a  dangerous  convulsion ;  but  it  is  not  to 
be  doubted  that  Caesar  had  foreseen,  or  prepared, 
many  of  the  most  important  circumstances  of  the 
present  conj  uncture ;  that  he  had  brought  his 
affairs  into  that  posture,  at  which  he  intended 
hostilities  should  commence ;  and  that  the  seem- 
ing neglect  with  which  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
taken  with  so  small  a  force  on  the  side  of  Italy, 
was  probably  the  best  concerted  preparation  he 
could  have  made  for  the  war.  While  he  brought 
no  alarming  force  towards  Rome,  his  antagonists 
continued  secure,  and  made  no  effectual  provision 
to  resist  him.  He  apprehended  more  danger 
from  the  legions  which  Pompey  had  formed  in 
Spain,  than  from  any  force  then  subsisting  in 
Italy,  and  he  made  his  disposition  against  those 
legions,  by  placing  the  strength  of  his  army  be- 
tween the  Pyrennees  and  the  Alps.  There  the 
army  formed  in  Gaul,  served  him  sufficiently  in 
his  design  against  Italy,  by  securing  him  from 
any  interruption  on  that  quarter.  When  the 
war  broke  out,  being  well  aware  that  the  effects 
of  surprise  are  often  greater  than  those  of  force, 
even  if  he  had  wished  for  more  troops  in  Italy, 
it  is  probable  that  he  would  not  have  awaited 
their  coming. 

On  the  very  day  that  he  delivered  the  harangue 
just  mentioned  to  the  legion  that  was  quartered 
at  Ravenna,  he  ordered  a  chosen  body  of  men, 
in  the  manner  of  stragglers  roving  for  pleasure 
through  the  country,  and  armed  only  with  swords, 
to  take  the  road  separately,  and  without  any  ap- 
pearance of  concert,  to  Aritninum,  the  first  forti- 
fied place  of  Italy  beyond  the  Rubicon,  which 
was  the  limit  of  his  province,  there  to  remain, 
und  at  a  certain  time  of  the  night  to  seize  upon 
one  of  the  gates.  He  likewise  ordered  a  party  of 
horse  to  parade  at  some  distance  from  Ravenna, 
and  there  to  wait  for  an  officer  who  was  to  deli- 


ver them  orders.  He  himself  passed  the  day,  as 
usual,  in  forming  combats  of  gladiators,  and  in 
attending  the  exercises  of  the  legion ;  at  night  he 
went  to  supper  at  the  usual  hour,  and  after  he 
had  taken  his  place,  pretending  business,  or  some 
slight  indisposition,  which  called  him  away  from 
the  company,  he  mounted  a  carriage  thafc  waited 
for  hirnv  drove  through  a  gate  opposite  to  that  of 
Arimimrm;  and  having  travelled  for  a  little  time 
in  that  direction,  turned  into  the  road  on  which 
he  had  posted  the  party  of  horse,  and  having 
joined  them,  marched  about  thirty  miles  before 
break  of  day,  entered  Ariminum  by  a  gate  which 
the  party  he  had  sent  before  him  kept  open  ;  and 
thus  without  any  resistance  took  possession  of  the 
place. 

It  was  of  importance,  that  the  first  report  of 
hostilities  at  Rome  should  carry  an  account  of 
his  success ;  not  merely  of  his  having  made  an 
attempt.  This  circumstance  may  justify  the 
measures  which  he  took  to  surprise  a  place 
which,  without  so  many  precautions,  might  have 
been  easily  reduced,  though  at  the  hazard  per- 
haps of  delay  for  a  few  days.  He  himself,  indeed, 
in  his  Commentaries,  makes  no  mention  of  any 
such  measures,  nor  of  the  doubts  and  hesitations 
under  which  he  is  said  to  have  halted  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rubicon,  by  the  passing  of  which 
he  entered  into  a  state  of  war  with  the  common 
wealth. 

At  Ariminum  his  little  army,  on  the  following 
day,  arrived  from  Ravenna,  and:  the  tribunes, 
Mark  Antony  and  duintus  Cassius,  joined  him 
from  Rome.  He  presented  them  to  the  army  in 
the  disguise  in  which  they  affected  to  have 
escaped  from  the  violence  of  a  tyranny  then 
established  in  the  city.  "  Observe,"  he  said,  "  to 
what  extremities  persons  of  noble  birth,  vested 
with  the  sacred  character  of  tribunes  are  reduced, 
for  having  supported  their  friends,  and  for  having 
pleaded  the  cause  of  an  injured  army."1  The 
occasion  was  suited  to  popular  eloquence;  and 
this  eminent  master  of  every  art  did  not  neglect 
the  opportunity.  He  is  said  to  have  acted  his 
part  with  great  vehemence ;  to  have  torn  open  his 
vest  from  his  breast,  and  to  have  shed  tears ;  fre- 
quently held  up  to  view  the  hand  on  which  he 
wore  his  ring,  the  common  ensign  of  noble  birth 
among  the  Romans,  and  declared,  that  he  would; 
sacrifice  all  the  honours  of  his  rank  to  reward 
those  who  were  willing  to  support  the  public 
cause,  and  who  adhered  to  himself  on  the  pre- 
sent occasion.  From  these  signs,  where  he  was 
not  distinctly  heard,  it  was  supposed  that  he  pro- 
mised the  honours  of  nobility,  and  a  large  sum 
of  money  to  every  soldier  in  his  army.2 

Lucius  Csesar  and  the  praetor  Roscius,  who, 
while  the  decree  against  Caius  Caesar  was  de- 
pending in  the  senate,  made  offer  of  their  good 
offices  to  treat  with  him,  and  bring  matters  to  an 
amicable  accommodation,  were  now  come  with- 
out any  public  commission,  probably  to  hinder 
their  friend  from  taking  any  desperate  resolution. 
They  brought  at  the  same  time,  a  private  mes- 
sage from  Pompey,  with  some  expressions  of 
civility,  and  an  apology,  taken  from  the  necessity 
of  the  public  service,  for  the  hardship  which  he 
supposed  himself  to  have  put  upon  Csesar.  Pom- 
pey, in  this  message,  protested,  "  That  he  had 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civile,  lib.  ii. 

2  Sucton.  in  Caes.  c.  33. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


259 


always  preferred  the  public  to  private  considera-  j 
tions ;"  and  subjoined,  "  that  he  hoped  Caesar  | 
would  not  suffer  any  passion  to  carry  him  into 
measures  hurtful  to  the  state,  nor,  avenging  him- 
self of  his  private  enemies,  stretch  forth  his  hand 
against  the  republic." 

Such  professions  had  little  credit  with  Caesar; 
but  if  they  were  to  be  of  any  weight  with  the 
public,  he  was  not  likelv,  in  his  turn,  to  fail  in 
the  use  of  them.  He  desired  those  persons,  by 
whom  Pompey  had  favoured  him  with  this  mes- 
sage, to  carry  for  answer,  "  That  the  republic  had 
always  been  to  him  dearer  than  his  fortune  or  his 
life;  "but  that  he  could  not  suffer  the  honours 
which  the  Roman  people  had  bestowed  upon  him 
in  public,  to  be  contemptuously  torn  away  by  his 
private  enemies.  His  commission,  he  said,  would 
have  expired  in  six  months;  his  enemies,  in  their 
eagerness  to  degrade  him,  could  not  bear  even 
with  this  delay,  but  must  recall  him  immediately. 
The  Roman  people  had  dispensed  with  his  at- 
tendance at  the  elections,  yet  he  must  be  dragged 
to  town  at  that  time  to  gratify  private  malice. 
These  personal  insults  he  had  patiently  borne  for 
the  sake  of  the  public ;  and  being  resolved  to  dis- 
arm, requested  the  senate  only  that  others  should 
disarm  as  well  as  himself ;  that  even  this  was  re- 
fused, and  new  levies  were  ordered  throughout 
Italy;  that  two  legions  which  had  been  called  off 
from  his  own  army,  uiider  pretence  of  the  Part  hian 
war,  were  now  retained  against  him;  that  the 
whole  state  was  in  arms;  for  what  purpose  but 
for  his  destruction ;  that,  nevertheless,  he  would 
suffer  any  thing  for  the  good  of  the  common- 
wealth. Let  Pompey  repair  to  his  province ;  let 
all  parties  disband,  and  no  army  whatever  be  as- 
sembled in  Italy ;  let  no  one  pretend  to  overawe 
the  city ;  let  the  assemblies  of  the  people  and  of 
the  senate  be  free ;  and  in  order  the  more  speedily 
to  terminate  these  disputes,  let  the  parties  meet 
and  confer  together.;  let  Pompey  say  where  he 
will  be  waited  on,  or  let  him  name  a  proper  place 
of  meeting;  at  a  friendly  conference  every  diffi- 
culty will  be  soon  removed."8 

From  this  time  forward,  Caesar  affected,  on 
every  occasion,  to  have  no  object  in  view  but  to 
prevail  on  his  enemies,  by  some  reasonable  ac- 
commodation, to  save  the  republic  from  a  ruinous 
war,  and  to  stop  the  effusion  of  innocent  blood.4 
He  continually  repeated  his  proposals  of  peace, 
while  he  urged  his  military  operations  with  un- 
common rapidity.  He  ordered  new  levies  at 
Ariminum,  and  sent  Antony  to  occupy  Arreti- 
um,5  a  pass  in  one  of  the  branches  of  the  Flami- 
nian  Way  through  the  Apennines ;  and  as  fast 
as  the  troops  could  march  he  seized  Pisauvum,6 
Faunum,  Auximum,  with  the  town  of  Ancona, 
and  all  the  places  necessary  to  give  him  the  com- 
mand of  that  district,  or  to  open  his  way  to  Rome. 

A  general  consternation  spread  over  all  the 
country  before  him;  the  people  fled  from  their 
habitations,  and  communicated  the  alarm,  with 
every  sort  of  exaggeration,  to  the  city.  Pompey 
had  relied  much  on  the  name  and  authority  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  no  less  on  his  own.  Others 
thought  themselves  secure  while  this  renowned 
and  experienced  commander  gave  them  assur- 
ances of  safety.    Now,  like  a  person  awake  from 


3  Caesar,  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  i. 

4  Ciesur.  Appian.  in  lib  viii.  Ad  Atrium,  post  ep.  13. 

5  Arrego.  (j  Pis&ro,  Peno,  and  Osimo. 


a  dream,  he  seemed  to  perceive  the  whole  wa* 
illusion.  Caesar  paid  no  regard  to  the  authority 
of  the  senate,  nor  stood  in  awe  of  the  state.  He 
was  at  hand,  with  the  reputation  of  a  general 
equal  to  Pompey,  at  the  head  of  troops  fresh 
from  service,  and  inured  to  blood.  The  republic 
was  but  a  name;  and  they  who  composed  it, 
though  respectable  at  a  distance,  were,  on  the  ap- 
proach of  an  enemy,  irresolute,  disunited,  and 
incapable  of  the  exertions  which  such  an  occa- 
sion required.  Orders  had  gone  forth  to  raise 
troops  in  every  part  of  Italy  ;  but  no  great  pro- 
gress in  so  short  a  time  could  yet  have  been  made 
in  that  service.  Besides  the  two  legions  which 
had  served  so  long  under  Caesar  himself,  there 
were  not  any  forces  embodied  in  the  country. 
These  were  justly  suspected  of  inclining  to  their 
former  general;  and,  instead  of  enabling  Pompey 
to  meet  the  danger  whicn  threatened  the  com- 
monwealth, furnished  him,  at  the  head  of  such 
troops,  with  particular  reasons  for  his  keeping  at 
a  distance  from  the  enemy.  In  a  letter  to  Domi- 
tius  Ahenobarbus,  "I  sent  you  word,"  he  writes, 
"that  with  these  two  legions  I  did  not  choose  to 
be  near  Caesar.7  If  I  should  retreat,  therefore,  at 
his  approach,  be  not  surprised."8 

Domitius  had  been  appointed  to  succeed  Caesar 
in  the  government  of  Gaul;  and,  with  some  other 
officers  in  the  Picenum,9  had  made  some  progress 
in  raising-troops.  Their  numbers,  perhaps,  sur- 
passed those  of  Caesar.  If  Pompey,  therefore, 
had  thought  it  possilJe  to  defend  the  city,  he  must 
have  hastened  to  that  quarter,  and  have  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  those  troops.  But  he  was 
timorous  in  hazarding  his  own  reputation,  a 
weakness  from  which  Caesar  was  altogether  ex- 
empt, and  which  was  unworthy  of  the  great  mili- 
tary talents  of  either.  Pompey  seldom  committed 
his  fame  where  the  prospect  was  unfavourable,  or 
events  extremely  uncertain.  Caesar,  on  such  oc- 
casions, never  chose  to  trust  his  affairs  in  any 
other  hands  than  his  own. 

Pompey,  acting  under  these  motives,  assembled 
the  senate,  and  informed  them  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  abandon  Rome  ;  that  he  would  meet  them 
again  at  Capua,  where  he  proposed  to  assemble 
his  forces  ;  that  he  should  consider  all  those  who 
remained  in  the  capital  to  countenance  or  to  vvib- 
ness  the  violences  of  Caisar  as  equally  guilty  with 
those  who  should  be  fouud  in  his  camp. 

It  being  unlawful  for  the  olliccrs  of  the  repub- 
lic to  absent  themselves  from  the  city,  the  senate 
passed  an  act  to  dispense  with  their  attendance 
at  Rome,  and  to  enable  them  to  exercise  the 
powers  of  magistracy  wherever  the  necessities  of 
the  state  might  require  their  presence.  These 
preparations  for  dislodging  the  government,  to- 
gether with  the  actual  night  of  Pompey.  damped 
all  the  courage  that  remained  in  any  order  or 
class  of  the  people.  It  made  Ca?sar  appear  at  once 
more  odious  and  more  terrible.10  It  was  generally 
expected"  that  he  would  exceed  either  Cinna  or 
Sylla  in  rapacity  and  cruelty;12  and  that  the  city, 
if  he  should  surprise  his  opponents  there,  would 
become  a  scene  of  blood.  The  consuls,  and  most 


7  Meaning  probably  that  lie  did  not  choose  lo  give 
them  an  opportunity  to  desert. 

8  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  viii.  ep.  2.    Ad  Dominant 

9  March  of  Anconia. 

10  Cicero  ad  Att  lib.  vi.ep  11. 

11  Ibid  ep.  12.  22. 

12  Ibid,  lib  vii. » p  7. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Be  *  IV. 


of  the  other  officers  of  state,  set  out  with  their 
ensigns  of  power.  All  night  the  gates  were 
crowded  with  senators  and  other  persons  of  rank 
who  fled  on  this  occasion  ;  some  with  their  fami- 
lies and  most  valuable  effects,  others  alone,  and 
distracted  by  the  general  panic,  without  knowing 
whither  they  were  to  retire,  or  to  what  fate  they 
were  leaving  their  families. 

Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  making  a  rapid  march 
through  Umbria,  or  what  is  now  the  dutchy  of 
U  rhino,1  and  the  Picenum,  or  March  of  Anco- 
na,2  not  only  took  possession  of  every  place  as 
he  passed,  but  gained  daily  accession  of  strength 
by  the  junction  of  the  new  levies  that  had  been 
raised  to  oppose  him.  Soldiers  are  averse  to  the 
losing  side ;  and  Pompey's  flight  put  an  end  to 
his  military  power  in  Italy.  The  praetor  Ther- 
mus had,  with  five  cohorts,  amounting,  if  com- 
plete, to  twenty-five  hundred  men,  taken  post  at 
Iguvium,3  among  the  Apennines,  on  the  Flami- 
nian  Way.  Observing  that  Pompey's  party  in 
general  was  retreating,  and  that  Curio  was  ad- 
vancing towards  him  with  a  part  of  Caesar's 
forces,  he  resolved  to  abandon  his  post ;  but  as 
soon  as  he  began  to  execute  this  purpose,  and 
was  on  the  road  to  Rome,  the  troops  deserted 
him  on  the  march,  returned  to  the  post  from 
which  he  had  removed  them,  and  declared  for 
Caesar. 

The  dispositions  of  the  towns  of  which  Caesar 
had  got  possession,  made  it  unnecessary  for  him 
to  leave  any  garrison  behind  him,  and  permitted 
him  to  advance  with  all  his  forces.  Auxinum4 
declared  for  him  before  his  arrival,  and  obliged 
Accius  Varus,  who  held  that  post  for  the  republic, 
to  abandon  it.  This  officer  was  overtaken  by 
Caesar's  advanced  parties,  and,  like  Thermus, 
was  deserted  by  his  people. 

At  Cingulum  in  the  Picenum,  Caesar  was 
joined  by  the  twelfth  legion,  to  which,  on  his 
first  motion  from  Ravenna,  he  had  sent  orders 
to  march.  With  this  accession  of  force,  he  ad- 
vanced to  Asculum5  on  the  Fronto ;  and  having 
dislodged  from  thence  Lentulus  Spinther,  who 
commanded  ten  cohorts,  the  greater  part  of  these 
troops  deserted  to  him.  The  remainder  put  them- 
selves under  the  command  of  Vibullius,  who  was 
just  arrived  from  Pompey  to  support  the  hopes 
of  the  cause  in  that  quarter. 

As  Caesar  made  his  principal  push  on  the  Adri- 
atic side  of  the  Apennines,  the  troops  that  were 
suddenly  raised  for  the  republic  were,  without 
any  well-concerted  plan,  drawn  together  upon 
that  coast.  And  Pompey  himself  had  not  yet 
openly  laid  aside  the  design  of  making  head 
against  Caesar  in  those  parts,  Vibullius  having 
assembled  in  all  about  fourteen  cohorts,  fell  back 
to  the  Aternus,  now  called  the  Piscara,  and  joined 
E.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  at  Corfinium,  a  pass 
in  the  Apennines  that  commanded  the  Valerian 
way  to  Rome.  This  officer  having  assembled 
twenty-five  cohorts,  meant  to  have  joined  Pom- 
pey wherever  he  should  be  found,  and  had  or- 
dered Thermus  to  follow  with  five  cohorts  more;6 
but  imagining  probably  that  Pompey  still  intend- 
ed to  cover  Rome  from  the  incursions  of  Caesar, 
and  that  Corfinium  was  an  important  post  for 
this  purpose,  he  determined  to  observe  the  mo- 
tions of  the  enemy  from  that  place. 

1  Umbria,  2  Picenum.  3  Gubio. 

4  Osimo.  5  Oscule. 

6  Pomp,  ad  Cicer.  in  lib.  ad  Att.  post  ep.  11. 


Pompey  by  this  time  had  moved  frore  Capua 
to  Luceria,  and  seemed  to  have  taken  the  resolu- 
tion not  only  of  abandoning  the  posts  that  covered 
the  access  to  Rome,  but  even  all  Italy,  to  Caesar. 
The  consuls,  the  greater  part  of  the  magistracy, 
and  the  senate,  had  followed  him  to  Capua. 
Here  was  received  the  message  which  Caesar  had 
given  to  Roscius  and  to  L.  Caesar.  It  contained 
several  reflections  and  insinuations  in  the  highest 
degree  provoking  to  Pompey  ;  and  to  this  circum- 
stance Caesar  probably  trusted,  that  he  should  not 
be  bound  by  any  of  the  offers  he  had  made,  and 
that  the  odium  of  rejecting  the  peace  would  fall 
upon  his  enemies.  But  the  friends  of  the  com- 
monwealth, deeply  impressed  with  the  necessity 
of  their  own  affairs,  gladly  listened  to  any  terms 
of  accommodation.  They  objected  indeed  to  the 
proposed  interview  between  Pompey  and  Caesar, 
remembering  the  dangerous  concerts  which  at 
their  meetings  had  been  formerly  entered  into 
against  the  commonwealth. 

Pompey  himself  was  so  sensible  of  the  disad- 
vantage at  which  he  was  taken,  that  he  dissem- 
bled his  resentment  of  the  personal  reflections 
cast  on  himself,  and  consented  to  conditions 
which  he  had  hitherto  rejected  with  disdain. 
It  was  agreed  accordingly  that  he  should  repair 
to  Spain,  and  that,  his  province  being  in  profound 
peace,  he  should  reduce  his  military  establish- 
ment. Caesar,  on  his  part,  besides  the  conditions 
he  himself  had  offered,  was  required  to  evacuate 
all  the  towns  which  he  had  lately  seized  in  Italy ; 
and  it  was  proposed  that  the  consuls,  magistrates, 
and  senators,  should  return  to  the  city,  and  from 
the  usual  seat  of  government  give  all  the  sanction 
of  public  authority  to  these  arrangements.  From 
such  appearances  it  was  not  doubted  that  an  ac- 
commodation must  follow.  And  in  this  belief 
Cato,  though  appointed  to  command  in  Sicily, 
chose  to  abide  by  the  senate  while  the  treaty  re- 
mained in  dependence.  And  Cicero  thought  the 
agreement  almost  concluded.  "  The  one,"  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Atticus,  "  begins  to  repent  of 
his  precipitation,  and  the  other  is  sensible  he  has 
not  a  force  sufficient  to  support  such  a  war."7 

Caesar  therefore  was  likely  to  be  caught  in  the 
snare  he  laid  for  his  enemies,  or  obliged  to  lay 
aside  the  disguise  which  he  had  assumed  in  affect- 
ing such  earnest  desires  for  peace.  To  avoid 
either  of  these  inconveniences,  he  objected  to 
some  of  the  conditions  which  the  opposite  party 
had  subjoined  to'  his  proposals,  and  complained 
of  the  silence  which  they  kept  on  others,  as  pro- 
ceeding from  a  deliberate  purpose  to  circumvent 
and  betray  him.  "  Pompey  will  repair  to  Spain," 
he  said,  "but  when  ?  I  am  required  to  evacuate 
all  the  towns  of  Italy,  while  Pompey  and  the 
whole  senate  continue  in  arms  against  me,  and 
while  my  enemies  not  only  make  new  levies,  but 
employ  for  my  destruction  legions  which  they 
have  actually  taken  away  from  my  own  army, 
If  Pompey  be  sincere  in  desiring  a  peace,  why 
does  he  decline  the  personal  interview  which  has 
been  proposed  for  that  purpose  ?" 

Caesar  had  by  this  time,  advanced  with  hasty 
marches  to  Corfinium,  drove  in  a  detachment 
from  the  garrison,  which  he  found  breaking  down 
a  bridge  about  three  miles  from  the  town,  sat 
down  under  the  walls,  and  employed  three  days 
in  fortifying  his  camp,  and  in  filling  the  maga- 


7  Ad.  Att,  lib.  vii.  ep.  14 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROM 


AN  REPUBLIC. 


261 


zines  with  corn  from  the  neighbouring  country. 
Being  joined  by  the  eighth  legion  and  twentv- 
two  cohorts  of  the  new  levies  from  Gaul,  with 
three  hundred  auxiliary  horse,  he  ordered  proper 
pt>sts  to  be  seized  on  every  side  of  the  town,  and 
effectually  shut  up  those  who  were  within  from 
any  relief,  or  from  any  communication  with  their 
friends.  When  his '  works  began  to  appear 
against  the  place,  Domitius  published  a  reward 
to  any  who  should  carry  letters  to  Pompey. 
Different  messengers  were  despatched  for  this 
purpose,  and  brought  for  answer,  that  Pompey 
disapproved  of  his  having  allowed  himself  to  be 
invested  by  Caesar,  had  foretold  him  the  bad  con- 
sequences of  this  measure,  and  now  earnestly  ex- 
horted him,  if  possible,  to  extricate  himself ;  for 
that  it  was  not  in  his  power  with  these  doubtful 
legions,  which  had  been  so  lately  drawn  from 
Caesar's  army,  or  with  new  levies,  to  force  the 
hardy  and  veteran  troops  of  the  enemy.8 

This  answer  Domitius  endeavoured  to  conceal 
from  his  army ;  encouraged  them  with  hopes  of 
a  speedy  relief  from  Pompey,  and  seemed  intent 
on  the  defence  of  the  place,  while  he  was  actually 
taking  measures  to  get  off  in  person,  without  any 
hopes  of  preserving  the  forces  he  had  assembled 
for  the  commonwealth.  This  design  being  sus- 
pected, the  troops  surrounded  his  quarters  in  the 
night,  took  him  prisoner,  and  to  pay  their  court, 
while  they  delivered  up  their  general  and  surren- 
dered the  town,  made  offer  of  their  own  services 
to  Caesar. 

Upon  this  surrender,  Caesar  took  possession  of 
the  gates,  manned  the  walls,  and  gave  orders  that 
no  person  whatever  from  his  army  should  enter 
the  place  before  it  was  day.  tie  knew,  that  be- 
sides Domitius  and  Vibuliius,  there  were  many 
senators  and  Roman  knights  now  shut  up  in  the 
town.  These  he  ordered  in  the  morning  to  be 
brought  before  him,  expostulated  with  them  on 
the  subject  of  their  enmity  to  himself,  and  their 
precipitation  in  hurrying  the  state  into  this  un- 
natural war.  He  then  dismissed  them  with  the 
respect  that  was  due  to  Roman  citizens  of  their 
rank  ;  and  being  told  that  a  considerable  sum  of 
money,  amassed  at  Corfinium  for  the  support  of 
the  troops,  had  been  seized  by  his  people,  to  com- 
plete this  scene  of  unexpected  moderation,  by  an 
exhibition  of  disinterestedness,  as  well  as  of  cle- 
mency, he  ordered  this  money  to  be  restored  to 
Domitius.  The  fame  of  this  wonderful  mildness 
and  generosity,  as  he  expected,  was  every  where 
diffused  ;  and  though,  by  over-acting  his  part  in 
abstaining  from  the  public  money,  he  furnished 
every  thinking  person  with  a  sufficient  comment 
on  the  other  parts  of  his  conduct;  yet  many  were 
happy  to  understand,  that,  in  this  alarming  con- 
test, their  lives  and  properties  were,  from  any 
motives  whatever  to  be  spared. 

Rome  was  now  open  to  Cmsar ;  but  he  thought 
the  possession  of  it  of  no  moment,  until  he  had 
suppressed  the  military  arrangements  that  were 
making  in  the  country,  and  had  decided  who  was 
to  have  the  possession  of  Italy.  He  therefore, 
on  the  very  day  on  which  he  became  master  of 
Corfinium,  detached  to  Sicily,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Curio,  the  troops  that  deserted  to  him  in 
making  this  conquest.9    He  himself  set  out  for 


8  Pompeius  ad  Domitium,  lib.  viii.     Et  ad  Atti- 

c  iin,  post  op  12.   Cms.  de  Bell.  Civ 
i>  Crcgiu*.  de  Uc'llo  Civ  lib.  i  c  '.'j. 


Apulia,  and,  before  sunset,  accomplished  a  con 
siderable  march;  but  while  he  thus  urged  the 
war  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  sent  messengers 
before  him  to  the  leaders  of  the  opposite  party, 
with  professions  of  friendship  and  overtures  of 
peace. 

Immediately  after  the  reduction  of  Corfinium, 
Balbus,  an  officer  in  Caesar's  army,  was  de- 
spatched with  a  message  to  the  consul  Lentulus, 
containing  earnest  entreaties,  that  this  magis- 
trate would  return  to  Rome,  and  prevent  the  dis- 
orders that  were  likely  to  arise  from  the  suspension 
of  government.  To  induce  him  to  comply  with 
this  request,  Balbus  had  secret  instructions  to 
assure  the  consul  of  a  proper  appointment  in  the 
provinces  at  the  expiration  of  his  year  in  office. 
The  bearer  of  this  message  declared,  that  Caesar 
desired  nothing  so  much  as  to  join  Pompey,  and 
to  make  peace  with  him  on  any  equitable  terms. 
And  the  father  of  this  young  man,  one  of  Caesar's 
retinue,  wrote,  at  the  same  time,  to  Cicero,  that 
Caesar  had  no  object  but  to  enjoy  peace  and  se- 
curity under  Pompey.'0  But  while  the  fame  of 
his  clemency  at  Corfinium,  and  of  this  wonder- 
ful disposition  to  peace  was  spread  throughout 
Italy,  and  reconciled  the  minds  of  many  to  whom 
he  had  been  till  then  ah  object  of  terror  ;'•  while 
he  hoped  to  amuse  his  enemies,  and  to  relax  the 
diligence  of  their  military  preparations,  he  ad- 
vanced with  so  much  rapidity,  that,  in  order  to 
avoid  him,  they  had  no  more  than  the  time  that 
was  necessary  to  cross  the  mountains  from  Ca- 
pua to  Luceria,  to  fall  back  from  thence  to  Canu- 
sium,  and  from  this  last  place,  without  a  halt,  to 
Brundusium. 

Pompey,  while  he  moved  in  this  direction, 
having  sent  Metullus  Scipio,  and  his  own  son 
Cnteus  into  Syria,  to  provide  and  assemble  the 
necessary  shipping  to  embark  his  army  ;12  his  in- 
tention to  abandon  Italy  began  to  be  suspected, 
and  shook  the  great  authority  which  he  still  de- 
rived from  his  military  reputation.  His  officers 
were  every  where  deserted  on  the  march  by  the 
new  levies,  who  returned  to  offer  their  sen  ices 
to  Caesar.  His  own  presence  kept  the  other 
parts  of  the  army  together,  and  brought  them 
safe  to  the  port  from  which  it  was  suspected  they 
were  to  take  their  departure  from  Italy.  Soon 
after  his  arrival  at  this  port  he  effectually  verified 
these  suspicions,  embarking  a  great  part  of  his 
army  with  the  consuls,  while  he  himself,  not 
having  sufficient  shipping  to  transport  the  whole, 
remained  with  a  second  division  to  wait  for  the 
return  of  his  ships. 

Such  was  the  posture  of  Pompey,  when  Caesar, 
with  six  legions,  four  of  veteran  troops,  and  two 
newly  raised  or  completed  from  those  who  came 
over  to  him  on  the  march,  arrived  at  the  gates  of 
Brundusium.  Even  here,  he  never  dropt  tlie 
project  of  amusing  his  enemy  with  proposals  of 
peace.  Cn.  Magius,  an  ollicer  in  the  service  of 
the  commonwealth,  having  been  taken  on  the 
march,  was  dismissed  with  great  courtesy,  and  a 
message  to  Pompey  containing  a  request,  that 
he  would  admit  Ca;sar  to  an  interview  ;  and  ob- 
serving, that  differences  are  soon  made  up  at  a 


10  Cicer.  ad  Ml.  lib.  viii.ep.  9. 

11  ibid,  cp  13.  Si  inebercule  neminein  occidet, nee 
cuiquain  quieq  iam  ademerit,  ab  his;  qai  earn  maxim* 
rimerant,  raftxiiife  diligctur 

u  Plutarch.  ii»  Pouipeip, 


262 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


conference,  which  otherwise  might  occasion  many 
journeys  and  messages  to  no  purpose. 

This  pacific  message,  as  in  other  instances, 
only  constituted  a  part  in  the  military  plan  of 
Caesar,  and  was  accompanied  with  effectual  pre- 
parations for  a  blockade  and  a  siege.  It  did  not 
as  yet  appear,  whether  Pompey  meant  to  trans- 
port all  his  troops,  and  to  abandon  Brundusium, 
or  to  keep  possession  of  this  post,  in  order  to  re- 
tain a  passage  into  Italy,  and  to  command  both 
sides  of  the  gulf.  Caesar,  to  try  his  intentions, 
and  either  to  shut  him  up,  or  to  hasten  his  de- 
parture, observing,  that  the  entrance  of  the  har- 
bour was  narrow,  and  might  be  shut  up,  began 
an  alarming  work  for  this  purpose.  He  em- 
ployed numerous  parties  to  throw  stones,  earth, 
and  other  heavy  materials  into  the  passage  be- 
tween the  two  moles,  and  expected,  in  a  little 
time,  to  be  able  to  join  them,  and  thus  effectually 
to  exclude  all  communication  with  the  sea. 

In  this  work  the  besiegers  advanced,  for  some 
time,  with  great  rapidity  •  but  being  come  into 
deeper  water,  where  the  materials  they  threw  in 
were  absorbed  or  unsettled,  and  displaced  by  the 
motion  of  the  sea,  they  found  it  necessary  to 
change  their  plan,  and  endeavoured  to  shut  up 
the  harbour  by  means  of  floating  rafts  and  hulks 
firmly  anchored  in  the  passage.  In  executing 
this  project  they  were  disturbed  by  a  continual 
discharge  of  arrows,  stones,  and  other  missile 
weapons  from  vessels  in  the  mouth  of  the  har- 
bour, on  which  proper  engines  were  mounted  for 
this  purpose. 

While  the  parties  were  thus,  without  inter- 
mission, engaged  at  the  entrance  of  the  port, 
Caesar  again  made  a  show  of  proposing  a  treaty. 
As  he  had  received  no  answer  to  his  former  mes- 
sage by  Magius.  he  affected  to  despair  of  mak- 
ing any  progress  by  direct  applications  to  Pompey, 
and  sent  into  the  town  Caninius  Rebilus,  one  of 
his  lieutenants,  who,  being  in  great  intimacy 
with  Scribonius  Libo,  had  directions  to  make 
application  to  him,  and,  in  Caesar's  name,  to  in- 
treat  his  good  offices  in  bringing  on  a  negotiation ; 
particularly,  if  possible,  in  procuring  an  interview 
between  Pompey  and  himself.  Representing  to 
Libo,  that  if  an  interview  were  obtained,  some 
way  might  be  discovered  to  stop  the  issues  of 
blood,  a  blessing  which,  in  that  case,  would  for 
ever  be  mentioned  as  the  effect  of  so  essential  a 
service  performed  by  Scribonius  Libo  to  his 
country. 

Pompey,  upon  receiving  these  proposals,  which, 
though  addressed  to  Libo,  were  carried  directly 
to  himself,  made  answer,  that,  in  the  absence  of 
the  consuls,  he  could  not  treat.  In  this  instance, 
he  perceived,  no  doubt,  the  insincerity  of  Cresar's 
pacific  declarations,  and  was  not  tempted  to  re- 
mit the  vigilance  of  his  defence,  or  the  ardour 
with  which  he  now  at  last  prepared  for  the  con- 
test :  yet  he  could  not  altogether  prevent  one  ad- 
vantage which  Ctesar  meant  to  reap  from  these 
repeated  professions  of  moderation  and  desire  of 
peace,  that  of  appearing  in  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
ple, not  the  author  of  the  war,  but  a  person  forced 
to  these  extremities  by  the  violence  and  obstinacy 
of  his  enemies. 

After  the  works  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbour 
of  Brundusium  had  been  continued  three  days, 
and  had  made  considerable  progress,  the  trans- 
ports which  had  carried  the  first  division  of  Pom- 
pey's  army  returned  from  Dyrrachium,  and  as 


the  passage  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbour  was 
still  open,  he  prepared  to  embark  with  the  re- 
mainder of  his  forces.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
town,  being  disaffected  to  him,  were  likely  to 
give  intelligence  to  Caesar  of  all  his  motions ;  and 
he  made  no  doubt  that  as  soon  as  he  should  with- 
draw his  guards,  they  would  throw  open  their 
gates ;  and  expose  him  to  be  attacked  in  his  rear, 
and  possibly  to  lose  such  part  of  his  army  as 
might  be  overtaken  on  shore.  To  provide  against 
this  event,  and  to  retard  Csesar's  entry  into  the 
town,  he  built  up  the  gates  with  solid  mortar  and 
stone,  and  traversed  the  streets  with  walls  and 
large  ditches,  replenished  with  sharp  stakes,  which 
were  masked,  or  hid  with  a  slight  covering  of 
brushwood  and  earth. 

When  the  legions  began  to  move  towards  the 
harbour,  the  rear  guard  still  endeavoured  to  pre- 
sent the  usual  appearances  on  the  ramparts,  by 
occupying  every  post  with  archers,  slingers,  and 
other  light  troops.  These  being  to  remain  in 
their  post  while  the  main  body  was  embarking, 
had  orders,  at  a  signal  given,  to  abandon  the 
walls,  and  to  repair  on  board  the  transports  which 
were  ready  to  receive  them. 

The  troops  in  Brundusium  thus  began  to  em- 
bark in  the  night,  and  Caesar,  having  immediate 
intelligence  of  it  from  the  town,  brought  forward 
his  scaling  ladders,  and,  as  soon  as  the  ramparts 
appeared  to  be  deserted,  began  to  ascend  them  in 
several  places  at  once,  and  effected  one  part  of 
his  purpose,  by  gaining  the  battlements  without 
opposition ;  but  when  he  was  about  to  descend 
from  thence  into  the  streets,  having  notice  of  the 
snares  and  obstructions  which  were  placed  in  his 
way,  he  was  obliged  to  halt,  or  to  advance  with 
so  much  precaution,  that  the  enemy  had  time  to 
put  off  from  the  mole,  and  get  under  sail.  Only 
two  transports,  that  struck,  and  were  aground  on 
the  banks  which  had  been  formed  or  begun  at 
the  mouth  of  the  harbour,  fell  into  his  nands. 
The  remainder,  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
senate,  attended  by  the  officers  of  state  and  the 
ensigns  of  magistracy,  proceeded  in  their  passage 
to  Epirus ;  thus  leaving  Caesar  in  possession  of 
Italy  and  of  the  seats  of  government,  from  which 
the  world  could  scarcely  disjoin,  in  their  idea,  the 
right  to  command, 

Csesar  having,  in  this  manner,  surprised  the 
republic,  and  in  sixty  days  obliged  all  his  oppo- 
nents to  evacuate  Italy,  and  to  leave  him  sole 
master  of  the  forces  which  began  to  be  mustered 
against  him,  it  is  probable,  notwithstanding  the 
question  he  states  relating  to  the  expedience  of 
following  his  enemy  into  Epirus,  that  he  had 
already  taken  his  resolution  to  consider  the  re- 
duction of  Spain  as  the  next  object  of  conse- 
quence to  that  of  Italy.  In  that  province,  which 
was  full  of  resources,  a  regular  army  of  seven  or 
eight  legions  had  been  for  some  time  formed,  with 
an  evident  purpose  to  keep  him  in  awe.  He  was 
threatened,  therefore,  with  the  most  immediate 
danger  from  thence.  Some  arrangements  too 
were  yet  wanting  for  the  security  of  Italy.  The 
professions  which  he  had  made  of  pacific  disposi- 
tions, and  of  zeal  for  the  republic,  were  to  be  con- 
firmed by  showing  a  proper  respect  to  the  forms 
of  the  constitution,  and  by  endeavouring  to  re- 
store a  government  which  he  had  actually  over- 
thrown. 

For  these  reasons,  Ca?sar  contented  himself, 
for  the  present,  with  having  ordeivJ  shipping  Id 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


263 


be  provided  at  the  port  of  Brundusium,  that  he 
might  amuse  the  enemy  with  appearances  of  his 
intending  to  continue  the  war  on  that  side,  or 
that  he  might  be  actually  ready  to  do  so,  when  he 
had  elsewhere  accomplished  the  purpose  on  which 
he  was  bent.  Notwithstanding  his  pacific  decla- 
rations, and  his  ostentation  of  clemency  on  every 
occasion,  the  people  still  trembled  when  they  saw 
almost  every  citizen  of  reputation  and  honour 
obliged  to  fly  from  the  seats  of  government,  and, 
in  their  place,  collected  from  different  quarters  of 
Ttaly,  every  bankrupt,  every  outlaw,  and  every 
person  of  infamous  character.1  These  being  at 
variance  with  the  laws  of  their  country,  had 
flocked  to  Caesar,  and  were  received  by  him  un- 
der the  denomination  of  the  injured  and  the  op- 
pressed citizens,  whose  wrongs  he  was  come  to 
redress. 

With  this  company,  still  multiplying  around 
him,  having  given  orders  to  secure  Brundusium 
from  the  sea,  and  posted  there,  and  at  Sipontum 
and  Tarenturn,  each  a  legion  ;  and  having  order- 
ed ships  from  every  part  of  the  coasts  of  Italy  and 
Gaul,  he  set  out  for  Spain,  intending,  while  the 
troops,  with  whom  he  had  overrun  Italy,  took 
some  repose  in  quarters,  and  while  those  who 
were  destined  for  the  service  in  Spain  were  on 
the  march,  that  he  himself  should  visit  Rome, 
and  observe  the  aspect  of  his  party.  His  father- 
in-law,  Calpurnius  Piso,  although,  by  his  relation 
to  Caesar,  hindered  from  following  Pompey,  yet 
would  not  countenance  his  son-in-law  so  far  as  to 
remain  i:i  the  city  to  receive  him.  Marcus  Le- 
pidus,  then  praetor,  was  the  officer  of  highest 
rank  who  continued  in  his  place;  and  beside 
the  tribunes  who  had  been  the  instruments  in 
kindling  this  war,  was  the  only  magistrate  who 
resigned  himself  entirely  to  the  victor's  disposal. 
Among  the  tribunes,  Crecilius  Metellus,  though 
disposed  to  have  followed  the  senate,  being  de- 
tained in  the  city  by  the  sacred  duties  of  his  func- 
tions, had  taken  his  resolution  to  employ  the 
negative  with  which  he  was  intrusted,  in  restrain- 
ing the  violations  of  law  and  government,  which 
were  to  be  expected  in  such  a  scene  as  was  now 
to  be  opened  at  Rome. 

Cicero,  upon  the  commencement  of  hostilities, 
having  still  the  ensigns  of  proconsul,  was  ap- 
pointed to  inspect  the  levies  and  other  affairs  of 
the  republic  on  the  coasts  of  Campania  and  La- 
tium.  Upon  Pompey's  retreat,  he  remained  in 
this  station  with  a  mind  overwhelmed  with  per- 
plexity and  irresolution.  He  affected  respect  and 
gratitude  to  Pompey,  though  he  surely  owed  him 
no  obligation,  bore  him  no  real  affection,  and 
blamed  him  highly  for  his  flight  from  Italy ;  but 
in  the  last  perhaps  he  only  meant  to  justify  him- 
self for  not  having  immediately  joined  him  in  his 
retreat,  and  for  not  having  embarked  with  more 
decision  in  the  cause.  He  sincerely  lamented  the 
state  of  the  republic,  of  which  he  now  certainly 
despaired,  and  only  wished  to  steer  a  course,  the 
safest  he  could  for  his  own  reputation  and  his 
person. 

Caesar,  in  the  beginning  of  this  contest,  had 
tontributed  much  to  perplex  the  resolution  of 
Cicero,  who  generally  saw  so  many  objects  in 

1  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  ix.  ep.  19.  Cave  autem  putis 
luemquam  hominem  in  Italiam  turpem  esse,  qui 
hinc  absit.  Vidi  ipso  Forniiis  uni versos,  &c. ;  et  Ci- 
eer.  ad  Att.  lib.  ix.  ep.  1.  qui  hie  potest  se  gerere  nrm 
p.ir.iiti  vita  mores  ante  facta  ratio  suscepti  negotii, 
fcocii,  &.c. 


every  question  of  state,  that  it  was  difficult  for 
him  to  decide  between  them.  He  had  been  kept 
undetermined  by  means  of  a  flattering  corres- 
pondence, in  which  Caesar  made  repeated  appli- 
cations for  his  good  offices  towards  preventing 
the  present  troubles.  Being  now  in  the  way  of 
Caesar  from  Brundusium  to  Rome,  he  was  ho- 
noured with  a  personal  interview  ;  at  which,  says 
Cicero  to  his  friend  Atticus,  I  shall  study  rather 
to  appear  an  object  of  his  respect  than  of  his 
liking.  He  accordingly,  on  that  occasion,  re- 
sisted his  flattery,  and  withstood  his  entreaties  to 
attend  a  meeting  of  the  senate,  which  Caesar  had 
ordered  to  be  assembled  by  a  messenger  despatch- 
ed from  Formiae.  Caesar  appeared  to  be  piqued 
at  this  refusal:  "It  will  be  supposed  you  con- 
demn me,"  he  said,  "  and  others  will  be  led  by 
your  example."  Cicero  replied,  "that  his  case 
was  different  from  that  of  others  who  had  less 
connection  with  Pompey."  "  Come,  then,"  con- 
tinued Caesar,  "  and  treat  of  an  accommodation 
with  Pompey."  "Shall  I  be  at  liberty  to  do  so 
in  my  own  way?"  "  Who  will  restrain  you?" 
"  Shall  I  move  the  senate  then,  that  the  war  shall 
not  be  carried  into  Spam,  nor  into  Greece  7 
Shall  I  lament  the  treatment  which  Pompey  has 
received?"  "That,  indeed,"  said  Caesar,  "I 
shall  not  like  to  have  said."  "I  thought  so,"  re- 
plied the  other,  "  and  choose  to  absent  myself." 
At  parting,  Caesar  desired  him  to  consider  of  the 
matter.  "If  you  desert  me,"  he  said,  "I  must 
have  recourse  to  other  counsels,  and  know  not 
what  I  may  be  forced  to  do."  2 

Upon  the  arrival  of  Caesar  in  the  suburbs  of 
Rome,  such  of  the  senators  as  were  in  the  city, 
or  in  the  neighbourhood,  assembled  at  his  sum- 
mons. He  opened  the  meeting  by  enumerating 
the  wrongs  he  had  received,  and  by  bailing  his 
opponents  with  the  guilt  of  the  present  war. 
"  He  never  had  aspired,"  he  said,  "  to  unprece- 
dented honours.  The  office  of  consul  was  now 
again  open  to  him  by  the  laws  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  and  the  Roman  people  had  dispensed 
with  his  personal  attendance  in  suing  for  it.  An 
act  to  this  purpose,"  he  said,  "had  been  obtained 
in  the  fairest  and  most  constitutional  manner 
Ten  tribunes  had  concurred  in  proposing  it.  His 
enemies,  particularly  Cato  himself,  had  been 
heard  at  full  length  against  it,  and  had  practised 
his  usual  artifice  for  disappointing  the  senate  or 
the  people,  by  prolonging  the  debates.  Pompey 
himself  was  consul  when  this  act  was  passed.  If 
he  disapproved  of  the  act,  why  did  he  not  oppose 
it  then?  If  he  approved  of  it,  why  rob  him  now 
of  the  privilege  it  bestowed  ?  He  reminded  this 
meeting  of  the  moderation  with  which  he  himself 
had  offered  to  resign  his  command,  while  others 
were  so  tenacious  of  theirs;  or  while  they  imposed 
conditions  on  him,  to  which  they  themselves 
would  not  submit,  and  chose  to  throw  the  state 
into  confusion,  rather  than  abate  the  least  of  their 
own  pretensions.  He  observed,  that  his  enemies 
had  made  use  of  a  false  pretence  to  call  off'  two 
legions  from  his  army  ;  that  they  had  violated  tho 
sacred  character  of  the  tribunes,  who  were  guilty 
of  no  offence,  but  that  of  protecting  him  against 
the  oppression  of  his  enemies  ;  that  they  had  re- 
jected all  offers  of  an  accommodation,  or  even  of 
a  conference. 

"  He  now  exhorted  the  senate  not  to  desert  the 


2  Cicer. ad  Atticmn,  lib.  ix.  ep.  18. 


261 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


commonwealth,  nor  to  oppose  such  as,  in  concert 
with  him,  might  endeavour  to  restore  the  govern- 
ment ;  but  if  they  should  shrink  in  this  arduous 
task,  he  should  not  press  it  upon  them.  He 
knew  how  to  act  for  himself.  If  his  opinion  were 
followed,  deputies  should  be  now  sent  from  the 
senate  to  Pompey,  with  entreaties,  that  he  would 
spare  the  Tepublic.  He  knew,  that  Pompey  had 
formerly  objected  to  his  having  any  such  deputa- 
tion sent  to  himself,  considering  such  advances  as 
a  concession  of  right  in  him  to  whom  they  were 
made,  or  of  fear  in  those  who  made  them.  These," 
he  said,  "were  the  reflections  of  a  narrow  mind  ; 
for  his  own  part,  as  he  wished  to  overcome  his 
enemies  in  the  field,  so  he  wished  to  excel  them 
in  acts  of  generosity  and  candour." 

Such  were  the  colours  in  which  this  artful 
man  endeavoured  to  disguise  his  cause ;  and 
while  he  took  effectual  measures  to  maintain  it 
by  force,  employed  likewise  an  insinuation,  and 
an  eloquence  not  less  dangerous  than  his  sword. 
The  proposals  of  a  treaty  were  received  in  this 
meeting  with  joy  ;  but  no  man  was  willing,  after 
having  assisted  at  such  a  meeting  of  the  senate, 
to  hazard  his  person  in  Pompey's  camp. 

While  Caesar,  to  reconcile  all  men  to  his  cause, 
affected  clemency  even  to  those  who  were  taken 
in  arms  against  him,  Pompey,  supposing  himself 
entrusted  with  the  powers  and  severities  of  the 
law,  had  threatened  to  employ  those  powers  and 
severities  to  the  utmost  extent  against  every  per- 
son who  staid  behind  him  at  Rome.  Proscription 
and  massacre  of  those  who  abandoned  the  com- 
monwealth were  the  ordinary  language  at  his 
quarters.1  He  proposed  to  operate  in  this  case 
by  fear  alone,  and  had  forgotten,  that  legal  go- 
vernment itself,  on  certain  occasions,  with  all  its 
authorities  and  powers,  stands  in  need  of  in- 
sinuation and  of  popular  arts. 

Csesar,  in  taking  the  opposite  tone,  and  in  af- 
fecting to  commit  his  affairs  to  the  issue  of  a  fair 
negotiation  and  treaty,  relied  on  the  difficulties 
that  were  likely  to  occur  in  the  conduct  of  any 
nogotiation  ;  or  he  presumed  upon  these  difficul- 
ties in  making  offers  which  he  did  not  wish  his 
enemies  to  accept.  His  intention  was  to  load  his 
antagonist  with  the  blame  of  a  war  which,  it  is 
probable,  he  had  a  long  time  been  devising.  If 
he  had  really  meant  to  renew  his  former  concerts 
with  Pompey,  he  would  have  employed  again  the 
same  concealed  methods  by  which  those  concerts 
had  been  formerly  obtained,  and  would  not  have 
intrusted  the  mediation  to  the  senate,  a  body 
which,  however  composed,  had  a  natural  claim  to 
authority,  and  might  have  carried  their  negotia- 
tions farther  than  he  proposed.  He  had  ever 
entertained  a  serious  aversion  to  the  name  and 
pretensions  of  the  senate.  Being  altogether  in- 
different to  public  interests  of  every  sort,  the  me- 
diocrity of  parts,  that  must  ever  appear  in  the 
majority  of  such  a  body,  was  to  him  an  object  of 
contempt.  He  had  espoused  the  cause  of  every 
faction,  of  every  tumult,  of  every  criminal  against 
them;  and,  at  one  time,  rather  than  be  subject  to 
their  authority,  had  proposed,  that  Pompey  him- 
self should  transport  his  army  from  Asia  to  usurp 
the  government.  Even  the  few  senators,  who, 
upon  the  former  occasion,  from  indifference  to 
public  questions,  or  from  a  disposition  to  favour 
his  cause,  had  remained  in  the  city,  became  the 


1  Cicer.  ad  Atticum,  lib.  viii.  cp.  11. 


objects  of  his  disgust.  Many  of  them,  though 
willing  to  be  his  instruments,  were  not  yet 
formed  for  his  purpose.  When  he  affected  to 
treat  them  with  respect,  they  received  his  ad- 
dresses as  matter  of  right ;  when  he  proposed  any 
measure,  they  took  the  matter  into  serious  consi- 
deration, and  affected  to  deliberate  of  what  was 
to  be  done.  "  Pie  detests  the  senate,"  said  Cu- 
rio to  Cicero,  "now  more  than  ever;  he  will 
leave  them  no  authority.  I  meant  to  have  held 
my  commission  by  a  fictitious  decree  of  that  body  : 
but  he  said,  I  should  hold  it  of  himself ;  and  that 
every  honour,  and  every  power  should  be  derived 
from  him."  2 

Csesar,  however,  meant  to  make  this  remnant 
of  a  legal  assembly  the  tools  of  every  ungracious 
or  improper  measure  he  had  occasion  to  execute, 
and,  in  particular,  to  avail  himself  of  their  au- 
thority in  seizing  the  public  money.  Pompey, 
before  he  left  Rome,  had  been  authorised  to  draw 
from  the  measures  of  the  commonwealth  what- 
ever money  he  wanted  for  the  service.  At  his 
departure,  he  ordered  the  whole  to  be  removed  ; 
and  the  consul  Lentulus  was  about  to  execute 
this  order,  when  a  sudden  alarm  of  Caesar's  ap- 
proach obliged  him  to  desist,  and  left  him  time 
only  to  carry  away  the  keys  of  the  public  reposi- 
tories. Caesar  now  moved  the  senate,  that  the 
doors  should  be  opened:  and  that  the  public 
money  should  be  issued  from  thence  to  defray  the 
expense  of  the  war.s  To  this  motion  the  tri- 
bune Metellus  Celer  opposed  his  negative  ;  and 
Caesar,  disdaining  any  longer  to  wear  a  mask 
which  subjected  him  to  the  observance  of  insig- 
nificant forms,  proceeded  to  the  treasury,  and  or- 
dered the  doors  to  be  forced.  The  tribune  had 
the  boldness  to  place  himself  in  the  way,  and  war, 
about  to  reduce  Caesar  to  the  disagreeable  alter- 
native of  being  disappointed  of  his  purpose,  or  of 
rendering  himself  the  object  of  popular  detesta- 
tion, by  violating  the  sacred  person  of  a  tribune, 
from  a  veneration  to  which,  he  himself  professed 
to  have  undertaken  the  war.  On  this  occasion, 
contrary  to  his  usual  character,  he  appeared  to 
have  lost  his  temper,  and  threatened  Metellus 
with  immediate  death.  "This,"  he  said,  "is 
easier  for  me  to  execute  than  to  utter."  It  was 
thought,  that  if  the  tribune  had  persisted,  not 
only  this  officer,  but  numbers  of  the  senators, 
and  many  of  the  more  respectable  citizens,  whom 
he  considered  as  enemies  and  promoters  to  the 
tribune's  contumacy,  would  have  been  involved  in 
a  general  massacre.  "  Think  not,"  said  Curie, 
in  relating  these  particulars  to  Cicero,  "  that  his 
clemency  proceeds  from  temper,  or  is  secured  to 
you  by  any  real  disposition  of  his  mind.  It  is  a 
mere  effect,  of  his  policy ;  he  is  naturally  indif- 
ferent to  blood,  and,  if  he  is  provoked,  will  make 
it  to  run  in  the  kennels."4 

The  tribune  Metellus,  however,  when  matters 
were  coming  to  this  extremity,  suffered  himself 
to  be  removed.  The  doors  were  forced  open,  all 
the  money  was  taken  from  thence,  even  the  sa- 
cred deposit,  supposed  to  have  remained  from  the 
time  of  the  rebuilding  of  Rome  after  its  destruc- 
tion by  the  Gauls,  and  still  kept  as  a  resource  for 
the  utmost  exigency  of  public  affairs,  was  now 
carried  oif.    I  have  subdued  the  Gauls,  said 


2  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  x.  ep.  4. 

3  Dio.  Cassius,  lib.  xli.  c.  17  et  18. 

4  Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  x.  ep.  4. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


205 


S 


Caesar,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  need  of  such 
provision  against  them.  He  is  said,  on  this  oc- 
casion, to  have  carried  off  in  bars,  25,000/6.5  of 
old,  35,000/6.6  of  silver,  and  in  coin,  40,000,000 
oman  money.7 

After  this  act  of  violence,  it  appears  that 
Caesar  distrusted  the  affections  of  the  people. 
He  had  proposed  to  harangue  them  in  a  public 
audience,  which  had  been  appointed  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  but  apprehending  that  he  might  be  exposed 
to  insult  from  some  one  in  the  crowd,  he  declined 
that  solemnity,  even  avoided  the  public  view  al- 
together, and  having  passed  but  a  few  days  at 
Rome,  set  out  for  Spain  sullen  and  displeased.  It 
was  no  longer  a  doubt,  that  his  victories  led  to 
the  subversion  of  the  republic,  and  of  every  spe- 
cies of  civil  government  whatever.8 

Marcus  Emilius  Lepidus,  who,  as  has  been 
observed,  was  at  this  time  praetor,  and  the  officer 
of  highest  rank  then  at  Rome,  was  left  to  govern 
the  city.  Mark  Antony  had  the  command  of 
Caesar's  forces  in  Italy  5  and  by  the  use  which  he 
made  of  his  power,  treating  persons  of  the  most 
respectable  condition  with  great  insolence,  and 
indulging  himself  in  all  the  extravagance  of  de- 
bauch, for  which  his  genius  appears  to  have  been 
peculiarly  fitted,  increased  the  dismal  apprehen- 
sions of  the  public.  He  is  said  to  have  travelled 
through  Italy  himself  in  an  open  litter,  with 
Citheride,  a  celebrated  actress,  followed  by  seven 
other  carriages  replenished  with  courtezans,  and 
even  attended  by  his  wife  Fulvia,  the  widow  of 
the  late  famous  Clodius,  who,  to  enjoy  her  hus- 
band's state,  and  partake  with  him  in  the  license 
of  his  military  power,  connived  at  his  infidelities, 
and  made  a  part  in  this  scandalous  train.9  The 
whole,  a  lively  specimen  of  the  purpose  for  which 
the  accomplices  of  Catiline,  and  many  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  Caesar  wished  to  be  masters  of  the  re- 
public, and  a  foretaste  of  the  wanton  caprice  with 
which  this  overgrown  republic,  so  long  a  prey  to 
outrageous  faction,  was  now  likely  to  be  made  the 
subject  and  the  sport  of  a  military  usurpation. 

Soon  after  hostilities  had  commenced,  Cotta 
had  been  sent  to  command  for  the  republic  in 
Sardinia,  and  Cato  to  command  in  Sicily.  Caesar, 
when  about  to  carry  the  war  into  Spain,  thought 
it  necessary,  if  possible,  to  get  the  possession  of 
these  islands,  as  well  as  to  reduce  Pompey's 
forces  in  every  other  part  of  the  empire.  Having 
stationed  Dolabella,  with  C.  Antonius,  on  the 
coast  of  Illyricum,  he  ordered  Valerius,  with  a 
proper  force,  into  Sardinia,  and  Curio,  with  three 
legions,  to  attack  Cato  in  Sicily.  The  Sardinians, 
hearing  that  one  of  Caesar's  officers  was  appoint- 
ed, in  his  name,  to  take  possession  of  their  island, 
declared  for  his  interest,  took  arms  against  (  lotta, 
and  obliged  him  to  fly  into  Africa,  where  he  join- 
ed Accius  Varus,  who  had  occupied  that  province 
in  the  name  of  the  republic. 

Cato,  some  time  after  his  nomination  to  com- 
mand in  Sicily,  and  while  there  were  any  hopes 
of  a  negotiation,  remained  at  Capua,  then  the 
quarters  of  Pompey,  in  order  to  give  his  assist- 


According  to  Arbuthrtot,  ch.  18. 

5  £678,125   0  0 

6  94,937  10  0 

7  322,916  13  4   Vid.  Plin.  lib.  xxxiij.  c  3 


£1,095,982   3  4 

8  Cic.  ad  Att.  lib.  x.  cp.  4. 

2  L 


9  Ibid.  lib.  x.  et 


ance  in  forming  an  accommodation,  the  least 
ruinous  that  could  be  obtained  for  the  common- 
wealth. On  Pompey's  retreat  into  Apulia,  he 
went  into  Sicily,  anil  the  province  being  unpro- 
vided with  every  means  of  defence,  he  gave  or- 
ders to  repair,  and  to  build  ships  in  all  the  ports 
of  the  island,  and  in  those  of  the  neighbouring 
coast  of  Italy.  He  had  likewise  ordered  all  the 
towns  to  furnish  their  quota  of  troops  ;  but  had 
not  been  able  to  assemble  any  force,  when  Curio 
landed  at  Messina,  with  the  two  legions  destined 
by  Caesar  to  take  possession  of  the  island.  Sen- 
sible that  any  attempts  to  resist  this  force  would 
only  expose  the  lives  of  a  few  welbaffected  citi- 
zens or  subjects,  who  might  on  this  occasion  bo 
disposed  to  support  him  as  an  officer  of  the  re- 
public, he  discontinued  his  military  preparations, 
and  withdrew  from  the  island. 

This  officer  had  often  disapproved  of  Pompey's 
conduct;  and  on  this  occasion,  complained  par- 
ticularly of  the  defenceless  state  in  which  he  had 
suffered  the  republic  to  be  surprised  in  all  its 
possessions.  Caesar,  who  no  doubt  wished  to 
have  the  suffrage  of  such  a  citizen,  and  of  his  ow  n 
enemy  against  Pompey,  represents  Cato  as  com- 
plaining that  he  was  betrayed,  that  the  senate 
had  been  deceived,  and  that  the  war  itself  was 
unnecessary.10  The  conduct  of  Pompey,  notonlv 
as  a  citizen,  but  as  an  officer  of  state  and  as  a 
soldier,  has  been  censured  in  many  parts  of  this 
memorable  contest ;  and  it  is  indeed  easy  to  spv 
faults  after  the  event,  and  when  experience  ha* 
exposed  them  to  view.  Cspsar  himself  is  said  to 
have  censured  him  for  abandoning  ltalv;  and  it 
is  probable  would  have  respected  him  more,  if  in 
executing  this  resolution,  instead  of  passing  into 
Macedonia,  he  had  gone  to  the  head  of  hie  army 
in  Spain.  His  celebrated  saying,  in  leaving 
Brundusium,  when  he  was  about  to  carry  the  war 
into  that  country,  implied  an  opinion  to  this  par* 
pose,  "  We  go,"  he  said,  "  from  this  general  who 
has  no  army,  to  an  army  that  has  no  general." 

Caesar's  own  disposition  of  his  forces,  as  has 
been  already  mentioned,  in  assigning  what  ap- 
peared to  have  been  the  reason  of  his  conduct, 
had  been  made  with  the  greatest  ability;  and  the 
more,  that  they  gave  him  the  appearance  of  a 
person  acting  without  design,  and  suddenly 
forced  to  the  measures  which  he  embraced,  In 
talking  of  ordinary  men,  we  may  err  in  imputing 
too  much  to  design  and  concert ;  but  with  re- 
spect to  Caesar,  the  mistake  to  be  feared,  is  not 
perceiving  the  whole  extent  of  his  foresight  and 
plan.  Pie  at  once  armed  himself  with  a  military 
force,  and  artfully  guarded  the  appearances  under 
which  he  was  to  use  it.  When  the  senate  passed 
their  resolution  against  him,  he  seemed  to  be 
caught  unprepared  to  resist ;  but  the  senate  was 
still  less  prepared  to  attack.  He  had  artfully 
avoided  giving  them  any  cause  of  suspicion,  by 
any  unnecessary  assemblage  of  forces  on  the  side 
of  Italy,  while  he  had  sufficient  strength  to  take 
the  full  benefit  of  the  consternation  into  which 
they  were  thrown  by  his  first  alarm.  Though 
long  meditating  the  invasion  of  Rome  with  an 
army,  he  contrived  an  incident,  in  the  flight  of 
the  tribunes,  to  make  it  appear  the  effect  of  a 
sudden  provocation,  and  of  his  zeal  in  a  popular 
cause.  When  we  consider  that  Mark  Antony 
was  the  tribune  who  furnished  this  pretence 


10  Cjes.  dc  Bell.  Civ.  lib. 


265 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


there  is  no  doubt  that  Caesar  had  his  choice  of  the 
time  at  which  it  should  be  presented  to  him. 

At  this  conjuncture,  the  greater  part  of  his 
army  still  remained  beyond  the  Alps,  and  in  the 
precise  situation  in  which  they  were  most  likely 
to  be  wanted  to  encounter  the  first  considerable 
difficulty  that  would  probably  arise  in  the  war, 
from  the  veteran  legions  which  had  been  levied 
for  Pompey,  and  which  were  stationed  under 
Afranius  and  Petreius  in  Spain,1  If  these  legions 
hac  attempted  to  pass  the  Pyrennees,  the  army 
of  Csesar  was  stationed  in  Gaul  to  intercept 
them,  and  he  was  accordingly  secure  of  beincr 
able  to  finish  the  war  in  Italy,  without  any  in- 
terruption from  thence.  When  this  service  was 
effected,  his  army  in  Gaul  remained  in  the  most 
advantageous  position,  from  which  to  enter  upon 
what  was  likely  to  become  the  second  object  of 
his  enterprise,  the  reduction  of  Spain. 

The  antagonists  of  Caesar,  without  any  appre- 
hension of  these  dispositions,  and  perfectly  secure 
before  hostilities  commenced,  were  completely 
surprised,  overwhelmed,  and  routed  in  every 
quarter  on  which  they  attempted  to  make  any 
defence.  Armies  indeed  had  been  formed  in 
Italy,  according  to  the  saying  of  Pompey,  at  the 
stamp  of  his  foot ;  but  they  were  armies  that 
served  the  purpose  of  his  enemies,  not  that  of  the 
republic,  or  his  own ;  and  though  raised  to  secure 
Italy  against  Caesar,  became  in  the  reduction  of 
Italy  itself  an  accession  to  his  force,  and  were 
ready  to  be  sent  in  separate  divisions  to  occupy 
different  provinces  of  the  empire  in  his  name ; 
insomuch,  that  while  Caesar  himself,  with  the 
strength  of  the  veteran  legions  with  which  he 
had  conquered  Gaul,  hastened  into  Spain  to  re- 
duce what  was  the  most  formidable  part  of  his 
rival's  power,  his  officers  were  detached  with 
separate  bodies  of  these  newly  acquired  troops, 
into  Sardinia,  Sicily,  and  Africa. 

Pompey,  although  he  had  never  visited  his 
government  in  person,  nor  sought  for  occasions 
of  war,  as  Caesar,  in  order  to  form  his  army  and 
inure  ,them  to  servicev  had  done  in  Gaul,  had 
nevertheless  formed  a  great  military  establish- 
ment, consisting  of  seven  Roman  legions,  with 
five  thousand  horse,  and  eighty  cohorts  of  pro- 
vincial infantry,  equal  in  number  to  eight  legions 
more ;  and  Caesar  had-  reason  to  believe,  that  this 
great  force,  if  the  war  could  have  been  protracted 
in  Italy,  would  have  come  upon  his  rear,  cut  off 
his  resources  in  Gaul,  or  obliged  him  to  defend 
himself  on  the  north  of  the  Alps..  He  accord- 
ingly, instead  of  bringing  into  Italy  the  legions 
that  lay  in  the  low  countries,  or  the  interior  parts 
of  his  province,  had  moved  them  only  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  Narbonne,  to  be  near  the  con- 
fines of  Spain,  from  which  this  storm  was  to  be 
dreaded  ;  and  meant,  if  the  success  of  his  affairs 
in  Italy  should  admit  of  it,  that  these  legions 
should  cross  the  Pyrennees,  and  fix  the  scene  of 
the  war  amidst  his  rival's  possessions. 

Spain  had  been  formerly  divided  into  two 
provinces,  under  two  separate  Roman  governors ; 
but  the  whole  being  united  under  Pompey,  was 
committed  by  him  to  three  lieutenants,  Varro, 
Petreius,  and  Afranius.  The  first  commanded, 
from  the  river  Guadiana  westward  to  the  ex- 


1  See  pages  25S,  257,  the  preceding  part*  of  this 
chapter. 


tremities  of  Lusitania2  and  Gallicia ;  the  second, 
from  the  Guadiana  eastward  to  the  mountains 
of  Murcia;  and  the  third,  from  thence  to  the 
Pyrennees. 

Soon  after  the  war  broke  out  in  Italy,  Pompey 
sent  Vibullius  into  Spain,  with  orders  to  these 
officers  to  assemble  their  forces,  and  to  prepare 
for  the  defence  of  their  province.  Varro  affected 
indifference  in  the  quarrel,  or  an  equal  regard  to 
the  opposite  parties  concerned  in  it.  An  accident, 
he  said,  had  placed  him  under  the  command  of 
Pompey ;  but  he  had  an  equal  attachment  to  Cae- 
sar. The  other  two,  from  regard  to  the  common- 
wealth, or  from  fidelity  to  their  commander-in 
chief,  engaged  with  more  zeal  in  the  cause.  They 
determined,  in  concert  with  Vibullius,  to  leave 
Varro  in  the  western  province,  while  they  them- 
selves drew  the  principal  part  of  their  force 
towards  the  eastern  frontier ;  and  by  occupying 
the  passes  of  the  mountains,  or  some  strong  post 
on  the  Ebro,  endeavoured  to  defend  the  country 
intrusted  to  their  care,  until  Pompey  should  either 
arrive  in  person  to  take  the  command  on  himself, 
oj?  until,  having  rallied  his  forces  in  Macedonia, 
he  should  bring  the  scene  of  the  war  again  into 
Italy.  For  this  purpose,,  they  took  post  at  Ilerda,5 
a  place  of  strength  on  the  Segror  and  about 
twenty  miles  above  the  confluence  of  this  river 
with  the  Cinea;  Afranius  with  three  legions, 
Petreius  with  two  more,  together  with  five  thou- 
sand horse,  and  eighty  cohorts  of  provincial  in- 
fantry. 

Such  were  the  dispositions  that  were  making 
in  Spain,  when  Caesar,  having  expelled  his  rival 
from  Italy,  took  possession  of  Rome,  and  having 
passed  a  few  days  in  that  city,  in  the  manner 
above  related,  set  out  for  his  army  in  the  province 
of  Narbonne. 

Being  to  pass  by  Marseilles,  he  intended  to  take 
possession  of  that  city  ;  but  the  inhabitants  were 
already  disposed  to  favour  his  antagonists,  and 
shut  their  gates  against  him.  This  ancient  Greek 
colony,  after  having  long  defended  their  settlement 
against  the  rude  tribes  in  their  neighbourhood, 
had  placed  themselves  at  last  under  the  protection 
of  the  Romans  %  but  with  a  reserve  of  all  their 
immunities,  and  an  exemption  from  all  the  bur- 
dens of  a  Roman  province.  Caesar  proposed  to 
have  entered  their  city  as  a  neutral  place,  and  to 
prevail  on  the  citizens  to  receive  him,  cited  the 
examples  of  Rome  itself,,  and  of  all  the  other 
cities  of  Italy,  who  had  opened  their  gates,  and 
given  a  passage  to  his  army,  without  taking  any 
part  in  the  present  disputes.  To  this  proposal, 
the  people  of  Marseilles  made  answer,  That  in 
every  case  where  the  Romans  were  divided  among 
themselves,  every  ally  in  their  situation  must  so* 
far  preserve  their  neutrality,  as  not  to  receive  the- 
forces  of  either  party  within  their  walls,  and  that 
in  the  present  case  particularly,  they  lay  under 
such  high  obligations  to  the  leaders  of  both  par- 
ties, that  they  must  carefully  avoid  giving  offence 
to  either. 

It  soon  after  appeared,  however,  that  this  plau- 
sible answer  was  intended  merely  to  gain  time. 
Vibullius  had  passed  by  Marseilles  in  his  way  to 
Spain,  and  had  delivered  to  the  people  of  that 
place  a  message  from  Pompey,  with  assurances 
of  support;  on  which  they  fully  relied.  The 
receipt  of  this  message,  was  followed  by  a  reso- 


2  Portugal.  3  Now  called  Lerida, 


Chap.  V.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


2CV 


lution  to  admit  the  officers  and  men  of  Pompey's 
party  into  their  town,  and  to  exclude  his  anta-  j 
gonists. 

Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  after  he  had  been  dis- 
missed from  Corfinium,  no  ways  affected  by  the 
ostentatious  clemency  of  Caesar,  had,  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  senate's  appointment  to  the  govern- 
ment of  Gaul,  repaired  to  that  province,  raised 
some  troops,  with  which  he  was  expected  to  take 
possession  of  Marseilles,  and  actually,  in  a  few 
days  after  this  answer  was  given  to  Caesar,  en- 
tered the  harbour  of  that  place  with  seven  ships, 
and  some  land  forces  on  board.  Upon  his  arrival, 
the  people  of  this  republic  called  in  to  their  assist- 
ance the  force  of  some  neighbouring  cantons  from 
the  mountains ;  repaired  their  fortifications ;  re- 
plenished their  magazines ;  employed  many  hands 
in  fabricating  arms;  and  took  every  other  pre- 
caution that  was  necessary,  in  case  they  should 
be  attacked,  to  enable  them  to  make  a  vigorous 
defence. 

Caesar  being  greatly  provoked,  invested  the 
town  with  an  army  of  three  legions ;  and  having 
ordered  some  ships  to  be  built  on  the  Rhone,  pre- 
pared to  assail  it  at  once  by  sea  and  by  land.  He 
committed  the  attack  by  land  to  Trebonius ;  and 
that  from  the  sea  to  Decimus  Brutus.  While  he 
was  making  these  preparations,  a  report  prevailed 
that  Pompey  was  passing  the  seas  into  Africa, 
and  intended,  with  the  troops  which  were  in  that 
province,  and  a  body  of  Numidian  cavalry,  to  re- 
inforce, and  to  take  the  command  of  his  army  in 
Spain.  It  is  probable  that  Caesar,  in  like  cir- 
cumstances, would  have  even  taken  a  shorter 
road  to  the  head  of  his  army.  He  appears  at 
least  to  have  believed  this  report  of  his  enemy,  or 
to  have  thought  it  extremely  probable,  and  to  have 
been  somewhat  alarmed.  As  if  the  prospect  of 
meeting  with  Pompey,  having  under  his  direction 
a  well-appointed  and  regular  force,  had  rendered 
him  doubtful  of  the  affections  of  his  own  men, 
he  mentions  an  artifice  practised  by  himself  on 
this  occasion,  which  may  be  considered  as  a  spe- 
cimen of  his  address,  and  of  the  influence  which 
he  employed  with  his  army.  He  borrowed  mo- 
ney from  the  officers,  and  gave  it  in  gratuities  to 
the  soldiers ;  thus  taking  a  pledge  for  the  fidelity 
of  the  one,  and  purchasing  that  of  the  others  by 
his  bounty. 

While  Caesar  was  yet  employed  in  opening  the 
siege  of  Marseilles,  he  ordered  Fabius,  who  com- 
manded his  forces  at  Narbonne,  to  advance  into 
the  Pyrennees ;  and  if  the  passes  were  open  or 
slightly  guarded,  to  penetrate  into  Spain,  and 
occupy  some  advantageous  station  on  the  frontier 
of  that  country.  This  officer  accordingly,  having 
forced  the  passes  of  the  Pyrennees,  penetrated  to 
the  Segra,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  the  Sicoris ; 
and  took  post  on  the  right  of  this  river,  in  the 
front  of  the  united  armies  of  Afranius  and 
Petreius,  who  were  encamped  near  the  town  of 
Ilerda. 

Fabius,  not  to  be  interrupted  by  occasional 
floods  in  his  communication  with  the  country 
through  which  he  had  passed,  and  to  keep  open 
the  ordinary  route  from  Gaul,  laid  two  bridges 
upon  it,  at  the  distance  of  four  miles  from  each 
other.  By  these  communications,  he  was  chiefly 
supplied  with  provisions;  and  as  the  Spanish 
army  had  an  easy  access  by  the  bridge  of  Ilerda 
to  intercept  his  supplies,  it  was  necessary  to  cover 
«very  convoy  and  foraging  party  with  numerous 


and  powerful  escorts.  Two  entire  legions,  undet 
the  command  of  Plancus,  had  marched  on  this 
service,  and  were  to  be  followed  by  a  body  of  ca- 
valry. After  the  infantry  had  passed  the  river, 
and  the  cavalry  was  entered  on  the  bridge,  it  broke 
down,  and  deprived  those  who  were  already  over, 
of  any  communication  with  the  camp.  The  tim- 
ber and  wreck  of  the  bridge  floating  by  the  town 
of  Ilerda,  gave  the  enemy  intimation  of  what  had 
happened,  and  suggested  the  design  to  scour  the 
country  on  the  left  of  the  Segra,  with  a  powerful 
detachment,  in  order  to  intercept  any  parties  -who 
might  by  this  accident  be  cut  off  from  the  main 
body  of  the  army.  For  this  purpose,  Afranius 
marched  with  four  legions,  and  might  have  taken 
or  destroyed  those  who  remained  under  Plancus 
on  the  left  of  the  river,  if  this  officer  had  not  re- 
tired to  a  height,  on  which  he  was  able  for  some 
time  to  resist  the  superior  numbers  of  his  enemy. 
In  the  mean  while,  Fabius  suspecting  the  dan- 
ger to  which  his  detachment  was  exposed,  de- 
spatched two  legions  more  by  the  other  bridge  to 
support  the  former.  On  the  appearance  of  this 
reinforcement,  Afranius,  whose  plan  in  the  pre- 
sent campaign  was  altogether  defensive,  thought 
proper  to  retire,  without  hazarding  an  action,  in 
which  he  might  be  exposed  to  a  too  hasty  decision 
of  the  cause. 

Two  days  after  this  adventure,  Caesar,  with 
an  escort  of  nine  hundred  horse,  arrived  in  the 
camp  of  Fabius.  Having  examined  the  situa- 
tion of  both  armies,  and  ordered  the  bridge  on  the 
Segra  to  be  rebuilt,  he  proceeded  as  usual  to  act 
on  the  offensive,  and  to  occupy  the  enemy's  at- 
tention with  successive  operations  against  them, 
by  which  he  left  them  no  leisure  to  form  any  de- 
signs of  their  own.  It  was  his  fortune,  indeed, 
in  this  and  other  periods  of  the  present  war,  to 
need  a  speedy  decision,  which  made  him  take 
measures  that  forced  his  enemies  to  remain  on  the 
defensive,  and  inspired  his  men  with  a  notion  of 
their  own  superiority ;  an  opinion  which,  after 
it  has  been  some  time  received,  seldom  fails  to 
verify  itself. 

In  a  few  days  after  his  arrival,  he  advanced 
with  his  army  in  three  divisions  to  the  foot  of  the 
hill  on  which  the  Spanish  army  was  encamped, 
and  while  they  continued  to  observe,  and  endea- 
voured to  penetrate  his  intentions,  he  began  to 
break  ground,  and  to  make  a  lodgement  for  him- 
self in  that  place.  That  his  purpose  might  not 
be  known,  until  the  work  was  considerably  ad- 
vanced, he  kept  the  first  and  second  lines  under 
arms,  and  ordered  the  third,  without  raising  a 
parapet,  or  planting  their  palisades,  to  sink  a 
ditch  fifteen  feet  wide,  and  of  a  sufficient  length 
to  cover  his  front.  This  being  done,  he  retired 
with  his  whole  army  behind  it,  and  ordered  theiu 
to  lie  upon  their  arms  all  night.  Under  cover  of 
this  temporary  entrenchment,  he  on  the  following 
day  completed  the  usual  fortifications  of  his  camp, 
and  brought  forward  the  tents  and  baggage  of  his 
army,  which  till  then  had  remained  under  a  pro- 
per guard  on  his  former  ground. 

Being  now  in  possession  of  a  post  within  four 
hundred  paces,  or  less  than  half  a  mile  of  the 
enemy's  lines ;  and  having  a  view  of  the  ground 
which  lay  between  their  camp  and  the  town  of 
Ilerda,  extending  about  three  hundred  paces,  and 
mostly  plain,  with  a  small  height  in  the  middle 
of  it,  he  formed  a  project  to  seize  the  height;  and 
knowing  that  the  enemy  lodged  their  magazines 


233 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Boor  IV. 


and  stores  in  Ilerda,  proposed  to  cut  off  their 
communication  with  the  town.  In  this  view,  he 
drew  up  a  body  of  three  legions  in  a  proper  posi- 
tion, frum  which  to  execute  his  purpose ;  and  or- 
dered the  front  rank1  from  one  of  those  legions  to 
start  from  their  colours,  and  with  the  utmost 
speed  to  gain  the  height  which  he  intended  to 
occupy.  The  sudden  movement  of  this  body  ex- 
plained his  design  to  the  enemy,  artd  they  in- 
stantly put  all  the  piquets  and  extraordinary 
guards  of  their  camp  in  motion  to  prevent  its 
effects.  Having  a  nearer  way,  and  the  advan- 
tage of  the  ground,  they  prevented  Caesar's  party; 
and  being  in  possession  of  the  height  before  they 
came  up,  repulsed  and  beat  them  back  to  their 
main  body.  Here  too,  they  pursued  their  advan- 
tage; and  as  they  rushed  with  little  regard  to 
order,  but  with  an  appearance  of  undaunted 
courage,  on  the  flanks  as  well  as  the  front  of  the 
legions  which  Caesar  had  advanced,  they  put  the 
whole  in  some  degree  of  confusion,  and  forced 
them  back  to  the  heights  in  their  rear. 

While  the  leaders  of  the  Spanish  army  pro- 
bably committed  an  error  in  not  redoubling  their 
blow,  or  remained  in  suspense,  Caesar  issued 
from  his  camp  with  a  fresh  legion  to  support  the 
flying  division  of  his  army,  obliged  the  enemy 
to  retire  in  their  turn,  and  having  overtaken 
them  before  they  could  reach  their  camp,  obliged 
them  to  take  refuge  under  the  walls  of  the 
town. 

The  ground  at  the  foot  of  these  walls  was  steep, 
and  the  access  to  it  was  by  lanes  and  narrow  ways. 
Thither  the  troops,  with  whom  Caesar  had  re- 
newed the  action,  flushed  with  victory,  had  fol- 
lowed the  enemy,  and  got  into  a  situation  in 
which  they  could  not  gain  any  advantage,  nor 
retire  without  loss.  The  parties,  however,  con- 
tinued to  skirmish  during  five  hours,  and  being 
continually  reinforced  from  their  respective  ar- 
mies, a  general  engagement  was  likely  to  ensue 
on  ground  extremely  unfavourable  to  Caesar. 

In  order  to  extricate  himself  with  the  least 
possible  appearance  of  disgrace,  he  ordered  a 
general  charge,  and  having  drove  his  antagonists 
before  him  to  the  foot  of  the  wall,  he  sounded  a 
retreat  from  thence,  and  brought  off  his  men, 
before  the  enemy  could  rally  or  return  to  the 
pursuit. 

In  this  manner,  Caesar  retired  to  his  camp 
with  considerable  loss,  and  foiled  in  his  design ; 
but  on  account  of  the  last  impression  he  made  on 
the  enemy,  with  some  pretensions  to  a  victory,  of 
which  to  support  the  courage  of  his  troopsj  he 
did  not  neglect  to  avail  himself. 

In  a  few  days  after  this  miscarriage,  the  army 
of  Csesar  suffered  a  worse  and  more  alarming  ca- 
lamity. The  summer  being  far  advanced,  and 
the  snow  on  the  Pyrennees  melting,  all  the  rivers 
which  are  supplied  from  thence,  rose  on  a  sudden 
to  their  greatest  height.  The  Segra  carried  off 
both  the  bridges  erected  by  Fabius,  and  baffled 
all  the  endeavours  that  were  used  to  restore  them. 
As  often  as  any  attempt  was  made  for  this  pur- 
pose, the  work  was  interrupted  by  the  enemy 
from  the  opposite  bank,  or  the  materials  were 
«wept  away  by  the  flood.  Neither  the  Segra  nor 
the  Cinca  were  passable,  and  the  country  be- 
tween them,  though  extending  in  breadth  about 


J  Unius  Legionis  Antesignanos.  Csesar,  do  Bell. 
Civil,  lib.  i.  c.  43. 


thirty  miles,  being  exhausted,  could  no  longer 
furnish  any  supply  of  provisions  to  Caesar's  camp; 

About  the  time  that  the  army  began  to  feel 
their  distress,  a  convoy  which  arrived  from  Gaul, 
consisting  of  many  carriages,  escorted  by  a  large 
body  of  Gaulish  horse,  and  accompanied  with 
many  officers  and  persons  of  distinction,  who 
came  to  witness  the  glories  of  this  campaign, 
the  whole,  together  with  their  attendants  and 
equipage,  amounting  to  about  six  thousand  men, 
were  attacked  by  Afranius,  and  with  great  loss 
obliged  to  take  refuge  in  the  neighbouring  moun- 
tains. 

In  consequence  of  this  disaster,  and  under  the 
sense  of  the  present,  and  apprehension  of  the 
future  distress,  the  modius2  of  corn  sold  in  Cae- 
sar's camp  for  fifty  denarii,  or  at  the  rate  of  thirty 
shillings  a  peek;  *  All  their  attempts  to  procure  a 
supply  were  frustrated  by  the  difficulties  of  their 
situation,  or  by  the  vigilance  of  the  enemy.  As 
the  height  of  the  floods  was  a  permanent  effect 
of  the  season,  in  swelling  every  river  which  de- 
scends from  mountains  that  retain  their  snow  in 
the  summer,  and  as  the  enemy  were  plentifully 
supplied  from  their  magazines  in  the  town  of 
Ilerda,  or  had,  by  the  bridge  of  that  place,  an 
open  communication  with  the  fertile  country 
which  is  now  named  Catalonia  on  their  right, 
Caesar  could  have  no  immediate  prospect  of  re- 
lief. The  Spanish  army  accordingly  triumphed 
in  their  good  fortune,  and  sent  exaggerated  ac- 
counts of  their  advantage  to  all  parts  of  Spain,  to 
Italy,  and  to  Macedonia.  Many  persons,  who 
had  hitherto  hesitated  in  the  choice  of  their  party, 
were  now  determined.  Varro  began  to  exert 
himself  in  his  province,  and  levied  two  entire  new 
legions  in  the  name  of  Pompey.  Many  hastened 
from  Italy  into  Macedonia,  to  be  the  carriers  of 
such  agreeable  tidings,  or  to  have  the  merit  of 
declaring  themselves  of  the  party  of  the  republic, 
while  the  issue  of  the  war  yet  remained  in  any 
degree  of  suspense. 

The  triumphs,  however,  which  anticipate 
events  are  often  deceitful ;  and,  by  the  overween- 
ing security  and  confidence  which  they  inspire, 
give  an  able  enemy  great  advantage,  even  in  his 
distress,  or  facilitate  the  changes  of  fortune  in 
his  favour.  Afranius  and  Petreius,  while  they 
trusted  to  the  ordinary  course  of  the  seasons, 
were  not  sufficiently  upon  their  guard  against  the 
superior  resources  of  so  able  an  adversary.  They 
suffered  him  to  build,  unobserved,  a  number  of 
boats,  upon  a  construction  which  his  workmen 
had  learned  in 'Britain;  having  a  keel  in  the  or- 
dinary form,  and  some  timbers  of  strength  on  the 
sides ;  but,  instead  of  plank,  finished  between 
these  timbers  with  basket-work,  and  covered  with 
hides.  These  vessels  being  of  easy  carriage, 
were  transported  by  land  about  twenty  miles 
above  Caesar's  camp 5  and  in  a  first  embarkation 
ferried  over  a  party  sufficient  to  make  a  lodge- 
ment on  the  opposite  bank.  Caesar  continued  to 
reinforce  this  party,  until,  having  an  entire  legion 
intrenched  on  that  side,  he  ventured  to  employ 
his  carpenters  openly  in  constructing  a  bridge, 
which  they  began  at  once  from  both  sides  of  the 
river.  This  work  was  completed  in  two  days, 
and  again  gave  him  access  to  the  left  of  the  Se- 
gra, where  he  surprised  some  of  the  enemy's 


2  Little  morn  than  a  peck. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


269 


parties,  and  procured  immediate  relief  by  a  sup- 
ply of  provisions  to  his  own  camp. 

About  the  time  that  Caesar  had  effected  this 
change  in  the  state  of  his  army,  he  had  news  of 
a  naval  fight  on  the  coast  of  Gaul,  in  which  his 
fleet,  under  Decimus  Brutus,  had  defeated  that 
of  the  enemy,  and  given  a  speedy  prospect  of  the 
reduction  of  Marseilles.  This  report,  together 
with  the  disappointment  he  had  recently  given  to 
the  hopes  of  his  enemies,  had  at  once  all  the  ef- 
fects of  victory,  and  made  him  appear  more  for- 
midable than  he  was  supposed  to  be,  even  before 
the  distresses  which  he  had  lately  experienced. 
His  antagonists,  from  a  state  of  sanguine  expec- 
tation, sunk  into  a  proportional  degree  of  despon- 
dency, and  became  so  much  in  awe  of  his  superior 
conduct,  that  they  abandoned  the  country  on  the 
left  of  the  Segra  to  his  foragers,  and  never  ven- 
tured, except  in  the  night,  to  go  abroad  for  the 
necessary  supplies  of  their  own  camp.  These 
events  affected  the  natives  of  the  country  in  a 
still  higher  degree,  and  brought  them  from  every 
quarter  to  make  a  tender  of  their  services  in  sup- 
plying Caesar  with  provisions,  or  in  seconding 
him  in  his  military  operations. 

In  conjunction  with  the  natives,  who  were  now 
become  his  allies,  Caesar  again  found  himself  in 
condition  to  act  on  the  offensive,  and  to  devise 
new  alarms  for  the  enemy.  His  first  object  was 
to  render  the  passage  of  the  river  at  all  times 
practicable ;  and  as  he  had  failed  in  his  purpose 
of  separating  the  Spanish  army  from  the  town 
of  Ilerda,  he  now  proposed  to  extend  his  com- 
mand of  the  country,  and  to  form  a  chain  of 
posts,  by  which  he  might  circumscribe  the  town 
itself,  together  with  the  enemy's  camp,  which  de- 
pended upon  it. 

The  bridge  which  he  had  lately  built  was  at 
too  great  a  distance,  and  he  experienced  the  in- 
security of  such  communications  over  torrents, 
which  came  with  such  force  and  so  much  in- 
equality from  the  mountains.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  attempting  to  erect  any  more  bridges,  he  pro- 
posed to  render  the  river  fordable,  by  separating 
its  course  into  many  different  channels ;  and  for 
this  purpose  made  a  number  of  cuts,  of  about 
thirty  feet  deep,  through  the  plain,  to  receive  as 
much  of  the  waters  of  the  Segra  as  might  suffi- 
ciently drain  the  principal  stream. 

The  enemy,  as  soon  as  they  understood  the 
purpose  of  these  operations,  were  greatly  alarmed. 
They  foresaw  that  Cajsar,  having  the  passage  of 
the  river  secured,  might  command  its  opposite 
banks  below,  as  well  as  above  the  town  of  Ilerda, 
block  up  the  bridge  of  that  place,  and,  with  the 
aid  of  the  country  around  him,  which,  since  the 
late  defection  of  its  inhabitants,  was  ready  to  sup- 
port him  in  all  his  designs,  might  have  it  in  his 
power  .to  prevent  their  supplies,  and  distress 
them,  in  their  turn,  for  want  of  provisions. 

To  remove  from  a  situation  in  which  they 
were  exposed  to  so  many  evils,  they  resolved  in- 
stantly to  abandon  their  present  station,  and  to 
retire  beyond  the  Ebro,  where  the  people,  either 
from  fepr  or  affection,  were  still  in  their  interest. 
They  proceeded  to  the  execution  of  this  purpose 
with  much  seeming  precaution  and  foresight. 
Having  fixed  upon  a  proper  place  at  which  to 
lay  a  bridge  over  the  Ebro,  they  ordered  all  the 
boats,  within  a  certain  distance  on  that  river  and 
on  the  Segra,  to  be  collected  together  for  that 
purpose.    They  placed  a  proper  garrison  in  Iler- 


da, to  check  the  motions  of  the  enemy  in  their 
rear,  or  if  he  attempted  to  reduce  that  place,  to 
employ  his  forces  until  they  themselves  should 
have  effected  their  retreat,  and  made  their  ar- 
rangements in  the  new  position  they  intended  to 
take. 

As  their  first  movement  in  filing  off  from  tneir 
present  encampment,  and  in  passing  through  the 
town  of  Ilerda,  encumbered  with  all  their  bag- 
gage, was  likely  to  detain  them  some  time  in 
presence  of  the  enemy,  and  exposed  them  to  the 
attacks  of  his  cavalry  and  light  troops,  they  in- 
tended no  more  on  the  first  day,  than  to  file  off 
by  the  bridge  ;  and  they  fixed  on  a  post  at  which 
tney  might  halt  on  the  left  of  the  Segra,  and 
make  the  proper  dispositions  to  continue  their 
march-  This  post  they  sent  two  legions  before 
them  to  occupy  and  to  secure. 

Having  taken  these  preparatory  steps,  they 
decamped,  defiled  without  molestation  through 
the  town  of  Ilerda,  and  came  to  the  ground  on 
which  they  had  taken  care  to  secure  their  recep- 
tion *,  here  they  halted  until  the  middle  of  the 
night,  when  they  again  were  in  motion.  They 
had  a  plain  of  some  miles  before  them,  bounded 
by  a  ridge  of  hills,  which  they  were  to  pass  in 
their  way  to  the  Ebro.  They  might  be  exposed 
to  Caesar's  light  troops  in  crossing  this  plain  ;  but 
as  soon  as  they  reached  the  mountains,  they 
could,  by  securing  the  passes  in  their  rear,  effec- 
tually prevent  any  farther  attack  from  the  enemy. 
Thither  they  accordingly  directed  their  march; 
but  Caesar,  who  had  observed  their  intentions, 
and  who  had  so  far  succeeded  in  his  operations  on 
the  river  as  to  be  able  to  ford  it  with  his  horse, 
sent  the  greater  part  of  his  cavalry,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  night,  with  orders  to  hang  upon  the 
rear  of  the  enemy,  and  by  all  possible  means  to 
retard  their  progress. 

This  service  the  cavalry  performed  with  so 
much  success,  that  at  break  of  day  the  Spanish 
army,  in  consequence  of  the  frequent  interrup- 
tions they  had  received,  were  still  to  be  seen  from 
Caesar's  camp.  Tlie  cavalry,  as  often  as  the 
enemy  got  in  motion,  were  observed  to  attack 
them,  but  when  the  enemy  halted,  appeared  to 
stop  or  retire,  and  were  pursued  in  their  turn. 
The  army  of  Caesar  being  spectators  of  this  scene 
became  extremely  impatient,  and  with  the  great- 
est ardour  pressed  to  be  led  against  the  enemy; 
Even  officers  crowded  to  their  general,  and  beg- 
ged they  might  be  allowed  to  try  the  ford  ;  they 
observed  of  what  consequence  it  was,  that  an  ene- 
my who  had  been  driven  with  so  much  labour 
from  one  post,  should  not  be  suffered  to  retire  in 
safety  to  another  situation,  from  which  they  might 
renew  the  war. 

Caesar,  affecting  to  be  moved  by  these  repre- 
sentations, and  to  be  prevailed  upon  to  do  what 
it  is  probable  he  earnestly  desired,  instantly  made 
his  dispositions  to  pass  the  river.  He  selected 
the  least  firm  and  vigorous  men  of  every  cohort 
for  the  guard  of  the  camp ;  placed  lines  of  horse 
in  the  river  above  and  below  the  ford,  to  break 
the  force  of  the  stream,  and  to  save  those  who 
might  be  overpowered  by  the  strength  of  the  cur- 
rent; in  this  manner  he  passed  his  infantry  be- 
tween the  double  lines  of  cavalry  without  the  loss 
of  a  man.  They  had  a  circuit  of  six  miles  to 
make,  in  order  to  avoid  the  town  of  Ilerda;  but 
notwithstanding  this  delay,  and  the  advantage 
which  Afranius  and  Petrcius  had  gained  by  be- 


270 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


ginning  their  march  at  midnight,  and  by  their 
not  being  discovered  until  it  was  day,  such  were 
the  interruptions  given  by  the  cavalry,  and  the 
speed  with  which  the  legions  of  Caesar  advanced, 
that  they  overtook  the  enemy's  rear  about  three 
m  the  afternoon,  and  occasioned  at  once  a  gene- 
ral halt  in  every  part  of  their  column. 

Petreius  and  Afranius,  stunned  by  the  unex- 
pected arrival  of  Caesar  at  the  head  of  his  whole 
army,  formed  on  a  rising  ground  to  receive  him ; 
and  both  armies  seemed  to  prepare  for  immedi- 
ate action.  But  Caesar,  knowing  the  necessity 
which  the  enemy  were  under  of  pursuing  their 
retreat,  and  the  prospect  he  had  of  increasing  his 
advantage  on  the  march,  did  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  attack  them  when  in  order  of  battle ;  he 
took  his  ground,  however,  so  near  them, 1  that  he 
could  profit  by  every  advantage  they  gave  him, 
and  in  every  attempt  they  should  make  to  change 
their  situation,  could  push  them  into  all  the  dis- 
orders of  a  general  rout. 

In  this  position  of  the  two  armies,  the  Spani- 
ards having  some  time  remained  in  order  of  bat- 
tle, again  attempted  to  resume  their  march  ;  but 
having  soon  experienced  the  difficulties  of  that 
attempt  with  an  enemy  so  near  them,  and  being 
faint  with  hunger  and  the  fatigue  of  so  many  te- 
dious and  fruitless  operations,  they  determined  to 
halt  and  wait  for  the  return  of  night.  They  had 
now  no  more  than  five  miles  to  pass  on  the  plain, 
and  hoped,  by  a  rapid  motion  in  the  night,  to 
traverse  this  space  before  Caesar  could  overtake 
them,  or  before  he  could  oblige  them  to  halt  any 
where  short  of  the  mountains,  where  they  looked 
for  a  perfect  security. 

Both  parties  appeared  to  be  fixed  on  their 
ground  for  the  night,  when  some  prisoners  that 
were  brought  to  Caesar  gave  information  that  the 
enemy  were  in  motion,  and  must  in  a  little  time 
be  so  far  advanced  as  to  reach  the  hills  before  he 
could  give  them  any  effectual  trouble.  On  this 
sudden  emergence,  although  his  army  was  by  no 
means  ready  to  march,  he  ordered  every  trumpet 
to  sound,  as  if  he  were  actually  in  motion.  This 
feint,  however  slight,  had  its  effect,  the  enemy 
believed  that  they  were  to  be  instantly  attacked, 
or  closely  pursued  on  the  march,  when  disordered 
and  encumbered  with  baggage;  they  desisted 
from  their  intention,  and  gave  the  signal  to  halt. 

Afranius  and  Petreius,  thus  baffled  in  the  exe- 
cution of  the  first  part  of  their  plan,  which  had 
been  so  reasonably  formed,  began  to  lose  courage, 
and  remained  on  this  ground  all  night,  and  the 
following  day  perplexed  with  irresolution  and 
various  counsels.  So  far,  however,  they  deter- 
mined, that  before  so  vigilant  an  enemy  it  was 
safer  to  march  by  day  than  by  night ;  and  in  this 
mind  they  remained  yet  a  second  night  in  the 
present  position. 

In  this  interval  Caesar,  having  leisure  to  visit 
the  country  over  which  they  were  to  pass,  found 
it  practicable  to  turn  their  flank  and  get  to  the 
hills  before  them.  He  accordingly  moved  in  the 
night,  and  at  break  of  day,  before  the  enemy 
judged  it  safe  to  decamp,  he  appeared  on  their 
right ;  but  seeming  to  retire,  and  to  leave  them  at 
liberty  to  continue  their  retreat.  So  long  as  his 
march  had  this  appearance,  they  were  pleased  to 


1  The  want  of  cannon  or  fire-arms  enabled  a  supe- 
rior army  to  remain  almost  in  contact  with  that  it 
intended  to  harass. 


think  that  he  had  moved  for  want  of  provisions, 
and  applauded  themselves  for  having  patiently 
waited  so  joyful  an  event.  But  as  soon  as  he 
had  got  a  sufficient  way  to  his  left,  he  changed 
his  direction,  and  marched  with  all  possible  speed 
to  reach  the  mountains.  They  were  no  longer 
at  a  loss  to  perceive  his  design,  or  the  danger 
with  which  they  themselves  were  threatened. 
And  they  instantly,  without  striking  their  tents 
or  packing  their  baggage,  moved  in  the  greatest 
haste  to  prevent  him. 

In  this  operation,  Caesar  was  now  become  cer- 
tain of  one  or  other  of  two  great  advantages ; 
either  that  he  should  reach  the  pass  of  the  moun- 
tains before  the  enemy,  and  so  cut  off  their  re- 
treat ;  or,  if  they  got  there  before  him,  that  he 
should  be  left  in  possession  of  their  camp  and 
their  baggage.  He  prevailed,  however,  in  the 
trial  of  speed,  got  the  first  of  these  advantages  by 
being  before  them  at  the  ascent  of  the  mountains, 
where  he  found  a  ledge  or  terras  that  was  suffi- 
ciently capacious  to  receive  his  army,  and  which 
gave  him  entire  command  of  the  pass. 

Afranius,  on  seeing  Caesar  in  possession  of  this 
ground,  sent  a  considerable  party  to  try  the  ascent 
of  the  mountains  at  a  different  place,  and  to  gain 
the  summits  behind  him ;  in  hopes  that,  if  this  way 
was  practicable,  he  might  follow  with  his  whole 
army,  and  descend  from  thence  to  the  Ebro.  But 
the  party  he  employed  on  this  service  was,  in 
presence  of  both  armies,  surrounded  by  Caesar's 
horse,  and  put  to  the  sword.  The  rest  of  the 
army,  without  making  any  attempt  to  rescue  their 
friends,  beheld  this  scene  with  a  kind  of  torpid 
dejection.  They  dropped  their  arms,  and  stag- 
gered in  their  ranks.  The  troops  of  Caesar,  who 
well  understood  these  signs  of  extreme  terror, 
became  to  a  degree  of  mutiny  impatient  for  action ; 
and  he  himself  was  sensible  that  the  enemy  might 
in  that  moment  be  attacked  with  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage ;  but  as  he  now  thought  himself  sure  of 
being  able  to  reduce  them  without  a  blow,  he  was 
unwilling  to  give  them  an  opportunity,  however 
unlikely  to  avail  them,  of  making  their  escape  by 
the  chance  of  a  battle.  While  he  endeavoured 
accordingly  to  restrain  the  unseasonable  ardour 
of  his  own  men,  the  leaders  of  the  Spanish  army 
had  time  to  retire  with  theirs,  and  led  them  back 
to  the  camp  which  they  had  left  in  the  morning, 
and  to  the  melancholy  possession  of  tents  and  of 
baggage,  which  they  had  been  willing  to  abandon, 
in  order  to  effect  their  escape. 

Caesar  having  left  proper  guards  to  secure  the 
passes  of  the  mountains,  followed  the  enemy,  and 
took  post,  as  before,  so  near  them,  that  they  could 
not  move  without  being  exposed  to  his  insults. 

In  this  position  of  the  two  armies,  the  senti- 
nels and  advanced  guards  had  an  opportunity  to 
talk  together ;  they  mutually  regretted  the  un- 
happy quarrel  in  which  they  were  engaged,  and 
both  officers  and  men  becoming  by  degrees  more 
familiar,  met  between  the  lines,  and  even  ex- 
changed visits  in  their  opposite  camps.  Officers 
of  the  Spanish  army  proceeded  so  far  as  to  talk 
of  an  accommodation,  and  got  over  their  scruples  in 
treating  without  proper  authority  from  their 
generals,  by  proposing  to  stipulate  some  honour- 
able terms  for  them  in  the  peace  which  they  pro- 
posed to  conclude. 

Caesar  was  apprised  of  this  correspondence, 
and,  however  irregular,  connived  at  a  circum- 
stance which  he  hoped  his  superior  popularity 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


271 


and  the  splendour  of  his  fortune,  would  turn  to 
his  own  account.  He  flattered  himself,  that  as 
he  had  been  able  to  seduce  the  troops  of  Pompey 
in  Italy,  so  he  might  now  deprive  his  antagonists 
of  the  army  they  had  formed  in  the  field  to  op- 
pose him. 

The  Spanish  generals,  being  intent  on  a  work 
they  were  executing  to  secure  their  access  to 
water,  remained  for  some  time  unapprized  of  the 
disorderly  correspondence  subsisting  between  the 
two  armies ;  and  Afranius,  when  he  came  to  the 
knowledge  of  what  was  passing,  seemed  to  ob- 
serve it  with  great  indifference ;  but  Petreius  was 
greatly  alarmed,  ran  with  the  officers  and  the 
guard  who  usually  attended  his  person  to  the 
space  between  the  lines,  dispersed  all  those  who 
were  found  in  conference  together,  and  put  all 
the  soldiers  of  Caesar's  army  who  fell  in  his  way 
to  the  sword.  From  thence  he  went  through  the 
camp,  and  with  tears  exacted  from  every  Tegion 
apart  fresh  oaths  of  fidelity  to  Pompey.  He  af- 
terwards assembled  the  whole  at  the  usual  place 
of  audience,  before  the  general's  tent ;  and  in  a 
speech  composed  of  insinuation  and  reproach, 
endeavoured  to  confirm  them  in  their  duty;  and, 
to  the  end  that  he  might  effectually  cut  off"  all 
hopes  of  conciliation,  ordered  all  the  soldiers  of 
Caesar's  army  that  could  be  found  within  his  in- 
trenchments  to  be  brought  before  him  and  slain. 

Caesar,  at  the  same  time,  having  many  officers 
and  men  of  the  Spanish  army  in  his  camp,  might 
have  retaliated  these  acts  of  severity ;  but  he 
chose  rather  to  contrast  the  character  of  clemency 
he  himself  had  assumed,  with  the  austere  and 
merciless  policy  of  his  enemies  ;  and  for  this  pur- 
pose gave  their  freedom  to  such  officers  or  men 
as  chose  to  return  to  their  own  party,  and  re- 
warded with  preferments  and  honours  such  of 
them  as  were  inclined  to  remain  in  his  service. 

Afranius  and  Petreius,  by  the  timely  discovery 
of  these  irregular  practices,  having  escaped  the 
disgrace  of  being  delivered  up  to  the  enemy,  to 
be  treated  at  his  discretion,  or  to  be  spared  only 
as  objects  of  pity  at  the  intercession  of  their  own 
army,  continued  their  plan  of  operations ;  but  by 
persevering  in  their  resistance,  they  only  enabled 
their  adversary  to  give  still  more  evident  proofs 
of  his  superior  skill  and  address.  They  were 
sensible  that  their  present  post  could  not  be  long 
maintained ;  it  had  been  taken,  in  their  haste  to 
reach  the  mountains,  from  necessity,  as  an  im- 
mediate respite  from  the  attacks  of  an  enemy  who 
annoyed  their  march ;  and,  besides  other  incon- 
veniences, had  a  difficult  access  to  water,  the  brook 
or  river  from  which  they  were  to  be  supplied  be- 
ing exposed  to  the  discharge  of  arrows,  darts,  and 
other  missiles  from  the  enemy.  Their  bread, 
which  they  had  calculated  to  serve  them  on  the 
whole  route  to  the  Ebro  was  near  exhausted,  and 
they  had  no  immediate  prospect  of  supply.  They 
entered  therefore  into  anxious  deliberation  oh  the 
choice  of  a  retreat,  by  which  they  might  soonest 
get  beyond  reach  of  an  enemy  who  pressed  them 
with  such  unremitted  alarms.  They  hesitated 
whether  they  should  return  to  Ilerda,  where  they 
etill  had  some  magazines,  or  should  attempt  to 
reach  Tarraco2  on  their  left,  at  the  distance  of 
jibout  fifty  miles.  The  length  and  difficulty  of 
the  way,  in  which  they  would  be  exposed  to  Cae- 
sar's attacks,  determined  them  against  the  last ; 


2  Tarragona. 


and  they  chose  the  first,  as  promising  the  nearest 
and  most  immediate  relief  from  their  present 
distresses.  They  accordingly,  without  any  pre* 
caution,  decamped,  and  directed  their  march  to 
Ilerda. 

The  Spanish  infantry  were  now  more  exposed 
than  they  had  been  on  any  of  their  former 
marches ;  for  their  cavalry  had  been  so  often  dis- 
comfited, and  had  lost  courage  so  much,  that  they 
could  not  be  kept  to  their  place  in  the  column, 
and  were  now  actually  received  for  safety  into 
the  centre  of  the  infantry ;  the  rear  was  there- 
fore cruelly  annoyed  by  Caesar's  horse,  supported 
by  the  whole  force  of  his  legions.  In  ascending 
the  heights,  which  were  frequent  in  their  way, 
they  had  the  better  of  the  enemy,  by  throwing 
their  javelins  and  darts  on  those  who  attempted 
to  pursue  them  from  below ;  and  with  this  su- 
periority they  made  a  stand  on  every  ascent,  to 
force  their  pursuers  back  to  some  distance ;  but 
in  descending  the  hills,  the  same  advantage  being 
taken  against  themselves,  they  generally  ran  in 
great  disorder  to  the  plains.  And  in  this  manner, 
the  ground  being  uneven,  their  march  consisted 
of  alternate  steps  and  precipitate  flights,  ex 
tremely  fatiguing,  and  likely  to  end  in  a  general 
rout. 

The  leaders  of  the  retiring  army,  to  prevent 
this  fatal  consequence,  thought  proper  again  to 
form  upon  a  rising  ground,  and  attempted  a 
stratagem  to  amuse  the  enemy,  and  to  gain  some 
advance  on  the  march  before  him.  For  this  pur- 
pose, affecting  to  make  some  permanent  lodg- 
ment in  the  place  where  they  halted,  they  threw 
up  a  breast-work,  but  neither  pitched  their  tents 
nor  unloaded  their  baggage,  and  were  ready  to 
depart  the  moment  their  pursuer  gave  them  an 
opportunity,  by  quitting  the  order  of  march. 
Caesar,  trusting  to  the  effects  of  his  late  attacks, 
and  to  the  appearances  which  the  enemy  pre- 
sented, had  no  suspicion  of  their  purpose,  gave 
orders  to  pitch,  and  even  suffered  his  cavalry  to 
separate  in  parties  to  forage.  This  wasno^sooner 
observed  from  the  Spanish  army,  than  they  in- 
stantly resumed  their  march.  It  was  then  about 
noon,  and  they  made  some  way  undisturbed. 

Caesar  seeing  himself  over-reached,  instantly 
put  his  legions  in  motion,  without  striking  their 
tents  or  packing  their  baggage,  and  leaving  orders 
for  the  cavalry  to  follow  him  as  soon  as  they  could 
be  assembled,  endeavoured  to  keep  close  to  the 
enemy's  rear.  He  was  in  this  situation  when  the 
cavalry  rejoined  him,  and,  by  renewing  with 
double  ardour  their  former  operations,  obliged  tin- 
Spanish  army  again  to  suspend  their  march,  and, 
in  despair,  to  take  some  respite  from  the  continual 
attacks  with  which  they  were  harassed,  by  halt- 
ing again  in  a  field,  which  they  had  no  time  to 
examine,  and  in  which  they  were  accordingly 
very  much  exposed. 

On  this  ground  Caesar  had  again  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity to  attack  them,  and,  with  little  doubt  of  the 
event,  to  terminate  the  war  by  a  battle ;  but  he 
persisted  in  his  purpose  of  forcing  this  unfor- 
tunate army  to  surrender  without  any  loss  or 
hazard  to  himself.  In  this  mind  he  continued  to 
observe  them  with  a  degree  of  insulting  indif- 
ference. They  soon  became  sensible  of  the  great 
disadvantage  of  the  position  in  which  they  had 
halted,  and  endeavoured  to  change  it,  without 
exposing  themselves  to  the  enemy,  who  was  so 
near  as  to  be  able  to  disturb  them  in  every  mo- 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


tion  they  attempted  to  make;  for  this  purpose 
they  broke  ground  for  a  new  intrenchment  in 
their  rear,  and  retiring  as  besiegers  advance  in 
the  attack  of  a  fortress,  changed  their  situation 
under  the  cover  of  works  which  they  successively 
raised.1 

In  these  slow  and  toilsome  operations  they  per- 
sisted all  the  night  and  the  following  day,  and  got 
a  new  position,  in  which  they  were  less  exposed 
to  the  enemy ;  but  subject  to  a  fresh  inconve- 
niency,  till  then  unobserved,  in  the  great  distance 
to  which  they  were  removed  from  water. 

As  soon  as  this  defect  was  perceived,  which 
was  probably  not  till  after  the  soldier  had  con- 
sumed what  he  commonly  carried  in  his  flask, 
they  discontinued  their  fatiguing  operations ;  but 
no  man  ventured  abroad  for  water,  and  they  re- 
mained all  night  under  dreadful  apprehensions 
of  what  they  might  suffer  from  this  distress. 

On  the  following  day  the  Spanish  army  ad- 
vanced in  array  to  the  watering-placer  and,  at  the 
hazard  of  a  general  action,  proceeded  to  supply 
themselves  with  this  necessary  article.  They 
were  suffered  to  avail  themselves  of  this  tempo- 
rary relief ;  but  none  attempted  to  procure  any 
food,  and  they  soon  after,  in  order  to  supply  their 
own  immediate  wants,  and  to  lessen  their  con- 
sumption of  water  and  forage,  killed  all  the  beasts 
of  burden  in  their  camp.  While  they  endea- 
voured, by  means  of  these  temporary  expedients, 
to  await  the  event  of  any  change  that  might  offer 
in  their  favour,  Caesar  formed  a  design  to  cut  off 
all  their  hopes  at  once  by  a  line  of  circumvalla- 
tion.  In  conducting  or  covering  this  work,  his 
legions  were  commonly  under  arms.  And  the 
enemy,  sensible  of  the  extremity  to  which  they 
were  soon  likely  to  be  reduced,  advanced  in  front 
of  their  camp  to  interrupt  him ;  and  there  might 
have  decided  their  fate  by  an  action  upon  equal 
terms.  But  they  had  no  courage  left ;  the  habit 
of  acting  upon  the  defensive  had  impressed  them 
with  a  sense  of  inferiority,  and  their  frequent 
miscarriages  had  made  them  distrust  the  conduct 
of  their  officers.  Though  now  in  a  state  of  suf- 
fering, from  which  nothing  but  victory  could  ex- 
tricate them,  or  which  nothing  but  the  blood  of 
their  enemies  could  avenge,  they,  without  making 
any  effort  for  either  purpose,  retired  again  within 
their  intrenchment. 

In  that  situation,  however,  their  distresses  in 
a  little  time  became  entirely  insufferable.  After 
four  days  had  passed  in  their  camp  without  water 
or  sustenance  of  any  sort,  their  leaders  desired  an 
interview  with  Caesar ;  and,  not  to  expose  them- 
selves in  so  humbling  a  state  to  the  troops  of 
either  army,  begged  that  their  meeting  might  be 
held  apart  from  both.  The  conference  was  ac 
cepted ;  but  Caesar  would  not  allow  it  to  be  held 
in  any  private  place  :  he  insisted  that  Afranius 
and  Petreius  should  meet  him  in  the  space  be- 
tween the  two  armies ;  and  having  previously  de- 
manded, as  an  acknowledgment  of  his  victory, 
that  the  son  of  Afranius  shouJd  be  delivered  up 
as  an  hostage,  he  came  to  the  place  of  meeting, 
surrounded  by  multitudes  who  crowded  from  both 
armies  to  witness  the  scene. 

Afranius  pleaded  in  behalf  of  the  troops  he 
commanded,  that  they  had  done  no  more  than 
their  duty  to  Pompey,  and  no  more  than  the  ser- 
vice of  the  province  in  which  they  had  been  sta- 


1  Caisar.  de  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  i.  c.  81. 


tioned  required  ;  but  acknowledged  the  distresses 
to  which  they  were  reduced,  and  implored  the 
victor's  clemency. 

Caesar,  in  return,  upbraided  the  leaders  of  tnat 
army  with  their  obstinate  animosity  to  himself, 
and  with  their  late  cruelty  to  innocent  men,  wh« 
had  committed  no  other  offence  than  that  of 
having  embraced  their  fellow-citizens  as  friends, 
and  that  of  being  desirous  to  terminate  this  un- 
natural quarrel  in  an  amicable  manner.  "  That 
army,"  he  said,  "had  been  raised  and  kept  on 
foot  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making  war  upon 
him.  For  this  purpose  numerous  fleets  had  been 
equipped  in  times  of  profound  peace,  and  seven 
entire  legions,  under  able  and  experienced  officers,, 
had  been  kept  in  this  peaceable  province,  where 
there  was  not  the  least  pretence  of  a  war ;  that 
every  measure  was  concerted  for  his  destruction ; 
that  in  order  to  raise  one  citizen  to  uncommon 
honours  and  powers,  a  new  species  of  arrange- 
ment had  taken  place,  by  which  a  person  re- 
maining at  the  gates  of  Rome,  governing  in  the 
city  and  in  every  district  of  Italy,  might  likewise 
have  the  command  in  two  warlike  provinces,  and 
be  allowed  a  great  military  establishment  in  time 
of  profound  peace ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  in  order 
to  distress  himself  the  ordinary  rules  of  the  ser- 
vice had  been  set  aside ;  and  that  to  him  alone 
had  been  denied,  what  had  always  been  granted 
to  every  citizen  who  faithfully  served  the  republic, 
the  privilege  of  retiring,  if  not  distinguished  with 
honours,  at  least  without  being  loaded  with  in- 
juries and  affronts  ;  that  he  had  borne  these  in- 
dignities, however,  with  patience,  and  mentioned 
them  now,  not  as  a  prelude  to  any  severities 
which  he  meant  to  inflict,  noi  as  an  excuse  for 
any  singular  advantage  he  meant  to  take  of  their 
present  distresses ;  that  he  demanded  no  more 
than  peace;,  his  antagonists  should  go  unhurt) 
provided  they  left  the  province,  and  became  bound 
not  to  serve  his  enemies  for  the  future  against 
him ;  that  no  one  should  be  forced  to  take  any 
active  part  on  his  side ;  that  all  who  committed 
no  injury  against  him  should  be  considered  as  his 
friends ;  and  that  every  man  now  in  his  power 
should  be  at  liberty,  without  any  other  conditions 
than  these." 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  sword 
or  the  tongue  of  this  singular  man  were  most 
dangerous  to  the  state  he  attacked.  It  is  probable 
that  many  of  his  present  audience  were  as  much 
convinced  by  his  eloquence,  as  they  had  been 
subdued  by  his  military  skill,  and  thought  him  a 
person  no  less  forced  to  his  present  extremities  by 
the  wrongs  he  had  suffered,  than  able  to  do  him- 
self justice  by  the  force  of  his  arms.  His  speech 
was  received  by  the  late  partizans  of  his  rival 
with  evident  signs  of  pleasure.  To  be  discharged 
after  a  certain  period  of  the  most  faithful  services 
was  all  that  a  Roman  soldier,  in  the  ordinary 
times  of  the  republic,  could  claim.  To  receive 
this  favour  at  the  hands  of  a  victorious  enemy,  by 
whom  they  expected  to  be  treated  as  captives, 
gave  sudden  and  unexpected  joy. 

After  the  material  articles  were  adjusted  in 
this  manner,  some  questions  arose  with  respect 
to  the  time  and  place  in  which  the  vanquished 
army  should  be  dismissed  from  their  colours. 
Numbers  of  them,  though  Roman  citizens,  had 
been  enlisted  in  Spain,  and  were  natives  or  set- 
tlers in  that  province ;  others  had  been  trans- 
ported from  Italy,  and  wished  to  return  to  thci: 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


273 


country.  It  was  determined,  therefore,  that  the 
first  should  be  disbanded  immediately  ;  the  others 
inarch  to  the  Var,  and  there  be  set  free,  am]  not 
be  subject  to  be  pressed  into  any  service  what- 
ever. Caesar  undertook  to  supply  them  with 
provisions  on  their  march.  He  ordered  their 
effects,  if  any  were  found  in  his  camp,  to  be 
restored  to  them.  He  paid  his  own  soldiers  a 
high  price  for  what  they  were  in  this  manner 
desired  to  restore.  By  this  measure  he  gained 
several  advantages;  he  lightened  his  baggage; 
he  mude  a  gratification  to  his  own  men,  without 
the  imputation  of  bribery  ;  and  he  gained  his  late 
enemies  by  an  act  of  generosity.  The  vanquish- 
ed army  accordingly  came  to  Caesar  with  all 
their  complaints,  and  appealed  to  him  even 
from  their  own  officers.  It  was  impossible  for 
mankind  to  resist  so  much  ability,  insinuation, 
and  Courage. 

About  a  third  of  the  captive  army  were  dis- 
missed from  their  colours  in  Spain  ;  the  remain- 
der passed  the  Pyrennees,  preceded  by  one  part 
of  Caesar's  army,  and  followed  by  the  other  ;  who, 
being  thus  separated  to  the  van  and  the  rear,  and 
always  encamping  close  to  their  prisoners,  led 
them,  in  terms  of  the  capitulation,  to  the  frontiers 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul.2 

While  the  main  body  of  Caesar's  army  thus 
conducted  the  remains  of  the  Spanish  legions  to 
the  place  of  their  destination,  Varro  yet  remained 
in  the  western  province  of  Spain ;  and  Caesar,  in 
order  either  to  effect  a  conjunction  which  had 
been  concerted  between  them,  or  to  force  him  to 
surrender,  sent  Gtuintus  Cassius  with  two  legions 


to  that  quarter,  and  himself  followed  with  an 
escort  of  six  hundred  horse.  Upon  the  report  of 
his  approach,  the  natives,  as  usual,  having  taken 
their  resolution  in  favour  of  the  successful  party, 
declared  for  the  victor.  One  of  the  legions  of 
Varro  that  lay  at  Gades3  advancing  in  form  with 
their  colours,  came  forward  to  Hispales  to  receive 
him,  and  made  offer  of  their  services.  Varro 
himself  agreed  to  surrender  the  forces  he  com- 
manded, both  by  sea  and  by  land,  and  was  re- 
ceived at  Corduba.  Here  Caesar  held  a  general 
convention  of  the  province;  and  having  thanked 
the  people  for  the  favours  they  had  shown  to  his 
cause,  he  remitted  the  contributions,  and  with- 
drew all  the  burdens  which  Varro,  acting  under 
the  authority  of  Pompey,  had  imposed  upon 
them.  In  this,  as  in  otlier  examples,  he  endea- 
voured to  dispel  the  fears  which  his  enterprise  at 
first  had  occasioned,  and  secured  the  attachment 
of  the  provinces  by  a  sense  of  the  ease  and  the 
freedom  which  his  success  had  procured  them. 
The  fleets  and  armies  which  joined  him  upon 
every  conquest  he  made,  enabled  him  to  station 
troops  for  the  security  of  every  new  acquisition, 
without  dividing  the  forces  on  which  he  was  to 
rely  for  the  future  operations  of  the  war.  He 
accordingly,  in  the  present  instance,  left  under 
the  command  of  Gtuintus  Cassius,  rive  legions, 
consisting  chiefly  of  the  troops  which  had  been 
levied  by  Varro ;  and  he  himself  embarking  on 
board  a  fleet  which  had  been  fitted  out  for  his 
enemies,  went  by  sea  to  Tarraco,  now  Tarra- 
gona, and  from  that  place  by  land  to  Narbonne 
and  Marseilles. 


CHAPTER  Vh 

The  Siege  of  Marseilles  continued — Its  Surrender — Caesar  named  Dictator — Return  to  Rome  

Mutiny  at  Placentia — Cxsar  with  Servilius  Isauricus  Consuls — Forces  and  Disposition  of 
Pompey — Departure  of  Caesar  to  Brundusium — Transports  the  first  division  of  his  Army  to 
Acroceraunus — Message  to  Pompey,  and  their  several  Operations — 77ie  Lines  of  Dyrrachium 

—  Caesar  baffled  in  his  attempt  to  invest  Pompey — Action  and  Defeat  of  Caesar — His  Retreat  

March  of  both  Armies  into  Thcssaly — Battle  of  Pharsalia. 


THE  city  of  Marseilles  had  not  surrendered 
to  the  forces  which  Caesar  had  left  under  the 
corn'mantl  of  Trebonius  and  Decimus  Brutus  to 
besiege  it.  Brutus,  according  to  the  dispositions 
which  had  been  made  to  block  up  the  place  by 
sea,  as  well  as  by  land,  was  stationed  under  the 
island  at  the  mouth  of  the  bay.  His  squadron 
consisted  of  twelve  ships,  but  so  hastily  built,  that 
no  more  than  thirty  days  had  elapsed  from  the 
felling  of  the  timber  to  the  launching  of  the  ves- 
sels. They  were  manned,  however,  with  the 
choice  of  Caesar's  legions;  and,  in  order  to  frus- 
trate any  advantage  which  their  antagonists 
might  have  in  the  construction  or  management 
of  their  ships,  they  were  furnished  with  contri- 
vances to  grapple  and  make  fast  Lheir  gunwales 
to  those  ol  the  enemy,  in  order  to  decide  the  con- 
test with  their  swords. 

The'  Marseillians  had  equipped  ten  galleys,  of 
which  the  greater  number,  though  not  all,  were 
decked.  These  they  joined  under  the  command 
of  Domitius,  who  had  been  naimed  by  the  senate 


2  C  re.  d«  Bell'.  Civ.  lib.  f.         3  Now  Cadiz. 
2  M 


to  succeed  Cresar  ftv  Gaul,  with  (he  seven  ships 
which  this  officer  had  brought  into  their  harbour  ; 
and  having  manned  them  with  mariners  from  the 
neighbouring  coasts,  they  came  abroad  into  the 
bay,  in  order  to  force  Brutus  from  his  station,  and 
to  open  their  communication  with  the  sea.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  action,  the  Marseillians  be- 
ing superior  to  Caesar's  fleet  in  the  number  of 
their  ships,  and  in  the  skill  of  their  mariners,  had 
a  considerable  advantage.  But  as  soon  as  thev 
suffered  themselves  to  be  entangled  by  the  grapple, 
the  Gaulish  sailors,  though  of  a  very  har3y  race, 
could  not  withstand  the  arms  and  discipline  of 
the  legionary  soldiers,  and  were  defeated  with  the 
loss  of  nine  of  their  ships. 

This  was  the  victory  already  mentioned,  and 
which  contributed  so  much  to  the  reputation  of 
Caesar's  arms,  while  he  lay  before  Uerda  ;  and 
which,  joined  to  the  other  circumstances  of  his 
good  fortune,  procured  him  the  alliance  of  so 
many  nations  rn  Spain. 

While  Brutus  thus  kept  his  station  in  the  bay 
of  Marseilles,  Trebonius  practised  all  the  usinil 
methods  of  attack  to  reduce  the  city.   This  place 


274 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV 


being  covered  on  three  sides  by  water,  and  on  the 
fourth  only  accessible  by  an  isthmus  or  neck  of 
land,  which  was  defended  by  walls  and  towers  of 
a  great  height ;  he  opened  two  separate  attacks, 
probably  on  the  right  and  the  left  of  the  isthmus, 
and  at  each  of  these  attacks,  appears  to  have  em- 
ployed the  sloping  mound  or  terrace,1  which,  in 
the  sieges  of  the  ancients,  where  the  defence  de- 
pended on  the  height  of  the  battlements,  corres- 
ponded to  the  sap  of  the  moderns,  and  was 
calculated  to  conduct  the  besiegers,  by  a  gradual 
ascent,  to  the  top,  as  the  other  conducts  them  to 
the  foot  of  the  walls.  This  work  was  supported 
on  the  sides-  chiefly  with  timber,  and  built  up 
with  fascines,  hurdles,  and  earth,  rising  in  the 
present  case  to  an  elevation  of  eighty  feet,  and  in 
breadth,  as  was  formerly  observed  in  that  em- 
ployed against  the  Bituriges,2  probably  no  less 
than  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  so  as  to  receive 
a  proper  column  of  infantry  in  front,  and  to  em- 
brace a  proper  extent  in  the  walls.  The  work- 
men employed  in  the  front  of  this  laborious 
approach  were  covered  with  screens,  mantlets, 
and  penthouses  of  great  length  ;  and  such  was 
the  consumption  of  'timber  in  the  construction  of 
the  whole,  that  the  neighbouring  country  is  said 
to  have  been  cleared  of  its  woods. 

A  mere  trading  city,  long  disused  to  war,  or 
accustomed  to  rely  on  foreign  protection,  we  may 
suppose  to  have  been  ill  provided,  either  in  the 
state  of  its  arsenals,  or  in  the  spirit  of  its  citizens 
for  such  an  attack.  But  this  little  republic,  still 
bearing  the  character  of  an  independent  state,  be- 
ing in  the  neighbourhood  of  mountains  inhabited 
by  fierce  nations,  who  looked  upon  its  wealth  as 
a  tempting  prize,  and  owing  its  safety  to  the 
strength  of  its  walls,  and  the  state  of  its  arsenals, 
was  still  suitably  provided  for  its  own  defence  ; 
and  the  people,  although  long  inured  to  peace, 
still  kept  in  mind  the  duties  which  the  necessi- 
ties of  war  might  oblige  them  to  render  to  their 
country.  They  were  now  supported  by  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Roman  proconsul,  and  had  hopes  of 
a  speedy  relief  from  Pompey,  whom,  in  opposition 
to  Caesar,,  who  was  in  rebellion  against  the  legal 
government  of  his  country,  they  considered  as 
head  of  the  commonwealth.  They  accordingly 
exerted  great  perseverance  and  valour  in  defence 
of  their  wall ;  and  by  a  continual  discharge  from 
the  battlements,  and  by  frequent  sallies,  in  which 
they  set  fire  to  the  works  of  the  besiegers,  greatly 
retarded  the  progress  of  the  siege.  They  had 
engines  of  a  peculiar  force,  from  which  they 
darted  arrows  of  a  monstrous  size  and  weight,  be- 
ing beams  twelve  feet  long,  and  proportionally 
thick,  and  pointed  with  iron,  which  none  of  the 
screens  or  coverings,  usually  employed  in  making 
approaches,  could  resist ;  and  Trebonius  was  ac- 
cordingly obliged  to  proportion  the  strength  of 
his  timbers  and  penthouses,  and  the  thickness  of 
his  parapets,  fascines,  and  earth,  on  his  terrace, 
to  the  weight  of  these  enormous  weapons. 

While  such  efforts  were  made  on  both  sides  at 
this  memorable  siege,.  Pompey  had  detached  Na- 
sidius  with  sixteen  galleys  from  the  coast  of  Ma- 
cedonia to  endeavour  the  relief  of  Marseilles.  This 
squadron  had  entered  the  straits  of  Messina  by 
surprise,  and,  having  cut  out  of  the  harbour  a 
ship  which  belonged  to  Curio's  fleet,  proceeded 
on  their  destination  to  the  coast  of  Gaul.  Being 


1  Agger.  2  Bourges. 


arrived  in  the  bay  of  Taurocntum,  now  La 
Ciotat,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Toulon,  they 
sent  intimation  of  their  coming,  in  order  to  con- 
cert operations  with  those  in  the  harbour  of  Mar- 
seilles. 

The  besieged  were  greatly  animated  with  these 
hopes  of  relief ;  and  having  already  drawn  from 
their  docks  as  many  ships  as  supplied  the  place 
of  those  they  had  lost  in  the  late  engagement, 
they  now  manned  them  with  the  choice  of  their 
citizens,  and  determined  once  more  to  try  their 
fortune  at  sea.  When  this  fleet  was  about  to 
depart,  numbers  of  women,  and  many  citizens, 
who,  on  account  of  their  age,  could  not  take  part 
in  the  service,  crowded  to  the  shore,  and  with 
tears  exhorted  the  soldiers  and  mariners  to  be 
mindful  of  their  own  and  their  country's  ho- 
nour, on  the  eve  of  becoming  a  prey  to  their  ene- 
mies. Multitudes  of  people,  at  the  same  time, 
drew  forth  in  procession,  and  crowded  to  the 
temples  with  prayers  and  supplications  for  the 
success  of  this  last  effort  they  were  to  make  in 
defence  ef  their  commonwealth. 

This  oustle  in  the  streets  of  Marseilles,  with 
the  motion  of  the  shipping  in  the  harbour,  being 
observed  from  the  camp  of  Trebonius,  which  was 
situated  upon  a  height,  and  which  had  a  view 
into  the  town,  gave  sufficient  intimation  of  what 
was  intended  ;  and  Brutus  was  warned  to  be  on 
his  guard :  but  the  Marseillians,  having  found  a 
favourable  wind,  had  the  good  fortune  to  clear 
the  bay,  and,  without  any  interruption  from  hi* 
squadron,  joined  Nasidius  at  Tauroentum..  Here 
an  action  soon  after  ensued,,  in  which  the  Mar- 
seillians made  great  efforts  of  valour ;  but  were 
ill  supported  by  Nasidius,.  who,  unworthy  of  the 
command  with  which  he  had  been  entrusted, 
withdrew  at  the  beginning  of  the  action,  and 
fled  to  the  coast  of  Spain.  The  Marseillians, 
being  left  to  sustain  the  contest  alone,,  lost  nine 
of  their  ships,  of  which  five  were  sunk,  and  four 
were  taken. 

These  tidings  were  received  at  Marseilles  with 
inexpressible  sorrow ;  but  did  not  alter  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  inhabitants  to  persevere  in  their  de- 
fence, and  in  the  use  of  every  possible  method 
that  could  be  employed  to  protract  the  siege,  and 
to  give  Pompey  time  to  devise  more  effectual 
means  for  their  safety..  They  accordingly,  with 
great  vigour  and  success,  counteracted  the  ordi- 
nary operations  of  the  siege,  burning  and  demo- 
lishing a  considerable  part  of  the  works  which 
were  raised  up  against  them,,  and  obliging  the 
besiegers  frequently  to  renew  their  labours. 

The  first  attack,  against  which  the  besieged' 
were  not  able  to  find  an  adequate  defence,  came 
from  a  work  which  had  not  been  a  part  in  the 
original  plan  of  the  siege,  but  had  been  devised 
by  the  soldiers  who  had  succeeded  each  other  on 
the  guard  of  the  agger,  or  mound  of  approach,  as 
a  lodgment  or  cover  to  secure  themselves  from 
surprise.  It  was  at  first  no  more  than  a  square 
of  ten  yards,  enclosed  with  a  brick  wall  five  feet 
thick ;  but  so  situated,  that  if  it  were  raised  to  a 
proper  height,  it  might  cope  wit  h  the  battlements, 
and  greatly  annoy  the  besieged.  To  give  it  this 
consequence,  masons  were  employed  to  raise  it, 
and  great  efforts  of  ingenuity  were  made  to  pro- 
tect them  in  their  work.  A  moveable  penthouse, 
of  great  thickness  in  the  roof,  and  screened  in 
the  front  and  sides  with  net- work  made  of  cables, 
or  the  strongest  ropes,  was  raised  on  beams  or 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


275 


rafters  of  a  proportional  strength,  and  contrived 
to  be  hoisted  up  by  machinery,  to  keep  pace  with 
the  building,  and  to  cover  the  workmen  as  they 
rose  on  the  successive  courses  of  masonry  which 
they  laid.  With  these  precautions,  a  tower  was 
gradually  raised  on  the  foundation  of  the  original 
brick  wall,  to  the  height  of  six  stories ;  and  being 
furnished  with  ports  or  embrasures  on  every  floor, 
gave  the  besiegers,  by  means  of  their  missiles,  the 
command  of  all  the  space  from  thence  to  the 
ramparts.  They  accordingly,  under  -the  cover 
of  engines,  that  made  a  continual  discharge  from 
this  tower,  filled  up  the  ditch,  and  pushed  up  a 
gallery  to  the  foot  of  the  wall.  In  this  position, 
notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  besieged,  by 
a  continual  discharge  of  heavy  stones  from  the 
battlements,  to  destroy  or  overwhelm  the  supports? 
of  their  gallery,  they  undermined  the  foundation' 
of  the  rampart,  and  brought  some  part  of  it  in 
ruin  to  the  ground. 

The  inhabitants,  greatly  alarmed  at  the  sight 
of  a  breach,  which  might  soon  be  enlarged  to  ad- 
mit of  being  stormed,  made  some  signals  of 
truce,  and  sent  to  beseech  Trebonius  that  he 
would  suspend  his  operations,  and  wait  for  the 
arrival  of  Cssar,  in  whose  clemency  they  hoped 
to  find  some  protection  against  the  fury  of 
troops,  who  had  already  threatened  the  inhabit- 
ants with  a  massacre. 

Trebonius,  accordingly,  moved  by  these  in- 
treaties,  and  by  the  instructions  he  had  received 
from  Caesar,  not  to  deliver  up  the  town,  in  case 
it  fell  into  his  hands,  to  the  rage  of  the  soldiers, 
suspended  his  operations,  and  supposing  the  pe- 
tition of  the  inhabitants  equal  to  an  offer  of  sur- 
render on  their  part,  entrusted  his  works  to 
slender  guards,  who,  in  their  turn  relying  on  the 
submissive  professions  of  the  people,  were  pro- 
portionally remiss  in  their  duty.  The  citizens, 
tempted  by  the  opportunity  which  was  thus  of- 
fered them  to  strike  an  important  blow,  and  to 
throw  back  to  a  great  distance,  all  the  posts  of 
the  enemy,  made  a  vigorous  sally  from  the  town, 
and  being  favoured  by  a  high  wind,  which  blew 
directly  on  the  works  of  the  besiegers,  set  the 
whole  on  fire,  and  reduced  to  ashes,  in  a  few 
hours,  what  had  been  the  labour  of  many  months 
to  erect. 

As  Trebonius  had  already  exhausted  the  great- 
er part  of  the  materials  which  the  eountry  around 
him  could  furnish,  it  appeared  difficult  for  him  to 
resume  the  attack.  But  he  himself,  as  well  as  the 
troops  under  his  command,  being  greatly  exaspe- 
rated by  the  late  breach  of  faith  in  the  town, 
made  every  effort  of  ingenuity  and  courage  to 
repair  their  losses.  They  substituted  brick  work 
for  timber  in  supporting  the  sides  and  galleries 
<of  their  terrace;  and  advanced  with  so  rapid  a 
progress  in  their  new  approach,  that  the  besieged, 
now  greatly  spent  witli  toil,  and  disappointed  in 
their  hopes  of  relief,  were  struck  with  fresh  and 
more  alarming  apprehensions  of  what  they  might 
expect  from  the  resentment  of  troops  whom  they 
had  incensed  with  a  recent  and  just  provocation  ; 
and  they  returned  to  their  suit  for  mercy,  with 
more  humble  and  more  sincere  intentions  of  sub- 
mission. 

While  messages  were  passing  to  this  effect, 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  sensible  that  he  could 
no  longer  serve  the  cause  of  his  party  at  this 
place,  embarked  with  his  attendants  and  friends 
on  board  of  three  galleys  which  still  waited  his 


orders  in  the  harbour.  Having  the  opportunity 
of  a  high  and  favourable  wind,  which  made  it 
unsafe  for  the  squadron  of  Brutus  to  weigh,  or 
to  quit  their  anchors  in  pursuit  of  him,  he  en- 
deavoured to  escape  from  the  bay.  In  this  at- 
tempt two  of  his  vessels  were  taken,  the  third, 
with  himself  on  board,  got  off,  and  reserved  him 
to  take  that  share  which  yet  remained  for  him  i» 
the  growing  misfortunes  of  his  party  throughout 
this  disastrous  war. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Caesar  ar- 
rived from  Spain,  and  expecting,  in  the  present 
contest  for  empire,  to  profit  as  much  by  the  re- 
putation of  his  clemency,  as  by  the  terror  of  his 
arms,  listened  to  the  supplications  of  the  people 
of  Marseilles,  and  took  possession  of  the  town 
without  any  act  of  resentment  or  severity  what- 
ever. While  he  was  yet  at  this  place,  bre  had 
accounts  from  Rome,  that  his  party  in  the  city 
had  procured  an  act  of  the  people  to  vest  him 
with  the  power  of  dictator.  The  ceremony  of  his 
nomination  had,  in  the  absence  of  both  consuls, 
been  performed  by  MaTCUs  iEmilius  Lepidus, 
then  praetor  in  office,  who,  though  a  person  of 
mean  capacity,  was,  by  the  chance  of  his  situa- 
tion, involved  in  many  of  the  greatest  affairs  that 
followed  ;  and,  though  but  a  single  accomplice  in 
the  crimes  of  this  guilty  age,  escaped  its  violences, 
to  become  almost  the  only  example  of  an  igno- 
miny and  disgrace,  which  so  many  others  had 
merited  no  less  than  himself. 

Caesar,  being  thus  raised,  though  by  an  irregu- 
lar step,  to  a  legal  place  in  the  commonwealth, 
hastened  to  Rome,  in  order  to  be  invested,  for 
the  first  time,  with  the  character  of  dictator.  In 
his  way  he  was  stopped  at  Placentia  by  some 
disorders  which  threatened  a  mutiny  among  the 
troops  who  were  assembled  at  that  place.  The 
legions,  elated  by  victory,  and  filled  with  a  sense 
of  their  own  importance,  in  a  contest  for  the  so- 
vereignty of  the  empire,  were  become  impatient 
of  discipline,  and  in  haste  to  avail  themselves  of 
that  military  government  they  were  employed  to 
establish.  In  entering  Italy  they  treated  Roman 
citizens  as  their  subjects,  and  the  country  as  their 
property.  Being  restrained,  they  resented  the 
severities  which  were  practised  against  them,  en- 
tered into  cabals,  and  even  talked  of  abandoning 
Caesar,  and  of  declaring  for  Pompey.  Here, 
however,  the  usual  courage  and  ability  of  this 
singular  man  supported  him.  He  brought  the 
mutinous  troops,  under  arms,  before  him,  and  put 
them  in  mind  how  much  he  had  ever  coveted, 
and  been  anxious  to  obtain  the  affections  of  the 
soldiers ;  but  assured  them,  that  it  was  no  part  of 
his  intention  to  earn  those  affections  by  making 
himself  an  accomplice  in  their  crimes.  "Shall 
we,"  he  said,  "  who  profess  to  be  the  deliverers  of 
our  country  from  oppression,  become  ourselves 
the  greatest  oppressors?  Shall  I,  who  am  in- 
trusted with  the  command  of  a  Roman  army,  be- 
come the  patron  of  licentiousness,  and  in  order 
to  indulge  for  a  moment  the  passions  of  my  sol- 
diers, suffer  them  to  ruin  their  own  fortunes  for 
ever?  What  should  induce  me? — The  fear  of 
violence  to  my  person,  or  the  danger  to  which 
my  life  may  be  exposed  ? — If  my  life  were  at- 
tacked, there  are  enow  to  defend  it.  But  what 
is  life  compared  to  the  honour  of  a  Ivoman  of- 
ficer, which  I  am  concerned  to  maintain?  There 
are  persons  who  have  said,  that  they  will  desert 
my  cause,  and  go  over  to  Pompey.    Let  tlieui 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


They  shall  soon  have  an  opportunity  to  do  so. 
If  Pompey  be  my  enemy,  what  is  there  I  should 
more  earnestly  wish  than  to  find  his  cause  en- 
trusted with  such  men  1  men  who  make  war  on 
their  friends,  and  disobey  their  officers.  He  had 
been  slow,"  he  said,  "in  proceeding  to  the  fatal 
extremes  which  were  now  become  necessary. 
The  guilty,"  he  continued,  "had  been  long 
known  to  him ;  but  he  had  endeavoured  to  con- 
ceal their  offences,  in  hopes  that  remorse  and 
shame,  or  the  fear  of  justice,  would  have  made 
the  actual  application  of  punishment  unnecessa- 
ry ;  but  that  he  must  now,  though  with  the  great- 
est reluctance,  proceed  to  the  last  of  remedies." 

In  order  that  he  might  not  involve  the  whole 
of  those  who  were  present  in  the  same  desperate 
cause,  he  affected,  in  this  harangue,  to  treat  the 
offence  he  was  to  punish  as  the  crime  of  a  few. 
They  were  now  to  be  set  apart,  he  said,  and 
their  punishment  should  purge  the  army,  and 
retrieve  its  honour.  In  pursuance  of  this  plan, 
he  affected  to  believe,  that  the  ninth  legion  were 
the  principal  authors  of  this  mutiny.  He  ordered 
a  few  of  them  for  immediate  execution,  and 
boldly  dismissed  the  whole  of  the  legion  from  his 
service.  The  remainder  of  the  army,  having 
thus  obtained  an  implied  exculpation,  in  token 
of  their  own  innocence,  vied  with  each  other  in 
applauding  the  justice  of  their  general.  Even 
the  legion,  which  was  dismissed  from  the  ser- 
vice, detesting  as  a  punishment  on  themselves, 
what  they  had  threatened  to  execute  as  an  act  of 
resentment  against  their  commander,  beset  him 
with  humble  and  earnest  irttreatiesj  that  he  might 
be  pleased  to  receive  them  again  into  his  service. 
He  affected  great  difficulty  in  granting  this  re- 
quest; but,  after  much  solicitation,  suffered 
himself  to  be  gained  by  their  professions  of 
penitence.1 

With  a  considerable  accession  of  authority, 
acquired  by  his  success  in  quelling  this  mutiny, 
Caesar  proceeded  to  Rome,  where  he  assumed 
the  title  and  ensigns  of  dictator ;  being  the  first 
example  of  any  person,  since  the  abdication  of 
Sylla,  entrusted  with  this  alarming  power.  It 
was  said  to  be  conferred  upon  him,  however, 
merely  in  compliance  with  form ;  and  that  there 
might  be  a  proper  officer,  in  the  absence  of  both 
the  consuls,  to  preside  at  the  elections.  His  own 
object,  at  the  same  time,  being  to  gain  to  his 
arty  the  authority  of  legal  government,  and,  in 
is  conduct,  to  give  proofs  of  clemency  and  mo- 
deration, without  any  intention,  for  the  present, 
to  perpetuate  or  even  to  exercise  any  of  the  high 
powers  of  dictator,  he  proceeded  to  hold  the  elec- 
tions, and  was  himself,  together  with  Servilius 
Isauricus,  chosen  consul  for  the  following  year. 
In  the  interval  that  followed,  before  their  installa- 
tion, he  continued  to  assemble  the  people  in  the 
character  of  dictator,  and  obtained  some  laws 
respecting^  the  times,  and  the  distracted  state  of 
public  affairs.  Credit  and  trade  were  at  an 
alarming  stand ;  he  procured  an  act  to  facilitate 
Ithe  recovery  of  debts,  by  delivering  the  effects 
}[  the  debtor  to  be  divided  among  his  creditors, 
upon  an  estimate  of  what  the  different  subjects 
might  have  been  sold  for  at  the  time  that  the  war 
broke  out. 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xli.  c.  27-r35.  Appian.  de  Bello 
Jiv.  lib.  ii.  p.  547.  Sueton.  in  Caes.  c  69.  Lucau.  lib.  v. 
p.  244 


Many  being  supposed  to  hoard  great  sums  of 
money,  as  the  only  means  of  preserving  it  from 
the  violence  of  the  times,  or  being  unwilling  to 
lend  on  such  securities  as  were  then  to  be  had, 
Csesar  procured  another  act,  by  which  any  per- 
son was  forbid  to  have  in  his  possession,  at  once, 
above  sixty  thousand  Roman  money.2 

He  obtained  a  general  act  of  indemnity,  from 
which  Milo  alone  was  excepted,  restoring  persons 
of  every  denomination,  who,  at  the  breaking  out 
of  the  war,  lay  under  the  censure  of  the  law,  and 
were  in  exile  for  corrupt  practices  in  the  state ; 
and,  in  pursuance  of  this  measure,  procured  a 
pardon  for  all  the  disorders  which  had  been  com- 
mitted in  opposition  to  the  late  government  ;  but 
for  none  of  the  irregular  efforts  that  had  been 
made  in  support  of  it.  He  opened  the  city  at 
once  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Cisalpine  Gaul, 
and  by  a  single  vote  gave  them  a  title  to  be  en- 
rolled with  the  people  of  Rome  as  members  of  the 
republic.3  In  these,  and  in  other  affairs  of  less 
moment,  while  his  troops  were  in  motion  through 
Ttaly,  he  employed  a  few  days  in  the  city,  and 
being  ready  to  depart,  resigned  the  power  of  dic- 
tator. This  resignation,  made  by  a  person  pos- 
sessed of  a  military  force,  and  hitherto  victorious, 
was  considered  as  an  evidence  of  his  moderation, 
and  served  to  dispel  the  fears  of  those  who  ex- 
pected to  see  the  immediate  establishment  of  a 
military  government.  He  was  now  about  to  as- 
sume the  office  of  legal  magistrate,  and  to  appear 
in  the  character  of  Roman  consul  against  those 
who,  lately  trusting  to  the  name  and  authority  of 
the  republic  with  which  they  were  vested,  had 
treated  himself  and  his  adherents  as  rebels ;  but 
who  now,  in  their  turn,  might  appear  to  incur 
all  the  disadvantages  of  that  imputation  which  he 
was  about  to  retort  upon  them  ;  and  with  the  ad- 
ditional charge  of  an  attempt  to  dismember  the 
empire,  and  to  arm  so  many  of  the  provinces 
against  the  sovereignty  of  the  state.. 

The  competitors  in  this  famous  contest  were 
in,  or  but  a  little  past  the  prime  of  life :  Pompey 
was  fifty-seven,  and  Cssar  fifty.  The  first  had 
been  early  distinguished  as  an  officer,  and  for 
many  years  had  enjoyed  a  degree  of  considera- 
tion, with  which  that  of  any  other  Roman  citizen 
was  not  allowed  to  compare.  His  reputation, 
however,  in  some  measure,  had  sunk,  and  that 
of  Cassar  rose  on  the  first  shocks  of  the  present 
war;  but  the  balance  was  not  yet  absolutely  set- 
tled, and  the  minds  of  many  were  held  in  anxious 
suspense.  Caesar,  wherever  he  had  acted  in  per- 
son, had  always  prevailed  ;  but  where  he  was  not 
present,  his  affairs  wore  a  less  promising  aspect. 
His  forces  under  Curio  had  acquired  an  easy 
possession  of  Sicily ;  and  this  officer,  encouraged 
by  his  first  success,  transported  two  legions  into 
Africa,  found  Varus  encamped  near  Utica, 
obliged  him  to  retire  into  the  town,  and  was  pre- 
paring to  besiege  it,  when  he  received  intelligence 
that  Tuba,  king  of  Numidia,  was  advancing  to 
its  relief  with  all  the  powers  of  his  kingdom. 
This  prince  had  been  induced  to  take  part  in  the 
war  by  his  attachment  to  Pompey,  and  by  his 
personal  animosity  to  Curio,  who,  in  his  tribun- 
ate, had  moved  for  an  act  to  deprive  him  of  his 
kingdom. 


2  About  500/. 

3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xli.  c.  30, 37,  38.  Cres.  de  Bell.  Oiv. 
lib.  iii. 


Chap.  Yi.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


277 


Curio,  upon  this  intelligence,  wisely  withdrew 
from  Utica  to  a  strong  post  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  sent  orders  into  Sicily  to  hasten  the  junction 
of  the  troops  he  had  left  behind  him  in  that  island. 
While  he  waited  their  coming,  some  Numidian 
deserters  arrived  at  his  camp,  and  brought  ac- 
counts that  Juba,  with  the  main  body  of  his  army, 
had  been  recalled  to  defend  his  own  dominions ; 
and  that  only  Sabura,  one  of  his  generals,  with  a 
small  division,  was  come  to  give  what  support  he 
could  to  the  party  of  Pompey  in  Africa. 

Upon  this  information,  Curio  formed  a  design 
to  intercept  the  Numidian  general  before  he  eould 
be  joined  by  Varus ;  and  for  this  purpose,  leaving 
a  guard  in  his  camp,  he  marched  in  the  night  to 
attack  the  enemy,  where  he  was  informed  that 
they  lay  on  the  banks  of  the  Bagrada.  His  ca- 
valry being  advanced,  fell  in  with  the  Numidian 
horse,  and  put  them  to  flight.  Encouraged  by 
this  advantage,  he  hastened  his  march  to  com- 

Elete  the  victory  ;  and  Sabura,  by  whose  art  the 
ist  intelligence  had  been  conveyed  to  him,  like- 
wise, after  a  little  resistance,  fled  before  him.  By 
this  means,  Curio  was  gradually  ensnared  into 
the  midst  of  Juba's  forces,  was  surrounded,  and 
attacked  on  every  side.  He  attempted,  in  vain, 
to  take  refuge  on  a  height  which  he  had  in  view, 
and,  with  the  greater  part  of  his  army,  was  put 
to  the  sword.  The  few  who  escaped,  with  .those 
who  had  been  left  in  the  camp,  endeavoured  to 
find  a  passage  into  Sicily,  and,  being  disappointed, 
surrendered  themselves  to  Varus,  by  whom  they 
were  treated  with  clemency  ;  but  being  observed, 
and  distinguished  by  Juba,  who  arrived  at  Utica 
on  the  following  day,  were  claimed  as  his  cap- 
tives, and  put  to  death. 

About  the  same  time,  Dolabella,  to  whom  Cae- 
sar had  given  the  command  both  of  his  sea  and 
land  forces  on  the  coast  of  Illyricum,  was,  by 
Marcus  Octavius  and  Scribonius  Libo,  expelled 
from  thence ;  and  Caius  Antonius,  attempting  to 
support  Dolabella,  was  shut  up  in  a  small  island, 
and,  with  his  party,  made  prisoners.4 

The  principal  storm,  however,  with  which  the 
pew  government  was  threatened,  appeared  on 
,the  side  of  Macedonia.  In  this  country,  Pom- 
pey himself  was  now  at  the  head  of  a  great  force. 
He  had  transported  five  legions  from  Italy;  and, 
since  the  middle  of  March,  when  his  last  division 
sailed  from  Brundusium,  he  had  been  in  the  quiet 
possession  of  Greece,  Macedonia,  and  all  the 
eastern  part  of  the  empire.  He  had  sent  his 
father-in-law,  Cornelius  Scipio  Metellus,  into  the 
provinces  of  Asia  and  Syria,  to  collect  the  forces 
and  the  revenues  of  those  opulent  countries ;  and 
despatched  his  own  sen  Cneius  with  instructions 
to  assemble  all  the  shipping  that  could  be  found 
on  that  coast.  He  likewise  sent  general  orders 
to  all  the  Roman  officers  in  different  parts  of  the 
empire,  and  to  the  allies  or  dependants  of  the  Ro- 
man people,  to  join  him  with  every  power  tliey 
could  raise,.  Seven  thousand  citizens  of  rank 
had  followed  him  from  Italy.5  Numbers  of  vete- 
rans, who  had  been  settled  in  Thessaly,  repaired 
to  his  standard.  He  was  joined  by  one  legion 
from  Sicily,  another  from  Crete,  and  two  from 
Asia.  He  had  two  legions  under  Scipio  in  Syria, 
had  assembled  three  thousand  archers,  and  as 
many  slingers ;  had  hired,  in  the  neighbourhood 


4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xli.  c.  41  and  42. 

5  Plutarch  in  Pompeio. 


of  Macedonia,  two  thousand  foot  and  seven  thou- 
sand cavalry.  Bejotarus  sent  him  six  hundred 
horse ;  Ariobarzanes  five  hundred ;  Cotus,  a 
Thracian  prince,  five  hundred  ;  the  Macedonians 
furnished  two  hundred;  five  hundred  being  the 
remains  of  Gabinius's  army,  had  joined  him  ;  his 
son  brought  eight  hundred  from  his  own  estates ; 
Tarcundarius  three  hundred ;  Antiochus  Com- 
magenes  two  hundred :  amounting  to  fifty-five 
thousand  legionary  troops,  eight  thousand  irregu- 
lar infantry,  and  ten  thousand  six  hundred  horse. 
In  all  seventy-^three  thousand  six  hundred^ 

He  had  likewise  assembled  a  numerous  fleet; 
one  squadron  from  Egypt,  of  which  he  gave  the 
command  to  his  son  Cneius ;  another  from  Asia, 
under  Lelius  and  Triarius ;  one  from  Syria,  un- 
der Caius  Cassius ;  that  of  Rhodes,  under  Caius 
Marcellus  and  Coponius  ;  that  of  Achaia  .and 
Liburnia,  under  Scribonius  Libo  and  M.  Octa- 
vius :  the  whole  amounting  to  above  eight  hun- 
dred galleys,  of  which  Bibulus  had  the  chief 
command,  with  orders  to  guard  the  passage  from 
Italy  to  Greece,  and  to  obstruct  the  communica- 
tions of  the  enemy  by  the  Ionian  sea. 

Pompey  had  likewise  formed  large  magazines 
of  corn  from  Thessaly,  Asia,  Egypt,  Crete,  and 
Cyrene.  The  principal  resort  of  his  land  forces 
was  at  Berrhcea,  on  the  fertile  plains  between  the 
Axius  and  Haliacmon,  that  run  into  the  Bay  of 
Thermae.  The  Roman  senate  was  represented 
at  Thessalonica  by  two  hundred  of  that  body, 
who,  together  with  the  two  consuls,  hekl  their  as- 
semblies, and  assumed  all  the  functions  of  the 
Roman  state.  The  Roman  people  were  like- 
wise represented  by  the  concourse  of  respectable 
citizens,  who  repaired  to  the  army  or  to  this 
place.7  But  though  so  many  members  of  the 
government,  thus  violently  expelled  from  Rome, 
considered  themselves  as  the  real  constituents  of 
the  commonwealth,  they  suffered  the  usual  tinie 
of  elections  to  elapse,  and  did  not  attempt  to  pre- 
serve in  their  retreat  the  succession  of  officers,  in 
opposition  to  the  elections  that  were  made  at 
Rome.  Claudius  Marcellus  and  L.  Cornelius 
Lentulus,  at  the  expiration  of  their  year  in  office, 
took  the  several  commands  allotted  to  them,  as 
usual,  under  the  title  of  proconsul. 

The  general  had  been  extremely  active  in 
forming,  as  well  as  in  assembling  this  powerful 
armament.  He  intended,  early  in  the  spring,  to 
take  possession  of  Dyrrachium,  Apollonia,  and 
the  other  towns  on  the  coast,  probably  with  a 
view  to  fall  upon  Italy,  with  a  weight  which  now 
appeared  sufficient  to  ensure  the  high  reputation 
as  a  commander,  which  his  successes,  on  other 
occasions,  had  procured  him. 

Caesar,  on  his  part,  had  drawn  all  his  army  to 
the  coast  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Brundusium; 
but  it  was  not  likely  that  he  would  attempt  to 
pass  a  sea  which  was  commanded  by  the  enemy's 
fleet,  or  venture  upon  a  coast  where  he  had  not 
a  single  port,  and  in  the  face  of  a  superior  army, 
now  completely  formed  and  appointed,  under  the 
command  of  an  officer,  whom  no  man  was  ever 
supposed  to  excel  The  formality  of  entering  on 
the  office  of  consul,  to  which  he  had  been  elected, 
it  was  supposed,  might  detain  him  at  Rome  till 
after  the  first  of  January ;  and  Pompey  according 
ly  made  no  haste  in  taking  his  intended  station* 


6  Cflfsar.  de  Bello  Civile,  lib.  Hi. 
'  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xli.  43, 


278 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  from  which  he  might 
either  act  on  the  defensive,  or  invade  Italy  as  the 
occasion  might  require.1 

It  was  difficult,  however,  to  foresee  what  such 
an  enemy  as  Caesar  might  attempt.  Having 
staid  no  more  than  eleven  days  at  Rome,  while 
he  acted  in  the  character  of  dictator,  and  obtained 
his  election  as  consul,  without  waiting  for  his 
admission  into  office,  he  set  out  in  December  for 
Brundusium.  At  this  place  twelve  legions  and 
all  his  cavalry  were  already,  by  his  order,  assem- 
bled. He  found  the  numbers  of  his  army  con- 
siderably impaired  by  disease,  being  come  from 
the  more  healthy  climates  of  Spain  and  Gaul  to 
pass  the  sickly  season  of  autumn  in  Apulia.  In 
any  other  hands  than  his  own,  an  army  so  re- 
duced would  have  scarcely  been  fit  for  the  defence 
of  Italy  against  such  forces  as  were  assembled  to 
invade  it ;  and  his  march  to  Brundusium  would 
have  appeared  altogether  a  defensive  measure, 
and  intended  to  counteract  the  operations  of  his 
enemy  from  beyond  the  seas.  The  season  too 
appeared  extremely  unfavourable  to  any  hostile 
attempts  on  Greece.  Caesar,  however,  had  de- 
termined to  prevent  the  designs  of  his  enemy,  and 
to  keep  him  involved  in  all  the  disadvantages  of 
a  defensive  war. 

No  more  transports  were  collected  in  the  har- 
bour of  Brundusium  than  were  sufficient  to  re- 
ceive about  twenty  thousand  foot  and  six  hundred 
horse.  Caesar,  nevertheless,  immediately  on  his 
arrival,  informed  the  troops  of  his  intentions  to 
embark,  and  of  his  resolution  to  fix  the  scene  of 
the  war  in  Greece.  He  cautioned  them  not  to 
occupy  transports  with  unnecessary  baggage  and 
horses,  and  exhorted  them  to  rely  on  the  conse- 
quences of  victory,  and  on  his  own  generosity, 
for  a  full  reparation  of  any  loss  they  might  sus- 
tain by  leaving  their  effects  behind  them.  He 
embarked  seven  legions  in  the  first  division,  and 
with  these  he  himself  sailed  on  the  fourth  of  Fe- 
bruary. He  turned  from  the  usual 
U.  C.  705.  course,  and  steering  unobserved  to 
C  Julius  tne  r*Snt)  arrived  next  day  where 
C&sar,  P.  the  enemy,  if  they  had  really  been 
Servilius  apprised  of  his  embarkation,  were 
Isauricus.  ieast  iiiceiv  to  expect  him,  on  what 
was  reputed  a  very  dangerous  part 
of  the  coast,  under  a  high  and  rocky  promontory, 
that  was  called  the  Acroceraunus. 

As  soon  as  the  fleet  had  come  to  an  anchor, 
Caesar  having  Vibullius  Rufus,  one  of  Pompey's 
officers  who  was  taken  in  Spain,  till  now  detained 
as  a  prisoner,  he  dismissed  him  with  a  message 
to  his  general  in  the  following  terms :  "That  both 
parties  had  already  carried  their  obstinacy  too 
far,  and  might  learn,  from  experience,  to  distrust 
their  fortunes ;  that  the  one  had  been  expelled 
from  Italy,  had  lost  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Spain, 
with  one  hundred  and  thirty  cohorts  (or  thirteen 
legions)  ;2  that  the  other  had  sustained  the  loss 
of  an  army  in  Africa,  cut  off  with  its  general,3 
and  had  suffered  no  less  by  the  disasters  of  his 
party  in  Illyricum;  that  their  mutual  disappoint- 
ments might  instruct  them  how  little  they  could 
rely  on  the  events  of  war ;  that  it  was  time  to 
consult  their  own  safety,  and  to  spare  the  repub- 
lic ;  that  it  was  prudent  to  treat  of  peace  while 


1  Appian.  de  liello  Civile,  lib.  ii. 

2  The  armies  of  Afranius,  Petreius,  and  Varro,  &c 

3  The  array  of  Curio  and  C  Anton  in*. 


the  fortunes  and  the  hopes  of  both  were  nearly 
equal ;  if  that  time  were  allowed  to  elapse,  and 
either  should  obtain  a  distinguished  advantage, 
who  could  answer  that  the  victor  would  be  equal- 
ly tractable  as  both  were  at  present  ? 

"  But  since  all  former  endeavours  to  procure  a 
conference,  or  to  bring  on  a  treaty  between  the 
leaders  themselves,  had  failed,  he  proposed,  that 
all  their  differences  should  now  be  referred  to  the 
senate  and  people  ;  that,  in  the  mean  time,  each 
of  them  should  solemnly  swear,  at  the  head  of 
their  respective  armies,  That,  in  three  days,  they 
should  disband  all  their  forces,  in  order  that,  be- 
ing disarmed,  they  might  severally  be  under  a 
necessity  to  submit  to  the  legal  government  of 
their  country ;  that  he  himself,  to  remove  all  diffi- 
culties on  the  part  of  Pompey,  should  begin  with 
dismissing  all  the  troops  that  were  under  his  com- 
mand, whether  in  garrison  or  in  the  field."  4 

It  appears  that  Caesar,  if  these  declarations  had 
been  accepted,  might  have  been  somewhat  em- 
barrassed for  evasions ;  but  equally  bold  in  all  his 
measures,  he  risked  this  event,  or  rather  foresaw 
it  could  not  happen,  as  he  was  sure  that  this  offer 
of  peace,  like  the  former,  would  be  rejected ;  and 
the  rather,  that  it  would  be  considered  as  an  effect 
of  his  weakness,  and  of  the  danger  into  which  he 
had  fallen  by  his  rash  debarkation  with  so  small 
a  force.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his 
message  was  intended,  in  the  usual  strain  of  his 
policy,  to  amuse  his  enemy,  or  to  remove  the 
blame  of  the  war  from  himself.  As  he  usually 
accompanied  such  overtures  of  peace  with  the 
most  rapid  movements  and  the  boldest  resolutions, 
the  moment  Vibullius  set  out,  he  disembarked  his 
troops,  and  in  the  night  despatched  the  transports 
on  their  return  to  Brundusium  to  bring  the  re- 
mainder of  his  army. 

His  landing  on  the  coast  was  the  first  intima- 
tion received  by  the  enemy  of  his  intention  to 
pass  a  sea,  which  they  supposed  sufficiently 
guarded  by  their  fleets,  and  of  his  purpose  to 
carry  the  war  into  a  country,  in  which  they 
thought  themselves  secure  by  the  superiority  of 
their  numbers,  and  of  their  other  resources.  Bi- 
bulus,  upon  this  alarm,  put  to  sea,  and  came  in 
time  to  intercept  about  thirty  of  the  empty  trans- 
ports on  their  return  to  Italy.  These  he  burned  ; 
and,  sensible  of  his  own  remissness  in  suffering 
so  great  a  body  of  the  enemy  to  pass,  he  dis- 
tributed his  ships  along  the  coast,  and  deter- 
mined, for  the  future,  to  keep  the  sea  in  the  face 
of  every  difficulty,  and  under  every  distress. 

In  the  mean  time,  Caesar  marched  directly  to 
Oricum,  where  Lucius  Torquatus,  on  the  part 
of  Pompey,  was  posted,  with  orders  to  defend 
himself  to  the  last  extremity.  But  Caesar,  as 
soon  as  he  appeared  in  the  character  of  Roman 
consul,  preceded  by  the  ensigns  of  office,  pre- 
vailed on  the  garrison  to  desert  their  commander, 
and  to  surrender  the  place.  Without  stopping 
here,  he  proceeded  to  Apollonia,  was  received  in 
the  same  manner  by  the  inhabitants,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  officer  who  commanded  for  Pompey. 
In  consequence  of  these  examples  he  was  ac- 
knowledged by  all  the  towns  of  Epirus,  and 
continued  his  march  with  the  greatest  despatch 
towards  Dyrrachium,  where  Pompey  had  col- 
lected his  stores,  and  formed  his  principal  maga- 
zines.   By  his  unexpected  arrival  he  had  hopes 


4  Cass,  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


of  being  able  to  surprise  that  important  place, 
and  to  make  himself  master  of  it,  before  a  suffi- 
cient force  could  be  assembled  to  cover  it. 

Pompey,  in  execution  of  the  plan  he  had  form- 
ed, was  on  his  march  from  Macedonia  towards 
the  coast  of  Epirus,  when  he  was  met  by  Vibul-. 
Hus,  and  received  from  him  the  first  intelligence 
of  Caesar's  landing.  He  was  not  amused  with 
the  message  which  this  officer  brought  him,  nor 
did  he  attempt  to  retort  the  artifice,  by  affecting 
o  be  deceived.  He  even  expressed  himself  in 
terms  harsh  and  impolitic,  "That  he  neither 
chose  to  return  to  his  country,  nor  to  hold  his  life 
by  the  concession  of  Caesar;  and,  without  re- 
turning any  answer,  detached  some  parties  to- 
wards the  coast  where  the  enemy  was  landed, 
with  orders  to  lay  waste  the  country,  break  down 
bridges,  destroy  the  woods,  and  block  up  the 
highways  with  the  timber  they  felled.5  He  sent 
expresses  to  Scipio,  with  an  account  of  Caesar's 
arrival  in  Epirus,  and  with  orders  to  hasten  his 
passage  into  Europe,  with  all  the  forces  he  had 
been  able  to  assemble  in  Asia.  He  himself  ad- 
vanced with  great  diligence ;  and  being  informed 
on  the  march,  that  Oricum  and  Apol  Ionia  had 
already  fallen  into  the  enemy's  hands,  he  has- 
tened to  save  his  magazines  and  stores  at  Dyrra- 
chium,  and  without  stopping,  night  or  day, 
marched  in  such  disorder,  that  many  deserted 
as  from  a  cause  already  ruined  or  desperate.  He 
arrived,  however,  in  time  to  prevent  the  designs 
of  Caesar  on  Dyrrachium  ;  encamped  under  the 
walls,  sent  a  squadron  of  ships  immediately  to 
retake  or  block  up  the  harbour  at  Oricum,  and 
ordered  such  a  disposition  of  the  fleet  as  was  most 
likely  to  prevent  the  passage  of  a  second  embark- 
ation from  Italy. 

Caesar,  finding  himself  prevented  at  Dyrra- 
chium, halted  on  the  Apsus ;  andr  in  order  to 
cover  Epirus  and  wait  for  the  second  division  of 
his  troops  from  Italy,  prepared  to  intrench  him- 
self on  the  banks  of  that  river.  Having  accord- 
ingly secured  the  main  body  of  his  army  in  this 
post,  he  himself  returned  with  a  single  legion  to 
receive  the  submission  of  the  towns  in  his  rear, 
and  to  provide  for  the  supply  of  his  camp. 

In  the  mean  time  Bibulus,  on  the  part  of 
Pompey,  blocked  up  the  harbour  at  Oricum,  and 
commanded  the  passage  from  Italy  with  his  fleet. 

Calenus,  on  the  part  of  Caesar,  who  had  or- 
ders to  lose  no  opportunity  of  transporting  his 
army  from  Brundusium,  actually  embarked  and 
put  to  sea;  but  being  met  by  a  packet  from 
Caesar,  with  intelligence  of  the  dispositions  which 
had  been  made  by  the  enemy  to  intercept  him,  he 
returned,  suffering  one  of  the  vessels  that  had 
accompanied  his  fleet  to  keep  on  her  way,  in 
order  to  carry  an  account  of  his  motions ;  but  she 
was  taken  by  the  enemy  and  destroyed. 

Bibulus,  who  commanded  the  fleet  which  lay 
before  Oricum,  being  precluded  from  the  land  by 
the  parties  which  Caesar  had  posted  along  the 
shore,  forced  to  bring  his  daily  supplies  of  wood, 
water,  and  other  necessaries  at  a  great  disadvan- 
tage from  Corcyra,  and  reduced  to  great  distress, 
endeavoured,  under  pretence  of  a  negotiation,  to 
obtain  a  cessation  of  arms.  But  Caesar,  who 
came  in  person  to  Oricum,  on  hearing  of  this 

{>roposition,  supposing  that  the  design  of  Bibu- 
us  was  to  find  an  opportunity,  under  cover  of 


5  Appian.  lib  ii. 


the  truce,  to  procure  some  supply  of  provisions 
and  water,  rejected  the  offer,  and  returned  to  his 
camp  on  the  Apsus. 

Pompey  had  advanced  from  Dyrrachium,  and 
took  post  on  the  opposite  bank  of  that  river. 
Dion  Cassius  and  Appian  agree  that  he  made 
some  attempt  to  pass  the  Apsus,  and  to  force 
Caesar  in  this  post ;  but  that  he  was  prevented  by 
the  breaking  of  a  bridge,  or  by  the  difficulties  of 
a  ford.  According  to  Caesar's  own  account,  the 
armies  continued  to  observe  each  other,  and  the 
troops,  separated  only  by  a  narrow  river,  had  fre- 
quent conferences  from  the  opposite  banks.  It 
was  understood  that  in  these  interviews  no  hos- 
tilities should  be  offered.  Of  the  two  parties, 
that  of  Caesar  was  the  more  engaging  to  soldiers; 
notwithstanding  his  own  affectation  of  regard  to 
the  civil  constitution  of  the  republic,  his  military 
retainers  still  hoped  to  remain  in  possession  of 
the  government.  He  therefore  encouraged  the 
communication  of  his  men  with  those  of  the  op- 
posite party.  On  this  occasion  Vatinius,  by  his 
direction,  went  forward  to  the  bank  of  the  river, 
and  raising  his  voice,  complained  of  the  harsh 
treatment  lately  offered  to  Caesar,  in  the  contempt 
shown  to  all  his  overtures  and  advances  to  peace. 
May  not  one  citizen,  he  said,  send  a  message  to 
another,  when  he  means  only  to  prevent  the 
shedding  of  innocent  blood?  He  proceeded  to 
lament  the  fate  of  so  many  brave  men  as  were 
likely  to  pensh  in  this  quarrel ;  and  was  listened 
to  with  profound  silence  by  many  of  both  armies, 
who  crowded  to  the  place. 

These  remonstrances  on  the  part  of  Caesar,  de- 
livered by  an  officer  of  high  rank,  and  appearing 
to  make  so  deep  an  impression,  on  both  armies, 
when  reported  at  Pompey's  quarters,  seemed  to 
be  too  serious  to  be  slighted.  An  answer,  there- 
fore, was  given  by  the  direction  of  Pompey,  that 
on  the  following  day  A.  Varo  should  be  sent  to 
any  place  that  should  be  agreed  upon  as  safe  be- 
tween the  two  armies,  and  there  receive  the  pro- 
positions that  should  be  made  to  him.  The 
parties  accordingly  met  at  a  place  appointed,  and 
multitudes  from  both  armies  crowded  around 
them.  Pompey,  considering  the  whole  as  an  ar- 
tifice to  gain  time,  or  to  find  an  opportunity  to 
debauch  his  men,  probably  gave  instructions  to 
break  up  the  conference,  in  a  way  that  for  tho 
future  should  keep  the  troops  at  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  each  other.  Soon  after  the  officers 
met,  some  darts,  probably  by  his  directions,  were 
thrown  from  the  crowd.  Both  sides  being  alarmed 
by  this  circumstance,  they  instantly  parted,  and 
withdrew  under  a  shower  of  missiles,  in  which 
numbers  were  wounded. 

The  fate  of  the  war  seemed  to  depend  on  the 
vigilance  of  the  fleet,  and  on  the  difficulties  with 
which  Caesar  had  to  contend  in  bringing  any 
reinforcements  or  supplies  from  Italy.  Bibulus, 
from  the  effect  of  fatigue,  was  taken  dangerously 
ill ;  but  could  not,  upon  any  account,  be  per- 
suaded to  leave  his  station,  and  died  on  shipboard. 
There  being  nobody  appointed  to  succeed  him 
in  the  command  at  sea,  the  leader  of  each  of  the 
separate  squadrons  acted  for  himself  without  any 
concert.  Scribonius  Libo,  with  fifty  galleys,  set 
sail  from  the  coast  of  Epirus,  steered  towards 
Brundusium,  where  he  surprised  and  burnt  some 
trading  vessels,  one  in  particular  laden  with  corn 
for  Caesar's  camp.  Encouraged  by  these  suc- 
cesses, he  anchored  under  the  island  which  co 


The  progress  and  termination 


[Book  IV 


vered  the  mouth  of  the  harbour :  from  thence  he 
kept  the  town  in  continual  alarm,  landed  in  the 
night  parties  of  archers  and  slingers,  with  which 
he  dispersed  or  carried  off  the  patroles  which  the 
enemy  employed  on  the  shore;  and  thus,  master 
of  the  port  of  Brundusium,  expected  fully  to  ob-  . 
struct  that  outlet  from  Italy,  and  to  awe  the 
neighbouring  coast.  To  this  purpose  he  wrote 
to  Pompey,  that  the  other  divisions  of  the  fleet 
might  go  into  harbour ;  that  his  squadron  alone, 
in  the  post  he  had  taken,  was  sufficient  to  cut  off 
from  Caesar  all  reinforcements  and  farther  sup- 
plies. But  in  this  he  presumed  too  much  on  the 
first  effects  of  his  own  operations.  Antony,  who 
commanded-  the  troops  of  Caesar  in  the  town  of 
Brundusium,  by  placing  numerous  guards  at  every 
landing-place  on  the  contiguous  shore,  effectually 
excluded  the  squadron  of  Libo  from  any  supply 
of  wood  or  water,  of  which  his  ships,  for  want  of 
stowage,  could  not  have  at  any  one  time  a  consi- 
derable stock  ;  and  he  reduced  them  to  such  dis- 
tress for  want  of  these  articles,  that  they  were 
obliged  to  abandon  their  station,  and  to  leave  the 
harbour  again  open  to  the  sea. 

In  the  mean  time,  pressing  orders  arrivedfrom 
Caesar  to  hasten  the  embarkation  of  the  troops. 
Dion  Cassius  and  A  ppian  relate,  that  he  himself 
being  impatient  of  delay,  embarked  alone  in  dis- 
guise on  board  of  a  barge,  with  intention  to  pass 
to  Brundusium  ;  that,  after  he  had  been  some 
time  at  sea,  the  weather  became  so  bad,  as  to  de- 
termine the  master  of  the  vessel  to  put  back ;  but 
that  being  prevailed  upon  by  the  intreaties  of 
Caesar,  he  continued  to  struggle  with  the  storm 
for  many  hours.  They  farther  relate,  that  the 
mariners  being  likely  to  faint,  the  passenger  at 
last  discovered  himself,  and  encouraged  them  to 
persist,  by  telling  them  that  they  carried  Caesar 
and  his  fortunes that,  nevertheless,  he  was 
forced  to  give  way,  and  afterwards  entrusted  his 
orders  to  a  messenger;  but  that  he  returned  to 
camp  before  it  was  known  that  he  had-  been  ab- 
sent. He  himself  says,  that  some  months  being 
past,  and  the  winter  far  advanced,  he  suspected 
that  some  opportunities  of  effecting  the  passage 
of  his  second  division  had  been  lost ;  that  he  was 
become  highly  impatient,  and  wrote  to  hasten  the 
embarkation;  informing  his  officers,  that  they 
might  run  ashore  any  where  between  Oricum 
and  Apollonia ;  as  the  enemy's  fleet,  having  no 
harbour  in  those  parts,  were  frequently  obliged, 
by  stress  of  weather,  to  depart  from  the  coast. 

Upon  these  orders,  the  troops  with  great  ar- 
dour began  to  embark.  They  consisted  of  four 
legions  and  eight  hundred  horse,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Mark  Antony  and  Calenus.  The  wind 
being  at  south,  and  no  enemy  appearing  in  the 
channel,  they  set  sail,  and  steered  for  the  coast  of 
Epirus,  but  were  drove  to  the  northward  ;  and  on 
the  second  day  passed  Apollonia,  and  were  dis- 
covered by  the  enemy  from  Dyrrachium.  As 
they  were  far  to  the  leeward  of  that  part  of 
the  coast  on  which  Caesar  had  instructed  them  to 
land  ;;  and  as  it  was  vain  for  them  with  this  wind 
to  attempt  getting  to  the  southward,  they  chose 
to  give  way  at  once,  and  steer  for  some  conve- 
nient harbour,  northward  of  all  Pompey 's  stations. 
But  in  following  this  course,  as  they  passed  by 
Dyrrachium  they  were  instantly  chased  by  Q,uin- 
tus  Coponius,  who  commanded  Pompey's  squad- 
ron at  that  place,  chiefly  consisting  of  Rhodian 
galleys.    The  wind  at  first  was  moderate,  and 


Coponius  expected  easily  to  weather  the  head- 
lands  that  were  to  leeward  of  his  post ;  and, 
though  it  rose  considerably  after  he  set  sail,  he 
still  continued  to  struggle  against  it.  As  soon  as 
Antony  observed  this  enemy,  he  crowded  sail 
.and  made  for  the  nearest  harbour ;  being  in  the 
bay  of  Nympheus,  about  three  miles  beyond  Lis- 
sus,]  on  the  coast  of  Dalmatia.  This  bay  opened 
to  the  south,  and  was  very  accessible,  though  not 
secure  with  the  present  wind.  He  chose,  how- 
ever, to  risk  the  loss  of  some  ships,  rather  than 
fall  into  the  enemy's  hands  ;  and  made  directly 
for  this  place.  Soon  after  he  entered  the  har- 
bour the  wind  shifted  to  the  south-west,  from 
which  his  ships  were  now  sufficiently  covered, 
and  he  debarked  without  any  loss.  At  the  same 
time  the  wind,  in  consequence  of  this  change, 
blowing  more  directly  on  the  land,  and1  more  vio- 
lently, bore  hard  on  Coponius;  forced  him  upon 
the  shore,  where  the  greater  part  of  his  galleys, 
being  sixteen  in  number,  were  stranded  and 
wrecked. 

Such  of  Antony's  transports  as  got  safe  into 
the  bay  of  Nympheus  landed  three  veteran  le- 
gions,' with  one  of  the  new  levies,  and  eight 
hundred  horse.  Two  of  his  transports,  one  with 
two  hundred  and  thirty  of  the  new  raised  troops; 
the  other,  with  somewhat  less  than  two  hundred 
veterans,  being  heavy  sailers,  fell  astern ;  and  it 
being  night  before  they  arrived,  mistook  their  way, 
and,  instead  of  the  bay  of  Nympheus,  came  to  an 
anchor  before  Lissus.  Ottacilius  Crassus,  who 
was  stationed  with  a  body  of  horse  in  that  place 
to  observe  the  coast,  manned  some  small  boats, 
surrounded  these  transports,  and  offered  the 
troops  who  were  on  board  favourable  terms  if 
they  would  agree  to  surrender.  Upon  this  sum- 
mons the  new  levies  accordingly  struck ;  but  the 
veterans  ran  their  vessels  ashore,  and  having 
landed,  fought  their  way,  with  the  loss  of  a  few 
men,  to  Nympheus,  where  they  joined  the  main 
body  of  their  army  that  was  landed  with  Antony. 

The  colony  of  Lissus  had  been  settled  by  Ca; 
sar,  as  a  part  of  the  province  of  Ulyricum,  and 
now  appeared  to  favour  his  cause ;  Ottacilius- 
therefore  thought  proper  to  withdraw  with  his 
garrison  ;  and  Antony  having  stationed  some  of 
the  transports  at  this  place  to  enable  Cresar  to 
embark  his  army  for  Italy,  if,  as  was  reported, 
Pompey  should  attempt  to  remove  the  scene  of 
the  war  into  that  country ;  and  having  sent  the 
remainder  back  for  the  troops  which  were  still 
left  at  Brundusium,  he  despatched  messengers  to 
Caesar  with  the  particulars  of  his  voyage,  and  an" 
account  of  the  place  at  which  he  had  landed. 

The  fleet,  with  this  division  of  the  army  un- 
der Antony,  had  been  seen  on  the  coast,  from  the 
stations  both  of  Pompey  and  of  Caesar,  steering 
to  the  northward ;  but  it  was  not  known  for  some 
days  what  was  become  of  them.  Upon  the  arri- 
val of  the  intelligence,  that  they  had  effected  ar 
landing  to  the  northward,  both  parties  determined 
to  move  to  that  quarter.  Pompey  decamped  in 
the  night,  and  knowing  the  route  which  Antony 
was  likely  to  take,  placed  himself  in  his  way, 
giving  orders  that  the  army,  without  lighting 
flres  or  sounding  their  trumpets,  should  remain 
in  profound  silence.  Antony,  however,  having 
intelligence  of  this  disposition  of  the  enemy,  did 
not  advance.  Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  to  favouv 


1  Gees,  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii.  c.  26. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  S&l 


Chap.  VI.] 

his  junction,  was  obliged  to  make  a  considerable 
circuit,  ascended  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Apsus 
to  a  ford  at  which  he  passed  f  from  thence  con- 
tinued his  march  to  the  northward,  and  seemed  to 
advance  on  Pompey's  right,  while  Antony  re- 
mained in  his  front.  Inthis  situation,  Pompey, 
apprehending  that  he  might  be  attacked  on  dif- 
ferent sides  at  once  by  Caesar  and  by  Antony, 
thought  proper  to  quit  his  station ;  and  leaving 
their° armies  to  join,  fell  back  to  Asparagium,  a 
strong  post  about  a  day's  march  from  Dyrrachium. 

Caesar  having  obtained  this  great  reinforce- 
ment, was  no  longer  so  anxious  as  he  had  hitherto 
been  for  the  preservation  of  his  possessions  upon 
the  coast.  His  enemies,  by  the  superiority  of 
their  fleets,  could  prevent  his  receiving  any  regu- 
lar supply  of  provisions  from  the  sea.  It  was 
necessary  for  him,  therefore,  in  order  that  he 
might  have  some  other  resource,  and  be  in  con- 
dition to  act  on  the  offensive,  to  extend  his  quar- 
ters by  land,  and  to  cover  some  tract  of  country 
from  which  he  could  subsist  his  army.  For  this 
purpose  he  removed  from  Oricum  the  legion  that 
was  stationed  at  that  place  ;  taking  such  precau- 
tions as  were  necessary  to  secure  his  shipping  in 
the  port  from  any  surprise  by  sea.  He  drew  the 
greater  part  of  the  vessels  on  shore,  sunk  one  in 
the  mouth  of  the  harbour,  and  placed  another  at 
anchor  near  it,  mounted  with  a  considerable 
tower,  and  manned  with  a  proper  force.  Being 
thus  secured  on  the  coast,  he  sent  numerous  de- 
tachments in  different  directions:  L.  Cassius 
Longinus,  with  a  legion  of  new  levies,  into 
Thessaly;  C.  Calvisius  Sabinus,  with  five  co- 
horts and  a  party  of  horse,  into  iEtolia;  Cn. 
Domitius  Calvisius.  with  two  legions,  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth,  into  Macedonia  ;  giving  strict  charge 
to  each  of  these  officers,  that  they  should  collect 
all  the  forage  and  provisions  which  those  or  the 
neighbouring  countries  could  furnish. 

As  Pompey  had  relied  much  on  the  authority 
of  government,  with  which  he  was  vested  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  and  which  he  believed  gave 
his  party  a  dispensation  from  the  exercise  of  those 
popular  arts,  with  which  Caesar  thought  proper 
to  recommend  his  cause,  he  threatened  to  punish 
the  refractory  more  than  he  encouraged  or  re- 
warded the  dutiful;  and  he  often  therefore  ex- 
torted services  from  the  provinces,  neglecting  the 
necessary  attention  to  conciliate  their  affections; 
and  such  were  the  effects  of  this  conduct,  that  the 
detachments  which  now  appeared  on  the  part  of 
Caesar  were  every  where  favourably  received. 
Sabinus  made  himself  master  of  iEtolia.  Lon- 
ginus found  the  people  of  Thessaly  divided,  and 
was  joined  by  one  of  the  parties.  Calvisius, 
upon  his  arrival  in  Macedonia,  had  deputations 
from  many  towns  and  districts  of  the  province, 
with  assurances  of  favour  and  submission ;  and 
by  these  means  the  possessions  of  Caesar,  even  in 
those  countries  on  which  his  antagonists  had 
chiefly  depended,  began  to  be  equal  to  theirs. 

It  was  thought  an  unpardonable  error  in  Pom- 
pey, thus  to  suffer  his  quarters  to  be  overrun  by 
an  enemy  who  had  but  recently  acquired  a  foot- 
ing on  the  coast,  and  whose  army  was,  in  num- 
ber of  cavalry  and  light  infantry,  as  well  as  of 
regular  foot,  greatly  inferior  to  his  own.  Pom- 
pey, however,  knowing  the  interest  which  Cae- 
sar had  in  bringing  the  contest  to  a  speedy  de- 
cision, did  not  choose  to  divide  his  forces,  and  he 
relied  for  the  security  of  the  southern  and  inland 
2N 


provinces,  on  the  legions  which  were  soon  ex- 
pected to  land  from  Asia  on  the  eastern  shores 
of  Macedonia  or  Thessaly. 

Scipio,  being  the  father-in-law  of  Pompey,  bad 
been  employed  in  assembling  the  forces  of  Asia, 
and  had,  by  severe  exactions,  availed  himself  of 
the  resources  of  that  opu  ent  province.  He  was 
still  occupied  in  this  service  at  Ephesus,  when  he 
received  from  Pompey  an  account  of  Caesar's 
arrival  in  Eprrus,  arid  an  order  without  delay  to 
transport  his  army  into  Europe.  He  accordingly, 
soon  after  the  arrival  of  Caesar's  detachments  at 
their  several  places  of  destination,  debarked  in 
the  bay  of  Therme,  or  of  Thessalonica,  and 
penetrated  into  Macedonia,  directing  his  march 
towards  the  quarters  of  the  two  legions  w  hich 
Caesar  had  sent  thither  Under  the  command  of 
Domitius  Calvisius,  and  gave  a  general  alarm  cn 
his  route  ;  but  being  arrived  within  about  twenty 
miles  of  Domitius,  he  turned  on  a  sudden  into 
Thessaly,  as  thinking  Longinus,  who  was  sta- 
tioned in  that  country  with  one  legion  of  raw 
troops,  might  be  made  an  easier  prey. 

To  lighten  his  march,  he  left  his  bao-gage  un- 
der a  guard  of  eight  cohorts,  commanded  by  Fa- 
vonius  on  the  Haliacmon,  a  river  which  se|  .imtcg 
Macedonia  from  Thessaly,  and  proceeded  with 
great  despatch  towards  the  quarters  of  Longinus. 
This  officer,  greatly  alarmed  at  his  sudden  ap- 
proach, and  mistaking,  at  the  same  time,  for  an 
enemy  a  body  of  Thracian  horse  which  were 
coming  to  his  own  assistance,  hastily  withdrew 
by  the  mountains,  and  continued  his  retreat  to 
Ambracia.  Scipio  was  about  to  pursue  Longinus 
on  the  route  he  had  taken,  when  he  a;is  recalled 
by  earnest  representations  from  Favonius,  the 
officer  he  had  left  to  guard  his  baggage;  inform- 
ing him,  that  his  post  was  in  the  utmost  danger 
of  being  forced  by  Calvisius,  who  was  on  his 
march  through  Macedonia  for  that  pui|ose. 
Scipio  accordingly  returned  with  all  possible  de- 
spatch to  the  Haiiacmon,  and  arrived  ;it  the  post 
of  Favonius,  after  the  dust  which  arose  from  the 
inarch  of  the  enemy  had  appeared  on  the  plain  ; 
and  thus  came  barely  in  time  to  sustain  his  party, 
and  to  rescue  his  baggage. 

The  armies  continued  to  occupy  the  opposite 
banks  of  the  Haliacmon  ;  and  as  Scipio,  by  the 
flight  of  Longinus,  was  become  master  of  all 
Thessaly,  Calvisius  continued  in  possession  of 
Macedonia,  and  from  thence  se-cured  a  consider- 
able source  of  supply  to  Caesar's  army. 

It  would  have  been  of  great  moment  to  Pom- 
pey's affairs,  and  not  inconsistent  with  the  dila- 
tory plan  he  had  formed  for  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  to  have  risked  an  action  between  these  se- 
parate bodies  on  the  Haliacmon,  rather  than  to 
have  suffered  his  enemy  to  retain  the  command 
of  so  many  posts  of  consequence;  and  Scipio  ac- 
cordingly passed  the  river  with  a  view  to  bring  on 
an  engagement;  but  after  some  stay  on  the  plain, 
finding  no  opportunity  to  attack  the  enemy  with 
any  hopes  of  success,  he  repassed  the  river,  and 
having  occupied  his  former  station,  there  passed 
some  partial  encounters  between  such  as  were 
advanced  on  the  different  sides,  but  without  any 
considerable  event. 

While  so  many  large  bodies,  detached  from 
the  principal  armies,  were  thus  contending  in 
Thessaly  tor  the  possession  of  the  country,  t  om- 
pey  remained  to  cover  the  ground,  which  was  of 
greater  importance  to  him,  in  the  neighbourhood 


282 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


of  the  sea,  and  the  port  of  Dyrrachium.  Having, 
at  the  distance  of  about  a  day's  march  in  his 
rear,  this  town  and*  harbour  as  a  place  of  arms, 
at  which  he  had  deposited  his  magazines  and 
stores,  and  from  which  he  received  his  ordinary 
supply  of  provisions,  he  had  taken  his  measures 
to  protract  the  war ;  and  trusting  to  his  own  su- 
perior resources,  both  by  sea  and  by  land,  did  not 
doubt  that  by  waiting  until  the  countries  which 
Caesar  had  occupied  should  be  exhausted,  he 
might  force  him  to  retire  from  the  contest  without 
the  risk  of  a  battle.  To  hasten  this  event,  he  en- 
deavoured every  where  to  straiten  his  quarters  in 
the  country,  and  to  block  up  or  destroy  all  the 
harbours  he  had  on  the  coast. 

Cnteus,  the  eldest  of  Pompey's  sons,  command- 
ing the  Egyptian  fleet,  in  execution  of  this  plan 
which  had  been  laid  to  harass  the  enemy,  with- 
out exposing  their  cause  to  a  general  hazard,  at- 
tacked Caesar's  principal  naval  station  at  Oricum, 
raised  the  vessel  that  had  been  sunk  at  the  mouth 
of  the  harbour,  forced  the  armed  galley  that  was 
stationed  before  it,  and  carried  off  or  destroyed  all 
the  ships  that  were  laid  up  in  the  port.  From 
thence  he  proceeded  to  Lissus,  burnt  thirty  tran- 
sports which  Antony  had  left  in  the  harbour; 
but  having  made  an  attempt  on  the  town,  was 
repulsed  with  loss. 

Caesar,  on  the  opposite  part,  sensible  of  the  in- 
terest which  he  had  in  bringing  the  war  to  a 
speedy  decision,  advanced  upon  Pompey,  forced  a 
place  of  some  strength  that  covered  his  front,  and 
encamped  in  his  presence.  The  day  after  he 
arrived  in  this  position,  either  to  bring  on  a 
general  action,  or  to  gain  the  reputation  of  brav- 
ing his  antagonist,  he  formed  his  army  on  the 
plain  between  the  two  camps ;  but  as  Pompey 
continued  firm  or  unmoved  by  this  insult,  and 
as  the  recent  losses  which  Casar  had  sustained 
in  his  shipping,  and  on  the  coast,  rendered  his 
prospect  of  future  supplies  or  reinforcements 
every  day  less  secure,  he  projected  a  movement, 
by  which  he  proposed  either  to  force  an  engage- 
ment, or  to  preclude  the  enemy  from  all  his  re- 
sources- in  the  town  and  harbour  of  Dyrrachium. 

For  this  purpose,  and  that  Pompey  might  the 
less  suspect  any  important  design,  he  decamped 
in  the  day,  and  having  a  large  circuit  to  make, 
directed  his  inarch  at  first  from  Dyrrachium^  and 
was  thought  to  retire  for  want  of  provisions ;  but 
in  the  night  he  changed  his  direction,  and  with 
great  diligence  advanced  to  the  town.  Pompey 
having  intelligence  of  the  change  which  Caesar 
had  made  in  his  route  during  the  night,  perceived 
his  design ;  and  having  a  nearer  way  to  Dyrra- 
chium, still  expected  by  a  rapid  march  to  arrive 
before  him.  But  Caesar  having  prevailed  on  his 
men,  notwithstanding  the  great  fatigues  of  the 
preceding  day,  to  continue  their  march  with  little 
interruption  all  night,  was  in  possession  of  the 
only  avenue  to  the  town,  when  the  van  of  Pom- 
pey's army  appeared  on  the  hills. 

Pompey  thus  shut  out  from  Dyrrachium, 
where  he  had  placed  his  magazines  and  stores, 
and  from  the  only  harbour  he  had  on  the  coast,, 
was  obliged  to  take  possession  of  the  Petra,  a 
small  promontory  which  covered  a  little  creek  or 
bay  not  far  from  the  town,  and  there  endeavoured 
to  supply  the  loss  of  the  harbour,  by  bringing  ships 
of  burden  to  unload,  and  by  procuring  supplies 
in  boats  from  his  magazines  and  stores  in  the 
towu ;  and  in  this  manner  was  still  in  condition 


to  avoid  any  immediate  risk  of  his  fortunes  in  a 
single  action. 

Caesar,  on  the  other  hand,  being  disappointed 
in  the  design  he  had  formed  to  exclude  the  enemy 
from  their  magazines  in  the  town  of  Dyrrachium, 
and  seeing  no  likelihood  of  being  able  to  bring 
the  war  to  a  speedy  decision,  his  own  communi- 
cation with  Italy  being  entirely  cut  off,  and  the 
fleets  he  had  ordered  from  thence,  from  Sicily, 
and  from  Gaul,  having  met  with  unexpected  de- 
lays, sent  an  officer,  named  L.  Canuleius,  into 
Epirus,  with  a  commission  to  draw  into  maga- 
zines all  the  corn  that  could  be  found  in  that  or 
the  neighbouring  districts,  and  to  secure  them  at 
proper  places  for  the  use  of  his  army.  This, 
however,  in  a  country  that  was  mountainous  and 
barren,  itself  commonly  supplied  with  corn  from 
abroad,  and  lately  on  purpose  laid  waste  by  the 
enemy,  was  not  likely  to  furnish  him  with  any 
considerable  supply,  or  to  enable  him  for  any 
time  to  support  a  dilatory  war.  His  genius  was 
therefore  at  work  by  some  speedier  course  to 
harass  his  enemy,  and  to  hasten  the  end  of  the 
contest. 

In  these  circumstances,  however,  he  did  not 
neglect  his  usual  artifices  to  amuse  and  distract 
his  antagonists  with  great  professions  of  modera- 
tion, and  with  overtures  of  peace.  On  hearing 
of  Scipio's  arrival  in  Europe,  affecting  to  have 
despaired  of  obtaining  peace  by  any  farther  direct 
applications  to  Pompey  himself,  and  willing  to 
appeal  to  the  reason  of  the  father-in-law  against 
the  obstinacy  of  the  son,  he  sent  Clodius,  their 
common  friend,  with  letters  and  instructions,  to 
inform  Scipio  of  the  great  pains  he  had  taken  to 
obtain  an  equitable  accommodation,  "  all  which, 
he  presumed,  had  hitherto  failed,  through  the 
unhappy  timidity  of  those  he  entrusted  with  his 
messages,  and  from  their  not  having  courage  to- 
deliver  them  properly  to  their  general.  But  sub- 
joined that,  through  the  mediation  of  Scipio, 
who  could  deliver  himself  with  so  much  freedom, 
who  could  advise  with  so  much  authority ;  and 
who,  being  at  the  head  of  a  great  army  attached 
to  his  person,,  could  even  enforce  what  was  just, 
he  might  expect  a  different  issue  to  propositions 
so  fair  and  so  reasonable.  And  that  in  this  event 
Scipio  would  have  the  honour  of  being  the  re- 
storer of  tranquillity  and  good  order  to  Italy,  of 
peace  to  the  provinces,  and  of  prosperity  to  the 
whole  empire."  Clodius  was  received  with  re- 
spect ;  but  on  delivering  his  message,  it  appears 
that  all  farther  communication  was  refused  him 
as  a  person  who  came  to  insult  or  amuse  with 
false  pretensions.  Caesar,  indeed,  was  himself, 
as  usual,  so  far  from  trusting  to  the  effect  of 
these  propositions,  or  so  far  from  remitting  his 
own  operations  in  order  to  confirm  his-  pacific 
professions,  that  he  even  redoubled  his  efforts  in 
that  very  quarter  which  was  entrusted  to  Scipio;, 
and  as  he  had  already  possessed  himself  of  Epi- 
rus, Acarnania,  and  iEtolia,  he  carried  his  views 
still  farther  on  that  side,  and  sent  Fusius  Calenus 
to  be  joined  by  Longinus  and  Sabinus,  and  to 
endeavour,  by  the  isthmus  of  Corinth,  to  pene- 
trate into  Achaia. 

He  himself  at  the  same  time  engaged  in  a  pro- 
ject, which  to  those  who  do  not  recollect  the 
amazing  works  which  were  frequently  executed 
by  Roman  armies,  particularly  by  that  of  Caesar 
himself,  will  appear  so  vast,  and  even  romantic, 
as  to  exceed  belief;  thi^  project  was  no  less  than 


Chap.  VI.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


to  invest  Pompey  in  his  camp,  though  at  the 
head  of  an  army  superior  to  his  own,  and  oblige 
him  to  recede  from  the  coast,  or  submit  to  be 
invested  with  lines,  and  completely  shut  out 
fiom  the  country.  For  this  purpose  he  occupied 
several  hills  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Pompey's 
camp,  strengthened  them  with  forts,  joined  those 
forts  by  lines  of  communication  across  the  val- 
leys, and  soon  appeared  to  have  projected  a  com- 
plete chain  of  redoubts,  and  a  line  of  circumval- 
lation. 

Pompey,  to  counteract  this  daring  project,  took 
possession  of  some  heights  in  his  turn,  fortified 
and  joined  them  in  the  same  manner,  and  while 
the  one  endeavoured  to  contract,  the  other  en- 
deavoured to  enlarge,  the  compass  of  their  works. 
The  archers  and  slingers  on  both  sides,  as  In  the 
operations  of  a  siege,  were  employed  to  annoy 
the  workmen.  The  armies  lay  under  arms,  and 
fought  in  detail  for  the  possession  of  advan- 
tageous grounds.  When  forced  from  one  height 
which  they  attempted  to  occupy,  they  seized 
upon  another  that  was  contiguous,  and  still  con- 
tinued their  line,  though  obliged  to  change  its 
direction. 

In  these  operations,  a  campaign  that  began  in 
January  with  the  landing  of  Caesar  on  the  coast 
of  Epirus,  already  drew  on  to  the  middle  of  sum- 
mer, and  both  parties  had  undergone  great  la- 
bour, and  were  exposed  to  peculiar  distress. 
Caesar's  army,  already  inured  at  the  blockade  of 
Alesia,  and  the  sieges  of  Marseilles  and  of  Ava- 
rieum,  to  toils  like  those  in  which  they  were  now 
engaged,  flattered  themselves  with  a  like  glorious 
issue  to  their  present  labours.  They  were  in 
want  of  bread,  and  obliged  to  substitute  in  its 
place  a  kind  of  root  boiled  up  with  milk;  but 
were  comforted  under  this  hardship  with  the 
prospect  of  fields  which  were  replenished  with 
ripening  corn,  and  which  gave  the  hopes  of  a 
plentiful  harvest.  They  not  only  continued  their 
<;ountervallations  with  incredible  toil,  but  turned 
or  interrupted  all  the  rivulets  or  springs  that 
formerly  watered  the  grounds  on  which  the  ene- 
my were  now  encamped. 

Pompey's  army,  on  their  part,  were  less  inured 
to  such  toilsome  operations.  They  had  plenty 
of  bread,  which  came  to  them  with  every  wind, 
from  the  different  coasts  that  were  still  in  their 
possession,  but  were  in  great  distress  for  want 
of  water  and  forage :  many  of  their  horses  had 
died  j  the  men,  to©  long  confined  to  the  same 
ground,  and  to  the  same  air,  which  was  infected 
with  filth,  and  the  exhalation  of  putrid  carcases, 
being  reduced  to  the  use  of  bad  water,  were  be- 
come extremely  sickly. 

Pompey,  nevertheless,  held  his  enemy  at  some 
disadvantage  by  the  superiority  of  his  numbers, 
and  by  the  extent  of  line  which  he  obliged  him 
to  form  and  to  defend;  and  it  appears  that  he 
availed  himself  of  these  advantages  with  all  those 
abilities  of  a  great  officer,  which  he  was  justly 
supposed  to  possess.  He  not  only  forced  Caesar, 
without  hazarding  a  general  action,  to  recede 
from  many  of  the  heights  which  he  attempted  to 
occupy,  and  obliged  him,  with  great  labour,  to 
widen  the  compass  of  his  lines;  but  likewise 
alarmed  him  by  various  attacks  on  the  works 
which  he  had  already  completed,  and  in  some 
places  forced  open  the  bars  which  the  enemy  had 
placed  in  his  way,  and  recovered  his  own  com- 
munication anew  with  the  country  before  him. 


But  as  Caesar  could  present  his  whole  army  in 
many  places  to  cover  the  works  he  was  execut 
ing,  it  was  impossible,  without  risking  a  general 
action,  which  Pompey  avoided,  entirely  to  stop 
his  progress. 

In  the  course  of  these  operations,  it  appears, 
from  the  text  of  Caesar's  Commentaries,  though 
incomplete,  that  the  armies  changed  the  ground 
of  their  principal  encampments  as  well  as  the 
disposition  of  some  separate  posts,  and  mutually 
harassed  each  other  with  frequent  surprises  and 
alarms.  And  Caesar  mentions  no  less  than  six 
capital  actions  which  happened  in  one  day  at  the 
lines  of  circumvallation,  or  under  the  walls  of 
Dyrrachium ;  and  in  most  of  them  it  is  probable 
that  Pompey  had  the  advantage,  as  he  acted  on 
the  string,  or  smaller  circumference,  while  his  an- 
tagonists moved  on  the  bow,  or  the  wider  circle. 

Pompey  completed  his  own  fine  of  circumvalla- 
tion to  a  circuit  of  fifteen  miles,  having  a  chain  of 
four-and-twenty  redoubts  on  the  different  hills 
over  which  it  was  carried.  By  this  work  he 
obliged  Caesar  to  recede  half  a  mile  beyond  him, 
and  to  extend  his  compass  to  about  seventeen 
miles  in  circumference. 

The  extremities  of  both  their  works  termi- 
nated on  the  shore ;  and  Caesar  having  no  boats 
or  ships  to  oppose  to  the  numerous  craft  of  his 
enemy,  ought,  perhaps,  by  the  consideration  of 
this  very  circumstance,  to  have  been  diverted  at 
first  from  his  project.  But  as  he  sought  merely 
for  occasions  of  action,  he  was  contented  with  the 
hopes  of  finding  them  even  under  such  disadvan- 
tages. While  he  was  obliged  to  remain  with  the 
strength  of  bis  army  at  that  end  of  his  line  which 
was  nearest  the  town  of  Dyrrachium,  in  order  to 
prevent  the  access  of  Pompey  to  his  magazines, 
he  proposed  to  fortify  the  other  extremity  of  it 
with  double  works,  and  had  already  thrown  up, 
at  the  distance  of  two  hundred  yards  from  each 
other,  two  entrenchments,  consisting  of  a  parapet 
ten  feet  high,  and  of  a  ditch  fifteen  feet  wide ;  one 
facing  the  lines  of  Pompey,  the  other  turned  to 
the  field,  in  order  to  guard  against  any  surprise 
from  parties  which,  coming  by  water,  might  land 
in  his  rear.  He  was  likewise  about  to  join  these 
entrenchments  by  a  traverse  or  flank,  to  cover 
him  from  the  sea. 

Before  this  work  was  completed,  Pompey  made 
a  disposition  to  force  him  at  this  extremity  of  his 
lines,  and  of  consequence  to  open  a  way  to  his 
rear  over  the  whole  extent  of  his  works.  For 
this  purpose  he  brought  in  the  night  six  entire 
legions,  or  sixty  cohorts,  to  that  part  of  his  own 
works  which  faced  this  place.  He  embarked  a 
numerous  body  of  archers,  slingers,  and  other 
light  troops,  having  their  helmets  and  shields  for- 
tified, as  it  seems  was  the  custom,  with  basket 
work,  to  break  the  force  of  the  stones  which  were 
likely  to  shower  from  the  enemy's  parapets,  and  fur- 
nished with  great  quantities  of  fascines  and  other 
materials  proper  to  fill  up  the  ditch.  This  em- 
barkation was  effected  in  the  night;  and  the  of- 
ficer who  commanded  it  had  orders  to  land  part 
of  the  troops  in  the  rear  of  both  Caesar's  en- 
trenchments, and  another  part  between  them 
where  the  work  was  still  incomplete.  These 
separate  divisions  were  to  be  supported  by  the 
whole  force  of  the  legions  in  front,  who  were  to 
take  advantage  of  any  effect  which  the  missiles 
from  their  boats  might  produce  on  the  flank  or 
the  rear  of  the  enemy. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


{Book  IV. 


These  attacks  were  accordingly  made  at  day 
break,  in  three  different  places  at  onee,  and  had 
all  the  consequences  of  a  complete  surprise. 
They  fell  with  the  greatest  effect  upon  the  sta- 
tion of  the  ninth  legion,  of  which  the  piquets 
and  other  guards  being  instantly  routed,  the 
whole  legion  was  put  under  arms  to  support 
them ;  but  soon  infected  with  the  panic,  was 
carried  off"  in  the  flight.  Antony,  who  occupied 
the  nearest  station  on  the  heights,  appearing  in 
that  instant  with  twelve  cohorts,  and  a  better 
countenance,  stopped  for  a  while  the  pursuit  of 
the  enemy,  and  furnished  a  retreat  to  the  troops 
that  were  routed. 

The  alarm  was  conveyed  to  Caesar  himself,  by 
fires  lighted  on  all  the  hills,  and  he  hastened  to 
the  ground  with  as  many  cohorts  as  could  be 
spared  from  the  posts  in  his  way ;  but  he  came 
too  late,  Pompey  had  already  forced  the  entrench- 
ments, had  burst  from  his  confinement,  and  was 
beginning  to  encamp  in  a  new  position,  where, 
without  losing  his  communication  with  the  sea, 
he  rendered  abortive  for  a  long  time  Caesar's  pur- 
pose of  excluding  him  from  the  supplies  of  neces- 
saries or  conveniences  which  were  to  be  derived 
from  the  land,  and  was  now  in  a  posture  to  com- 
mand a  free  access  to  water  and  forage,  from  the 
want  of  which  he  had  been  chiefly  distressed  in 
his  late  situation. 

Thus  Caesar,  far  from  reaping  the  fruits  which 
he  expected  frocn  the  labour  &f  so  many  months, 
began  to  incur  the  censure  of  a  visionary  pro- 
jector, who  presumed  to  practise  on  the  ablest 
captain  of  the  age  the  arts  with  which  he  had 
succeeded  against  ignorant  barbarians,  or,  at 
most,  against  generals  of  mean  capacity. 

These  circumstances,  however,  probably  made 
no  impression  on  Caesar  himself  nor  greatly 
•altered  the  confidence  of  his  army :  he  presented 
himself  again  before  the  enemy  in  their  new 
position,  and  pitched  his  camp  in  their  presence, 
still  determined  to  act  on  the  offensive^  even  in 
the  sequel  of  attempts  in  which  he  had  failed. 
An  action  accordingly  followed,  of  which  the  re- 
sult is  evident,  although  it  is  difficult,  from  the 
imperfect  text  of  his  Commentaries,  to  ascertain 
the  detail.  It  appears  that  both  armies  had 
changed  the  ground  which  they  had  taken  imme- 
diately after  the  last  action  ;  that  in  this  remove 
Pompey  had  taken  possession  of  the  camp  which 
Caesar  bad  left;  and  as  his  army,  being  more 
numerous,  occupied  more  ground  than  that  of 
Caesar  had  done,  he  made  a  second  entrench- 
ment, quite  round  that  which  had  been  formerly 
occupied  by  Csesar.  This  camp  was  covered  by 
a  wood  on  one  side,  and  by  a  river,  at  the  distance 
of  four  hundred  paces,  on  the  other. 

While  Pompey  lay  in  this  position,  he  had 
thrown  up  a  line  of  communication  from  the 
flank  of  his  camp  to  the  river,  in  order  to  cover 
his  access  to  water.  But  after  he  had  taken  this 
precaution,  he  thought  proper  to  change  his 
ground,  and  had  moved  about  the  distance  of 
half  a  mile  on  his  march  to  occupy  a  -new  situa- 
tion, wiien,  for  some  purpose  that  is  not  ex- 
plained, he  thought  proper  to  send  back  a  legion, 
or  large  detachment  of  his  army,  to  resume  the 
possession  of  the  camp  he  had  so  recently  left. 

Caesar,  on  his  part,  being  occupied  in  fortifying 
a  camp  in  the  last  situation  he  had  taken,  and 
observing  this  detachment  sent  off  from  the  ene- 
jny,  thought  it  gave  him  a  favourable  opportunity, 


by  cutting  it  off,  to  recover  part  of  the  credit  he 
had  lost  in  the  late  action.  While,  to  amuse  the 
enemy,  he  ordered  his  men  to  continue  the  work 
in  which  they  were  engaged,  he  himself  marched 
with  twenty-three  cohorts,  in  two  divisions,  un- 
der cover  of  the  wood,  came  to  the  ground  unob- 
served, and  with  the  division  which  was  led  by 
himself,  mixed  with  the  enemy,  who  had  already 
taken  possession  of  the  exterior  lines,  and  drove 
them  from  thence  to  the  interior  intrenchment, 
with  great  slaughter.  The  other  division  being 
in  the  mean  time  to  attack  the  same  works  at  a 
different  place,  mistook  the  line  of  communication 
which  covered  the  access  from  the  camp  to  the 
river  for  the  entrenchment  of  the  camp  itself,  and 
before  they  perceived  their  mistake,  had  run  along 
this  line  to  a  great  distance  in  search  of  an  en- 
trance; when  observing,  at  last,  that  the  line 
along  which  they  ran  was  not  defended,  the  in- 
fantry went  over  it  first,  and  Were  followed  by  all 
the  cavalry ;  but  the  time  which  they  had  lost  by 
their  former  mistake  gave  Pompey  an  opportunity 
to  come  to  the  relief  of  his  detachment.  As  soon 
as  he  appeared,  Caesar's  cavalry,  finding  them- 
selves entangled  between  the  line  of  communica- 
tion, the  entrenchment  of  the  camp,  and  the  river, 
began  to  retire  with  great  precipitation,  and  were 
followed  by  the  foot,  who  fell  into  great  confusion. 
That  part  of  Pompey's  detachment,  which,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  action,  had  been  defeated  by 
Caesar,  seeing  themselves  likely  to  be  supported, 
rallied  in  the  rear-gate  of  the  camp ;  and  the  party 
which  Csesar  himself  commanded  against  them, 
observing  the  precipitant  retreat  of  the  other  di- 
vision, saw  dangers  and  difficulties  accumulating 
on  every  side.  Imagining  that  they  were  about 
to  be  surrounded,  or  shut  up  within  the  enemy's 
works,  they  betook  them  to  flight,  crowded  back 
to  the  ditch,  and,  in  attempting  to  repass  it,  were 
killed  in  such  heaps,  or  were  trodden  under  foot 
in  such  numbers,  that  the  slain  filled  up  the  ditch, 
and  made  a  passage  for  those  that  followed. 

In  this  state  of  general  confusion  and  terror, 
the  presence  and  authority  of  Caesar,  which,  on 
other  occasions,  used  to  be  of  so  great  effect,  were 
entirely  disregarded.  The  bearer  of  a  standard, 
upon  Caesar's  catching  it,  and  endeavouring  to 
stop  him,  quitted  his  hold,  and  continued  to  run 
without  it;  a  rider,  whose  horse  he  had  seized 
by  the  bridle,  dismounted,  and  ran  off  on  foot.  The 
rout  was  complete ;  but  the  ditches  and  works, 
amongst  which  the  action  began,  as  they  embar- 
rassed the  flight  of  the  one  party,  so  they  retarded 
the  pursuit  of  the  other;  and  Pompey,  who  did 
not  expect  such  a  victory,  remained  in  suspense. 
He  mistook  the  flight  of  Caesar's  army  for  a  feint, 
to  draw  hiin  into  some  ambuscade.  In  this  he 
was  governed,  probably  by  the  high  estimation 
for  discipline  and  valour  to  which  Caesar's  army 
was  so  justly  entitled ;  but  which  no  IrOops  can 
uniformly  support  at  all  times;  and  if  it  be  true, 
as  is  probable,  that  the  flight  of  an  army  in  actual 
rout  may  be  always  distinguished  from  a  con 
certed  retreat,  he  on  this  day  committed  an  un 
pardonable  error*  and  Caesar,  who  may  be  inclined 
to  exaggerate  the  oversights,  though  not  the  ad^ 
vantages,  of  his  enemy,  owns  that  he  himself  lost 
about  a  thousand  men,  with  above  thirty  stand- 
ards or  colours,  and  owed  the  preservation  of  his 
army  to  the  excessive  caution  or  incapacity  of 
Pompey.  He  himself  acted  indeed  like  a  person 
defeated,  instantly  abandoned  all  his  famous  hues 


"HAP.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


285 


of  Dyrrachium,  and  all  his  outposts;  and  to 
make  head  against  the  victor,  brought  all  the 
scattered  parts  of  his  army  together. 

Pompey,  in  the  mean  time,  lost  the  decisive 
moment,  or  was  not  sensible  of  his  advantage  till 
after  the  time  for  improving  it  was  past.  But 
this  victory,  although  it  had  not  been  perceived 
in  the  precise  moment  in  which  a  signal  advan- 
tage could  have  been  made  of  it,  was  presently 
afterwards  greatly  exaggerated.  Pompey  had 
from  his  own  army  the  usual  salutations  of  tri- 
umph, or  received  the  title  of  Imperator,  which 
he  continued  to  assume,  and  sent  his  accounts  of 
the  action,  by  expresses,  to  every  part  of  the 
empire ;  but  had  the  moderation  to  abstain  from 
the  practice  that  was  usual  in  the  case  of  victo- 
ries obtained  over  foreign  enemies,  that  of  bind- 
ing his  fasces  and  his  despatches  with  laurel. 

Caesar,  by  carrying  the  war  into  Macedonia, 
had  put  himself  in  a  very  arduous  situation.  He 
had  passed  over  a  sea  on  which  the  enemy  were 
masters,  and  had  invaded  a  country  of  which 
they  were  in  possession,  with  forces  greatly  supe- 
rior to  his  own  :  but  this  daring  adventure,  which, 
even  in  its  first  successes,  excited  astonishment, 
now  exposed  him  to  censure,  and  his  attempt  to 
invest  so  great  an  officer  as  Pompey,  at  the  head 
of  an  army  superior  to  his  own,  appeared  altoge- 
ther wild  and  extravagant.  The  merit  of  all  his 
former  campaigns,  as  is  common,  began  to  be 
questioned  by  those  who,  after  the  event,  can  in- 
struct and  correct  every  general ;  and  the  glory 
he  had  gained  in  the  former  part  of  the  war  was 
entirely  obscured.  He  was  even  said  to  have 
gained  the  Spanish  army  by  corruption,  and  to 
nave  purchased  with  money  the  surrender  which 
he  pretended  to  have  forced  by  his  address  and 
his  sword.  People  returned  to  their  first  appre- 
hensions, that  Pompey  wat  the  greatest  general 
which  any  age  or  nation  had  ever  produced;  that 
he  had  effectually  put  an  end  to  the  present  con- 
test, and  had  left  nothing  for  his  party  to  do  but 
to  reap  the  advantages  of  the  victory  he  had  ob- 
tained for  them. 

Some  time  before  this  event,  and  while  the 
minds  of  men  were  yet  in  suspense,  Cato,  in  one 
of  the  councils  which  had  been  summoned  by 
Pompey,  observed  that  Caesar  had  acquired  much 
popular  favour  by  his  ostentation  of  mercy,  and 
by  the  hopes  of  protection  which  he  held  out  to 
every  man  who  did  not  actually  take  arms  against 
him ;  while  Pompey  and  his  followers,  by  pub- 
lishing threats  against  all  who  did  not  actually 
espouse  their  cause,  had  rendered  the  army  of 
the  republic  an  object  of  terror;  he  therefore 
moved  that  a  proclamation  should  be  issued,  con- 
taining assurances,  that  every  town  not  actually 
in  arms  should  be  protected,  and  that  no  blood 
should  be  shed  but  in  the  field  of  battle.  A  re- 
solution to  this  purpose  had  been  accordingly 
published  but  in  the  present  exultation  of  vic- 
tory was  forgotten.  The  times  were  said  to  re- 
quire exemplary  justice,  and  to  justify  executions 
and  forfeitures,  not  only  of  those  who  were  ac- 
tually in  arms  against  their  country,  but  of  those 
likewise  who  had  betrayed  its  cause  by  a  mean 
and  profligate  neutrality.  The  favourites  of 
Pompey  already,  in  imagination,  sated  their  re- 
venge, and  gratified  their  avarice,  at  the  expense 


of  the  opposite  party  and  of  its  abettors.2  Every 
one  considered  the  use  which  he  himself  was  to 
make  of  the  victory,  not  how  it  might  be  secured 
or  rendered  complete. 

The  shock  which  Caesar  had  received  in  so 
critical  a  time  and  situation,  was,  not  without 
reason,  supposed  to  be  decisive ;  he  had  abandoned 
his  lines,  and  called  in  all  his  out-posts.  His 
army  appeared  to  sink  under  the  weight  of  their 
misfortunes.  Inferior  to  the  enemy  in  numbers, 
greatly  reduced  by  their  losses,  and  fallen  in  their 
own  estimation,  they  were  not  soon  likely  to  re- 
cover courage  enough  to  contend  for  the  field 
again  with  so  renowned  and  so  superior  an  ad- 
versary. 

Caesar,  however,  was  not  overwhelmed  by 
these  appearances ;  he  knew  what  was  the  force 
of  an  army  which  had  been  taught,  by  the  expe- 
rience of  many  years,  to  repose  the  utmost  con- 
fidence in  themselves  and  in  their  general,  and 
which  was  not  likely  to  sink,  without  hopes  of 
recovery,  under  any  single  event.  He  considered 
their  apparent  dejection  as  a  symptom  of  indigna- 
tion, and  of  rage  more  than  of  fear  or  debasement ; 
and,  instead  of  blame  or  reproach,  soothed  them 
with  consolation,  and  with  the  apologies  which 
he  industriously  framed  for  their  late  miscarriage. 
He  bid  them  recollect  their  former  actions,  and 
not  be  dismayed  by  a  single  accident  which  befel 
them  in  the  midst  of  a  career  sustained  with  a 
spirit  so  much  superior  to  that  of  every  enemy 
they  encountered :  "  If  fortune  has  crossed  us 
for  once,"  he  said,  "  we  must  retrieve  our  losses 
by  diligence  and  resolution.  Difficulties  only 
excite  the  brave,  and  awaken  their  ardour;  you 
have  formerly  experienced  difficulties,  and  every 
soldier  who  was  at  Gergovia  will  remember  the 
effects  of  perseverance  and  courage." 

He  was  sensible,  however,  that  some  particu- 
lar officers  had  set  a  shameful  example;  and  he 
supposed  that  by  singling  out  these  for  punish- 
ment, he  might  seem  to  exculpate  the  soldiers, 
and  reinstate  them  in  their  own  esteem.  For 
this  reason  he  dismissed,  with  infa.ny,  some 
bearers  of  standards,  who,  he  alleged,  had  misled 
the  troops,  whose  object  it  is  never  to  part  front 
their  colours.  By  these  means  the  sullen  dejec- 
tion of  the  legions  was  changed  into  rage,  and 
an  ardent  impatience  to  retrieve  their  honour.3 
They  did  not  presume  to  importune  their  gene- 
ral to  be  entrusted  so  soon  again  with  his  for- 
tunes ;  but  they  imposed  voluntary  tasks,  by  way 
of  penance,  on  themselves,  saying,  that  they  had 
deserved  to  be  loaded  with  hardship.  Many  of 
the  superior  officers  gave  it  as  their  opinion  to 
Caesar,  that  whatever  resolution  he  might  have 
taken  for  the  future  plan  of  the  war,  so  favour- 
able a  disposition  in  the  army,  and  so  fair  an  op- 
portunity of  yet  ending  the  contest,  with  honour 
on  the  very  ground  on  which  they  had  incurred 
their  late  disgrace,  should  not  be  neglected,  nor 
suffered  to  escape.  Caesar,  however,  did  not 
choose  to  stake  his  fortunes  on  the  chance  of  a 
feverish  ardour,  which  still  had  some  mixture  of 
consternation,  nor  to  rely  on  a  fury  which  had 
more  of  despair  than  of  rational  confidence, 
against  the  impetuosity  of  a  superior  army  recent- 
ly flushed  with  victory.  Nor  was  he  safe  to  re- 
main in  his  present  situation,  without  any  posts 


1  Plutarch,  in  Vita  Pompeii,  p.  494. 


2  CtBs.  do  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii.  c.  88. 


3  Ibid. 


288 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


in  his  fear  to  secure  his  communication  with  the 
country,  and  without  any  immediate  prospect  of 
supply  for  the  subsistence  of  his  army. 

For  these  reasons,  Caesar  determined,  without 
loss  of  time,  to  decamp  and  to  remove  to  some 
distance  from  the  enemy.1  In  the  first  night 
after  this  resolution  was  taken,  and  as  soon  as  it 
was  dark,  the  sick  and  wounded,  with  all  the 
baggage,  under  the  escort  of  a  legion,  were  sent 
ofif  with  orders  that  they  should  not  halt  till  they 
reached  Apollonia,  being  a  march  of  about  thirty 
miles*  At  three  in  the  morning  the  main  body 
of  the  army,  observing  a  profound  silence,  turned 
out  of  the  camp  by  different  gates,  and  took  the 
same  route.  Two  legions  yet  remained  for  the 
rear-guard.  These,  after  a  proper  interval,  being 
ready  to  depart,  sounded  the  usual  mrirch  to 
make  the  enemy  believe  the  van  of  the  army  was 
then  only  beginning  to  move,  and  the  whole  being 
thus  already  on  their  way,  and  without  any  in- 
cumbrance, they  soon  gained  a  considerable  dis- 
tance from  the  enemy,  who  was  likely  to  pursue 
them. 

Pompey,  as  soon  as  he  was  apprised  of  this 
retreat,  drew  forth  his  army,  and  followed  with 

freat  expedition.  After  marching  a  few  miles 
e  overtook,  with  his  cavalry,  the.  rear  of  Caesar's 
army  at  the  passage  of  the  river  Genusus ;  but 
being  received  by  the* enemy's  horse,  interlined 
with  infantry,  could  make  no  impression,  and 
saw  them  effect  the  passage  of  the  river  without 
any  considerable  loss. 

Caesar,  having  completed  an  ordinary  march, 
took  possession  of  the  lines  which  he  had  formerly 
occupied  at  Asparagium ;  but  not  intending  to 
remain  on  this  ground,  gave  orders  to  the  legions 
to  rest  on  their  arms.  He  sent  forth  his  cavalry 
by  the  front  gate  in  sight  of  the  enemy,  as  if  with 
intention  to  forage  ;  but  with  orders  to  turn  round 
the  camp,  and  enter  it  again  by  the  rear.  Pom- 
pey supposing,  from  these  appearances,  that 
Caesar  had  concluded  his  march,  and  that  the 
^business  of  the  day  was  over,  followed  his  exam- 
ple, pitched  in  the  same  lines,  which  he  likewise 
had  formerly  occupied  at  this  place,  and  suffered 
his  men  to  stray  in  search  of  forage  and  wood ; 
many  also  who,  in  the  hurry  with  which  they 
decamped  in  the  morning,  had  left  their  baggage 
behind  them,  were  now  allowed  to  lay  down 
their  arms,  and  returned  to  Dyrrachium  in  search 
of  it. 

Caesar,  who  waited  only  until  the  halt  he  had 
made  should  produce  this  effect  in  the  camp  of 
the  enemy,  again  put  his  army  in  motion  about 
noon,  and  without  interruption  on  the  same  day 
completed  a  second  march  of  eight  miles;  while 
Pompey's  army,  having  already  laid  aside  their 
arms  and  encamped,  were  not  in  condition  to 
follow.  Caesar  continued  his  retreat  during  some 
of  the  subsequent  days  in  the  same  order,  having 
his  baggage  advanced  some  hours  before  him : 
and  Pompey,  having  lost  some  ground  by  the 
delay  of  the  first  day,  and  having  harassed  his 
army  in  attempting  to  regain  it,  on  the  fourth 
day  entirely  discontinued  the  pursuit. 

This  respite  gave  both  parties  leisure  to  con- 
sider the  plan  of  their  future  operations.  Caesar 
repaired  to  Apollonia  to  lodge  his  sick  and 
wounded,  to  pay  off'  the  arrears  of  his  army,  and 
to  make  a  proper  disposition  for  the  security  of 


1  Cffis.  de  Rell.  Civ.  lib.  iii 


the  places  he  held  on  the  coast  And  having 
already  one  cohort  at  Lissus,  placing  three  at 
Oricum,  and  four  at  Apollonia,  ne  continued  his 
route  from  thence  to  the  southward.  He  pro- 
posed, without  delay,  to  penetrate  into  Thessaly, 
and  to  occupy,  for  the  subsistence  of  his  army,  as 
much  as  he  could  of  that  fertile  country.  He 
flattered  himself,  that  if  Pompey  should  follow 
him  thither,  to  a  distance  from  his  magazines  and 
his  supplies  by  sea,  the  war  might  be  continued 
between  them  upon  equal  terms.  If  he  attempted 
to  retake  Oricum  and  the  towns  on  the  coast,  he 
must  expose  Scipio  and  the  body  under  his  com- 
mand, in  the  eastern  parts  of  Macedonia,  to  be 
separately  attacked  ;  or,  if  he  wished  to  preserve 
Scipio  and  his  army,  he  would  be  obliged  to  quit 
his  design  upon  Oricum  in  order  to  support  them. 
If  he  should  pass  into  Italy,  it  was  proposed  to 
follow  him  by  the  coasts  of  Dalmatia.  And  this 
last  alternative  of  carrying  the  war  into  Italy, 
from  the  difficulties,  the  delays,  and  the  discredit 
to  which  it  might  have  exposed  Caesar's  cause, 
appears  to  have  been  the  preferable  choice  for 
Pompey.  It  was  accordingly  debated  in  council, 
whether,  being  master  of  the  sea,  and  having 
abundance  of  shipping,  he  should  not  transport 
his  army,  recover  the  possession  of  the  seat  of 
government,  and  strip  his  antagonist  of  that  au- 
thority which  he  derived  from  this  circumstance? 
or,  whether  he  should  not  stay  to  finish  the  re- 
mains of  the  war  in  Macedonia?  The  advan- 
tages likely  to  result  from  his  return  to  Rome  in 
the  capacity  of  victor,  after  he  had  left  it  with 
some  degree  of  disgrace,  were  obvious.  But  the 
war  appeared  to  be  so  near  its  conclusion,  that  it 
was  reckoned  improper  to  leave  any  part  of  it 
unfinished.  It  was  argued,  that,  by  quitting  the 
present  seat  of  the  war,  Caesar  would  be  left  to 
recover  his  forces  in  a  country  yet  full  of  resources, 
and  would  only  exchange  the  western  part  of 
the  empire  for  the  east,  from  whence  Sylla  had 
been  able,  and  from  whence  Pompey  himself  was 
now  about  to  recover  the  city  and  the  possession 
of  Italy. 

But  what  weighed  most  of  all  in  these  delibera- 
tions, the  safety  of  Scipio  required  the  presence 
of  Pompey  in  Macedonia.  If  he  should  remove 
his  army  from  thence,  this  officer,  with  the  forces 
recently  arrived  from  Asia,  would  fall  a  sacrifice 
to  the  enemy. 

Upon  these  motives  both  armies,  having  their 
several  detachments  in  Thessaly,  and  separate  bo- 
dies to  support  or  to  rescue  from  the  dangers  which 
threatened  them;  the  generals  determined  to 
march  into  that  country,  and  calculated  their  re- 
spective movements,  so  as  to  cut  off  the  enemy's 
parties,  or  to  sustain  their  own.  Caesar,  by  his 
march  to  Apollonia,  had  been  turned  from  his 
way ;  and  having  the  discredit  of  a  defeat,  and 
being  supposed  on  his  flight,  was  harassed  or  ill 
received  by  the  country  as  he  passed.  The  mes- 
sengers, whom  he  had  despatched  to  Domitius, 
were  intercepted  ;  and  this  officer,  while  both  ar- 
mies were  advancing,  having  made  some  move- 
ments in  Macedonia  in  search  of  provisions,  and 
having,  with  the  two  legions  he  commanded, 
fallen  into  Pompey's  route,  narrowly  escaped, 
and  only  by  a  few  hours,  being  surprised  and 
taken. 

Caesar,  having  arrived  in  time  to  rescue  Domi- 
tius, and  being  joined  by  him  as  he  passed  the 
mountains  into  Thessaly,  continued  his  march  to 


Chip.  VI.J 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


887 


Gomphi.  The  people  of  this  place  having  re- 
fused to  admit  him,  he  scaled  the  walls,  gave  the 
town  to  be  pillaged ;  and,  intending,  by  this  ex- 
ample, to  deter  others  from  retarding  his  march 
by  fruitless  resistance,  he  put  all  the  inhabitants 
to  the  sword.  When  he  arrived  at  Metropolis, 
the  people,  terrified  by  the  fate  of  Gomphi,  threw 
open  their  gates  ;  and  Caesar,  to  contrast  this  with 
the  former  example,  gave  them  protection.  From 
thence  to  Larissa,  where  Scipio,  haying  fallen 
back  from  the  Haliacmon,  then  lay  with  a  consi- 
derable army,  the  country  was  open,  and  Caesar, 
or  his  parties,  were  every  where  received  without 
opposition.  Having  passed  all  the  lesser  rivers 
which  fall  into  the  Penius,  he  took  post  on  the 
Enipeus,  which  runs  through  the  district  of  Phar- 
salia.  Here  he  commanded  extensive  plains,  co- 
vered with  forage  and  with  ripening  corn  j  had  a 
very  fertile  country  to  a  great  distance  in  his  rear; 
and  being  joined  not  only  by  Domitius,  but  pro- 
bably likewise  by  the  legion  which  Longinus 
commanded  in  ^Etolia,  in  all  amounting  to  ten 
legions,  he  was  in  a  condition  to  renew  his  offen- 
sive operations. 

Pompey  directed  his  motions  likewise  towards 
the  same  quarter ;  but  although  he  had  the  more 
direct  route,  and  was  every  where  received  as 
victor  in  the  late  action,  was  still  on  his  march. 
Scipio  advanced  from  Larissa  to  receive  him ; 
and  being  joined,  they  took  post  together  on  a 
height  near  Pharsalus,  and  in  sight  of  Caesar's 
station,  at  the  distance  of  thirty  stadia,  or  about 
three  miles.2  The  armies  being  some  time  fixed 
in  this  position,  Cajsar  drew  forth,  in  the  front  of 
his  intrenchment,  to  provoke  his  antagonist.  It 
was  evidently  not  Pompey's  interest  to  give  an 
enemy,  whom  he  had  brought  into  considerable 
straits,  an  opportunity  of  relief  by  the  chance  of 
a  battle.  But  as  this  was  a  defiance,  and  had 
some  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  soldiers,  it  was 
proper  to  return  it;  and  both  sides,  during  many 
days,  continued  to  turn  out  in  the  front  of  their 
respective  lines.  Caesar  advanced,  on  each  suc- 
cessive day,  still  nearer  to  Pompey's  ground  ;  but 
there  were  some  difficulties  in  the  way  of  his  far- 
ther approach,  in  which  he  did  not  choose  to  en- 
gage himself  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy,  nor 
did  Pompey  choose  to  quit  the  eminence  on  which 
he  had  hitherto  formed  his  line  of  battle. 

The  summer  being  far  spent,  and  all  the  forage 
and  corn  of  the  neighbouring  plains  being  con- 
sumed, Caesar  began  again  to  suffer  for  want  of 
provisions,  and  having  no  hopes  of  bringing  the 
enemy  to  a  battle  on  this  ground,  he  determined 
to  change  it,  for  some  situation  in  which  he  could 
more  easily  subsist  his  own  army,  or  by  moving 
about,  harass  the  enemy  with  continual  marches, 
and  oblige  them  perhaps  to  give  him  an  opportu- 
nity to  fight  them  on  equal  terms.  Having  re- 
solved on  this  plan,  and  having  appointed  a  day 
on  which  the  armies  should  move,  the  tents  being 
already  struck,  and  the  signal  to  march  given, 
while  the  van  was  passing  through  the  rear-gate 
of  the  camp,  it  was  observed  that  Pompey's  army, 
being  formed  according  to  their  daily  practice, 
had  advanced  farther  than  usual  before  their 
lines.  Caesar  immediately  gave  orders  to  halt, 
saying  to  those  who  were  near  him,  "  The  time 
we  have  so  earnestly  wished  for  is  come ;  let  us 
see  how  we  are  to  acquit  ourselves."    He  imme- 

2  Appian  de  Bcllo  Civ.  lib.  ii. 


diately  ordered,  as  a  signal  of  battle,  a  purple  en- 
sign to  be  hoisted  on  a  lance  in  the  centre  of  the 
camp.3  Appian  says,  that  he  likewise  ordered 
the  pales  to  be  drawn,  and  the  breast-work  to  be 
levelled  in  the  front  towards  the  enemy,  that  his 
army  might  not  hope  for  a  retreat,  not  even  be- 
hind their  retrenchments.4 

It  was  evidently  Pompey's  interest  to  avoid  a 
battle,  and  to  wait  for  the  effect  of  the  distresses 
to  which  Caesar's  army  must  have  been  exposed 
on  the  approach  of  winter.  But  this  is  the  most 
difficult  part  in  war,  requiring  great  ability  in  the 
general,  together  with  tried  courage  and  discipline 
in  the  troops.  A  general  may  be  qualified  to  fight 
a  battle,  but  not  dexterously  to  avoid  an  enemy 
who  presses  him ;  an  army  may  have  that  spe- 
cies of  courage  which  impels  them  in  action,  but 
not  that  degree  of  constancy  which  is  required  to 
support  them  long  unemployed  in  the  presence 
of  an  enemy.  In  whatever  degree  Pompey  him- 
self was  qualified  for  the  part  which  the  service 
required  of  him,  he  was  attended  by  numbers  of 
senators  and  persons  of  high  rank,  who,  thinking 
themselves  in  a  civil  or  political  capacity,  equal 
with  their  general,  bore  the  continuance  of  their 
military  subordination  with  pain.  They  said,  he 
was  like  Agamemnon  among  the  kings,  and  pro- 
tracted a  war  that  might  have  been  ended  in  a 
day,  merely  to  enjoy  his  command.  Nursed  in 
luxury,  and  averse  to  business,  petulant  in  safety, 
useless  in  danger,  impatient  to  be  at  their  villas 
in  the  country,  and  their  amusements  in  the 
town  ;  and  anticipating  the  honours  and  suc- 
cessions to  office  which  they  imagined  due  to 
their  high  merits  in  the  present  service,  they 
railed  at  the  conduct  of  their  general,  affected 
courage  by  urging  him  to  fight,  whilst  in  reality 
they  only  wished  to  terminate  the  suspense  and 
anxiety  of  a  campaign,  which  they  had  not  the 
resolution  to  endure.  Many  of  the  allies,  then 
also  present  in  the  army,  who  were  princes  of 
high  state  in  their  own  dominions,  were  impa- 
tient of  longer  delay;  and  the  troops  of  every 
description,  in  imitation  of  so  many  respectable 
examples,  were  loud  in  their  censures  of  so  much 
caution  in  their  general. 

Pompey,  urged  by  the  clamours  of  his  army, 
thought  himself  under  a  necessity  to  come  to  a 
speedy  decision,  and  had  prepared  for  battle  on 
the  morning  of  that  very  day  on  which  Csesai 
was  about  to  decamp.  Although  he  was  sensible, 
that  in  this  conjuncture,  it  was  not  his  interest  to 
hazard  a  battle,  it  is  probable,  that  he  did  not 
think  the  risk  was  great.  He  too,  as  well  as 
others  of  his  party,  became  elated  and  confident 
upon  his  late  success.5  His  numbers  greatly  sur- 
passed those  of  Caesar,  especially  in  horse,  archers, 
and  slingers;  and  he  trusted,  that,  by  this  part 
of  his  army,  he  should  prevail  on  the  wings,  and 
carry  his  attack  to  the  flank,  and  even  to  the  rear 
of  the  enemy.  Having  the  Enipeus,  a  small 
river  with  steep  banks,  on  his  right,  which  suffi- 
ciently covered  that  flank,6  he  drew  all  the  ca- 
valry, amounting  to  seven  thousand,  with  the 
archers  and  slingers,  to  his  left,  expecting  that 
the  event  of  the  battle  would  be  determined  on 
this  wing.    He  himself,  therefore,  took  post  to 


3  Plutarch,  in  Vita  Pompei. 

4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 

5  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  vii.  ep.  3. 

6  Appian.  de  Bello  Civile,  lib.  iii. 


•288 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


second  the  operations  of  the  cavalry,  at  the  head 
of  the  two  famous  legions  which  he  had  called 
off  from  Caesar  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
Scipio  was  posted  in  the  centre,  with  the  legions 
from  Syria,  having  the  great  body  of  the  infantry 
divided  on  his  right  and  his  left.  The  right  of 
the  whole  was  covered  by  a  Cilician  legion,  and 
the  remains  of  the  Spanish  army  which  had 
joined  Pompey  under  Afranius.  The  whole 
amounted  to  one  hundred  cohorts,  or  about  forty - 
live  thousand  foot,  drawn  up  in  a  line  of  ten 
men  deep.1 

Caesar,  observing  this  disposition,  formed  his 
army  in  three  divisions ;  the  left  was  commanded 
by  Antony,  the  right  by  Sylla,  and  the  centre  by 
Cn.  Domitius.  The  tenth  legion  was  posted  on 
the  right,  and  the  ninth  on  the  left  of  the  whole. 
He  had  eighty  cohorts  in  the  field  ;  but  these  so 
incomplete,  as  not  to  exceed  above  twenty-two 
thousand  men.  He  saw  the  disparity  of  his 
horse  and  irregulars  on  the  right,  having  no  more 
than  a  thousand  horse  to  oppose  to  seven  thou- 
sand of  the  enemy.  In  order  to  reinforce  and 
sustain  them,  he  draughted  a  cohort  from  each 
of  the  legions  in  the  right  to  form  a  reserve,  which 
he  placed  in  the  rear  of  his  cavalry  with  orders  to 
sustain  them,  or  to  repel  the  enemy's  horse,  when 
they  should  attempt  as  he  expected,  to  turn  his 
flank.  This  body  formed  a  fourth  division  of  his 
army,  not  placed  in  the  same  line  with  the  other 
divisions;  but  facing  obliquely  to  the  right,  in 
order  to  receive  the  cavalry  that  was  expected  to 
turn  the  flank,  and  to  fall  obliquely  on  the  rear. 
He  himself  passed  along  the  front  of  the  right 
wing,  a  nd  earnestly  entreated  them  not  to  engage 
till  they  got  the  signal  from  himself.  He  re- 
minded them  of  his  continual  attention  to  the 
welfare  of  the  army,  desiring  them  to  recollect 
with  what  solicitude  he  had  endeavoured  to  bring 
on  a  treaty,  in  order  to  save  both  armies  to  the 
republic ;  and  how  far  he  hnd  always  been  from 
any  disposition  wantonly  to  shed  the  soldiers' 
blood.  He  was  answered  with  shouts  that  ex- 
pressed an  impatience  to  begin  the  action.  Pom- 
pey had  directed  the  cavalry  and  archers  assembled 
on  his  left  to  begin  the  attack ;  and  instructed 
them,  as  soon  as  they  had  driven  Caesar's  horse 
from  the  plain,  to  fall  upon  the  flank  and  the 
rear  of  his  infantry. 

These  dispositions  being  completed,  a  solemn 
pause  and  an  interval  of  silence  ensued.  The 
same  arms,  and  the  same  appearances  presented 
themselves  on  the  opposite  sides.  When  the 
trumpets  gave  the  signal  to  advance,  the  sounds 
were  the  same  ;  many  are  said  to-  have  shed 
tears.2  Being  so  near,  that  they  had  only  space 
enough  in  which  to  acquire  that  rapid  motion 
with  which  they  commonly  shocked,  Csesar's 
army  began  to  rush  forward,  while  Pompey's 
agreeable  to  the  orders  he  had  given  them,  re- 
mained in  their  places,  expecting  that  the  enemy, 
if  they  were  made  to  run  a  double  space  in  com- 
ing to  the  shock,  would  be  disordered,  or  out  of 
breath.  But  the  veterans,  in  Caesar's  line,  sus- 
pecting the  intention  of  this  unusual  method  of 
receiving  an  enemy,  made  a  full  stop;  and,  hav- 
ing drawn  breath,  came  forward  again  with  the 
usual  rapidity.  They  were  received  with  perfect 
order,  but  not  with  that  resistance  and  equal  force 


1  Frontinus  de  Stratagematis. 
'2  Dio.  Cassius,  lib.  xli.  c.  58. 


which  motion  alone  could  give.  The  action  be 
came  general  near  about  the  same  time  over  tht' 
whole  front.  Pompey's  horse,  as  was  expected, 
in  the  first  charge,  put  Caesar's  cavalry  to  rout, 
and,  together  with  the  archers  and  slingers,  were 
hastening  to  turn  the  flank  of  the  enemy.  But 
as  soon  as  they  opened  their  view  to  the  rear,  be- 
ing surprised  at  the  sight  of  a  body  of  infantry 
which  was  drawn  up  to  oppose  them,  and  being, 
probably,  from  their  confidence  of  victory,  negli- 
gent of  order ;  in  their  attempts  to  recover  it  they 
were  thrown  into  the  utmost  confusion,  and, 
although  there  was  not  any  enemy  in  condition 
to  pursue  them,  fled  to  the  heights.  The  archers 
and  slingers,  being  thus  deserted  by  the  horse, 
were  put  to  the  sword.  And  Pompey's  left,  on 
which  he  expected  the  enemy  could  not  resist 
him,  being  flanked  by  the  cohorts  who  had  de- 
feated his  cavalry,  began  to  give  way.  '  Caesar,  in- 
order  to  increase  the  impression  he  had  made, 
brought  forward  fresh  troops  to  the  front  of  his 
own  line  ;  and  while  his  reserve  turned  upon  the 
flank,  made  a  general  charge,,  which  the  enemy 
no  longer  endeavoured  to  withstand. 

Poinpey,  on  seeing  the  flight  of  his  cavalry,  an 
event  he  so  little  expected,  either  thought  himself 
betrayed,  or  despairing  of  the  day,  put  spurs  to. 
his  horse,  and  returned  into  camp.  As  he  en- 
tered the  praetorian  gate,  he  called  to  the  guards, 
to  stand  to  their  arms,  and  to  provide  for  the 
worst.  "I  go  the  rounds,"  he  said,  "and  visit 
the  posts."  It  is  likely  that  surprise  and  morti- 
fication had  unsettled  his  mind.  He  retired  to 
his  tent  in  the  greatest  dejection,  and  yet  he 
awaited  the  issue.3  His  army,  in  the  mean  time,, 
being  routed,  fled  in  confusion  through  the  lanes 
of  their  own  encampment.  It  was  noon,  and  the 
victors,  as  well  as  the  vanquished,  were  greatly 
fatigued  ;  but  Caesar  seldom  left  any  refuge  to  a 
flying  enemy,  not  even  behind  their  intrench- 
ments.  He  ordered  Pompey's  lines  to  be  stormed, 
met  with  some  little  resistance  from  the  guards 
that  were  placed  on  the  parapet,  but  soon  pre- 
vailed. The  rout  and  the  carnage  continued 
through  the  streets  and  the  alleys  of  the  camp,  to 
the  rear-gate  and  passages  through  which  the 
vanquished  crowded  to  recover  the  fields,  and 
from  which,  without  any  attempt  to  rally,  they 
continued  their  flight  to  the  neighbouring  hills. 

When  Pompey's  army  drew  Ibrth  to  battle, 
their  tents  were  left  standing,,  as  in  full  confi- 
dence of  victory  ;  and  the  plate,  furniture,  and 
equipage  of  the  officers  were  still  displayed,  as  if 
intended  for  show.  Notwithstanding  this  cir- 
cumstance, Caesar  had  authority  enough  to  re- 
strain his  troops4  from  plunder,  and  continued  the 
pursuit.  Seeing  crowds  of  the  vanquished  had 
occupied  a  hill  in  the  rear  of  their  camp,  he  made 
haste  to  surround  them,  and  to  cut  off  their 
farther  retreat.  But  they  themselves  having  ob- 
served, that  the  place  was  destitute  of  water, 
abandoned  it  before  they  could  be  surrounded, 
and  took  the  road  to  Larissa.  Caesar  having  or- 
dered part  of  the  army  to  keep  possession  of  the 
enemy's  camp,  another  part  to  return  to  their 
own,  he  himself,  with  four  legions,  endeavoured 
to  intercept  the  fugitives  in  their  way  to  Larissa. 


3  Cass,  de  Bello  Civ.  lib.  iii.  c.  94. 

4  The  spoils  of  an  enemy  were  commonly  secured 
by  the  Romans  in  a  regular  manner,  to  be  equally  di- 
vided. 


Chap.  Vll.) 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


2SS 


He  had  the  advantage  of  the  ground  ;  so  that 
after  a  hasty  march  of  six  miles,  he  got  before 
them;  and,  having  thrown  himself  in  their  way, 
ohliged  them  to  halt.  They  took  possession  of  a 
height  over  a  stream  of  water,  from  which  they 
hoped  to  be  supplied.  Night  was  fast  approach- 
ing, and  the  pursuers  were  spent  with  fatigue ; 
but  Csesar  yet  prevailed  on  his  men  to  throw  up 
some  works  to  prevent  the  access  of  the  enemy 
to  the  brook.  When  overwhelmed  with  fatigue 
and  distress,  these  remains  of  the  vanquished 
army  offered  to  capitulate ;  and  while  the  treaty 
was  in  dependence  many  among  them,  who  were 


senators  and  persons  of  rank,  withdrew  in  the 
night,  and  made  their  escape;  the  rest  surrender 
ed  at  discretion.  Persons  of  distinction,  who  had 
been  formerly  prisoners,  and  who  had  been  set  at 
libertv.  were  now  put  to  death.  Some  were 
spared  at  the  intercession  of  their  friends,  to 
whom  Caesar  permitted  that  each  should  save  one 
of  the  prisoners.5  The  private  men  took  oaths 
of  fidelity  to  the  victor,  and  were  enlisted  in  his 
army.  Caesar,  having  ordered  such  of  his  men, 
as  had  been  on  service  all  night,  to  be  relieved 
from  the  camp,  he  himself  marched  with  a  fresh 
body  the  same  day  to  Larissa. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Comparative  Loss  on  the  different  Sides  in  the  late  Action — Pompeys  Might— His  Death — Ar- 
rival of  Ccesar  at  Alexandria — Cato,  with  the  Fleet  and  Remains  of  the  Army  from  Pharsa- 
lia,  steers  for  Africa — State  of  Italy  and  of  the  Republican  Party — Adventures  of  Ccesar  in 
Egypt — Victory  over  Pharnaces — Arrival  in  Italy — Mutiny  of  the  Legions — Ccesar  passed  into 
Africa — His  Operations  and  Action  with  the  Horse  and  Irregulars  of  the  Enemy — Post  at 
Ruspina — Siege  of  Uzita — Battle  of  Thapsus — Death  of  Cato. 


IN  the  famous  battle  of  Pharsalia,  Cajsar,  by 
his  own  account,  lost  no  more  than  two  hundred 
men,  among  whom  were  thirty  centurions,  of- 
ficers of  distinguished  merit.  He  killed  of  the 
enemy  fifteen  thousand,  took  twenty-four  thou- 
sand prisoners,  with  a  hundred  and  eighty  stand 
of  colours,  and  nineteen  Roman  eagles  and  le- 
gionary standards;  and  on  this  occasion  he  cut 
off  many  senators  and  many  of  the  equestrian 
order,6  the  flower  of  the  Roman  nobility,  who 
were  the  most  likely  to  bear  up  the  sinking  for- 
tunes of  the  commonwealth. 

Pompey,  when  he  was  told  that  Coosar's  troops 
had  already  forced  his  intrenchments,  changed 
his  dress,  mounted  on  horseback,  and  having 
passed  through  the  rear  gate  of  the  camp,  made 
his  escape  to  Larissa.  On  the  road  he  fell  in 
with  about  thirty  horsemen  who  joined  him.  At 
the  gates  of  Larissa  he  received  what  he  wanted 
for  his  journey,  but  declined  entering  the  town, 
saying,  That  he  would  do  nothing  to  make  a 
breach  betwixt  the  inhabitants  of  that  place  and 
the  victor.7  From  thence  he  passed  by  the  valley 
of  Tempe  to  the  coast,  and  rested  only  one  night 
in  a  fisherman's  cottage.  Next  morning  he  put 
off  from  the  shore  in  a  small  boat,  with  a  few 
of  his  attendants,  and  coming  in  sight  of  a  trading 
vessel,  made  signals,  and  was  taken  on  board. 
In  this  ship  he  steered  to  Amphipolis,  came  to  an 
anchor  before  that  place,  and,  probably  to  conceal 
his  farther  intentions,  issued  a  proclamation  ad- 
dressed to  all  the  districts  of  Macedonia,  and  re- 
quiring new  levies  to  be  made,  and  all  the  youth 
of  the  province  to  assemble  forthwith  at  this 
place.  But  having  received  some  supplies  of 
money,  he  remained  only  one  night  at  Amphi- 
polis. His  wife  Cornelia,  and  Sextus  the  young- 
est of  his  sons,  were  at  Mitylene,  in  the  island  of 
Lesbos  7  thither  he  proposed  to  sail,  and,  without 
having  settled  his  plan  any  farther,  was  anxious 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xli.  c.  62. 

6  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 

7  Dio.  Ca*=.  lib.  xlii.  c.  2. 

2  O 


to  save  this  part  of  his  family  from  falling  mto 
the  hands  of  his  enemies.  Having  taken  them  on 
board,  and  being  joined  by  some  galleys  of  the 
fleet,  after  a  delay  of  some  davs,  occasioned  by 
contrary  winds,  he  set  sail,  continued  his  voyage 
to  the  coast  of  Cilicia,  and  from  thence  to  Cy- 
prus. He  meant  to  have  landed  in  Syria;  but 
being  informed  that  the  people  of  Antioch,  upon 
the  news  of  his  defeat,  had  published  a  K  solution 
to  admit  none  of  his  party,  he  dropt  that  intention, 
and  contented  himself  with  what  aids  and  rein- 
forcements he  obtained  on  the  coasts  of  Cilicia 
and  Cyprus.  He  seized  the  money  which  was 
found  in  the  coffers  of  the  farmers  of  the  revenue  ; 
and  having  borrowed,  or  otherwise  procured,  con- 
siderable sums,  he  armed  two  thousand  men,  and 
having  shipping  sufficient  to  transport  them,  con- 
tinued his  voyage  to  Egypt. 

The  late  king,  Ptolemy  Auletes,.  had  been  in- 
debted to  the  Romans  and  the  patronage  of  Pom- 
pey ;  and  the  kingdom  being  now  on  a  respect- 
able footing,  having  a  considerable  military  forco 
in  the  field ;  this  Roman  leader,  though  of  a  van- 
quished party,  Mattered  himself,  that  in  the  grati- 
tude of  the  Egyptian  court  he  might  find  some 
means  to  reinstate  his  affairs. 

On  the  death  of  Ptolemy,  who  had  been  re- 
stored to  his  throne  by  Gabinius,  two  factions  had 
arisen  in  Egypt.  The  king  leaving  tour  children, 
Ptolemy  the  elder,  Cleopatra,  Arsinoe,  and  Pto- 
lemy the  younger,  had  by  his  will  bequeathed  his 
crown  to  Ptolemy  the  eldest  of  his  sons,  together 
with  Cleopatra  the  eldest  daughter.  This  brother 
and  sister  being  by  the  laws  permitted  to  marry, 
were  in  the  capacity  of  husband  and  wife  asso- 
ciated on  the  throne.  But  the  council  of  the 
young  king  proposed  to  set  aside  the  will  by  ex- 
cluding Cleopatra.  In  execution  of  this  design, 
having  obliged  her  to  leave  the  kingdom,  and  to 
fly  for  protection  into  Syria,  they  had  taken  post 
with  a  great  army  at  Pelusium  to  prevent  her  re- 
turn, she  being  said  to  have  assembled  a  numerous 


H  Ciwnr,  Appian.  Plutarcli. 


290 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


force  in  Asia  for  that  purpose.1  Pompey  observ- 
ing this  army  upon  the  shore,  concluded  that  the 
king  was  present,  came  to  anchor,  and  sent  a 
message  with  intimation  of  his  arrival,  and  of  his 
desire  to  join  his  forces  with  those  of  Egypt. 

The  council  of  Ptolemy  consisted  of  three  per- 
sons, Achillas,  who  commanded  the  army;  Pho- 
tinus,  a  eunuch,  who  had  the  care  of  the  finances ; 
and  Theodotus  of  Samos,  who  was  the  preceptor 
or  literary  tutor  of  the  young  king.  These  coun- 
sellors, knowing  that  the  Romans  had  been 
named  executors  of  the  late  king's  will,2  and  in 
this  capacity  might  restore  Cleopatra  to  her  share 
in  the  throne,  and  that  Pompey,  in  name  of  the 
republic,  might  assume  the  supreme  direction  in 
Egypt,  were  greatly  alarmed  upon  receiving  his 
message,  and  came  to  a  resolution  to  put  him  to 
death.  By  this  atrocious  action  they  expected  to 
rid  themselves  of  one  dangerous  intruder,  and  to 
merit  the  favour  of  his  rival,  who  by  this  decisive 
stroke  was  to  become  the  sovereign  of  the  empire, 
and  fully  able  to  reward  those  who  took  a  season- 
able part  in  his  quarrel. 

With  this  intention  Achillas,  with  a  few  of  his 
attendants,  came  on  board  in  a  small  boat,  de- 
livered a  message  from  Ptolemy,  inviting  Pompey 
to  land.  In  the  mean  time  some  Egyptian  gal- 
leys, with  an  Intention  to  secure  him,  drew  near 
to  his  ship ;  and  the  whole  army,  with  the  king  at 
their  head,  were  drawn  out  on  the  shore  to  receive 
him.  The  size  of  the  boat,  and  the  appearance 
of  the  equipage  which  came  on  this  errand, 
seemed  disproportioned  to  the  rank  of  Pompey  ; 
and  Achillas  made  an  apology,  alleging,  that 
deeper  vessels  could  not  go  near  enough  to  land 
him  on  that  shallow  part  of  the  coast.  Pompey's 
friends  endeavoured  to  dissuade  him  from  accept- 
ing of  an  invitation  so  improperly  delivered ;  but 
he  answered  by  quoting  two  lines  from  Sopho- 
cles, which  implies,  that  whoever  visits  a  king, 
tliough  he  arrive  a  free  man,  must  become  his 
slave.  Two  of  his  servants  went  before  him  into 
the  boat  to  receive  their  master;  and  with  this 
attendance  he  put  off  from  the  ship.  His  wife 
Cornelia,  and  Sextus  the  youngest  of  his  sons, 
with  some  other  friends,  remained  upon  deck, 
sufficiently  humbled  by  the  preceding  strokes  of 
fortune,  anxious  for  the  future,  and  trembling 
under  the  expectations  of  a  scene  which  was  act- 
ing before  them.  Soon  after  the  barge  had  left 
the  ship,  Pompey  looking  behind  him,  observed 
among  the  Egyptian  soldiers  a  person  whose 
countenance  he  recollected,  and  said  to  him, 
Surely,  fellow  soldier,  you  and  I  have  somewhere 
served  together.  While  he  turned  to  speak  these 
words,  Achillas  beckoned  to  the  other  soldiers, 
who  understanding  the  signal  to  put  the  Roman 
general  to  death,  struck  him  with  their  swords. 
Pompey  was  so  much  prepared  for  this  event,  that 
he  perceived  the  whole  of  his  situation  at  once, 
and  sunk  without  making  any  struggle,  or  utter- 
ing one  word,3  This  was  done  in  the  presence  of 
the  king  of  Egypt,  and  of  his  army,  who  were 
ranged  on  a  kind  of  amphitheatre  formed  by  the 
shore.  The  vessel  in  which  the  unhappy  Cor- 
nelia with  her  family  was  left,  and  the  little 
squadron  which  attended  it,  as  if  they  had  re- 
ceived a  signal  to  depart,  cut  their  cables  and  fied. 

 rJt  ,  

1  Cresare,  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii.        2  Caesare,  ibid. 
3  App.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii.    Plut.  in  Pomp.  Livii 
epitome,  lib.  cxii. 


Thus  died  Pompey,  who  for  above  thirty  years 
enjoyed  the  reputation  of  the  first  captain  of  his 
age.  The  title  of  Great,  originally  no  more  than 
a  casual  expression  of  regard  from  Sylla,  con- 
tinued, in  the  manner  of  the  Romans,  to  be 
given  him  as  a  mark  of  esteem,  and  a  name  of 
distinction.  He  attained  to  more  consideration, 
and  enjoyed  it  longer  than  any  other  Roman 
citizen  ;  and  was  supplanted  at  last,  because,  for 
many  years  of  his  life,  he  thought  himself  too 
high  to  be  rivalled,  and  too  secure  to  be  shaken 
in  his  place.  His  last  defeat,  and  the  total  ruin 
which  ensued  upon  it,  was  the  consequence  of  an 
overweening  confidence,  which  left  him  altogether 
unprepared  for  the  first  untoward  event.  The 
impression  of  his  character,  even  after  that  event, 
was  still  so  strong  in  the  minds  of  his  enemies, 
that  Caesar  overlooked  all  the  other  remains  of 
the  vanquished  party  to  pursue  their  leader. 

The  accounts  which  Ccesar  received  atLarissa 
made  him  believe  that  Pompey  must  have  passed 
into  Asia ;  and  he  accordingly,  on  the  third  day 
after  the  battle  of  Pharsalia,  set  out  in  pursuit  of 
him  with  a  body  of  horse,  ordering  a  legion  to 
follow.  In  passing  the  Hellespont,  he  was  sa- 
luted by  some  galleys  which  guarded  the  Straits, 
under  Lucius  Cassius.  These  surrendered  them- 
selves, and,  with  their  leader,  made  offer  of  their 
service  to  the  victor.  From  thence  he  continued 
his  march  by  the  coast  of  Ionia,  receiving  the 
submission  of  the  towns  in  his  way.  And  being 
come  into  Asia,  he  had  intelligence  of  Pompey's 
operations  in  Cyprus,  of  his  departure  from 
thence,  and  of  his  continuing  to  steer  for  the 
coasts  of  Egypt.  Tn  order  to  be  in  condition  to 
follow  him  hither,  he  put  into  the  island  at 
Rhodes,  where  he  provided  transports  sufficient 
to  embark  the  legion  which  he  ordered  to  follow 
him  from  Thessaly,  and  another  from  Achaia, 
with  eight  hundred  horse.  To  these  he  joined  a 
convoy  of  ten  armed  galleys  of  this  island,  and 
some  Asiatic  ships.4 

With  this  force  Caesar  set  sail  for  Alexandria, 
and  arrived,  after  a  passage  of  three  days.*  Here 
he  learned  the  catastrophe  of  Pompey's  life;  and 
had  presented  to  him  by  the  courtiers  of  Ptolemy, 
who  were  impatient  to  recommend  their  services, 
the  head  of  the  deceased  severed  from  the  body, 
with  his  seal,  which  was  known  throughout  the 
empire,  being  that  with  which  his  signature  was 
put  to  al!  letters,  acts,  and  public  writings :  but 
Caesar  either  really  was,  or  affected  to  be,  seized 
with  a  momentary  compunction ;  is  said  to  have 
turned  away  from  the  sight,  and  to  have  wept.6 
This  able  actor  probably  had  tears,  as  well  as 
words,  at  command ;  and  could  sanctify,  under 
the  most  specious  appearances,  the  evils  which  his 
ambition  had  produced.  From  this  event,  how- 
ever, which  he  thus  affected  to  regret,  and  no 
sooner,  he  became  secure,  and  seems  to  have 
dated  the  termination  of  the  war.  He  accord- 
ingly landed  without  precaution,  and  being  de- 
tained at  first  by  the  usual  periodical  winds  of 
the  season,  became  entangled  in  difficulties,  or 
engaged  in  pleasures,  which  occasioned  a  very 
unaccountable  stay,  suspended  the  expectations 


4  Cf-es.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

5  App  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii.  The  two  legions  which 
he  led  in  this  service  amounted  only  to  three  thousand 
two  hundred  men ;  so  much  had  the  army  in  general 
suffered  in  their  late  campaigns. 

6  App  ibid. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


291 


of  the  whole  empire,  and  gave  to  those  of  the 
opposite  party  leisure  to  consult  their  safety  in 
different  ways. 

Cato,  upon  the  march  of  Pompey  into  Thes- 
saly,  had  been  left  to  command  on  the  coast  of 
Epirus;  and  his  quarters,  after  the  battle  of 
Pharsalia,  became  a  place  of  retreat  to  many 
who  escaped  from  the  field,  or  who,  at  the  time 
of  the  action,  had  been  detached  on  different  ser- 
vices. He  assembled  great  part  of  the  fleet  at 
Corcyra;  and,  with  his  sea  and  land  forces  united, 
still  preserved  the  aspect  of  a  vigorous  parly. 
Cicero,  Cnaeus  the  eldest  son  of  Pompey,  Afra- 
nius,  Labienus,  and  other  persons  of  distinction 
had  joined  him.  Among  these  Cicero,  as  being 
the  first  in  rank,  was  offered  the  command;  and 
having  declined  it,  narrowly  escaped  with  his 
life  from  the  fury  of  young  Pompey,  who  consi- 
dered his  refusal  as  a  desertion  of  the  cause,  and 
as  an  act  of  perfidy  to  his  father,  whose  fate  was 
yet  unknown.7  Cicero,  being  protected  by  Cato 
and  others,  who  were  present,  escaped  into  Italy; 
and  declining  the  command  of  an  army,  re- 
served, for  scenes  in  which  he  was  better  quali- 
fied to  act,  talents  which  had  been,  on  former 
occasions,  of  so  much  use  to  his  fellow  citizens. 
It  appeared  that  Cato  had  even  disapproved  of 
his  having  joined  either  party  in  this  war,  and 
wished  him  to  have  devoted  his  life  and  his  abi- 
lities entirely  to  those  services  which  he  was 
better  qualified  to  render  to  his  country,  in  the 
senate,  and  in  the  popular  assemblies,  than  in 
the  field. 

It  is  probable  that  Cato  had  already  taken  his 
own  resolution  not  to  submit  to  Caesar,  nor  to 
survive  the  fall  of  the  commonwealth ;  but  he 
treated  with  great  candour  such  as  chose  to 
make  their  peace,  and  to  retire  from  the  storm. 
Having  staid  a  sufficient  time  at  Corcyra,  to 
receive  on  board  such  of  the  vanquished  army  as 
those  to  take  refuge  in  the  fleet ;  and  having  af- 
terwards put  into  Patrse,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Gulph  of  Corinth,  for  the  same  purpose,  he  still 
gave  every  one  his  option  to  continue  in  arms,  or 
to  retire.  He  seems  to  have  supposed  that  Pom- 
pey was  gone  into  Egypt,  and  he  determined  to 
follow  him;  hoping,  that  after  the  junction  of 
this  great  reinforcement,  he  might,  either  there 
or  in  the  province  of  Africa,  renew  the  war  with 
advantage.  Being,  in  pursuance  of  this  design, 
arrived  in  the  African  seas,  but  west  of  the  fron- 
tier of  Egypt,  he  met  the  unhappy  Cornelia,  with 
the  young  Sextus  Pompeius,  who  had  recently 
beheld  the  death  of  the  husband  and  the  father 
near  the  shore  at  Pelusium.  The  account  which 
he  received  of  this  event  determined  him  not  to 
•continue  his  voyage  any  farther  to  the  eastward ; 
but  to  return  towards  the  Roman  province  of 
Africa,  where  the  friends  of  the  republic  under 
Varus,  in  consequence  of  the  defeat  of  Curio,  and 
the  alliance  of  Juba,  still  kept  the  ascendant,  and 
*ately  received  an  accession  of  strength  by  the 
junction  of  Scipio  and  of  Labienus,  who  had 
escaped  from  Pharsalia.  But  the  periodical  winds 
which  about  the  same  time  began  to  detain  Caesar 
at  Alexandria,  made  it  impossible,  or  at  least 
dangerous,  for  him  to  continue  his  voyage  along 
a  coast  that  was  covered  to  a  great  extent  by  the 
famous  shoals  and  sand-banks  of  the  Syrtes. 


7  Plutarch,  in  Vit.  Ciceronis.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlii. 
C.  10-12. 


For  these,  perhaps,  and  other  reasons  which  are 
not  mentioned,  Cato  landed  at  Berenice :  and 
from  thence  conducting  his  army,  then  consisting 
of  ten  thousand  men,  in  small  divisions,  through 
the  deserts  of  Barca,  and  round  the  bay  of  the 
Syrtes;  and  having,  during  thirty  days,  encoun- 
tered with  many  difficulties  from  the  depth  of 
the  sands  and  the  scarcity  of  water,  he  effected 
his  march  to  the  frontier  of  the  Roman  province.8 

Caesar,  when  he  passed  into  Macedonia,  had 
left  Italy  and  the  western  provinces  in  a  state  not 
likely,  in  his  absence,  to  create  any  trouble.  But 
the  uncertain,  and  even  unfavourable  aspect  of 
his  affairs,  for  some  time  after  his  landing  in  Epi- 
rus, had  encouraged  those  who  were  discontented 
to  question  the  validity  of  his  acts,  and  to  disre- 
gard his  arrangements.  The  army  in  Spain  hav- 
ing mutinied,  deserted  from  d.  Cassius,  and  put 
themselves  under  the  command  of  M.  Marcellus 
iEserninus,  who,  however,  did  not  openly  declare 
himself  for  either  party,  till  after  the  event  was 
decided  in  favour  of  Caesar. 

At  Rome,  it  is  probable  that  few  had  remained 
besides  those  who  were  inclined  to  Caesar's  party, 
or  at  least  such  as  were  indifferent  to  both  ;  and 
that  some  persons,  even  of  the  last  description, 
thought  they  had  an  interest  in  his  success,  as 
being  their  only  safety  against  the  menacing  de- 
clarations of  his  adversary,  who,  in  all  his  procla- 
mations, treated  neutrality  between  the  parties  as 
treason  to  the  commonwealth.  But  the  uncertain 
state  of  his  fortunes,  while  the  event  of  the  war 
remained  in  suspense,  and  still  more  after  his  de- 
feat at  Dyrrachium,  encouraged  or  tempted  num- 
bers, even  in  the  city  of  Rome,  to  declare  for 
Pompey.  Marcus  Caelius,  who,  in  the  preceding 
year,  had,  upon  disgust,  or  hopes  of  promoting 
his  own  fortune,  gone  with  Antony  and  Curio  to 
join  Caesar,  and  who  was  now,  by  the  influence 
of  the  prevailing  party,  elected  one  of  the  prae- 
tors ;  being  moved  by  a  fresh  disgust  from  the  par- 
ty he  had  joined,  or  by  its  apparent  decline  in  the 
field,  openly  declared  himself  against  Caesar's  mea- 
sures, offered  protection  to  debtors  against  the 
execution  of  his  laws  relating  to  bankrupts,  drove 
his  own  colleague  Trebonius  by  force  from  the 
praetor's  tribunal,  and  gave  such  an  alarm,  that 
the  senate  thought  themselves  under  the  necessity 
of  giving  the  consul  Isauricus  the  usual  charge  to 
guard  the  commonwealth  as  in  times  of  extreme 
danger.  Upon  this  decree  the  consul  took  arms 
to  preserve  the  peace,  and  Caelius  was  obliged  to 
leave  the  city.  About  the  same  time  Milo,  who 
still  lay  under  sentence  of  banishment,  ventured, 
at  the  head  of  an  armed  force,  to  land  on  the 
coast,  and  attempted  to  make  himself  master  of 
Capua.  While  he  was  engaged  in  this  enter- 
prise he  was  joined  by  Camus;  but  both  were 
soon  after  surrounded  and  cut  off  by  tlie  forces 
which  Caesar  had  left  for  the  protection  of  Italy.9 

These  disturbances,  and  every  appearance  of 
opposition  to  the  party  of  Caesar,  were  again 
easily  suppressed  upon  the  news  of  his  victory 
at  Pharsalia.  The  populace,  who  generally  range 
themselves  on  the  victorious  side,  and  who  are 
equally  outrageous  in  every  cause  they  espouse, 
celebrated  the  occasion,  by  pulling  down  the 
statues  of  Pompey  and  of  Sylla.    There  was 


8  Strabo,  lib.  xvii.  p.  836. 

9  Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  cxi.  Dio.  Cassius,  Jib.  xlii. 
c.  22.  2G. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMI  NATION 


either  no  senate,  and  no  assembly  of  the  people 
to  resist  the  torrent  with  which  fortune  now  ran 
on  the  side  of  military  government,  or  the  names 
of  senate  and  people  were,  without  debate  or  dif- 
ference of  opinion,  put  to  decrees,  by  which  the 
supreme  power  of  life  and  death  over  the  sup- 
posed adherents  of  the  vanquished  party  was 
committed  to  the  victor.  By  these  decrees,  the 
power  of  making  war  or  peace,  and  of  naming 
commanders  and  governors  in  all  the  province^ 
was  committed  to  Csesar.  He  was,  by  a  new 
and  unheard-of  resolution,  made  consul  for  five 
years,  dictator  for  twelve  months,  and  vested 
with  the  sacred  character  of  tribune  for  life.  He 
alone  was  appointed  to  preside  in  all  public  as- 
semblies, except  those  of  the  tribes,  in  which  the 
other  tribunes  bore  an  equal  part  with  himself 

When  these  decrees  were  presented  to  Csesar, 
then  in  Egypt,  he  assumed  the  ensigns  and  power 
of  dictator,  and  appointed  Antony,  who  com- 
manded in  Italy,  general  of  the  horse,  or  second 
to  himself  in  the  empire.  The  reputation  of 
Caesar's  clemency  had  encouraged  many,  who 
had  recently  opposed  him,  to  lay  down  their 
arms,  and  to  return  to  their  habitations,  trusting 
to  this  character  of  the  victor,  or  to  other  consi- 
derations more  particularly  applicable  to  them- 
selves. Cicero  returned  to  Italy,  and  waited  for 
Csesar  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Brundusium. 
Caius  Cassius,  who  had  commanded  the  fleet 
which  had  been  assembled  for  Pompey  from  the 
coasts  of  Syria  and  Cilicia,  having  sailed  to 
Sicily,  while  the  army  yet  lay  in  Pharsalia,  sur- 
prised and  burnt  the  shipping,  amounting  to 
thirty-five  vessels,  of  which  twenty  were  decked, 
which  Csesar  had  assembled  at  Messina,  and 
was  about  to  have  forced  the  town  to  surrender, 
when  he  was  informed  of  the  defeat  of  Pompey 
in  Thessaly,  and  set  sail  for  the  coast  of  Asia. 
Here  he  waited  for  Csesar  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Cydnus,  without  being  determined,  whether  he 
should  attempt  to  destroy  or  submit  to  the  victor. 
From  the  correspondence  of  Cassius  with  Cicero, 
it  appears,  that,  like  this  distinguished  senator, 
he  was  about  to  withdraw  from  the  ruins  of  a 
party  which  he  could  no  longer  support.  Cicero, 
nevertheless,  afterwards  ascribes  to  him  a  design 
of  killing  Csesar  at  this  place,  if  the  prey  had 
not  escaped  him  by  going  to  a  different  side  of 
the  river  from  where  he  was  expected  to  land. 
Upon  this  disappointment  Cassius  made  his  sub- 
mission, and  delivered  up  his  fleet.1  Gluintus 
Cicero  went  to  Asia,  to  make  his  peace  with 
Csesar;  and  many,  expecting  him  in  Italy,  re- 
sorted thither  on  the  same  errand.  In  this  num- 
ber, it  was  reported  that  Cato  and  L.  Metellus 
meant  to  present  themselves  as  persons  who  had 
done  no  wrong,  and  who  came  Openly  to  resume 
their  station  in  the  Commonwealth.  Csesar  fore- 
saw the  difficulties  that  might  arise  to  himself 
from  the  presence  of  such  men ;  that  they  would 
greatly  embarrass  his  government  by  opposing  it, 
or,  in  order  to  rid  himself  of  such  troublesome 
guests,  reduced  him  to  the  necessity  of  pulling  off 
the  mask  of  moderation  and  clemency,  which  he 
had  hitherto  assumed.  For  these  reasons,  he  chose 
rather  to  prevent  their  coming,  than  to  contend 
with  them  after  they  were  come ;  and  sent  posi- 
tive orders  to  Antony,  to  forbid  Cato,  Metellus., 
and  every  other  person,  to  whom  he  had  not 


I  Cffisar.  de  Bollo  Civil,  lib.  iii. 


{Book  IV, 

given  express  permission,  to  set  their  foot  in 
Italy.2 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  at 
U.  C.  706.    the  end  of  the  year  of  Rome  705, 
and  beginning  of  the  following  year, 
C  Julius        which  is  dated  in  the  dictatorship  of 

ItZTmDM'  Caius  C'?sar'.  While  he  himself 
Antonius  stl^  remained  in  Egypt,  the  goverri- 
Mag.  Eg.  ment  of  Italy  continued  in  the  hands 
of  Antony.  All  orders  of  men  vied, 
in  demonstrations  of  joy,  for  the  success  of  the 
victor,  and  for  the  ascendant  which  his  party  had 
gained.  They  still  probably  hoped  to  have  the 
form  of  the  republic  preserved^  while  no  more 
than  the  administration  of  it  should  pass  from 
the  ruined  party  to  those  who  were  now  in  power  : 
but  in  the  first  steps  of  the  present  government 
they  found  themselves  disappointed,  The  usual 
election  of  magistrates)  which,  even  in  the  height 
of  the  war  had  never  been  omitted,  now  at  the 
end  of  it,  and  when  no  ehemy  any  where  ap- 
peared to  alarm  the  party,  were  all  of  them,  ex- 
cept that  of  the  tribunes,  entirely  suspended  or 
laid  aside.  All  government  centred  in  the  per- 
son of  Antony,  and  the  administration  was  alto- 
gether military.  He  himself,  immersed  in  de- 
bauch, past  the  greatest  part  of  his  time  in  the 
company  of  buffoons  and  prostitutes ;  frequently 
shifted  the  scene  of  his  frolics  from  the  town  to 
the  country,  and  travelled  through  Italy  with  a 
field  equipage,  and  a  numerous  train  of  carriages, 
filled  with  courtezans  and  their  retinue.  In  these 
processions  he  himself  is  said  to  have  sometimes 
appeared  in  a  carriage  that  was  drawn  by  lions.3 
In  this  tide  of  success,  as  he  was  ungracious  and 
arrogant  to  citizens  of  the  highest  rank,  so  he 
was  indulgent  to  the  troops,  and  deaf  to  all  the 
complaints  that  were  made  of  their  violence  and 
rapine.  Being  equally  apt  to  set  the  example  of 
disorder  and  license  in  his  own  practice,  as  he 
was  to  indulge  them  in  others,  his  retainers  fre- 
quently alarmed  the  city  with  rapes,  robberies, 
and  murders,  and  made  the  pacific  inhabitants  of 
Italy  expect,  with  the  arrival  of  Csesar,  a  con- 
tinual increase  of  such  disorderly  masters  to  sport 
on  the  ruins  of  the  commonwealth. 

The  worst  men,  as  usual,  were  the  most  for- 
ward in  paying  their  Court  to  the  party  in  power. 
The  nearest  relations  became  spies  or  informers 
against  each  other.  Fears  or  complaints  uttered 
were  reported  as  crimes.  A  general  silence  and 
distrust  ensued,  and  all  parties  wished  or  dreaded 
the  arrival  of  Csesar,  according  as  they  expected 
to  lose  or  to  gain  by  the  fall  of  the  commonwealth. 
In  this  interval  of  expectation,  men  discovered 
their  gloomy  apprehensions,  by  propagating 
strange  fictions  of  ominous  appearances,  or  by 
magnifying  things  natural  into  alarming  presages 
and  prodigies.4 

The  daily  expectation  of  Csesar's  arrival  for 
some  time,  suspended  all  the  usual  factions  in 
the  city,  and  suppressed  the  hopes  and  designs 
of  his  opponents  in  all  parts  of  the  empire :  but 
his  unexpected  stay  at  Alexandria,  and  the  un- 
favourable reports  of  his  situation,  which  were 
sometimes  brought  from  thence,  began  to  turn 
the  tide  of  popularity  at  Rome,  and  encouraged 
the  remains  of  the  late  republican  party,  now 


2  Caisar.  de  Bello  Civil,  lib.  iii.  ep.  $  et  7. 

3  Plut.  in  Vita  Antonii,  p.  74,  75. 
•     1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlii.  c.  2G. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


293 


forced  to  take  refuge  in  Africa,  again  to  lift  up 
its  head.5 

Dolabella,  a  young  man  of  patrician  extrac- 
tion, observing  the  roads  which  others  had  taken, 
by  becoming  tribunes  of  the  people,  to  arrive  at 
power  in  the  commonwealth,  procured  himself,  in 
imitation  of  Clodius,  to  be  adopted  into  a  plebeian 
family,  to  the  end  that  he  might  be  legally  quali- 
fied to  hold  this  office  ;  and  having  accordingly 
succeeded  in  this  design,  revived  the  wild  projects 
by  whi<m  the  worst  of  his  predecessors  had  endea- 
voured to  debauch  the  lower  ranks  of  the  people. 
He  proposed  an  abolition  of  debts,  and  a  reduc- 
tion of  house-rents.  Being  opposed  by  Trebonius, 
one  of  his  colleagues,  their  several  retainers  fre- 
quently, as  usual,  proceeded  to  violence  in  the 
streets  ;  and  although  the  senate  passed  a  decree 
to  suspend  every  question  or  subject  of  debate 
until  the  arrival  of  Caesar,  these  tribunes  con- 
tinued to  assemble  the  people,  kept  them  in  a 
ferment  by  opposite  motions,  and  filled  the  public 
places  with  tumult  and  bloodshed.6  Mark  An- 
tony, second  in  command  to  Caesar,  under  pre- 
tence that  such  disorders  could  not  be  restrained 
without  a  military  force,  took  possession  of  the 
city  with  an  army;  and  while  he  sometimes 
favoured  one  party,  and  sometimes  the  other, 
continued  to  govern  the  whole  at  discretion.7 

The  troops  about  the  same  time  became  muti- 
nous in  their  quarters  ;  and  these  disorders  rose 
or  fell  according  to  the  reports  that  were  propa- 
gated from  Asia  or  Egypt  relating  to  the  state  of 
Cajsar's  alfairs.  The  spirits  and  hopes  of  the 
late  republican  party,  which  yet  had  some  foot- 
ing in  Africa  and  Spain,  likewise  fluctuated  in 
the  same  manner.  It  is  highly  probable,  that  if 
Caesar  had  pursued  the  other  remains  of  this 
party  with  the  same  ardour  with  which  he  pur- 
sued Pompey  in  person,  or  if  he  could  have  re- 
turned to  the  capital  immediately  on  the  death  of 
his  rival,  they  never  would  have  attempted,  or 
would  have  been  able  to  renew  the  contest ;  but 
the  leisure  which  he  left  them,  and  the  ill  aspect 
of  his  own  affairs,  for  some  time  encouraged  and 
enabled  them  to  recover  a  strength,  with  which 
they  were  yet  in  condition  to  dispute  the  domi- 
nion to  which  he  aspired. 

Cato,  who,  with  the  remains  of  the  republican 
party  from  Epirus,  had  arrived  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  being  informed  that  Varus  still  held  the 
Roman  province  on  this  continent  in  the  name 
of  the  republic,  that  Scipio  was  there,  and  that 
the  king  of  Numidia  persisted  in  his  alliance 
against  Caesar,  determined  to  join  them.  At  his 
arrival,  Scipio  and  Varus  being  on  bad  terms,  he 
received  an  offer  of  the  command  from  the  gene- 
ral voice  of  the  army  ;  but  his  acceptance  being 
likely  to  increase,  rather  than  to  appease  animo- 
sities, and  the  preference  being  constitutionally 
due  to  Scipio  as  of  consular  rank,  Cato  had  no 
doubts  in  declining  it  Neither  Pompey  nor 
Scipio  ever  considered  him  as  their  personal 
friend;  his  services  they  knew  were  intended  to 
the  republic,  and  would  turn  against  them  when- 
ever they  came  to  m  ike  that  use  of  their  advan- 
tages to  which  it  is  likely  they  were  both  inclined. 
Pompey  was  accordingly  ever  jealous  of  Cato, 
and  in  the  last  part  of  the  campaign  in  Thessaly 


5  Cicero  ail  Attic,  lib.  xi.  ep.  16. 

ti  Eiaht  hinrlred  citizens  were  killed  in  these  fray.s. 

7  Din.  Oaas.  li!>  xlii.  c.  23. 


chose  to  leave  him  behind  on  the  coast.  Scipio 
adopted  the  same  conduct  with  respect  to  this 
partizan  of  the  commonwealth,  and  joined  to  the 
motives  of  jealousy,  which  actuated  Pompey,  a 
distrust  of  the  inclination  recently  shown  by  the 
army  to  prefer  him  in  the  command.  In  order 
that  he  might  not  interfere  in  his  counsels,  he 
assigned  or  suffered  him  to  take  a  separate  station 
at  Utica,  where  he  continued  to  be  the  principal 
support  of  the  cause.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
place  were  obnoxious  to  Pompey's  party ;  and 
having  formerly  received  Curio  with  the  forces 
of  Caesar,  and  ever  favoured  his  interest,  were 
now  doomed  to  destruction,  but  saved  at  the  in- 
tercession of  Cato,  who,  in  this  extremity  of  po- 
litical evils,  wished  not  to  increase  the  sufferings 
of  mankind  by  unnecessary  acts  of  revenge  and 
cruelty. 

The  spirit  of  the  republic  thus  reviving  in 
Africa,  and  the  party  being  in  condition  to  re- 
ceive all  who  fled  to  them  for  protection,  and 
having  the  alliance  of  Juba,  the  most  powerful 
prince  of  that  continent,  soon  became  formidable 
both  by  sea  and  by  land  ;  and  if  they  had  chosen 
to  invade  Italy  in  the  absence  of  Caesar,  were  in 
condition  to  have  regained  the  capital  of  the  em- 
pire. Young  Pompey  having,  at  the  same  time, 
passed  into  Spain,  was  favourably  received  by 
Ins  father's  adherents  and  clients  in  that  province, 
and  profiting  by  the  misconduct  of  Quintus 
Cassius  in  those  parts,  was  likely  to  assemble  a 
considerable  force. 

Gabinius,  who  commanded  for  Caesar  on  the 
coast  of  Illyricum,  attempting  to  penetrate  by 
land  into  Macedonia,  was  cut  off  by  Octavius, 
who  had  assembled  a  remnant  of  Pompey's  army 
on  the  confines  of  that  kingdom.  Domitius  Caf- 
visius,  whom  Caesar  had  ap[>ointed  to  command 
in  Bithynia,  had  received  a  defeat  from  Phar- 
naces  the  son  of  Mithridates;  and  in  general, 
the  state  of  his  affairs  in  other  parts  of  the  empire 
was  such,  while  he  himself  continued  unheard  of 
in  Egypt,  as  to  raise  a  suspicion  of  some  misfor- 
tune, supposed  to  be  the  only  way  of  accounting 
for  his  long  stay  in  that  country,  and  for  the 
seeming  neglect  of  all  the  advantages  he  had 
gained  by  a  conduct  hitherto  in  every  instance 
decisive  and  rapid.  Pompey  had  fallen  by  treache- 
ry in  Egypt,  and  so  might  Caesar.  It  was  now 
the  middle  of  June,  and  there  was  no  intimation 
received  in  Italy  of  the  time  at  which  he  might 
be  expected  to  return.  He  had  written  no  let- 
ters since  the  middle  of  December,  nor  had  any 
one  come  from  him  at  Alexandria  since  the  mid 
die  of  March.s 

The  imperfect  accounts  which  remain  of  what 
passed  in  Egypt  during  this  interval,  are  as  fol- 
lows :  Caesar,  at  his  arrival,  had  found  the  young 
king  under  the  direction  of  Pothiuus;  and  Arsi- 
noe,  the  sister  of  the  king,  in  the  keeping  of 
Ganimedcs,  two  eunuchs  who  had  the  care  of 
their  education.  From  his  manner  of  receiving 
the  present  of  Pompey's  head,  these  officers  con- 
jectured that  they  had  gained  nothing  by  the 
murder  of  one  of  the  rivals,  who  were  engaged 
in  this  contest  for  the  Roman  empire ;  and  that 
this  action,  although  it  freed  C&sar  of  an  enemy 
whom  he  respected  and  feared,  was  not  to  be 
publicly  avowed  or  rewarded  by  him.  They 


8  Cicer.  ad  Aft.  lib.  xi  op.  Hi  et  17. 


294 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV 


dreaded  the  Interposition  of  this  dangerous  man 
in  their  affairs,  more  than  they  had  dreaded  even 
that  of  Pompey. 

The  troops  now  in  Egypt,  were  the  remains 
of  that  army  with  which  Gabinius  had  restored 
the  late  king,  and  which  he  left  to  secure  his 
establishment.  They  were  recruited  by  desert- 
ers from  the  Roman  provinces,  and  by  banditti 
from  Syria  and  Cilicia.  They  retained  the  form 
of  the  Roman  legion ;  but  had  precluded  them- 
selves from  any  prospect  of  return  to  the  Roman 
service  by  a  mutiny,  in  which  they  had  murdered 
the  two  sons  of  Bibulus,  then  proconsul  of  Syria. 
Numbers  of  the  men  were  married,  and  had  fami- 
lies in  Egypt ;  they  were  in  the  practice  of  dis- 
posing of  the  lives  and  properties  of  the  people, 
of  the  offices  at  court,  and  of  the  crown  itself  at 
their  pleasure.  A  party  of  this  insolent  rabble, 
then  in  garrison  at  Alexandria,  and  in  the  cha- 
racter of  guards  to  the  person  of  the  king,  took 
offence  at  the  parade  with  which  Csesar  landed, 
and  were  offended  with  the  number  and  show  of 
his  lictors,  by  which  he  seemed  to  encroach  on 
the  majesty  of  their  sovereign.  Frequent  tu- 
mults arose  on  this  account,  and  numbers  of  Cae- 
sar's attendants  were  murdered  in  the  streets. 
The  westerly  winds  were  then  set  in,  and  he 
finding  himself  detained  in  a  place  where  he  was 
exposed  to  so  much  insult,  ordered  a  reinforce- 
ment of  troops  from  Asia,  and  employed  Mithri- 
dates  of  Pergamus  to  bring  all  the  forces  he  could 
assemble  there  to  his  relief.  The  party  of  Cleo- 
patra applied  to  him  for  his  protection ;  she  her- 
self, being  still  in  Syria,  ventured  to  pass  into 
Egypt,  came  to  Alexandria  by  sea,  and  is  said  to 
have  been  carried,  wrapped  up  in  a  package  of 
carpet,  to  the  presence  of  Caesar. 

In  this  manner,  it  is  pretended  that  Csesar  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  person  of  this  celebrated 
woman,  then  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  and  possessed 
of  those  allurements  by  which  she  made  different 
conquerors  of  the  world,  in  their  turns,  for  a 
while  renounce  the  pursuits  of  ambition  for  those 
of  pleasure.  She  is  supposed  at  this  time  to 
have  become  the  mistress  of  Csesar,  and  to  have 
made  him,  though  turned  of  fifty  years,  to  forget 
the  empire,  the  republic,  the  factions  at  Rome, 
and  the  armies  which  in  Africa  and  Spain  were 
assembling  against  him.  Under  the  dominion  of 
his  passion  for  Cleopatra,  he  took  a  resolution  to 
carry  into  execution  the  destination  made  by  the 
late  king,  and  in  the  quality  of  Roman  consul 
and  representative  of  the  Roman  people,  to  whom 
this  office  had  been  entrusted  by  the  will,  he 
commanded  both  parties  to  lay  down  their  arms, 
and  to  submit  then;  claims  to  his  own  arbitration. 

Pothinus,  fearing  the  total  exclusion  of  the 
young  king,  his  pupil,  in  favour  of  Cleopatra, 
called  Achillas  with  the  army  to  Alexandria,  in 
order  to  defeat  Caesar's  purpose,  and  obliged  him 
to  leave  the  kingdom.  This  army  consisted  of 
twenty  thousand  men  inured  to  bloodshed  and 
violence,  though  long  divested  of  the  order  and 
discipline  of  Roman  troops.  Csesar  hearing  of 
their  approach,  and  not  being  in  condition  to 
meet  them  in  the  field,  seized  and  fortified  a 
quarter  of  the  town,  in  which  he  proposed  to  de- 
fend himself.  The  young  Ptolemy  being  in  his 
power,  was  prevailed  on  to  despatch  two  persons 
of  distinction  with  a  message  to  Achillas,  signify- 
ing the  king's  pleasure  that  he  should  not  ad- 
vance ;  but  the  bearers  of  this  message,  as  being 


supposed  to  betray  the  interest  of  their  master,  in 
whose  name  they  appeared,  were  by  the  orders 
of  Achillas  seized  and  slain.  Caesar,  however^ 
being  still  in  possession  of  Ptolemy's  person,  re* 
presented  Achillas  as  a  rebel  and  an  outlaw,  and 
still,  in  the  name  of  the  king,  issued  repeated 
orders  and  proclamations  against  him. 

Achillas  being  arrived  at  Alexandria,  entered 
the  city,  and  endeavoured  to  force  Caesar's  quar- 
ters ;  but  being  repulsed,  took  possession  of  that 
part  of  the  town  which  was  open  to  him,  and 
blocked  up  the  remainder  both  by  sea  and  land. 
The  city  being  thus  divided,  the  Egyptians  and 
Romans  fought  in  the  streets,  and  from  the 
houses  which  they  severally  occupied.  Csesar, 
as  he  despaired  of  being  able  to  receive  any  suc- 
cours by  land,  endeavoured  to  keep  open  his 
communication  by  sea,  and  sent  pressing  orders 
to  Syria,  Cilicia,  Rhodes,  and  Crete,  for  reinforce- 
ments of  men  and  of  ships.  Having  early  dis- 
covered that  Pothinus,  who  was  still  in  his  power, 
corresponded  with  the  enemy,  he  ordered  him  to 
be  put  to  death,  continued  to  strengthen  his  di- 
vision of  the  town  by  additional  barriers ;  and  in 
order  to  prevent  surprise,  demolished  and  cleared 
away  many  of  the  buildings  adjoining  to  his 
works.  Achillas,  finding  so  much  unexpected 
resistance,  sent  for  reinforcements,  and  a  supply 
of  stores  and  warlike  engines,  from  every  part  of 
the  kingdom.  He  traversed,  with  breast  works, 
the  streets  leading  to  Caesar's  quarters,  and  de- 
molishing the  houses  in  his  way,  effected  a  chain 
of  works  parallel  to  those  of  Caesar,  consisting  of 
a  parapet  and  frequent  towers.  He  exhorted  the 
Egyptians  to  exert  themselves  for  the  indepen- 
dency of  their  kingdom ;  represented  to  them, 
"  That  the  Romans  were  gradually  assuming 
the  sovereignty  of  Egypt;  that  Gabinius  had 
come  as  an  auxiliary,  but  acted  as  a  master ;  that 
Pompey  on  being  defeated  in  Thessaly,  came 
into  Egypt,1  as  to  a  property  which  he  had  a 
right  to  employ  in  repairing  his  ruined  fortunes ; 
that  Pompey  had  fallen  in  vain,  if  Caesar  were 
tamely  suffered  to  succeed  him ;  that  if  this  intru- 
der were  allowed  to  keep  possession  of  the  city, 
until  his  succours  should  arrive  from  Asia,  all 
Egypt  for  the  future  must  expect  to  be  the  slaves 
of  the  Romans." 

The  danger  to  which  Csesar  was  exposed, 
arose  no  less  from  the  remains  of  the  republican 
party  now  assembling  against  him  in  Africa  than 
it  did  from  the  force  with  which  he  was  actually 
assailed  in  Egypt.  If  Scipio  had  been  apprised 
of  his  condition  in  that  country,  he  might  in  a 
few  days  have  sailed  to  Alexandria,  and  in  con- 
junction with  the  Egyptians,  who  would  now 
have  accepted  of  any  assistance  against  Csesar, 
have  recovered  the  fall  of  their  party  at  Pharsa- 
lia  ;  but  the  best  opportunities  are  sometimes  lost, 
because  it  is  not  supposed  that  an  enemy  could 
be  so  rash  as  to  furnish  them. 

The  scene  in  Egypt  was  frequently  changing 
by  the  intrigues  and  the  treachery  of  different 
parties  in  the  court.  Ganimedes  who  had  the 
charge  of  the  young  princess,  Arsinoe,  being  hi- 
therto lodged  in  the  quarters  of  Csesar,  found 
means  to  make  his  escape,  together  with  his 
ward  ;  and  finding  the  troops  disposed  to  lay  hold 
of  Arsinoe,  as  a  branch  of  the  royal  family,  em- 


1  Hirtius  de  Bello  Alexandrine 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


295 


filoyed  assassins  to  put  Achillas  to  death;  and, 
n  name  of  the  princess,  took  on  himself  the 
command  of  the  army.  His  abilities  as  an  officer, 
which  were  very  considerable,  and  his  bounty, 
secured  to  him  the  affection  of  the  soldiers.  He 
Continued  the  attack  on  Caesars  quarters,  in  all 
»he  ways  which  were  already  begun  by  his  pre- 
Jecessor.  The  town  being  furnished  with  water 
ay  subterraneous  passages  from  the  neighbouring 
heights,  he  uncovered  the  conduits  which  led  to 
Caesar's  division  of  the  town ;  and,  to  render 
these  conduits  unserviceable,  forced  into  them 
great  quantities  of  brine  from  the  sea.  The  loss 
however  was  soon  supplied  from  wells,  in  which, 
at  a  moderate  depth,  the  besiegers  found  plenty 
of  fresh  water. 

While  Caesar  thus  counteracted  the  arts  which 
were  employed  to  distress  him,  the  eighteenth  le- 
gion, with  a  considerable  supply  of  provisions, 
military  stores,  and  engines  of  war,  being  arrived 
on  the  coast,  but  unable  to  reach  Alexandria  on 
account  of  the  winds,  he  thought  proper  to  em- 
bark and  put  to  sea,  in  order  to  cover  this  rein- 
forcement, while  they  made  for  the  port.  On  this 
occasion  he  was  attacked  by  the  Egyptian  fleet ; 
but  gained  a  victory,  destroyed  a  great  part  of  the 
enemy's  ships,  and  brought  his  own  reinforce- 
ment safe  into  harbour.  The  Egyptians,  with 
great  ardour,  set  to  work  in  all  the  docks  on  the 
Nile,  to  repair  the  loss  they  had  now  sustained, 
and  were  soon  masters  of  a  fleet,  consisting  of 
twenty-two  vessels  of  four  tire  of  oars,  five  of  five 
tire,  and  many  of  smaller  dimensions.  Caesar 
had  to  oppose  them,  nine  galleys  from  Rhodes, 
eight  from  Pontus,  five  from  Lycia,  and  twelve 
from  the  coast  of  Asia.  Five  were  of  five  tire  of 
oars,  and  ten  of  four  tire.  The  remainder  were 
smaller  dimensions,  and  most  of  them  open. 
With  these  forces,  having  once  more  engaged 
oft'  the  mouth  of  the  harbour,  the  Egyptians 
were  again  defeated,  with  the  loss  of  one  galley 
of  five  tire  of  oars,  another  of  two  tire  taken,  and 
three  sunk.  The  remainder  retired  under  cover 
of  the  mole,  and  of  the  towers  of  Pharos. 

Soon  after  this  action  at  sea,  Caesar  attacked 
the  Pharos,  forced  the  enemy  to  fly  from  thence, 
most  of  them  swimming  across  the  harbour,  killed 
many,  and  took  six  hundred  prisoners.  He  forced 
them  at  the  same  time  to  abandon  the  tower, 
which  commanded  the  entrance  of  the  mole  on 
that  side.  As  he  pursued  them  in  their  flight, 
and  as  the  mole  itself  became  crowded  with  his 
soldiers,  who  advanced  to  push  the  attack,  or  who 
came  unarmed  from  the  ships,  and  all  the  stations 
around,  to  witness  this  scene ;  the  Egyptians  see- 
ing these  crowds,  laid  hold  of  the  opportunity, 
mounted  the  mole,  threw  those  who  were  upon  it 
into  confusion,  forced  them  over  the  quay  into 
the  water,  or  into  their  boats.  Caesar  himself  en- 
deavoured to  escape  in  this  manner,  and  finding 
that  the  boat  into  which  he  went,  being  aground 
and  overloaded,  could  not  be  got  off,  he  threw  him- 
self into  the  water,  and  swam  to  a  ship.  In  this 
tumult,  he  lost  four  hundred  men  of  the  legions, 
and  an  equal  number  of  the  fleet.  The  Egyptians 
recovered  all  the  ground  they  had  lost,  got  pos- 
session again  of  the  tower  at  the  head  of  the  mole, 
and  of  the  island  which  secured  their  ships. 

In  such  operations,  with  various  events,  the 
parties  in  Egypt  passed  the  winter  and  spring. 
Cassar  still  retained  the  person  of  Ptolemy  in  his 
possession,  and  made  use  of  his  name  to  coun- 


tenance his  own  cause,  or  to  discredit  that  of  his 
enemies ;  but  the  king  being  extremely  averse  to 
this  use  being  made  of  his  authority,  and  desirous 
to  recover  his  liberty,  entered  into  a  concert  with 
some  officers  of  his  army,  to  find  a  pretence  for 
his  release.  In  pursuit  of  their  design,  they  con- 
veyed secret  intimation  to  Cffisar's  quarters,  that 
the  troops  were  greatly  disgusted  with  Ganimedes, 
and  that  if  Ptolemy  should  make  his  appearance 
in  person,  they  would  certainly  submit  to  his  or- 
ders, and  commit  the  whole  settlement  of  the  king- 
dom to  the  arbitration  of  Caesar.  The  king  was 
instructed  to  affect  a  great  dislike  to  this  proposal, 
and  with  tears  intreated  that  he  might  be  allowed 
to  remain  in  the  palace.  Caesar,  either  being  de- 
ceived by  these  professions,  or  believing  the  name 
of  the  king  to  be  of  little  consequence,  consented 
to  let  him  depart ;  but  this  artful  boy,  as  soon  as 
he  was  at  liberty,  laid  aside  his  disguise,  laughed 
at  the  supposed  credulity  of  those  he  had  deceived, 
and  urged  the  attack  on  the  Roman  quarters 
with  great  animosity. 

While  affairs  at  Alexandria  were  in  this  situa- 
tion, accounts  were  brought  that  Mithridates  of 
Pergamus,  whom  Caesar  had  sent  to  procure  suc- 
cours from  Asia,  was  actually  arrived  at  Pelusium 
with  a  considerable  force ;  that  he  had  reduced 
that  place,  and  only  waited  for  instructions  from 
Caesar  how  to  proceed.  These  accounts  were 
brought  to  both  parties  about  the  same  time,  and 
both  determined  to  put  their  forces  in  motion. 
Ptolemy  leaving  a  proper  guard  on  his  worka, 
embarked  his  army  on  the  Nile,  having  a  con- 
siderable navigation  to  make  by  the  different 
branches  of  that,  river.  Caesar,  at  the  same  time, 
put  his  army  on  board  in  the  harbour,  and  having 
an  open  course  by  the  coast,  arrived  at  Pelusium 
before  the  king  ;  and  being  joined  by  Mithrid;itcs, 
was  in  condition  to  take  the  field  against  the 
Egyptian  army.  Ptolemy,  to  prevent  the  return 
of  Caesar  by  land  to  Alexandria,  had  taken  a 
strong  post  on  one  of  the  branches  of  the  Nile  ; 
but  here,  after  a  few  skirmishes,  he  was  attacked, 
defeated,  and  driven  from  his  station.  Endeavour- 
ing to  make  his  escape  by  water,  the  barge3 
which  carried  him  being  overloaded  sunk,  and 
himself,  with  all  his  attendants,  perished. 

Immediately  after  this  action,  in  which  the 
Egyptian  army  was  routed  and  dispersed,  Caesar, 
escorted  by  a  small  party  of  horse,  returned  to 
Alexandria,  and  having  received  the  submission 
of  the  inhabitants,  made  such  arrangements  as  he 
thought  proper  in  the  succession  to  the  kingdom. 
He  placed  Cleopatra  on  the  throne,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  her  younger  brother,  and  toremo\e  any 
farther  occasion  of  disturbance  to  this  settlement, 
he  ordered  her  sister  Arsinoe  to  be  transported 
to  Rome.  He  left  great  part  of  the  army  to 
support  this  new  establishment  in  Egypt,  and 
he  himself,  after  this  singular  interlude,  in 
the  midst  of  the  conquest  of  the  Roman  empire, 
marched  with  the  sixth  legion  by  land  into  Syria. 
At  Antioch,  he  received  such  reports  of  the  state 
of  affairs,  as  required  his  presence  in  different 
quarters.  Nine  months  were  elapsed,  since  any 
orders  or  directions  had  been  received  from  him. 
During  this  time,  the  factions  of  the  city,  the  re- 
laxation of  discipline  in  the  army,  and  the  threats 
of  invasion  from  Africa,  had  placed  his  affairs  in 


8  Hirt.  de  Bcllo  Alex. 


296 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  17. 


such  a  state  of  hazard,  as  to  urge  his  immediate 
appearance  in  Italy  and  at  Rome ;  but  he  thought 
it  of  consequence  to  his  authority  to  leave  no 
enemy  behind  him  in  the  field,1  nor  to  suffer  the 
remains  of  disorder  in  any  of  the  provinces 
through  which  he  was  to  pass.  Pharnaces,  the 
son  of  Mithridates,  to  whom  Pompey  had  as- 
signed the  kingdom  of  the  Bosphorus,  imagining 
that  the  civil  wars,  in  which  the  Romans  were 
engaged,  made  a  favourable  opportunity  for  the 
recovery  of  his  father's  dominions,  had  passed 
with  an  army  into  Pontus,  and  from  thence  in- 
vaded the  lesser  Armenia  and  Cappadocia,  which 
had  been  separately  allotted  by  the  Romans  to 
Dejotarus  and  to  Ariobarzanes.  At  the  instances 
of  these  princes,  Domitius-  Calvisius,  who  had 
been  despatched  by  Csesar  after  the  battle  of 
Pharaalia  with  three  legions  to  receive  the  sub- 
mission of  the  Asiatic  provinces,  hitherto  in  the 
interest  of  Pompey,  despatched  to  Pharnaces  a 
messenger,  requiring  him  instantly  to  withdraw 
his  troops  from  Armenia  and  Cappadocia  5  and, 
in  order  to  give  the  more  weight  to  this  message, 
he  himself  at  the  same  time  took  the  field  with 
one  Roman  legion,  together  with  two  legions  that 
had  been  formed  by  Dejotarus  in  the  Roman 
manner,  and  two  hundred  Asiatic  horse.  He  at 
the  same  time  ordered  Publius  Sextius  and  C. 
Piaetorius  to  bring  up  a  legion  which  had  been 
lately  raised  in  Pontus,  and  Gl.  Patisius  to  join 
him  with  some  light  troops  from  Cilicia. 

These  forces  being  assemhled  at  Camana  in 
Cappadocia,  the  messenger,  who  had  been  sent  to 
Pharnaces,  returned  with  an  answer,  that  the 
king  was  willing  to  evacuate  Cappadocia ;  but 
that,,  having  a  just  claim  to  Armenia,  in  right  of 
his  father,  he  would  keep  possession  of  that  pro- 
vince until  the  arrival  of  Caesar,  to  whose  de- 
cision he  was  willing  to  submit  his  pretensions. 
Domitius,  not  being  satisfied  with  this  answer, 
ut  his  army  in  motion  towards  Armenia.  While 
e  advanced,  Pharnaces  endeavoured  to  amuse 
him  with  negotiations,  and  to  put  him'  off"  his 
guardy  by  permitting  the  country  to  receive  him 
with  all  the  appearances  of  peace  and  security. 
Being  arrived  at  Nicopolis,  the  capital  of  Arme- 
nia, he  there  received  orders  from  Caesar  to  march 
into  Egypt ;.  but  being  unwilling  to  quit  his  sup- 
posed prey,  risked  a  battle  with  the  forces  of  Phar- 
naces, was  defeated,  and  obliged  to  fly  with  the 
remains  of  his  army,  by  the  route  of  the  moun- 
tains which  separated  Armenia  from  the  Roman 
province. 

Elated  with  this  victory,  Pharnaces,  at  the  time 
of  Caesar's  departure  from  Egypt,  had  returned 
into  Pontus,  had  taken  possession  of  the  principal 
towns,  and  with  great  severity  exercised  the  so- 
vereignty of  the  kingdom.  About  the  middle  of 
July,  Caesar,  having  despatched  Trebonius  from 
Antioch  with  an  account  of  his  own  operations, 
and  with  instructions  to  those  who  commanded  in 
Italy,2  went  himself  by  sea  to  Tarsus,  where  he 
received',  as  has  been  mentioned,  the  submission 
of  Caius  Cassius,  who  waited  for  his  coming ; 
and  who,  according  to  the  account  of  Cicero,  till 
then  was  undetermined,  whether  he  should  make 
his  peace  with  the  victor,  or  attempt  to  assas- 
sinate him. 

At  Tarsus,  Caesar  held  a  convention  of  the 


1  Hirt.  de  Bello  Alex. 

2  Cicer.  ad  Attic  lib.  xi.  ep.  23. 


principal  inhabitants  of  Cilicia,  and  from  thence  [ 
marched  into  Cappadocia,  stopped  at  Comana  to  | 
make  the  necessary  arrangements  in  that  pro- 
vince, and  continued  his  route  to  the  frontiers  of 
Galatia  and  Pontus.  Hither  Dejotarus,  who  had 
espoused  the  cause  of  Pompev,  who  had  fought 
under  his  banners  in  Pharsalia,  and  who,  by 
the  gift  of  that  unfortunate  officer,  still  re- 
tained the  sovereignty  of  Galatia,  came  to  make 
his  submission.  He  laid  down  his  diadem,  and 
the  ensigns  of  royalty ;  and,  presenting  himself 
in  the  habit  of  a  suppliant,  pleaded,  that,  in  the 
late  war,  the  eastern  part  of  the  empire,  being 
subject  to  Pompey,  the  princes  of  that  quarter 
had  not  been  free  to  choose  their  party  ;  that  he 
was  himself  not  qualified  to  decide  in  a  question 
on  which  the  Roman  people  was  divided  ;  that  he 
thought  it  his  duty  to  follow  the  Roman  standard 
wherever  it  was  erected,  without  considering  by 
whom  it  was  carried.  Csesar,  rejecting  the  plea 
of  ignorance  or  incapacity,  insisted,  that  any 
prince  in  alliance  with  the  Romans  could  not  be 
ignorant  who  were  consuls  in  the  year  that  suc- 
ceeded the  consulate  of  Lentulus  and  Marcellus, 
and  who  wei-e  actually  in  the  administration  of 
the  state  at  Rome ;  that  they  could  not  be  ignorant 
who  was  at  the  head  of  the  republic,  and  in  pos- 
session of  the  capital,  and  of  the  seat  of  empire ; 
and  who  of  consequence  was  vested  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  commonwealth.  But  that  he  him- 
self, in  the  capacity  of  a  private  man,  was  willing, 
in  consideration  of  this  prince's  age,  his  charac- 
ter, and  the  intercession  of  his  friends,  to  forgive 
the  part  which  he  had  taken  against  him.  He 
desired  him,  therefore,  to  resume  the  crown  and 
other  ensigns  of  royalty,  and  to  keep  possession  of 
his  kingdom,  reserving  the  discussion  of  the  title, 
by  which  he  held  any  particular  territory,  to  a 
future  day. 

Being  joined  by  a  legion  which  Dejotarus  had 
lately  formed  in  the  Roman  manner,  Caesar's 
force  now  consisted  of  this,  together  with  the  re- 
mains of  the  two  legions  that  escaped  with  Do- 
mitius from  Nicopolis,  and  of  the  sixth,  which 
had  accompanied  himself  from  Egypt,  now  re- 
duced by  the  sword,  and  by  the  fatigues  of  ser- 
vice, to  no  more  than  a  thousand  men.  With 
this  army  he  advanced  towards  Pontus.  Upon 
his  approach,  Pharnaces  sent  forward  a  messen- 
ger to  present  him,  in  honour  of  his  late  victories, 
with  a  crown  of  gold^  and  made  offers  of  sub- 
mission, expecting  to  appease  him,  or  to  fill  up 
the  time  until  Csesar  should  be  obliged,  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  his  affairs,  to  give  his  presence  else- 
where. "Come  not  against  me,"  he  said,  "as  an 
enemy :  I  never  took  part  with  Pompey,  nor  de- 
clared war  against  Csesar.  Let  me  not  be  treated 
with  more  severity  than  Dejotarus,  who  did 
both."  Csesar  replied,  that  he  would  listen  to 
Pharnaces  when  he  had  acted  up  to  his  profes- 
sions ;  that  he  had  forgiven  Dejotarus,  and  many 
others,  with  pleasure,  the  injury  done  to  himself; 
but  that  he  could  not  so  easily  overlook  insults 
which  were  offered  to  the  Roman  state ;  and  that 
he  did  not  pardon  wrongs  done  in  the  provinces 
of  the  Roman  empire,  even  by  those  of  his  own 
party.  "  Your  not  having  joined  with  Pompey," 
he  said,  "  has  saved  you  from  being  a  partner  in 
his  defeat,  but  was  not  the  cause  of  my  victory." 
With  this  reply  to  the  messages  of  Pharnaces, 
Caesar  demanded  the  instant  surrender  of  the 
kingdom  of  Pontus,  and  full  reparation  of  all  the 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


897 


damages  sustained  by  any  K.oman  citizen  settled 
in  that  province.  Pharnaces  professed  an  inten- 
tion to  comply  with  these  demands;  but  under 
various  pretences  delayed  the  performance  of  his 
promise.  He  had  fixed  on  a  hill  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Ziecla,  a  place  that  became  famous 
by  the  victory  which  his  father  Mithridates  had 
there  obtained  over  a  Roman  army,  under  the 
command  of  Triarius:  and  in  order  to  secure 
himself,  repaired  his  father's  lines,  and  seemed  to 
be  determined  to  maintain  this  post. 

Caesar,  having  lain  for  some  days  within  five 
miles  of  the  enemy,  advanced  to  an  eminence 
separated  from  the  camp  of  Pharnaces  only  by 
a  narrow  valley  sunk  between  steep  banks.  He 
came  upon  this  ground  in  the  night,  and  began 
to  intrench  himself  as  usual,  having  a  pajrty  un- 
der arms  to  cover  the  workmen.  As  at  break  of 
day  the  greater  part  of  his  army  appeared  to  be 
at  work,  this  seemed  to  be  a  favourable  opportu- 
nity to  attack  them ;  and  Pharnaces  began  to  form 
for  this  purpose.  Caesar,  imagining  that  he  only 
meant  to  give  an  alarm,  and  to  interrupt  his  work- 
men; even  after  he  was  in  motion,  did  not  order 
the  legions  to  desist  from  their  work,  nor  to  arm  : 
but  seeing  him  descend  into  the  valley,  and  at- 
tempt to  pass  it  in  the  face  of  his  advanced  guard, 
he  sounded  to  arms,  and  was  scarcely  formed 
when  the  ene  n/  had  passed  both  banks  of  the 
vale  to  attack  him. 

The  troo,)s  of  Pharnaces  began  the  action  with 
an  ardour  that  was  suited  to  the  boldness  with 
which  they  had  advanced;  and  Caesar's  contempt 
ef  their  designs  had  nearlv  exposed  him  to  a  de- 
feat. But  the  action,  which  was  doubtful  every 
where  e!se,  was  decided  by  the  veterans  of  the 
«ixth  legion,  before  whom  the  enemy  began  to 
give  wiy,  hurried  with  precipitation  down  the 
declivity,  and  fell  into  a  general  rout.  Phar- 
naces fled  with  a  few  attendants,  and  narrowly 
escaped  being  taken.3  This  victory  gave  Caesar 
an  opportunity  to  compare  his  own  glories  with 
those  of  Sylla,  of  Lucullus,  and  of  Pompey  ;  and 
was  on  this  account,  probably,  regarded  by  him 
with  singular  pleasure.  "  How  cheap  is  fame," 
he  said,  "  when  obtained  by  fighting  against  such 
an  enemv?"4  And  in  the  triumphs  which  he 
afterwards  led  in  the  sequel  of  these  wars,  the 
trophies  of  this  particular  victory  were  distin- 
guished by  labels,  containing  these  words,  "I 
came,  I  saw,  I  vanquished."5 

From  the  peculiar  ostentation  of  the  ease  with 
which  this  victory  was  obtained,  appearing  to 
Caesar  as  a  measure  of  his  own  superiority  to 
Sylla  and  Pompey,  we  may  suspect  that  vanity, 
not  less  than  ambition,  was  the  spring  of  that 
emulation  from  which  he  had  raised  such  a  flame 
in  the  empire.6  Having,  by  this  defeat,  extin- 
guished all  the  hopes  and  pretensions  of  Phar- 
naces, he  restored  Domitius  Calvisius  to  his  com- 
mand in  that  quarter,  and  to  a  general  inspection 
of  affairs  in  Asia.  This  province,  which  had 
furnished  a  principal  supply  to  the  public  reve- 
nue of  the  state,  as  well  as  to  the  private  fortune 
of  Roman  adventurers,  was  now  made  to  pay 
large  contributions  in  name  of  arrears  of  what 


3  Ilirtius  de  Bello  Alex.  Velleius.  Florus.  Lir. 
Epitome,  &.c. 

4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib  ii  p.  185. 

5  The  famous  words,  Pent,  vidi,  vici. 

6  S  leton.  in  Vit.  QesariB,  c.  47. 

2  P 


had  been  promised  to  Pompey,  or  of  forfeiture 
for  offences  committed  against  the  victorious 
party. 

Caesar,  having  issued  his  orders  for  the  contri- 
butions to  be  levied  in  Asia,  set  out  by  Galatia 
and  Bithynia  towards  Greece,  in  his  way  to 
Italy ;  he  landed  at  Tarentum,  having  been  near 
two  years  absent  from  Rome.  Many  citizens  had 
waited  near  twelve  months  at  Brundusium,  in 
anxious  expectation  of  his  coming,  and  under 
great  uncertainty  of  the  reception  they  were  to 
meet  with.  Cicero,  being  of  this  number,  set 
out  for  Tarentum  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  Caesar's 
arrival,  and  met  him  on  the  road.  When  he 
presented  himself,  Caesar  alighted  from  his  car- 
riage, received  him  with  marks  of  respect,  and 
continued  to  walk  and  to  discourse  with  him 
aside  for  some  time.  There  is  no  particular  ac- 
count of  what  passed  between  them  in  this  con- 
versation. On  the  part  of  Cicero,  probably,  were 
stated  the  reasons  which  he  assigns,  in  a  letter 
to  Atticus,  for  his  conduct  before  the  battle  of 
Pharsalia,  hearing,  that  he  had  been  averse  to  the 
war,  that  he  thought  the  republic,  had  nothing  to 
gain  by  the  victory  of  either  partv,  and  that  he 
joined  Pompey,  more  influenced  by  the  opinion 
of  others,  than  decided  in  his  own.7  Under  these 
impressions,  though  courted  bv  Caesar,  who 
wished  to  have  the  credit  of  his  name  in  support 
of  the  measures  now  to  be  taken  at  Rome,  he 
chose  to  withdraw  to  a  life  of  retirement,  and  de- 
voted his  time  to  literary  amusements  and  studies. 
At  this  time  he  prolubly  composed  most  of  his 
writings  on  the  subject  of  eloquence,  as  he  did 
seme  time  afterwards  those  which  are  termed  his 
philosophical  works.8 

Caesar  arrived  at  Rome  in  the 
U.  C.  70G.  end  of  the  vear  seven  hundred  and 
C  Jul  Crsar  six  ot  t!ie  k°l,um  ora'  in  which  he 
M.  JE initios  '  ^H?L'n  >»amed  a  second  time  dic- 
Lepidus.  tator.  This  year,  as  has  been  re- 
lated, he  had  passed  chiefly  in 
Egypt.  Being  elected,  together  with  M.  2Em> 
lius,  consul  for  the  following  year,  he  applied 
himself,  for  a  little  time,  in  the  capacity  of  civil 
magistrate,  to  the  affairs  of  state;  endeavoured  to 
restore  the  tranquillity  of  tlie  city,  which  had 
been  disturbed  in  his  absence,  and  to  wipe  away 
the  reproach  which  the  levities  of  Antony  had 
brought  on  his  party.  He  stifled  the  unreason- 
able hopes  of  a  general  abolition  of  debts,  with 
which  Dolabella  had  flattered  the  more  profligate 
part  of  the  community.  He  told  the  people,  on 
this  occasion,  that  he  himself  was  a  debtor;  that 
he  had  expended  his  fortune  in  the  public  service, 
and  was  still  obliged  to  borrow  money  for  the 
same  purpose.  With  respect  to  the  general  policy 
of  the  city,  and  the  ease  of  insolvent  debtors,  he 
revived  the  laws  which  he  himself  had  procured, 
about  two  years  before,  in  his  way  from  Spain  to 
Epirus.  But  while  he  appeared  to  be  intent  on 
these  particulars,  his  thoughts  were  chiefly  oc- 
cupied in  preparing  to  meet  the  war  which  the 
remains  of  the  ancient  senate  and  of  the  republi- 
can party  were  resuming  against  him  in  Africa, 

This  province,  in  which  Varus,  supported  by 
the  king  of  Numidia,  had  been  hitherto  able  to 
keep  his  station  as  an  officer  of  the  common- 
wealth, was  now  become  the  sole  or  the  principal 


7  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  xi.ep.  11. 

8  Ibid.  lib.  xv.  ep.  13. 


•298 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


refuge  of  the  republican  party.  Three  hundred 
citizens,  many  of  them  senators,  and  exiles  from 
Italy,  as  well  as  settlers  in  that  province,  had  as- 
sembled at  Utica,  and  considering  every  other 
part  of  the  empire  as  under  the  influence  of  a 
violent  usurpation,  stated  themselves  as  the  only 
free  remains  of  the  Roman  republic  \  held  their 
meetings  in  the  capacity  of  senate  and  people; 
authorized,  under  these  titles,,  the  levies  that  were 
made  in  the  province,  and  contributed  largely  to 
supply  the  expense  of  the  war.  Many  officers 
of  name  and  of  rank,  Labienusj  Afranius,  Pe- 
treius,  as  well"  as  Scipio  and  Cato,  with  all  the 
remains  they  had  saved  from  the  wreck  at  Phar- 
aalia,  were  now  ready  to  renew  the  war  on  this 
ground.  The  name  of  Scipio  was  reckoned 
ominous  of  success  in  Africa,  and  that  of  Cato, 
even  if  the  origin  or  occasion  of  the  present  con- 
test were  unknown,  was  held  a  sufficient  mark 
to  distinguish  the  side  of  justice,  and  the  cause 
of  the  republic. 

These  leaders  of  the  republican  party  having  a 
considerable  force  at  sea,  and  having  access  to 
all  the  ports,  not  only  of  Africa,  but  likewise  of 
Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Spain,  had  furnished  them- 
selves plentifully  with  all  the  necessaries  for  war.1 
They  had  mustered  ten  legions,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  establishment  of  that  time,  may  have 
amounted  to  fifty  thousand  Roman  foot.  They 
had  twenty  thousand  African  horse,  a  great  body 
of  archers  and  slingers,  with  a  hundred  and 
twenty  elephants.  They  expected  to  be  joined 
by  the  king  of  Numidia,  who,  to  the  established 
character  of  his  countrymen  for  stratagem  and 
valour,  joined:  the  glory  of  his  late  victory  over 
Curio;  and  was  supposed  to  muster,  at  this 
time,  besides  numerous  bodies  of  horse,  of  arch- 
ers, of  slingers,  and  a  great  troop  of  elephants, 
thirty  thousand  foot,  armed  and  marshalled,  for 
the- most  partj.  in  the  manner  of  the  Roman  le- 
gion.2 

The  army  already  in  Africa,  as  well  as  the  re- 
mains of  the  sea  and  land  forces  of  Pompey, 
who,  were  lately  arrived  from  Macedonia,  were 
willing,  as  has  been  mentioned,  to  have  placed 
Cato  at  their  head.  But  the  established  order 
of  the  commonwealth,  for  which  all  the  party 
contended,  requiring  that  Scipio,  who  was  of 
consular  rank,  should  have  the  preference,  Cato, 
who  had  no  more  than  the  rank  of  praetor,  and 
who  could  not  be  accessary  to  the  infringement 
of  any  established  or  constitutional  form,  declined 
the  commands  By  this  circumstance  we  are  de- 
prived of  an  opportunity  to  judge  how  far  the 
military  abilities  of  this  great  man  kept  pace  with 
his  integrity,  judgment,  and  courage,  in  civil  and 
political  affairs. 

Scipio-  being  the  officer  of  highest  rank  in  the 
republican  party,  and  having  the  supreme  com- 
mand of  their  forces,  notwithstanding  that  the 
coasts  of  Italy  were  exposed  to  his  attempts,  and 
notwithstanding  that  the  condition  of  Caesar 
himself,  if  his  situation  at  Alexandria  had  been 
known,  gave  sufficient  opportunities  for  enter- 
prise, took  all  his  measures  for  a  defensive  war. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  Africa  when 
Caesar,  who,  with  all  his  military  character  and 
authority,  frequently  experienced  the  difficulty 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Ixii.  c.  5. 

2  Appian.  de  Bello  Civile,  lib.  ii.  Hirt.  <le  Bcllo 
African. 


of  commanding  mere  soldiers  of  fortune,  taught 
i  to  divest  themselves  of  civil  principle,  or  regard 
to  public  duty,  was  likely  to  perish  in  a  mutiny 
of  his  own  army,  and  to  end  his  career  by  the 
swords  which  he  himself  had  whetted  against 
the  republic. 

The  legions,  which  after  the  defeat  of  Pompey 
had  been  ordered  into  Italy,  becoming  insolent  in 
the  possession  of  a  military  power  which  they 
saw  was  to  be  formed  on  the  ruins  ©f  the  com- 
monwealth, and  feeling  their  own  importance, 
especially  in  the  absence  of  their  leader,  would 
not  be  commanded  by  subordinate  officers ;  nor 
did  they,  on  the  return  of  Caesar  himself,  discon- 
tinue habits  of  disorder  and  license  which  they 
had  some  time  indulged.    Being  stationed  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Capua,  from  whence  it  was 
expected  they  should  embark  for  Africa,  they 
decamped  without  orders,  and  marched  towards 
Rome ;  paid  no  regard  to  the  authority  of  Sallust, 
who,  in  the  capacity  of  prretor,  with  which  he 
had  been  vested  by  Caesar,  endeavoured  to  stop 
them,  killed  many  officers  and  persons  of  rank 
who  ventured  to  oppose  them,  and  threw  the  city 
into  great  consternation.    On  the  approach  of 
this  formidable  body,  Caesar  himself  is  said  to 
have  wavered  in  his  resolution.    He  had  some 
troops  attending  his  person,  and  there  was  a  le- 
gion which  Antony  had  stationed  in  the  city  on 
occasion  of  the  late  commotions.    With  these  he 
at  first  proposed  to  meet  and  resist  the  mutiny  ; 
but  he  recollected,  that  even  these  troops  might 
be  infected  with  the  same  spirit  of  disobedience, 
and  that  if  he  were  not  able  to  command  by  his 
authority,  and  were  forced  to  draw  the  sword 
against  his  own  army,  the  whole  foundations  of 
the  power  he  had  erected  must  fail.    While  he 
was  agitated  by  these  reflections,  he  sent  an  of- 
ficer with  orders  to  inquire  for  what  purpose  the 
mutinous  legions  advanced  1    This  officer  was 
told,  "  That  they  would  explain  themselves  to 
Caesar."    Having  this  answer,  and  expecting 
their  arrival  at  the  gates,  he  chose  that  they 
should  appear  to  do  by  his  permission,  what  they 
were  likely  to  do  without  it ;  he  therefore  sent 
them  another  message,  informing  them  that  they 
had  his  leave  to  enter  the  city  with  their  arms. 
They  accordingly  came  in  a  body,  and  took  pos- 
session of  the  field  of  Mars.    There,  contrary 
to  the  advice  of  his  friends,  they  were  received  by 
Caesar  himself  in  person.  Being  raised  on  a  con- 
spicuous place,  they  crowded  around  him  ^  and„ 
from  many  different  quarters  at  once,  complained 
of  the  scanty  rewards  which  they  had  received,3 
enumerated  their  services  and  the  hardships  they 
had  suffered,  and  with  one  voice  demanded  their 
instant  discharge.    Caesar  knowing  that  they 
only  meant  to  extort  some  concessions^  which 
they  hoped  the  consideration  of  the  war,  which 
was  still  impending  in  Africa,  would  oblige  him 
to  make ;  that  they  were  far  from  wishing  to  be 
dismissed,  or  to  resign  those  arms  to  which  they 
owed  their  own  consequence,  and  on  which  they 
grounded  their  present  presumption,  affected  to 
comply  with  their  request,  owned  that  their  de- 
mand was  highly  reasonable;  adding,  that  the 
service  for  which  they  had  been  hitherto  retained 
was  now  at  an  end,  and  that  he  was  sensible 
they  were  worn  out,  and  unfit  to  contend  with, 
new  fatigues. 


3  Dio,  Casr  c  51—55. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


299 


Csesar,  in  concluding  a  speech  which  he  made 
to  this  purpose,  employed  the  appellation  of 
Quirites,  or  fellow  citizens;  and  observed  how 
proper  it  was,  that  all  who  had  served  out  the  le- 
gal time  should  receive  the  accustomed  dismission. 
In  speaking  these  words,  he  was  interrupted  by  a 
general  cry,  that  they  were  no  Gluirites,  but  sol- 
diers, willing  to  serve.  It  is  alleged,  that  the 
name  of  Roman  citizens,4  though  the  most  re- 
spectable form  of  address  in  the  political  assem- 
blies of  the  people,  carried  contempt  to  these 
military  adventurers,  and  insinuated  a  state  of  de- 
gradation from  that  in  which  they  affected  to 
stand.  An  officer  who  was  prepared  for  the  oc- 
casion, or  who  wished  to  improve  this  sentiment 
in  favour  of  Caesar,  desired  to  be  heard  ;  made 
an  apology  for  what  was  past,  and  offered  to 
pledge  himself  for  the  duty  and  future  obedience 
of  the  troops.  He  was  answered  by  Caesar, 
That  the  services  of  this  army  were  now  of  little 
moment  to  him;  that  as  they  desired  their  dis- 
mission, while  by  their  own  confession  they  were 
yet  in  condition  to  serve,  he  had  taken  his  resolu- 
tion, and  should  instantly  dismiss  them  with  the 
usual  rewards.  "  No  man,"  he  said,  "  shall  com- 
plain that  in  time  of  need  I  employed  him,  and 
now  at  my  ease  forget  the  reward  that  is  due  to 
him.  Such  as  continue  in  the  service  until  the 
public  tranquillity  is  fully  restored  shall  have  set- 
tlements in  land  ;  such  as  have  received  promises 
of  money  at  any  time  during  the  war,  shall  be 
paid  now,  or  in  a  little  time  hereafter  with  in- 
terest" He  concluded,,  however,  with  saying, 
"  That  as  he  asked  no  man  to  remain  in  the  ser- 
vice, so  he  should  not  reject  the  duty  of  those  who 
were  willing  to  abide  by  their  colours  ;  that  he 
©wed  this  indulgence  to  their  present  requests, 
and  to  their  merit  on  former  occasions."  The 
whole  with  one  voice  desired  to  be  comprehended 
in  this  act  of  indulgence,  and  went  headlong  into 
all  the  extremec  of  submission,  as  they  had  lately 
gone  into  every  excess  of  disorder  and  insolence. 
Csesar  was  thus  again  in  full  possession  of  his 
power;  but  he  did  not  venture  to  punish  the  au- 
thors of  the  mutiny.  It  was  safer  to  reward  such 
as  were  conspicuous  in  any  particular  merit ;  he 
therefore  selected  a  few  to  be  distinguished  by 
immediate  effects  of  his  bounty,  and  put  the  re- 
mainder in  motion  towards  Afriea,  where  they 
might  have  an  opportunity  ef  earning  future  re- 
wards and  the  pardon  of  past  offences ;  and  where 
they  might  spend  against  enemies  that  fury  which, 
at  every  interval  of  leisure  to  reeollect  their  pre- 
tensions and  their  consequence,  they  were  so 
likely  to  turn  against  their  leader.4 

The  year  was  now,  according  to  the  vulgar 
computation  at  Rome,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
usual  intercalations  being  neglected,  nominally 
advanced  to  the  middle  ot  December,  but  was  in 
reality  little  past  the  autumnal  equinox,6  or  was 
in  the  end  of  September,  when  Caesar,  having 
made  the  proper  arrangements  in  the  city,  and  in 
the  manner  related,  appeased  the  mutiny  which 
threatened  to  deprive  him  of  his  army,  was  again 
in  motion  to  carry  the  war  into  Africa.  The 
season  which  was  thought  unfit  for  operations  at 
sea,  and  which  had  actually  forced  his  antagonist's 
ships  into  port,  gave  him  the  opportunity  he  wished 


4  Quirites,  Roman  citizens. 

5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlii.  c  51—55. 
0  Pint,  in  Vita  Cfesaria,  p.  154. 


for  to  effect  his  passage  into  that  province.  He 
knew  that  the  enemy's  fleet  could  not  continue 
to  cruize  for  any  time  to  observe  his  motions ;  and 
that  he  might  escape  them  with  the  advantage  of 
a  favourable  wind,  he  had  chosen  the  same  oppor- 
tunity, and  in  the  same  season,  two  years  before, 
to  transport  his  army  into  Macedonia  against 
Pompey,  who  trusting  to  the  numbers  and  vigi- 
lance of  his  fleet,  suffered  himself  to  be  surprised, 
and  to  be  dispossessed  of  a  country  which  he  oc- 
cupied with  so  superior  a  force.  Caesar  having 
gained  so  much  on  that  occasion,  by  the  rapidity 
of  his  motions,  now  made  war  with  many  accu- 
mulated advantages  of  reputation  and  power, 
which  increased  his  boldness,  and  facilitated  his 
success. 

Having  ordered  troops  and  shipping  from  dif- 
ferent quarters  of  Italy  to  assemble  at  Lillybaeum, 
from  whence  he  had  the  shortest  passage  to 
Africa,  he  himself  arrived  there  on  what  was  no- 
minally the  seventeenth  of  December,  but  in 
reality  no  more  than  the  thirtieth  of  September ; 
and  although  he  found  no  more  of  his  army  ar- 
rived than  one  legion,  or  five  thousand  men,  of 
the  new  levies,  and  six  hundred  horse,  he  ordered 
these,  notwithstanding,  to  embark  on  board  such 
ships  as  were  then  in  the  harbour;  and  if  th" 
wind  had  served,  would  have  instantly  sailed, 
even  with  this  small  force,  trusting  that  he  might 
be  able  to  surprise  some  port  on  the  opposite 
shore,  and  prepare  a  safe  landing-place  for  the 
troops  that  were  to  follow.  But  while  he  con- 
tinued wind-bound  at  Lillybaeum,  he  was  joined 
successively  by  a  number  of  legions,  which  he 
ordered  to  embark  as  fast  as  they  arrived  ;  and, 
that  they  might  be  ready  to  put  to  sea  with  the 
first  fair  wind  that  served,  sent  the  transports  to 
lie  under  an  island  near  the  mouth  of  the  harbour. 

Being  in  this  state  of  readiness  with  six  le- 
gions, or  about  thirty  thousand  foot,  together 
with  two  thousand  horse  ;  and  the  wind  coming 
fair  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  December,  or,  as  it 
is  computed,  on  the  twelfth  of  October,  he  him- 
self went  on  board,  and  leaving  orders  for  the 
troops  that  were  still  in  motion  towards  Lilly- 
baeum to  follow  him  without  delay,  he  set  sail  for 
the  nearest  land  in  Africa.  Not  knowing  of  any 
port  to  which  he  might  securely  repair,  he  could 
not,  as  usual,  assign  a  place  of  general  resort  in 
case  of  separation,  and  only  gave  orders  to  the 
fleet  to  keep  close  together;  and  deferred  the 
choice  of  a  landing-place  till  after  he  should  have 
observed  the  coast,  and  seen  in  what  part  of  it  the 
enemy  were  least  guarded  against  a  descent 
Soon  after  he  got  to  sea  a  storm  arose,  which 
dispersed  the  fleet ;  he  himself,  with  the  6hips 
that  still  kept  him  company,  after  being  tossed 
four  days  in  a  passage  of  no  more  than  twenty 
leagues,  got  under  the  land  of  the  promontory  of 
Mercury,  and  from  thence,  to  avoid  the  forces  of 
the  enemy,  which  were  stationed  near  Utica  and 
round  the  bay  of  Carthage,  steered  to  the  south- 
ward. 

The  coast  of  Africa,  from  this  cape  or  promon- 
tory to  the  bottom  of  the  great  Syrtes,  over  three 
degrees  of  latitude,  or  about  two  hundred  miles, 
extends  directly  to  the  south.  It  abounds  with 
considerable  towns,  which,  on  account  of  their 
commerce,  were  anciently  called  the  Emporiae; 
and  by  their  wealth,  tempting  the  rapacity  both 
of  the  Numidians  and  of  the  Carthaginians, 
were  long  a  subject  of  contention  between  thew 


300  ;the  progress  and  termination 


powers.  Adrumetum  lay  on  one  side  of  a  spa- 
cious bay,  bounded  by  the  head  of  Clupea  on  the 
north,  and  that  of  Vada  on  the  south.  The 
southern  coast  of  this  bay  contained,  besides 
Adrumetum,  the  following  seaports:  Ruspina, 
Leptis,  and  Thapsus ;  the  bay  itself  extending 
from  the  first  of  these  places  to  the  last  about 
thirty-six  miles.  Scipio  had  secured  Adrumetum 
and  Thapsus,  being  the  extremity  of  this  line, 
with  considerable  forces.  In  order  to  render  the 
province  unfit  for  the  reception  of  an  enemv,  he 
had  laid  waste  the  country,  and  had  collected  all 
the  provisions  and  forage  into  these  and  other 
places  of  strength  for  the  use  of  his  own  army. 

Considius  being  stationed  at  Adrumetum  with 
two  legions,  and  Virgilius  with  a  proper  force  at 
Thapsus,  the  ports  of  Ruspina  and  Leptis,  as 
well  as  many  of  the  inland  towns,  were  entrusted 
to  the  keeping  of  their  own  inhabitants:  Rut 
these,  on  account  of  the  general  devastations 
lately  committed  by  order  of  Scipio,  were  ex- 
tremely disaffected  to  his  party,  and  inclined  to 
favour  any  enemy  against  him. 

Cato  was  stationed  at  Utica  as  the  last  retreat 
of  the  Roman  senate,  the  centre  of  all  their  re- 
sources, and  the  seat  of  their  councils. 

Scipio  had  collected  the  main  body  of  his  army 
near  to  the  same  place,  supposed  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal object  of  any  attempt  that  might  be  made 
from  Italy. 

Labienus  and  Petreius  had  separate  bodies,  at 
proper  stations*  to  guard  the  inlets  of  the  coast 
round  the  bay  of  Carthage  ;  and  were  so  disposed 
of,  that  they  could  easily  join  and  cross  over  land 
to  the  bay  of  Adrumetum  upon  any  alarm  of  an 
enemy,  from  that  side. 

Varus  had  the  direction  of  the  fleet.  He  had 
kept  the  sea  during  summer  and  on  the  approach 
of  autumn,  hut  had  then  withdrawn  to  Utica, 
and  laid  up  his  ships  for  the  stormv  season. 

Caesar,  however,  according  to  his  custom  of 
taking  opportunities  when  his  enemies  were  likely 
to  be  off  their  guard,  venturing  to  sea*  even  in 
this  season,  seems  to  have  had  no  information  to 
direct  him  on  his  approach  to  the  coast,  besides 
the  general  report  that  the  enemv  were  strongest 
and  most  to  l>e  avoided  in  the  bay  of  Carthage. 
In  this  belief  he  passed  the  headlands  of  Clupea 
and  Neapolis,  and  stood  in  to  the  bay  of  Adru- 
metum. Being  seen  from  the  shore,  he  was  fol- 
lowed by  Cn.  Piso  from  Clupea,  with  three  thou- 
sand Numidian  horse,  and  was  received  at  Adru- 
metum by  Considius,  with  a  force  greatly  superior 
to  that  which  he  himself  had  brought  to  the  coast. 
But  so  little  had  he  attended  to  the  strength  of 
the  enemy,  or  so  much  was  he  determined  to 
brave  it,  that  he  landed  near  Adru- 

N.  C.  6.  metum  on  the  nominal  first  of  Janu- 
Jul  Ccesar  arv'  or  aDout  the  middle  of  October, 
Diclat.  [Uio  with  three  thousand  foot  and  a  hun- 
M  JEmil.  dred  and  fifty  horse.  This  hazard- 
Lepidas,  M.  ous  step  his  high  reputation  seemed 
to  require  or  to  justify.  The  enemy 
might  not  be  apprised  of  his  present 
weakness,  it  being  occasioned  by  the  accidental 
separation  of  his  fleet.  They  were  likely  to  be 
awed  by  his  name,  and  to  remain  at  a  distance 
long  enough  to  let  him  be  joined  by  the  remainder 
pf  his  army.  In  the  mean  time  he  supported  the 
courage  of  his  own  people,  by  proceeding  against 
the  enemy  with  his  usual  confidence. 

The  garrison  of  Adrumetum,  upon  this  sud- 


[Book  IV. 

den  appearance  of  a  force  which  came  to  attack 
them,  were  thrown  into  some  confusion,  and 
Considius,  instead  of  taking  measures  to  crush 
so  inferior  an  enemy  before  he  should  receive  any 
reinforcement,  thought  of  nothing  but  how  to 
secure  himself  from  surprise;  shut  his  gates, 
manned  his  walls,  and  placed  all  the  troops  under 
his  command  at  their  posts  of  alarm.  Csesar,  to 
confirm  him  in  this  disposition,  sent  him  a  sum- 
mons to  surrender  at  discretion  ;  and  afterwards, 
at  the  suggestion  of  Plancus,  who  had  been  in 
habits  of  intimacy  with  Considius,  endeavoured 
to  corrupt  or  to  gain  him  by  an  insinuating  mes- 
sage; but  this  officer,  being  more  a  man  of  in* 
tegrity  than  he  had  shown  himself  to  be  an  able 
general,  ordered  the  bearer  of  the  message  to  be 
put  to  death,  and  sent  the  letter  unopened  to 
Scipio. 

Cajsar  having  received  no  return  to  his  mes- 
sage, and  suspecting  that  his  attempt  to  corrupt 
the  commander  of  the  forces  at  Adrumetum 
might  betray  his  weakness,  after  only  one  night's 
stay  in  this  dangerous  situation,  determined,  on 
the  day  after  he  landed,  to  remove  to  some  place 
of  greater  security.  With  this  view  he  marched 
to  the  southward,  and  though  harassed  in  his 
rear  by  the  enemy's  horse,  continued  his  march 
without  any  considerable  interruption  or  loss. 
As  he  advanced  to  Ruspina,  a  deputation  frcm 
the  inhabitants  of  that  place  came  forward  to 
meet  him,  with  offers  of  every  accommodation  it 
was  in  their  power  to  supply,  and  of  an  imme- 
diate reception  into  their  town.  He  encamped 
one  night  under  their  walls;  but  being  inclined 
to  see  more  of  the  coast,  and  not  being  in  con- 
dition to  divide  his  little  force,  he  proceeded  with 
the  whole  to  Leptis.  Here  he  was  received  with 
equal  favour;  and  having  entered  the  town,  took 
measures  to  protect  the  inhabitants  from  the  li- 
centiousness of  his  own  people. 

This  was  a  convenient  post  for  the  reception 
of  his  transports  ;  and  a  few  of  them  accordingly, 
having  some  cohorts  of  foot  and  troops  of  horse 
on  board,  it  being  now  the  third  day  after  he  him- 
self had  debarked,  or  about  the  twentieth  of  Oc- 
tober, put  in  to  the  harbour  of  Leptis.  By  the 
report  of  persons  who  came  in  these  ships  he 
learnt,  that  numbers  of  the  fleet,  after  they  had 
parted  company,  appeared  to  be  steering  for 
Utica;  a  course  by  which  they  must  either  run 
into  the  handset*  the  enemy,  or  lose  much  time 
before  they  could  correct  their  mistake,  or  recover 
their  way  to  the  southward. 

In  a  state  of  anxious  suspense,  occasioned  by 
these  circumstances,  Csesar  seems  to  have  deli- 
berated, whether  it  were  not  proper  for  him  again 
to  embark  ;  and  in  consequence  of  his  doubts, 
probably,  though  under  pretence  of  the  want  of 
forage,  he  still  kept  his  cavalry  on  board,  and 
with  great  difficulty  continued  to  supply  them 
with  fresh  water  from  the  land.  But  as  soon  as 
he  determined  to  keep  his  footing  in  Africa,  he 
landed  his  cavalry,  and  took  the  necessary  mea- 
sures to  procure  supplies  of  provisions  by  sea. 
He  sent  back  the  empty  transports  to  receive  any 
troops  that  might  be  arrived  at  Lillybseum,  and 
ordered  ten  galleys  frorn  the  harbour  at  Leptis  to 
cruize  for  the  missing  ships  of  his  last  embarka*- 
tion.  He  despatched  expresses  to  Sardinia  and 
other  maritime  provinces,  with  orders  to  hasten 
the  reinforcements  of  troops  and  the  supplies  of 
provisions  which  were  expected  from  thence  § 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


301 


and  having  intelligence  that  the  enemy  had  some 
magazines  in  the  island  of  Cercina,  near  the 
coast  of  Africa,  he  sent  thither  Crispus  Sallustius, 
the  celebrated  historian,  now  serving  in  his  army, 
to  endeavour  to  secure  those  magazines  for  his 
use. 

Being  determined  to  keep  both  the  ports  of 
Ruspina  and  Leptis,  which  the  enemy  seemed 
to  have  abandoned  to  him,  he  was  now,  by  the 
arrival  of  the  cohorts  which  joined  him  at  Leptis, 
in  condition  to  garrison  the  town  with  three 
thousand  men,  while  he  himself  returned  with 
the  remainder  of  those  who  were  landed,  to  keep 
his  possession,  at  the  same  time,  of  Ruspina. 
This  place  being  unprovided  of  every  necessary 
for  the  support  of  a  garrison,  he  determined  to 
try  what  provisions  could  be  found  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood to  subsist  his  troops  till  they  could  be 
otherwise  supplied,  or  enabled  to  penetrate  far- 
ther into  the  country.  For  this  purpose  he  ad- 
vanced with  the  whole  of  his  little  army  to  forage, 
followed  by  all  the  carriages  that  could  be  assem- 
bled, and  had  them  loaded  with  corn,  wood,  and 
other  necessaries,  to  form  some  species  of  maga- 
zine for  the  troops  he  intended  to  place  in  the 
town.  As  soon  as  he  had  effected  this  service, 
it  appeared  that  he  had  taken  the  resolution  to 
go  in  person  in  search  of  the  transports,  on  board 
of  which  the  greater  part  of  his  army  was  dis 
persed.  And  with  this  view  having  posted  ten 
cohorts  at  Ruspina,  he  himself,  with  the  seven 
others,  that  made  the  whole  of  his  strength  now 
on  shore,  went  down  to  the  harbour,  which  was 
about  two  miles  from  the  town,  and  embarked  in 
the  night. 

The  troops  that  were  to  be  left  at  Ruspina, 
without  the  leader,  in.  whom  their  confidence  was 
chiefly  reposed,  were  aware  of  their  danger ;  so 
few,  surrounded  with  numerous  armies  who 
were  likely  to  assemble  against  t  hem.  They  had 
now  been  three  days  on  shore,  and  the  enemy 
had  full  time  to  be  apprised  of  their  situation  and 
of  their  weakness.  The  presence  of  their  gene- 
ral had  hitherto  supported  their  courage ;  they 
relied  on  his  abilities  to  repair  the  effects  whether 
of  mistake  or  temerity;  but  in  his  absence  th^y 
lost  all  hopes,  and  expected  to  become  an  easy 
prey  to  their  enemies. 

Caesar,  however,  fully  determined  to  put  to 
sea,  having  past  the  night  on  board,  still  continued 
at  anchor;  when  at  break  of  day  being  about  to 
weigh,  some  vessels  came  in  sight,  and  were 
known  to  be  a  part  of  the  fleet  which  he  so  anx- 
iously looked  for.  These  were  soon  followed  by 
other  ships  which  appeared  successively,  and 
brought  him  the  greater  part  of  the  six  legions 
with  which  he  had  originally  sailed  from  Lilly- 
ba?um.  Being  thus  prevented  in  his  intended 
*xcursion,  he  returned  to  Ruspina,  and  took  post 
between  the  town  and  the  shore. 

In  the  mean  time  it  appears,  that  Labienus 
and  Petreius,  commanding  the  horse  and  light 
troops  of  Scipio's  army,  in  the  angle  that  is  formed 
by  the  promontory  of  Clupea,  between  the  bays 
of  Carthage  and  Adrumetum,  having  intelli- 
gence that  Caesar  was  landed,  with  the  utmost 
diligence  assembled  their  forces,  and  marched  to- 
wards the  coast  from  which  they  had  received 
the  alarm. 

Caesar  had  taken  a  defensive  station  behind  the 
town  of  Ruspina,  the  place  which  he  chose  for 
the  resort  and  safe  reception  of  his  convoys  and 


reinforcements  by  sea  ;  but  he  was  far  fromJimit- 
ing  his  plan  of  operations  to  the  defence  of  this 
place.  On  the  fourth  or  fifth  day  after  his  land- 
ing, although  by  his  own  account  he  had  yet  no 
intelligence  of  the  enemy's  motions,  he  thought 
proper  to  continue  the  alarm  he  had  given,  and 
marched  from  Ruspina  with  a  body  of  thirty  co- 
horts, or  about  fifteen  thousand  foot,  and  four 
hundred  horse,  to  penetrate  into  the  country  to 
observe  its  situation,  or  to  extend  the  source  of 
his  supplies.  After  he  had  begun  his  march  for 
this  purpose,  and  was  about  three  miles  from  his 
camp,  the  parties  that  were  advanced  before  him 
fell  back  on  the  main  body,  and  informed  him 
that  they  had  been  in  sight  of  an  enemy.  Soon 
after  this  report  clouds  of  dust  began  to  rise  from 
he  plain,  and  about  noon  an  army  appeared  in 
o,  ler  of  battle.  To  observe  them  more  nearly, 
Csesar,  after  he  had  made  the  signal  for  the  co- 
horts to  form,  and  to  be  covered  with  their  hel- 
mets, went  forward  with  a  small  party  to  view 
the  enemy.  He  saw  bodies  of  cavalry  in  every 
part  of  the  field;  and  from  the  imperfect  view 
which  could  be  had  of  them,  as  the  air  was 
clouded  with  dust,  he  supposed  their  line  to  con- 
sist entirely  of  horse.  He  thought  himself  secure 
against  such  an  enemy,  provided  he  could  suffi- 
ciently extend  his  front  and  cover  his  flanks  ;  and 
for  this  purpose  he  divided  his  small  body  of 
horse  to  the  right  and  the  left ;  and  that  he  might 
not  he  outlined,  diminished  the  depth  to  increase 
the  length  of  his  ordinary  column.  In  making 
this  disposition,  however,  he  had  mistaken  the 
enemy's  force;  it  did  not  consist,  as  he  supposed, 
entirely  of  cavalry,  but  of  troops  of  horse  inter- 
spersed at  intervals  with  bodies  of  foot,  and  he 
had  not  observed  that  considerable  detachments 
were  sent  under  cover  of  the  hills  to  turn  his 
flanks,  and  fall  upon  his  rear. 

Under  these  disadvantages  on  the  part  of  Cae- 
sar, the  action  began  in  front  by  a  scattered 
charge  of  the  Numidian  horse,  who  came  in 
squadrons  from  the  intervals  at  which  they  were 
placed  among  the  infantry,  and  advancing  at 
full  gallop,  threw  their  javelins  and  darts,  and 
presently  retired  to  their  former  situation.  In 
this  retreat,  under  cover  of  the  infantry  whose 
intervals  they  occupied,  they  instantly  rallied, 
and  prepared  to  repeat  the  charge. 

While  Caesar's  infantry  was  occupied  in  front 
with  this  unexpected  mode  of  attack,  his  horse 
were  defeated  on  the  wings;  and  the  enemy,  in 
consequence  of  the  disposition  they  had  made, 
were  already  on  his  right  and  left,  even  began  to 
close  on  his  rear,  and,  by  the  superiority  of  their 
numbers,  were  enabled  to  continue  the  impres- 
sion they  made  on  every  side ;  his  men  giving 
way,  to  shun  the  arrows  and  darts  of  the  enemy, 
were  pressed  from  the  flanks  to  the  centre,  so  that 
they  were  forced  into  a  circle,  without  any  dis- 
tinction of  front  or  rear,  and  were  galled  with  a 
continual  discharge  of  missiles,  which  did  great 
execution.1 

Caesar,  who  so  far  had  suffered  himself  to  be 
surprised  and  overreached,  in  this  difficult  situa- 
tion, took  the  benefit  of  that  confidence  which  his 
known  ability  and  presence  of  mind  ever  pro- 
cured him  from  his  troops.  Recollecting  that 
the  enemy  must  have  weakened  their  line  in 


1  Cresaris  copiis  in  orbem  compulsis,  intra  rancelloa 

onines  conjorti  piignnre  cogobantur. 


302  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  IV. 


every  part,  by  attempting  to  stretch  it  over  so 
great  a  circumference,  he  prevailed  on  his  legions 
again  to  extend  their  ranks,  ordered  the  cohorts 
to  face  alternately  to  the  right  and  the  left,  and 
making  a  front  in  both  directions,  charged  the 
enemy  on  the  opposite  sides,  and  drove  them  in 
both  ways  to  a  distance  from  the  ground.  With- 
out attempting,  however,  to  improve  his  advan- 
tage, or  to  urge  the  pursuit,  he  took  the  opportu- 
nity of  the  enemy's  flight  to  effect  his  own  retreat, 
and  fell  back  to  the  camp  behind  Ruspina,  from 
which  he  had  moved  in  the  morning. 

The  speedy  march  of  Labienus  and  Petreius, 
from  a  distance  which  could  not  be  less  than 
eighty  or  a  hundred  miles,  accomplished  by  the 
fourth  or  fifth  day  after  the  arrival  of  Caesar,  and 
their  disposition  on  the  day  of  battle,  to  avail 
themselves  of  their  numbers  and  manner  of  fight 
ing,  was  able  and  spirited.  But  the  event  is  suf- 
ficient to  show  that  the  use  of  mere  missile 
weapons  in  the  open  plain,  against  troops  who 
are  armed  and  disciplined  for  close  fight,  although 
it  may  harass  and  distress  an  enemy,  cannot 
have  any  decisive  effect. 

In  about  three  days  after  this  encounter,  Caesar 
had  intelligence  that  Scipio  himself  was  advanc- 
ing with  the  whole  force  of  his  infantry,  consist- 
ing of  eight  legions,  or  about  forty  thousand  men, 
and  four  thousand  regular  horse  :  an  army  which 
he  was  not  in  condition  to  oppose  in  the  field, 
and  which  obliged  him,  contrary  to  his  usual 

Eractice,  to  adopt  a  plan  of  defence.  Ruspina 
ty  along  the  coast,  and  at  the  distance  of  two 
miles  from  the  shore.  As  his  army  lay  behind 
the  town;  covering  part  of  the  space  between  it 
and  the  sea  with  the  fortifications  of  his  camp,  he 
threw  up  an  intrenchment  from  his  camp  on  one 
side,  and  from  the  end  of  the  town  on  the  other, 
quite  to  the  shore  :  so  that,  by  means  of  the  town 
in  front,  the  fortifications  of  his  camp  and  thesb 
lines  in  flank,  the  whole  space  between  Ruspina 
and  the  sea  was  covered  with  works.  And  the 
harbour  was  thus  secured  from  any  attempts  of 
the  enemy.  In  order  to  man  and  defend  these 
fortifications,  he  landed  his  engines  from  the  gal- 
leys, and  brought  the  mariners  to  serve  them  on 
shore. 

The  choice  of  this  situation,  cooped  up  in  a 
narrow  place,  exposed  to  be  deprived  of  any  com- 
munication with  the  country,  might,  in  case  the 
«nemy  had  seized  their  advantage,  or  in  case  the 
reinforcements  which  Caesar  had  expected  from 
the  sea,  had  by  any  accident  been  long  delayed, 
have  exposed  him  to  the  greatest  calamities.  He 
himself  would  not  have  neglected  to  hem  in  an 
enemy  so  posted  with  a  line  of  circumvallation  ; 
but  the  undertaking  was  too  vast  for  those  who 
were  opposed  to  him,  and  he  was  suffered  in  safety 
to  wait  the  arrival  of  his  reinforcements,  and  to 
collect  some  immediate  supply  of  provisions  from 
the  neighbouring  country,  as  well  as  to  receive 
convoys  which  he  had  ordered  from  every  mari- 
time province. 

While  Caesar  remained  in  this  post,  Scipio  ar- 
rived at  Adrumetum,  and  having  halted  there  a 
few  days,  joined  Labienus  and  Petreius  in  the 
station  they  had  chosen,  about  three  miles  from 
the  town  of  Ruspina.  Their  cavalry  immediately 
overran  the  country,  and  interrupted  the  supplies 
which  Caesar  derived  from  thence.  The  space 
he  had  inclosed  within  his  entrenchments  being 
about  six  square  miles,  was  soon  exhausted  even 


of  forage  or  pasture,  and  his  horses  reduced  to 
feed  on  sea  weed,  which  was  steeped  in  fresh 
water,  in  order  to  purge  it  as  much  as  possible  of 
its  salt. 

To  encourage  the  hopes  which  Scipio  enter- 
tained from  all  these  circumstances,  the  king  of 
Numidia,  with  a  powerful  army,  was  on  the 
march,  and  likely  to  join  him  before  Caesar  could 
receive  any  considerable  addition  to  his  present 
force ;  but  whatever  might  have  been  the  conse- 
quence of  this  junction,  if  it  had  really  taken 
place,  it  was  delayed  for  some  time  by  one  of 
those  strokes  of  fortune  to  which  human  foresight 
cannot  extend.  Publius  Sitius,  a  Roman  citizen, 
who  had  been  an  accomplice  with  Catiline  in 
his  designs  against  the  republic,  and  who,  on  this 
account,  had  fled  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Roman 
power,  had  assembled  a  band  of  warriors  or  law- 
less banditti,  at  the  head  of  which  he  made  him- 
self of  consequence  on  the  coasts  of  Africa,  and 
was  admitted  successively  to  join  the  forces  of 
different  princes  in  that  quarter.  Being  now  in 
the  service  of  Bogud,  king  of  Mauritania,  and 
being  disposed  to  court  the  favour  of  Caesar,  or 
hoping  to  make  his  peace  at  Rome  by  means  of  a 
person  so  likely  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  Roman 
state,  he  persuaded  the  king  of  Mauritania  to 
take  advantage  of  .Tuba's  absence,  and  with  such 
troops  as  he  had  then  on  foot,  to  invade  the  king- 
dom of  Numidia.  Juba  being  about  to  join 
Scipio  near  Ruspina,  when  the  news  of  this  in- 
vasion of  his  own  country  overtook  him,  found 
himself  obliged  not  only  to  return  on  his  march, 
but  to  call  off  from  his  allies  great  part  of  the 
Numidian  light  troops,  who  were  already  in  their 
camp. 

Scipio,  though  thus  disappointed  of  the  great 
accession  of  force  which  he  expected  to  receive 
by  the  junction  of  Juba,  and  though  even  some- 
what reduced  in  his  former  numbers,  still  con- 
tinued to  act  on  the  offensive ;  and  in  order  to 
brave  his  enemy,  and  to  receive  some  species  of 
triumph  from  supposed  offers  of  battle,  repeatedly 
iormed  his  army  on  the  plain  between  the  two 
camps.  In  repeating  these  operations,  he  ad- 
vanced still  nearer  and  nearer  to  Caesar's  en- 
trenchments, and  seemed  to  threaten  his  camp 
with  an  attack.  In  return  to  this  insult,  or  to 
take  off  its  effects,  Caesar,  knowing  the  strength 
of  his  works,  affected  to  hear  of  the  enemy's  ap- 
proach with  indifference,  and  without  moving 
from  his  tent,  gave  orders  for  the  ordinary  guards, 
which  lay  without  the  intrench  me  nts,  not  to  be 
discomposed,  but  as  soon  as  the  enemy  approached 
them,  to  retire  behind  the  parapet  with  the  ut- 
most deliberation ;  and  Scipio,  upon  this  recep- 
tion, when  seemingly  most  bent  on  assaulting  the 
lines,  being  satisfied  as  usual  with  this  display  of 
his  superiority,  returned  to  his  camp. 

During  these  operations,  and  while  Juba  was 
still  detained  in  Numidia  by  the  diversion  which 
Sitius  had  occasioned  in  his  kingdom,  Caesar  had 
frequent  deserters  from  the  African  army,  and 
received  deputations  from  different  parts  of  the 
country,  with  professions  of  attachment  to  him- 
self as  the  relation  of  Marius,  whose  memory 
was  still  recent  and  popular  in  that  province. 
Among  these  advances,  which  were  made  to  him 
by  the  natives  of  the  country,  he  had  a  message 
from  the  inhabitants  of  Acilla,  a  place  situated 
about  ten  miles  from  the  coast,  and  equally  dis- 
tant from  Adrumetum  and  from  Ruspina,  offer- 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


303 


tng  to  come  under  his  protection,  and  inviting 
him  to  take  possession  of  their  town.  The  peo- 
ple of  this  place,  like  most  other  towns  of  the 
province,  were  extremely  disaffected  to  Scipio 
on  account  of  the  severities  which  he  exercised, 
by  laying  waste  their  possessions  on  the  approach 
of  Caesar  ;  and  as  they  dreaded  a  repetition  of  the 
same  measure,  they  were  desirous  to  put  them- 
selves in  a  posture  of  defence  against  him.  Caesar 
accepted  of  their  offer,  and  sent  a  detachment  of 
his  army,  who  turning  round  the  enemy's  flank, 
after  a  long  night's  march  entered  the  town  with- 
out opposition.  Considius  having  intelligence 
of  what  was  in  agitation  at  Acilla,  sent  a  detach- 
ment at  the  same  time  from  Adrumetum  to  se- 
cure the  place ;  hut  coming  too  late,  and  finding 
that  the  enemy  had  already  entered  the  town, 
brought  forward  some  more  forces  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  and  endeavoured,  but  in  vain,  to  dis- 
lodge them. 

While  Caesar  was  thus  endeavouring  to  ex- 
tend his  quarters  in  Africa,  and  to  enlarge  the 
source  of  his  subsistence,  Crispus  Sallustius  suc- 
ceeded in  the  design  upon  which  he  had  been 
sent  to  the  island  of  Cercina,  and  was  able  to 
furnish  a  considerable  supply  of  provisions  from 
thence.  There  arrived  at  the  same  time  from 
Allienus,  at  Lilly  baeum,  a  large  convoy  and  fleet 
of  transports,  having  on  board  two  entire  legions, 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth,  together  with  eight 
hundred  Gaulish  cavalry,  a  thousand  archers  and 
slingers,  and  a  large  supply  of  provisions.  As 
soon  as  these  troops  were  landed,  the  transports 
were  sent  back  to  Lillybaeum,  in  order  to  receive 
the  remainder  of  the  army  which  was  still  ex- 
pected from  thence.  These  supplies  and  rein- 
forcements at  once  relieved  Caesar's  army  from 
the  distress  which  they  suffered  \  and  by  so  great 
an  accession  of  strength,  amounting  to  twelve 
thousand  men,  put  him  in  condition  to  break 
from  the  confinement  in  which  he  had  some  time 
remained,  and  to  act  on  the  offensive. 

The  first  object  upon  this  change  in  his  affairs, 
was  to  seize  upon  some  rising  grounds  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Ruspina,  which  Scipio  had 
neglected  to  occupy,  and  from  thence  to  pursue 
such  advantage  as  he  might  find  against  the  ene- 
my. For  this  purpose,  he  decamped  after  it  was 
dark,  on  the  supposed  twenty-sixth  of  January, 
or  tenth  of  November,  and  turning  by  the  shore 
round  the  town  of  Ruspina,  arrived  in  the  night 
on  the  ground  which  he  intended  to  occupy. 
This  was  part  of  a  ridge,  which  runs  parallel  to 
the  coast,  at  a  few  miles  distance  from  the  shore, 
and  which,  on  the  north  of  Ruspina,  turns  in 
the  form  of  an  amphitheatre  round  a  plain  of 
about  fifteen  miles  extent.  Near  the  middle  of 
this  plain  stood  the  town  of  Uzita,  on  the  brink 
of  a  deep  marshy  tract,  which  is  formed  by  the 
water  of  some  rivulets  that  fall  from  the  moun- 
tains, and  spread  upon  the  plain  in  that  place. 
Scipio  had  posted  a  garrison  in  the  town,  and 
had  occupied  the  ridge  on  one  side  of  the  am- 
phitheatre beyond  the  marsh,  but  had  neglected 
the  heights)  of  which  Caesar  now  took  possession. 
It  seems,  that  on  these  heights  there  remained  a 
number  of  towers,  or  a  species  of  castles  con- 
structed by  the  natives  in  the  course  of  their  own 
wars.  In  these  Caesar  was  furnished  with  a  num- 
ber of  separate  lodgments,  which  he  joined  by  lines, 
in  order  to  continue  his  communication  with  the 
camp  he  had  left,  and  with  the  port  of  Ruspina. 


He  had,  in  one  night,  made  a  considerable 
progress  in  these  works,  and  being  observed  at 
day-break,  Scipio,  in  order  to  interrupt,  him, 
advanced  into  the  plain,  and  formed  in  order  of 
battle,  about  a  mile  in  the  front  of  his  own  en- 
campment. Caesar,  notwithstanding  this  move- 
ment of  the  enemy,  did  not  at  first  think  it  neces- 
sary to  interrupt  his  works ;  but  Scipio  seeming 
to  come  forward  with  intention  to  attack  him, 
while  so  great  a  part  of  his  army  was  at  work, 
he  ordered  the  whole  under  arms,  still  keeping 
the  advantage  of  his  ground  on  the  heights.  Some 
parties  of  cavalry  and  light  troops  came  near 
enough  to  skirmish  between  the  two  armies,  and 
Labienus  being  advanced  on  the  right  beyond 
the  main  body  of  Scipio's  forces,  Caesar  sent  a 
detachment  round  a  village  to  attack  him,  and 
obliged  him  to  fly  in  great  disorder,  after  having 
narrowly  escaped  being  entirely  cut  off.  This 
flight  of  Labienus  spread  so  great  an  alarm  over 
Scipio's  army,  that  the  whole,  with  precipitation, 
retired  to  their  camp.  Caesar  returned  to  his  post, 
and  without  any  farther  interruption,  continued 
to  execute  the  works  he  had  already  begun.  Aa 
soon  as  these  were  finished  on  the  following  day, 
he  again  fonned  in  order  of  battle,  to  return  the 
defiance  which  the  enemy  had  so  often  given  him, 
while  he  lay  in  the  lines  of  Ruspina ;  and  ob- 
serving that  Scipio  remained  in  his  camp,  he 
marched  on  to  the  town  of  Uzita,  which  lay  be- 
tween the  two  armies.  Scipio  being  alarmed  for 
the  safety  of  this  place,  at  which  he  had  de- 
posited some  part  of  his  magazines,  advanced  to 
sustain  the  troops  he  had  posted  in  the  town ; 
and  Caesar,  believing  that  an  action  was  likely  to 
follow,  made  a  halt,  with  the  town  of  Uzita  be- 
fore his  centre,  having  both  his  wings  extended 
beyond  it  to  the  right  and  the  left.  Scipio,  not 
to  extend  his  front  beyond  the  walls  of  the  town, 
drew  up  his  army  in  four  lines,  consisting  of 
many  separate  bodies  interspersed  with  elephants; 
but  as  Caesar  did  not  choose  to  attack  the  town, 
supported  as  it  was  by  Scipio's  army,  neither  did 
Scipio  choose  to  expose  any  part  of  his  line  by 
advancing  beyond  it.  Both  armies  having  re- 
mained in  this  posture  till  sun-set,  returned  at 
night  to  their  respective  camps. 

Caesar  still  persisting  in  his  design  to  oblige  the 
enemy  to  hazard  a  battle  in  defence  of  Uzita,  pro- 
jected double  lines  of  approach  from  his  present 
camp  to  the  town.  As  the  place  was  accessible 
to  the  enemy,  and  when  their  army  should  be 
drawn  up  in  order  of  battle,  might  be  made  a 
part  of  their  line,  it  was  impossible  for  Caesar  to 
invest  the  town,  or  even  to  approach  the  walls 
without  hazard  of  being  attacked  on  his  flanks 
from  the  field,  as  well  as  in  the  centre  from  the 
town  itself.  In  order  to  cover  the  approach  which 
he  intended  to  make  to  the  walls,  he  carried  on 
from  his  camp  on  the  hills  two  intrenchments  on 
the  right  and  the  left,  forming  a  lane  of  sufficient 
breadth  to  embrace  the  town.  Between  these 
parallel  lines  his  troops  advanced  to  the  walls 
with  perfect  security,  and  under  cover  from  any 
attacks  that  might  be  made  on  their  flanks.  As 
soon  as  this  lane  was  effected  to  within  the  ne- 
cessary distance  of  the  walls,  he  threw  up  in  front 
a  breast  work  opposite  to  the  ramparts  of  the 
town,  and  from  thence  began  to  construct  the 
works  that  were  usually  employed  in  the  reduc- 
tion of  fortified  places. 

During  the  dependance  of  this  siege,  both  par 


$04 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


ties  received  great  reinforcements.  Scipio  was 
joined  by  the  king  of  Numidia,  who  having  re- 
pelled the  enemy  who  attempted  to  invade  his 
own  kingdom,  now  came  with  three  bodies  of 
regular  infant^,  formed  in  the  manner  of  the 
Roman  legion,  eight  hundred  heavy  armed  or 
bridled  cavalry,  with  a  great  multitude  of  light  or 
irregular  troops.  Caesar's  army,  on  the  appear- 
ance of  this  new  enemy,  were  much  discouraged; 
but  on  seeing  that  Scipio,  even  after  he  was 
joined  by  the  king  of  Numidia,  still  remained 
on  the  defensive,  they  resumed  their  former  con- 
fidence, and  were  themselves  soon  after  rein- 
forced by  the  arrival  of  two  more  legions,  the 
ninth  and  the  tenth,  who  on  their  first  approach 
to  the  coast,  mistook  for  an  enemy  some  galleys 
which  Caesar  had  stationed  off  the  harbour  of 
Thapsus,  and  under  this  mistake  stood  ofT  again 
to  sea,  where  they  suffered  many  days  from  sick- 
ness, want  of  provisions,  and  of  water. 

These  legions  having  been  the  principal  au- 
thors of  the  late  mutiny  in  Italy,  are  said  to  have 
now  come  without  orders,  intending  to  evince 
their  zeal,  and  to  court  their  general's  favour  at 
a  time  when  their  service  might  be  not  only  ac- 
ceptable, but  necessary  to  his  safety.  The  prin- 
cipal historian  of  this  war,1  however,  relates  only, 
that.  Caesar  having  observed  tribunes  and  centu- 
rions of  these  legions  to  have  occupied  entire 
transports  with  their  own  equipage,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  troops  which  were  then  so  much 
wanted  for  the  service,  he  took  this  opportunity 
to  execute  a  piece  of  justice,  which  he  had 
thought  proper  to  remit,  or  to  defer  on  a  former 
occasion.  That  he  dismissed  several  officers  of 
these  legions  from  the  service,  with  the  following 
terms  of  reproach :  "  For  you,  who  have  incited 
the  troops  of  the  Roman  people  to  mutiny  against 
the  republic,  who  have  plundered  the  allies,  and 
been  useless  to  the  state ;  who,  in  place  of  soldiers, 
have  filled  transports  with  your  servants  and 
horses ;  who,  without  courage  in  the  field,  or  mo- 
desty in  your  quarters,  have  been  more  formidable 
to  your  country  than  to  her  enemies,  I  judge 
you  unworthy  of  any  trust  in  the  service  of  the 
republic,  and  therefore  order  you  forthwith  to  be 
gone  from  the  province,  and  to  keep  at  a  distance 
from  all  the  stations  of  the  Roman  army." 

The  other  incidents,  which  are  dated  by  histo- 
rians during  the  dependence  of  the  siege  of  Uzita, 
do  not  serve  to  make  us  acquainted  with  its  pro- 
gress, or  with  the  detail  of  its  operations.  The 
season  we  are  told  was  stormy,  and  Caesar's  army, 
in  order  to  crowd  the  more  easily  on  board  of  the 
transports,  had  left  great  part  of  their  equipage 
behind  them  in  Sicily,  and  were  now  without 
any  covering  besides  their  shields,  exposed  to 
heavy  rains  and  hail,  accompanied  with  thunder 
and  appearances  of  fire,  which,  to  their  great 
amazement,  instead  of  the  ordinary  flashes  of 
lightning,  became  stationary,  and  for  a  sensible 
time  continued  to  flame  on  the  points  of  their 
spears.  While  this  storm  continued,  the  ground 
upon  which  they  lay  was  overflowed  with  water, 
or  washed  with  continual  torrents  from  the  hills. 
Caesar,  nevertheless,  persisted  in  the  attack  of 
Uzita,  and  seemed  still  to  flatter  himself  that  the 
defence  of  this  place  would  lay  the  enemy  under 
some  disadvantage,  which  might  furnish  him  with 


1  Hirtiiu. 


an  opportunity  to  decide  the  war.  The  armies 
were  accordingly  often  drawn  out  in  order  of  bat- 
tle, and  were  present  at  partial  engagements 
of  their  cavalry  or  irregular  troops,  but  without 
any  general  action. 

In  the  midst  of  the  great  expectations  which 
must  have  attended  the  operations  of  this  sirge, 
Caesar  had  one  of  the  many  occasions,  on  which 
he  was  ever  so  ready  to  commit  his  genius,  his 
reputation,  and  his  life,  in  acts  of  seeming  teme- 
rity, which  persons  of  inferior  ability  may  admire, 
but  never  can  safely  imitate.  Varus,  with  a  fleet 
of  fifty  galleys,  had  surprised  and  burnt  the  greater 
part  of  his  shipping  at  Leptis,  and  was  in  chase 
of  Acquila,  who,  with  an  inferior  squadron,  was 
flying  before  him  to  the  southward,  Caesar  ap- 
prehended that  the  enemy,  in  consequence  of 
this  advantage,  if  not  speedily  checked,  must 
soon  be  masters  of  the  sea,  so  as  to  cut  oft' all  his 
supplies  and  reinforcements  from  the  coasts.  Re 
knew  that  reputation  gained  or  lost  on  small  oc- 
casions, often  decides  the  greatest  affairs;  and 
that  adverse  circumstances,  which  if  suffered  to 
accumulate,  may  obscure  the  brightest  fortune, 
can,  if  seasonably  encountered,,  by  daring  efforts 
of  resolution  and  courage,  be  actually  turned  to 
advantage.  He  instantly,  therefore,  went  in  per- 
son to  Leptis,  from  whence  he  put  oft"  in  a  barge, 
and  having  overtaken  his  own  squadron,  which 
was  flying  before  the  enemy,  he  ordered  them  to 
put  about,  and  steer  directly  against  their  pur- 
suers. Varus  was  struck  with  this  unaccounk 
able  change  in  the  conduct  of  his  enemy,  and 
supposing  them  to  have  come  in  sight  of  some 
powerful  support,  he  fled  in  his  turn,  and  crowd- 
ing sail,  steered  for  the  port  he  had  left.  Ca?6ar 
gave  chase,  overtook  some  of  the  heaviest  sailers 
that  fell  astern,  and  forced  the  remainder  to  take 
refuge  in  the  harbour  of  Adrumetum.  Here  he 
presented  himself  with  an  air  of  defiance ;  and 
having  given  this  turn  to  the  state  of  his  affairs 
at  sea,  and  left  peremptory  orders  to  his  fleet  not 
to  resign  the  advantage  which  they  had  gained 
by  the  enemy's  flight,  he  returned  to  the  attack 
of  Uzita.  In  such  actions  the  fortunate  often 
succeed,  because  the  attempt  appears  to  be  iim 
possible ;  and  men  of  great  ability  may  no  doubt 
venture  into  the  midst  of  difficulties,  with  which 
persons  of  inferior  capacity  are  by  no  means  fit  to 
contend. 

Caesar,  notwithstanding  that  by  this  stroke  of 
fortune  he  preserved  his  communication  with  the 
sea,  and  received  considerable  supplies  from  thence, 
as  well  as  from  the  country  around  him,  in  which, 
he  was  favoured  by  the  natives ;  yet  being  greatly 
circumscribed  by  the  superiorit}'  of  the  enemy's 
light  troops,  he  suffered  considerably  in  his  camp 
from  scarcity  of  provisions ;  and  being  in  his  pre- 
sent operations  against  Uzita,  to  fight  with  a  nu- 
merous army,  in  detail,  behind  the  walls  of  a 
fortified  town,  without  being  able  to  engage  them 
upon  equal  terms  in  any  decisive  action,  he  took 
his  resolution  to  discontinue  the  siege,  and  to  re- 
move to  a  more  advantageous  station ;  or  to  un- 
dertake some  enterprise,  in  which  he  was  more 
likely  to  succeed.  He  accordingly  decamped  in 
the  night,  set  fire  to  the  wood  and  straw  that  was 
amassed  upon  the  ground,  left  the  lanes  he  had 
fortified  with  so  much  labour,  and  marching  by 
the  shore,  placed  his  baggage  between  the  co- 
lumn of  the  army  and  the  sea,  and  thus  covered 
it  from  the  enemy,  who  he  expected  were  to  fol- 


Chap.  VII.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


805 


low  him  by  the  ridge  of  hills  which  overlooked 
the  line  of  his  march. 

The  retreat  of  Caesar  was  sufficient  to  confirm 
the  leaders  of  the  republican  party,  in  the  hopes 
they  had  formed  of  being  able  to  wear  him  out 
by  a  dilatory  war.  They  followed  him  accord- 
ingly by  the  heights,  and  having  observed  that 
he  stopped  at  Agar,  a  town  which  he  held  by 
the  affections  of  the  natives,  they  took  post  on 
three  several  heights,  at  the  distance  of  about  six 
miles  from  his  camp.  In  this  position,  they  were 
not  able  to  hinder  him  from  making  in  the  con- 
tiguous villages  and  fields  a  considerable  acqui- 
sition of  provisions  and  forage,  which  greatly 
relieved  his  army;  but,  to  prevent  his  farther 
excursions  into  the  country,  and  to  secure  its 
produce  to  their  own  use,  they  sent  two  legions, 
under  the  command  of  Caius  Mutius  Reginus, 
with  orders  to  take  possession  of  the  town  of  Zeta, 
which  lay  about  twenty  miles  from  Agar,  and  on 
the  right  at  some  distance  beyond  their  present 
camp.  Caesar  had  intelligence  from  the  natives, 
that  these  troops  were  frequently  employed  abroad 
in  collecting  provisions  and  forage,  and  that  they 
might  easily  be  cut  off,  and  the  town  be  surprised. 
He  accordingly  formed  a  design  for  this  purpose; 
and  with  a  view  to  the  execution  of  it,  removed 
from  the  plain  of  Agar,  and  fortified  a  strong 
camp  on  a  height  nearer  to  the  enemy.  Here 
leaving  a  sufficient  guard  for  his  lines,  he  put  the 
remainder  of  the  army  in  motion  in  the  night, 
passed  by  the  enemy's  stations,  and  surprised 
the  town  of  Zeta,  which  he  entered  by  break  of 
day,  while  the  greater  part  of  the  garrison  had 
left  the  place  in  perfect  security,  and  were  scat- 
tered in  foraging  parties  over  the  neighbouring 
country.  Having  placed  a  sufficient  detachment 
to  secure  this  new  acquisition,  he  set  out  upon 
his  return,  making  a  disposition,  not  to  pass  the 
enemy  unobserved,  which  was  no  longer  practi- 
cable, but  to  force  his  way  through  any  impedi- 
ment they  might  oppose  to  his  march.  The  night 
could  no  longer  be  of  any  advantage  to  him;  he 
get  out,  therefore,  by  day,  leading  the  governor 
of  Zeta,  with  P.  Atrius,  who  belonged  to  the 
association  of  Utica,  his  prisoners,  together  with 
some  part  of  Juba's  equipage,  and  a  train  of 
camels,  loaded  with  plunder  which  he  had  taken 
in  the  place. 

The  enemy  were  by  this  time  apprised  of  his 
motions.  Scipio  was  come  out  of  his  lines  ;  and, 
not  far  from  Caesar's  route,  had  posted  himself  in 
order  of  battle.  Labienus  and  Afr.mius,  with  a 
great  power  of  cavalry  and  light  infantry,  had 
taken  possession  of  some  heights  under  which  he 
was  to  pass,  and  were  preparing  to  attack  him  on 
his  flanks,  and  on  his  rear.  Caesar  was  aware 
of  these  difficulties ;  it  was  nevertheless  neces- 
sary to  encounter  them.  He  trusted,  that  the 
head  of  his  column  must  force  its  way ;  and  he 
placed  his  whole  cavalry  to  cover  the  rear  of  his 
march.  When  he  came  abreast  of  the  enemy, 
being  assailed,  as  usual,  by  the  African  cavalry 
with  peculiar  efforts  of  agility  and  cunning,  he 
made  a  halt ;  and  in  order,  by  some  great  exer- 
tion, if  possible,  to  clear  his  way,  and  procure  to 
his  people  some  respite  in  pursuing  the  remain- 
der of  their  march  undisturbed,  he  ordered  the 
legions  to  lay  down  the  loads  which  they  usually 
carried,  and  to  charge  the  enemy.  They  accord- 
ingly put  all  the  Africans  to  flight ;  but  no  sooner 
resumed  their  inarch,  than  they  wero  again  at- 


tacked, and  repeatedly  forced  to  renew  the  same 
opeiations.  They  had  already  been  detained 
four  hours  in  passing  over  a  hundred  paces,  or 
less  than  half  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  from  the  place 
at  which  they  were  first  attacked.  The  sun  was 
setting,  and  the  enemy  were  in  hopes  of  being 
able  to  oblige  them  to  halt  for  the  night  on  a 
field,  which  was  destitute  of  water.  Scipio,  for 
this  purpose,  still  kept  the  position  which  he  had 
taken  in  the  morning,  and  from  thence  observed, 
and  occasionally  supported,  the  operations  of  the 
light  troops. 

Csesar  perceived  the  dangeT  to  which  he  must 
be  exposed,  if  he  should  halt  on  this  ground,  and 
saw  the  necessity  of  continuing  his  march  ;  but 
observing,  that  as  often  as  the  cavalry  in  his  rear 
was  engaged,  whether  they  repulsed  or  gave  way 
to  the  enemy,  he  was  obliged  to  stop  in  order  to 
support  them,  or  to  wait  till  they  had  recovered 
their  station,  he  thought  proper  to  change  his  dis- 
position, brought  forward  the  horse  to  the  head 
of  his  column,  and  substituted  a  chosen  body  of 
foot  in  the  rear,  who  although  under  an  inces- 
sant discharge  from  the  enemy,  continued  to 
move,  and  enabled  him,  though  slowly,  to  effect 
his  retreat  with  a  regular  and  uninterrupted  pace. 
In  this  manner,  notwithstanding  the  great  dan- 
ger to  which  he  had  been  exposed,  he  regained 
his  camp,  near  Agar,  with  a  very  inconsiderable 
loss. 

Having  thus  got  possession  of  Zeta,  a  post  on 
the  flank  or  rear  of  the  enemy,  Csesar  formed 
successive  designs  on  Vacca,  Sarsura,  and  Tys- 
dra,  places  similarly  situated  round  the  scene  of 
the  war.  His  design  on  the  first  of  these  places 
was  prevented  by  the  Numidians,  who,  having 
intelligence  of  his  coming,  entered  before  him, 
and  reduced  the  town  to  ashes.  Both  armies  be- 
ing in  motion  for  some  days,  he  forced  Sarsura  j 
but  advancing  to  Tysdra,  with  the  same  inten- 
tion, he  thought  proper,  upon  observing  the 
strength  of  the  place,  not  to  make  any  attempt 
against  it ;  and,  on  the  fourth  day,  having  re- 
turned to  his  station  near  Agar,  the  enemy  like- 
wise resumed  their  former  position. 

While  Caesar  remained  at  this  post,  he  re- 
ceived a  reiiitorreinent  of  four  thousand  men,  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  the  sick,  who  had  been  left 
behind  the  army  in  Italy,  and  who  now  joined 
their  legions,  together  with  a  body  of  four  hun- 
dred horse,  and  a  thousand  archers  and  slingers. 
Wkh  this  accession  of  strength,  he  formed  a  de- 
sign on  Tegea,  which  was  occupied  by  a  detach- 
ment of  the  enemy,  supported  by  the  whole  of 
their  army,  encamped  at  the  distance  of  a  few 
miles  behind  the  town  ;  and  having  advanced,  in 
hopes  to  force  or  surprise  it,  about  eight  miles  on 
the  plain,  he  was  observed  by  Labienus  and 
Scipio,  who  came  forward  at  the  same  time, 
about  four  miles  beyond  their  own  station,  in  or- 
der to  sustain  their  detachment  These  consist- 
ing of  four  hundred  horse,  divided  themselves  on 
the  right  and  the  left  of  the  town  ;  ami  the  main 
armies  being  formed  in  order  of  battle,  with  thia 
post  between  them,  Caesar  gave  orders,  that  the 
jrarty  of  horse,  which  ventured  to  show  them- 
selves without  the  walls  of  Tegea,  should  be 
attacked.  The  events  which  followed  this  first 
encounter,  brought  into  action  several  detached 
bodies,  both  of  horse  and  of  foot,  that  were  sent 
from  the  different  sides  to  sustain  the  parties  en- 
gaged, but  did  not  lead  to  any  general  or  deci^\  e 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  IV. 


action ;  and  both  armies  retired  at  night  to  their 
respective  lines. 

In  many  of  these  partial  engagements  which 
happened  in  this  campaign,  Caesar's  cavalry  gave 
way  to  that  of  the  Africans.  In  one  of  their 
flights  Caesar  met  an  officer,  who  was  running 
away  with  his  party,  and  affecting  to  believe  him 
under  a  mistake,  took  hold  of  his  bridle,  "You 
are  wrong,"  he  said,  "  for  it  is  this  way  you  must 
go  to  the  enemy."  Even  the  legions  stood  greatly 
m  awe  of  the  Numidian  irregulars,  by  whom 
they  were,  on  many  occasions,  surprised  with 
some  new  feat  of  agility  or  cunning ;  and  they 
were  considerably  intimidated  by  the  number  and 
formidable  appearance  of  the  elephants,  which 
they  knew  not  how  to  withstand.  To  fortify  the 
minds  of  his  men,  and  to  prepare  them  to  meet 
such  antagonists,  Caesar  had  a  number  of  ele- 

{)hants  brought  to  his  camp,  armed  and  harnessed 
ike  those  of  the  enemy.  He  exercised  his  horses 
in  presence  of  these  animals,  taught  his  men  in 
what  places  to  strike,,  where  the  beast  was  vul- 
nerable, and  how  to  elude  their  fury.  He  like- 
wise made  some  change  in  the  usual  exercise  of 
the  legion,  such  as  might  the  better  qualify  his 
men  to  baffle  or  repel  the  artful  and  desultory  at- 
tacks of  the  Numidians;  and  as  he  frequently 
employed  his  regular  troops  in  foraging  parties, 
he  inured  them  by  degrees  to  depart  from  their 
usual  forms,  without  losing  their  courage,  and  to 
recover  from  any  casual  disorder  into  which  they 
might  be  thrown.  To  show  his  own  confidence 
in  the  superiority  of  his  men,  he  frequently  made 
an  offer  of  battle  on  equal  ground ;  and,  in  the 
manner  that  was,  in  their  turns,  common  to  both 
parties,  drew  a  species  of  triumph  from  his  ene- 
my's declining  to  fight. 

In  these  operations  the  campaign  drew  on  to 
the  middle  of  February,  and  had  lasted  about  five 
months;  during  this  time  Caesar  had  surmounted 
very  great  difficulties,  arising  from  the  dispersion 
of  his  fleet,  the  uncertainty  of  his  communication 
with  Italy,  and  the  scarcity  of  provisions  in  a 
country  laid  waste  or  possessed  by  his  enemies. 
He  was  now  become  master  of  many  towns  on 
the  coast,  and  of  a  considerable  extent  of  territory ; 
but  from  the  many  objects  which  required  his  at- 
tention in  different  parts  of  the  empire,  he  re- 
mained under  great  disadvantage  in  supporting  a 
dilatory  war,  in  which  it  appeared  that  Scipio 
and  Labienus  were  resolved  to  persist.  In  order, 
if  possible,,  to  break  their  measures,  he  formed  a 
desigu  upon  Thapsus,  their  principal  garrison 
and  sea-port  on  the  southern  boundaries  of  the 
province.  With  this  view  he  decamped  in  the 
night  from  his  station  near  Agar,  and  directing 
his  march  to  the  southward,  arrived  before  Thap- 
sus on  the  following  day.  As  he  had  formerly, 
in  order  to  secure  his  convoys  against  any  at- 
tempts from  thence,  blocked  up  the  harbour  with 
his  ships,  he  now  seized  all  the  avenues  which 
led  to  the  town,  and  invested  it  completely  from 
the  land. 

Scipio  and  Juba,  greatly  interested  to  preserve 
a  place  of  so  much  consequence,  put  their  armies 
in  motion,  and,  to  counteract  that  of  Caesar,  fol- 
lowed him  by  the  route  of  the  hills.  Seeing  him 
invest  Thapsus,  they  took  their  first  posts  on  two 
separate  heights,  about  eight  miles  from  the 
town.  Caesar,  with  his  usual  industry  and  des- 
patch, executed  lines  both  of  circumvallation  and 
of  countervallation.    By  these  lines,  which  were 


in  the  form  of  a  crescent,  terminating  at  both 
ends  in  the  sea,  he  embraced  the  town,  and  pro- 
posed to  encamp  his  army  between  them.  Scipio 
was  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  ground,  to 
know,  that  there  was  near  the  harbour  a  narrow 
channel,  or  salt-pit,  separated  from  the  sea,  by  a 
second  beach  or  sand-bank,  which  it  was  possible 
the  enemy  might  not  have  observed,  and  by 
which  he  might  still  have  an  entry  to  the  town, 
or  be  able  to  throw  in  his  succours.  He  there- 
fore advanced  with  his  whole  army  ;  and  while 
he  made  a  feint  to  interrupt  Caesar  in  the  works 
he  was  carrying  on,  sent  a  party  to  occupy  the 
sand-bank,  or  to  throw  themselves  into  the  town 
of  Thapsus  by  that  communication.  Caesar, 
however,  had ,  already  taken  possession  of  this 
passage,  and  shut  it  up  with  three  several  in- 
trenchments or  redoubts,  so  placed  as  to  secure  it 
at  once  against  any  sallies  from  the  garrison,  as 
well  as  attacks  from  the  field. 

The  combined  army,  on  being  thus  disap- 
pointed of  any  communication  with  the  town  of 
Thapsus,  remained  all  the  day  under  arms,  and 
gave  the  enemy  an  opportunity,  which  he  often 
affected  to  desire,  of  terminating  the  war  by  a 
battle.  But  Caesar,  either  because  he  had  not 
sufficiently  fortified  his  intrenchments  to  secure 
his  rear  from  the  town,  or  because  he  would  not 
choose  that  moment  to  fight,  when  the  enemy 
was  prepared  to  receive  him,  made  no  advances 
to  engage  on  that  day. 

Scipio,  remaining  on  the  same  ground  all  night, 
took  his  resolution  to  encamp,  and  at  break  of 
day  appeared  to  be  forming  the  usual  intrench- 
ments. Csesar  had  then  probably  completed  his 
own  works ;  and  thinking  the  opportunity  fair, 
or  being  determined  not  to  suffer  the  enemy  to 
effect  a  lodgment  in  his  presence,  he  made  the 
usual  signal  to  prepare  for  action  ;  and  leaving  a 
proper  force  to  man  his  intrenchments  against  the 
town,  drew  out  the  remainder  of  his  army  to  the 
field,  ordered  part  of  his  fleet  to  get  under  sail,  to 
turn  a  head-land  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy ;  and 
as  soon  as  the  action  began  in  front,  to  alarm 
them  with  shouts,  or  a  feint  to  land  and  to  attack 
their  rear.  Having  made  these  dispositions,  he 
put  his  army  in  motion,  and  being  come  near 
enough  to  distinguish  the  posture  of  the  enemy, 
observed,  that  their  main  body  was  already  in 
order  of  battle,  with  the  elephants  disposed  on  the 
wings ;  and  that  numerous  parties  were  still  at 
work  on  the  lines,  within  which  they  meant  to 
encamp.  He  halted  and  made  a  disposition  suit- 
able to  that  of  the  enemy.  His  centre  consisted! 
of  five  legions,  his  wings  each  of  four ;  the  tenth 
and  second  legions  composed  the  right  wing,  the 
eighth  and  ninth  composed  the  left.  Five  co- 
horts, together  with  the  cavalry,  were  selected  to 
support  the  archers  and  slingers  that  were  to  be- 
gin the  attack  on  the  enemy's  elephants.  Caesar 
himself  went  round  every  division  on  foot,  ex- 
horted the  veterans  to  be  mindful  of  the  high 
reputation  which  they  had  to  support,  and  recom- 
mended to  the  new  levies  to  take  example  from 
those  who  were  already  possessed  of  so  much 
glory,  and  who  were  instructed  by  long  expe- 
rience in  the  arts  to  be  practised  in  the  day  of 
battle  against  an  enemy. 

While  Csesar  was  thus  employed,  the  legions 
of  Scipio  appeared  to  reel ;  they  at  one  time  re- 
tired behind  their  imperfect  works,  again  changed 
their  purpose,  and  came  back  to  their  ground, 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


307 


Many  of  Caesar's  officers,  and  many  of  the  vete- 
ran soldiers,  well  acquainted  with  this  sign  of 
distraction  and  irresolution,  called  aloud  for  the 
signal  of  battle.  But  he  himself,  possibly  to 
whet  their  ardour,  as  well  as  to  keep  them  in 
breath,  again  and  again  halted  the  whole  line. 

In  this  situation  of  the  two  armies,  Caesar  is 
said  to  have  been  seized  with  a  fit  of  the  epilepsy, 
to  which  he  was  subject;  a  disease  which,  al- 
though it  attacks  the  seats  of  understanding  and 
of  sense,  and  suspends,  for  a  time,  all  the  exer- 
cises of  them  in  the  most  alarming  manner,  does 
not  appear  from  this  example  to  impair  the  facul- 
ties, nor  to  be  inconsistent  with  their  highest 
measures,  and  their  ablest  exertions.  The  report, 
however,  is  not  consistent  with  the  narration  of 
Hirtius.  This  historian,  although  he  allows  that 
the  troops,  in  the  last  part  of  their  motion  to  en- 
gage, acted  without  any  orders  ;  and  while  Caesar 
wished  them  to  advance  more  deliberately,  that 
they  forced  a  trumpet  on  the  right  to  sound  the 
usual  charge,  and  that  the  whole  line,  without 
any  other  signal,  overwhelming  by  force  all  the 
officers  who  ventured  to  oppose  them,  continued 
to  rush  on  the  enemy:  yet  he  observes  that 
Caesar,  instead  of  being  out  of  condition  to  act, 
took  his  resolution  to  excite  an  ardour  which  he 
could  not  restrain ;  and,  in  order  that  he  might 
bring  his  whole  army  at  once  with  united  force 
into  action,  commanded  all  his  trumpets  to  sound, 
and  himself,  mounting  on  horseback,  rode  up 
with  the  foremost  ranks.  The  battle  began  on 
the  right,  where  the  enemy's  elephants  being 
galled  with  a  shower  of  arrows  and  stones,  reeled 
back  on  the  troops  that  were  posted  to  sustain 
them,  trod  part  of  the  infantry  under  foot,  and 
broke  over  the  unfinished  intrenchments  in  their 
rear. 

The  left  of  Scipio's  army  being  thus  routed, 
the  main  body  soon  after  gave  way;  and  the 
whole  fled  to  the  camp  which  they  had  formerly 
occupied;  but  in  their  flight,  being  thrown  into 
the  utmost  confusion,  and  separated  from  their 
officers,  they  arrived  at  the  place  to  which  they 
fled,  without  any  person  of  rank  to  rally  or  com- 
mand them.  In  this  state  of  consternation  they 
threw  down  their  arms,  and  attempted  to  take 
refuge  in  the  camp  of  their  Numidian  ally.  But 
this  being  already  in  possession  of  the  enemy, 
they  continued  their  flight  to  the  nearest  heights; 
and  being  without  arms,  awaited  their  fate  in  a 
state  of  helpless  despair.  When  they  saw  the 
troops  that  pursued  them  advance,  they  made 
signs  of  submission,  and  saluted  the  victors  with 
a  shout;  but  in  vain.  They  were  instantly  at- 
tacked by  the  victorious  army  of  Caesar,  who, 
though  affecting  clemency  on  former  occasions, 
now  seemed  to  be  actuated  with  a  paroxysm  of 
rage  and  thirst  of  blood ;  contrary  to  the  orders 
and  entreaties  of  their  general,  they  put  the  whole 
of  this  unarmed  and  defenceless  multitude  to  the 
sword.  They  are  said,  on  this  occasion,  to  have 
seized  the  opportunity  of  satiating  their  revenge 
on  some  of  their  own  officers  who  had  offended 
them.  One  was  actually  murdered,  another, 
being  wounded,  fled  to  Caesar  for  protection  ;  and 
many  persons  of  distinction,  senators  and  Roman 
knights,  observing  their  danger,  thought  proper 
to  withdraw  to  some  place  of  concealment,  till  the 
present  fury  of  the  troops  should  abate. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  memorable  action,  the 
garrison  of  Thapsus  had  eallied,  but  were  re- 


pulsed with  loss.  When  the  contest  was  over, 
Caesar,  to  induce  the  town  to  surrender,  displayed 
the  trophies  of  victory ;  but  had  no  answer.  On 
the  following  day,  he  drew  up  his  army  under 
the  walls  of  the  town ;  and  in  that  place  pro- 
nounced his  thanks  to  the  legions  for  their  beha- 
viour, and,  without  any  reproach  for  the  disorder 
and  cruelty  of  the  preceding  day,  declared  what 
were  to  be  the  rewards  which  hie  intended,  at  f» 
proper  time,  for  the  veterans ;  and,  by  some  im- 
mediate mark  of  his  favour,  distinguished  a  few 
who  had  signalized  themselves.  He  appointed 
Caius  Rubellius,  with  three  legions,  to  continue 
the  siege  of  Thapsus,  and  Cn.  Domitius  with  two 
others  to  reduce  Tysdra;  and  having  sent  for- 
ward M.  Messala,  with  a  body  of  horse  on  the 
road  to  Utica,  he  himself  followed  with  the  re- 
mainder of  the  army.1 

At  Utica  were  assembled  from  every  part  of 
the  empire,  all  who  were  obnoxious  to  Caesar,  or 
who,  from  a  zeal  for  the  republic,  had  refused  to 
submit  to  his  power.  On  the  third  day  after  the 
battle,  towards  night,  a  person  who  had  escaped 
from  the  field  of  battle  coming  to  Utica,  this  un- 
happy convention  of  citizens  was  struck  with  the 
greatest  alarm.  Under  the  effects  of  their  con- 
sternation, they  met  in  the  streets,  ran  to  the 
gates,  and  again  returned  to  their  habitations. 
They  crowded  together  in  the  public  places,  and 
separated  by  turns,  and  passed  the  night  in  ex- 
treme confusion.  Cato  represented  to  them,  that 
the  accounts  they  received  might  be  exaggerated, 
and  endeavoured  to  compose  their  fears.  As 
soon  as  it  was  day  he  called  them  together,  and 
laid  before  them  a  state  of  the  place,  or  the  works, 
military  stores,  provisions,  arms,  and  numbers  of 
men;  and  having  commended  the  zeal,  which 
they  had  hitherto  shown  in  defence  of  the  repub- 
lic, exhorted  them  now  to  make  the  proper  use 
of  the  means  they  had  still  of  defending  them- 
selves, or  at  least  of  making  their  peace  in  a  body : 
declared,  that  if  they  were  inclined  to  submit  to 
the  victor,  he  should  impute  their  conduct  to  ne- 
cessity ;  but  if  they  were  determined  to  resist,  he 
should  reserve  his  sword  for  the  last  stake  of  the  re- 
public, and  share  with  them  in  the  consequences  of 
a  resolution,  which  he  should  love  and  admire.  He 
contended,  that  they  were  now  to  consider  them- 
selves as  assembled,  not  in  Utica,  but  in  Rome; 
"that  the  force  of  the  republic  was  yet  great,  and 
might  still,  as  on  former  occasions,  rise  again  from 
its  ruins ;  that  the  forces  of  Caesar  must  still  be 
distracted  or  separate,  to  make  head  against  ene- 
mies who  were  appearing  in  different  parts  of 
the  empire;  that  in  Spain  his  own  army  had 
deserted  from  him,  and  the  whole  province  had 
declared  for  the  sons  of  Pompey ;  that  Rome,  the 
head  of  the  commonwealth,  was  yet  erect,  and 
would  not  bend  under  the  yoke  of  a  tyrant ;  that 
his  enemies  were  multiplying  while  he  seemed  to 
destroy  them  ;  that  his  own  example  should  in- 
struct them;  or  rather,  that  the  courage  which  he 
exerted  in  the  paths  of  guilt  and  of  infamy,  should 
animate  those  who  were  about,  either  to  die  with 
honour,  or  to  secure  for  their  country  blessings 
in  which  they  themselves  were  to  share."  At 
this  assembly,  a  resolution  was  accordingly  taken 
to  defend  the  city  of  Utica,  and  numbers  of 
slaves,  who  were  set  free  by  their  masters  for  this 
purpose,  were  armed  and  inrolled.    But  it  soon 


1  Hirt.  de  Bello  Af. 


308 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION,  &c. 


[Book  IV 


appeared,  that  the  assembly  consisted  of  persons 
unable  to  persist  in  this  resolution,  and  who  were 
preparing  separately  to  merit  the  favour  of  the 
conqueror  by  an  entire  and  early  submission. 
They  soon  made  a  general  profession  of  this  de- 
sign, expressed  their  veneration  of  Cato;  but 
confessed,  that  they  were  not  qualified  to  act 
with  him  in  so  arduous  a  scene ;  assured  him, 
that  if  they  were  permitted  to  send  a  message  to 
Caesar,  the  first  object  of  it  should  be  to  intercede 
for  his  safety;  that,  if  they  could  not  obtain  it, 
they  should  accept  of  no  quarter  for  themselves. 
Cato  no  longer  opposed  their  intentions ;  but  said, 
that  he  himself  must  not  be  included  in  their 
treaty ;  that  he  knew  not  of  any  right  Caesar  had 
to  dispose  of  his  person ;  that  what  had  hitherto 
happened  in  the  war  only  served  to  convict  Cae- 
sar of  designs  which  were  often  imputed  to  him, 
and  which  he  always  denied.  He  will  now,  at 
least,  own,  he  said,  that  his  opponents  had  reason 
for  all  the  suspicions  they  suggested  against  him. 

While  matters  were  in  this  state,  a  party  of 
Scipio's  horse,  which  had  escaped  from  the  field 
-©f  battle,  appeared  at  the  gates  of  the  town,  and 
were  with  difficulty,  by  Cato's  intreaties,  hindered 
from  putting  every  Roman,  who  offered  to  sub- 
mit to  Caesar,  as  well  as  the  inhabitants  of  the 
place,  to  the  sword.  Being  diverted  from  this 
act  of  violence,  and  furnished  with  some  money 
-for  their  immediate  subsistence,  they  continued 
their  retreat.  Most  of  the  senators,  who  were 
present,  took  shipping  and  escaped  Lucius 
Caesar  undertook  to  carry  to  his  kinsman  a  peti- 
tion from  such  of  the  Roman  citizens  as  remained ; 
and  said  to  Cato,  at  parting,  that  he  would  gladly 
fall  at  the  victor's  feet  to  make  his  peace.  To 
which  Cato  answered,  "  If  I  were  disposed  to 
make  my  peace  with  Caesar,  I  should  repair  to 
him  in  person ;  but  I  have  done  him  no  wrong, 
1  am  not  an  object  of  his  pardon,  and  shall  not 
request  what  it  were  insolence  in  him  to  offer  me 
as  a  favour.4'  He,  however,  on  this  occasion,  ob- 
served to  his  own  son,  that  it  would  not  become 
him  to  leave  his  father.  "  At  a  fit  time,43  he 
said,  "  you  will  put  yourself  on  the  victor's  mer- 
cy, but  do  not  take  part  in  public  affairs:  the 
times  do  not  afford  a  station  in  which  it  would 
be  proper  for  you  to  act.1'  "And  why,"  said 
the  young  man,  "  will  you  not  take  the  benefit 
of  the  victor's  clemency  for  yourself,  as  well  as 
for  me?"  "I  was  born  to  freedom,"  he  said, 
"  and  cannot,  in  my  old  age,  be  reconciled  to  ser- 
vitude. For  you  these  times  were  destined  ;  and 
t  may  become  you  to  submit  to  your  fate." 
Having  passed  the  day  in  aiding  his  friends  to 


procure  the  means  of  their  escape,  he  went  t* 
the  bath,  and  supped  as  usual,  without  any  mark* 
of  dejection  or  affectation  of  ease ;  and  being  re- 
tired to  his  chamber,  after  some  time  which  he 
employed  in  reading,  he  killed  himself.  His  at- 
tendants, upon  hearing  a  noise  which  alarmed 
them,  burst  open  the  door,  and  would  have  dressed 
the  wound,  but  he  tore  it  up  with  his  hand,  and 
expired  in  making  this  effort.1  Every  one, 
through  the  day,  had  been  anxious  to  know  what 
was  the  design  which  Cato  covered  under  the 
appearance  of  so  much  concern  for  others,  and 
of  so  little  care  for  himself.  On  the  first  report 
of  his  death,  multitudes  crowded  to  the  door  of 
his  quarters,  and  gave  the  most  unfeigned  demon- 
strations of  dejection  and  sorrow.  The  colony 
of  Utica,  though  originally  hostile  to  his  cause, 
and  still  in  the  interest  of  Caesar,  ordered  a  pub- 
lic funeral,  and  erected  his  statue  in  the  place  of 
interment. 

Cato  died  in  the  vigour  of  life,  under  fifty ;  he 
was  naturally  warm  and  affectionate  in  his  tem- 
per; comprehensive,  impartial,  and  strongly  pos- 
sessed with  the  love  of  mankind.  But  in  his 
conduct,  probably  became  independent  of  passion 
of  any  sort,  and  chose  what  was  just  on  its  own 
account.  He  professed  to  believe,  with  the  sect 
whose  tenets  he  embraced,  that  it  might  or  might 
not,  in  particular  circumstances,  be  expedient  for 
a  man  to  preserve  or  lay  down  his  life  ;  out  that, 
while  he  kept  it,  the  only  good  or  evil  competent 
to  him  consisted  in  the  part  which  he  took,  as  a 
friend  or  an  enemy  to  mankind.  He  had  long 
foreseen  the  dangers  to  which  the  republic  was 
exposed,  and  determined  to  live  only  while  he 
could  counteract  the  designs  that  were  formed 
against  it.2  The  leader  of  the  successful  partj 
thought  proper  to  apologize  for  himself,  by  decry 
ing  the  virtues  of  Cato ;  but  the  bulk  of  mankind, 
in  his  own  and  the  subsequent  ages,  were  equally 
pleased  to  extol  them  ;  and  he  is  a  rare  example 
of  merit,  which  received  its  praise  even  amidst  the 
adulation  that  was  paid  to  his  enemies  ;3  and 
was  thought,  by  the  impartial,  equally  above  the 
reach  of  commendation  or  censure.9 


1  Dio.  Cass.  Appian.  Plutarch.  Hirtius  de  Bello 
Africano.  *- 

2  Bed  vere  laudari  ille  vir  non  potest,  nisi  hac  orna- 
ta  sunt ;  quod  ille  ea,  quae  nunc  sunt,  et  futura  viderit, 
et  ne  tierent  contenderit,  et  facta  ue  videret,  vitam  re- 
liquerit.   Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  xii.  ep.  4. 

3  See  the  writings  of  Virgil  and  Horace. 

4  Cujus  gloriae  neque  profuit  quisquam  laudando, 
nec  vituperando  quisquam  nocuit,  quum  utrumque 
summis  praediti  fecerint  ingeniis.  Frag.  Livii  ex 
Hieronym.  Prolog,  lib.  xi.  La  Oscara. 


THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  A1VD  TERMINATION 


OF  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK  V, 


CHAPTER  I. 

Arrival  of  Ccesar  at  TJtica — Wreck  of  the  Republican  Party — Servility  of  the  Roman  People — 
Magnificence  and  Administration  of  Ccesar — His  last  Campaign  in  Spain — Death  of  the 
elder  of  Pompey's  Sons — Caesar's  Return,  Triumphs,  Honours,  and  Policy  in  the  State — 
Spirit  of  the  times — Source  of  the  Conspiracy  against  Ccesar — Its  Progress — Death  of  Ccesar. 


WHEN  Caesar  was  informed,  on  his  march 
from  Thapsus,  that  of  all  the  principal  men  of 
the  opposite  party,  Cato  alone  remained  at  Utica 
to  receive  him,  he  was  at  a  loss  to  interpret  his 
conduct,  and  possibly  might  have  found  it  difficult 
to  determine  how  he  should  deal  with  an  antago- 
nist, whom  he  neither  could  reconcile  to  his  usur- 
pation, nor  treat  as  a  criminal.  The  character 
of  generosity  towards  his  enemies,  which  Caesar 
had  assumed,  laid  him  under  some  obligation,  in 
point  of  consistency,  to  treat  the  person  of  Cato 
with  respect;  and  the  opportunity  he  would  have 
had,  in  that  instance,  of  exercising  his  clemency 
with  so  much  lustre,  could  not  have  escaped  him. 
In  the  busiest  scene  of  his  life  he  had  not  any 
party  object,  or  any  party  quarrel  to  maintain  ;  he 
had  repeatedly  sacrificed  personal  animosity  to 
ambition ;  and  when  he  took  the  field  against  the 
republic,  he  had  few  private  resentments  to  grati- 
fy :  he  .knew  that  an  affectation  of  reluctance  in 
shedding  the  blood  of  Roman  citizens,  the  reverse 
of  what  remained  so  much  an  object  of  horror  in 
the  memory  of  Sylla,  was  the  likeliest  means  to 
cover  the  effects  of  this  destructive  war,  and  to 
reconcile  the  people  to  his  government.  In  the 
bulk  of  his  fellow  citizens  he  had  found  either 
rubbish  to  be  removed  from  the  way  of  ambition, 
or  tools  with  which  he  might  work  in  removing 
it;  they  were  the  dupes  of  his  policy,  or  open  to 
the  imputations  of  sinister  designs  or  unreason- 
able obstinacy  which  he  cast  on  his  opponents.  In 
Cato,  perhaps,  alone,  he  found  a  measure  of  esti- 
mation, which,  with  all  his  abilities  and  pros- 
perous fortune,  he  could  not  neglect,  and  a  pene- 
tration which,  without  management  for  his  per- 
son, treated  his  politics  as  a  system  of  villany 
30!) 


devised  for  the  ruin  of  the  commonwealth.  Cato 
therefore  alone,  of  all  his  antagonists,  he  possibly 
hated  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  reconciliation.5 

Cffisar  was  in  reality,  according  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  his  friend  Curio,  neither  sanguinary 
nor  scrupulous  of  blood,  but  in  the  highest  degree 
indifferent  to  both,  and  ready  to  do  whatever  was 
most  likely  to  promote  his  designs.  As  he  had 
already  sufficiently  provided  for  the  reputation  of 
clemency,  he  now  made  a  freer  use  of  his  sword, 
and  in  proportion  as  he  approached  to  the  end  of 
the  war,  or  saw  the  means  of  extirpating  those 
who  were  most  likely  to  disturb  his  government, 
he  dipped  his  hands  with  less  scruple  in  the  blood 
of  his  enemies.  As  he  pursued  Pompey  into 
Egypt,  under  a  certain  impression  that  the  death 
of  this  rival  was  material  to  the  establishment  of 
his  power  in  Italy,  so  it  is  likely  that  he  now 
hastened  to  Utica  as  a  place  at  which  he  might 
crush  the  remains  of  the  republic.  On  heanng 
of  the  death  of  Cato,  however,  he  made  use  of  an 
expression  which  served  to  discover  the  resolution 
he  had  taken  with  respect  to  him.  "  I  must  be 
allowed,"  he  said,  "to  envy  this  man  the  splen- 
dour of  his  deatli,  as  he  has  refused  me  the  honour 
of  preserving  his  life."  Having  passed  through 
Uzita  and  Adrumetum,  which  surrendered  to 
him  on  his  march,  and  being  met  by  numbers 
who  came  to  make  their  submission,  he  arrived 
at  Utica  in  the  evening,  and  continued  all  night 
without  the  gates. 

Marcus  Messala  had  already  taken  possession 


5  Et  cuncta  ten-arum  subacta  prater  atrocera  ani 
mum  Catonis. 


310 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


of  the  town.  Caesar  entered  on  the  following 
day ;  and  having  ordered  the  people  to  attend 
him,  made  a  speech,  in  which  he  thanked  the 
colony  of  Utica  for  their  faithful  attachment  to 
his  cause ;  but  spoke  of  three  hundred  Roman 
citizens,  who  had  contributed  to  support  the  war 
against  him,  in  terms  which  sufficiently  showed 
that  he  was  no  longer  to  court  the  reputation  of 
mercy.  Appian  says,  that  as  many  of  them  as 
fell  into  his  hands  were  by  his  order  put  to  death. 
Hirtius  relates,  that  he  only  confiscated  their 
effects,  and  that  this  sentence  was  afterwards 
changed  into  a  limited  fine,  amounting  in  all  to 
two  hundred  thousand  sestertia,  or  about  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  sterling,  to  be  paid  in  three  years, 
at  six  separate  payments. 

From  this  general  wreck  of  the  republican 
party  in  Africa,  the  leaders  continued  their  flight 
in  different  directions.  Many  who  surrendered 
themselves  were  spared;  but  most  of  those,  who, 
in  their  attempts  to  escape,  fell  into  the  enemy's 
hands,  either  killed  themselves,  or  by  Csesar's 
order  were  put  to  death.1  Afranius  and  Faustus 
Sylla  having  joined  a  party  of  cavalry  that  fled 
by  Utica  from  the  field  of  battle,  were  intercepted 
by  Sitius,  and  defending  themselves,  with  the 
loss  of  many  of  their  party,  were  taken.  In  a 
few  days  after  this  event,  these  prisoners,  under 
pretence  of  a  riot  in  the  camp,  were  put  to  death. 

Scipio,  with  Damasippus,  Torquatus,  and 
Pketorius  Rustianus,  endeavoured  to  escape  by 
sea  into  Spain.  After  being  tossed  some  days 
with  contrary  winds,  they  ventured  to  put  into 
Hippo,  on  the  coast  of  Numidia,  where  they  met 
with  a  squadron  of  Caesar's  fleet,  commanded  by 
Sitius.  Their  vessel  being  boarded,  they  were 
asked  with  impatience,  where  is  the  general  ? 
Scipio  himself  made  answer,  the  general  is  well; 
and  in  uttering  these  words  stabbed  himself,  and 
went  headlong  into  the  sea. 

Juba,  with  Petreius,  having  escaped  from  the 
field  of  battle  at  Thapsus,  lay  concealed  by  day, 
and  continued  their  flight  in  the  night  towards 
Zama,  a  place  which,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
war,  the  king  of  Numidia  had  fortified,  and  made 
the  residence  of  his  women,  and  the  repository  of 
his  treasure  and  most  valuable  effects  He  knew 
that  if  he  should  be  taken  captive  by  a  Roman 
general,  the  consequence  was  being  led  in  tri- 
umph, and  possibly  afterwards  put  to  death.  He 
had  therefore  provided  this  retreat  in  case  of  an 
unfortunate  issue  to  the  war ;  intending  it  merely 
as  a  place  at  which  he  might  die  in  state.  With 
this  intention  he  had  raised,  near  to  the  royal 
palace,  a  pile  of  wool  on  which  he  meant  to  con- 
sume whatever  could  mark  or  adorn  the  victor's 
triumph;  and  it  was  his  purpose,  while  he  set 
these  materials,  and  with  them  the  whole  city,  on 
fire,  to  commit  himself  and  his  women  to  the 
flames. 

The  inhabitants  of  Zama  had  some  intimation 
of  this  design,  and,  upon  the  approach  of  the 
king,  not  choosing  to  celebrate  by  such  an  offer- 
ing the  exit  of  a  vanquished  prince,  shut  their 
gates  and  refused  him  admittance.  They  like- 
wise had  the  humanity  to  refuse  sending  the 
women  to  him,  on  a  supposition  that  he  meant 
they  should  be  a  sacrifice  to  his  jealousy,  or  be 
involved  in  his  ruin. 


Juba  finding  himself  thus  disobeyed,  even  by 
his  own  subjects,  retired  to  one  of  his  country 
seats ;  and  having  ordered  a  splendid  entertain- 
ment, at  the  close  of  it  he  and  Petreius  fell  to- 
gether by  their  own  swords.  The  kingdom  of 
Numidia  was  converted  into  a  Roman  province, 
and  the  government  of  it  was  committed  to  Sal- 
lust  the  historian.  The  son  of  the  king,  yet  an 
infant,  was  reserved  to  make  a  part  in  the  pro- 
cession of  the  victor's  triumph.2  The  furniture 
and  ornaments  of  his  palaces  were  sold,  and  pro- 
duced a  considerable  sum  of  money.  Great  con- 
tributions were  raised  at  the  same  time  in  those 
parts  of  Africa  which  had  been  already  subjected 
to  the  condition  of  a  Roman  province.  The  in- 
habitants of  Thapsus  were  made  to  pay  fifty 
thousand  Roman  sestertia  ;3  those  of  Adrumetum, 
eighty  thousand;  those  of  Leptis  and  Tysdra 
paid  the  quotas  exacted  from  them  in  corn  and 
oil. 

Caesar  having,  in  this  manner,  closed  a  scene 
in  which  he  had  destroyed  fifty  thousand  of  his 
opponents,  who  might  be  supposed  to  be  the  most 
obstinate  adherents  of  the  republican  party,  and 
having  joined  to  the  empire  a  territory  which,  by 
the  report  afterwards  made  in  the  assembly  of 
the  people,  was  fitted  to  yield  an  annual  tribute 
of  three  hundred  thousand  medimni  of  grain, 
and  three  hundred  thousand  weight  of  oil,4  he 
embarked  at  Utica,  on  the  fifteenth  of  June,  and 
in  three  days  after  he  sailed  from  thence,  arrived 
in  the  island  of  Sardinia :  a  part  of  his  dominions, 
said  Cicero,  which  he  had  not  hitherto  seen. 
Before  his  departure  from  Africa  he  had  made 
necessary  arrangements  respecting  the  army ;  and, 
although  he  had  recently  availed  himself  of  the 
services  of  the  legions  who  had  mutinied  in  Italy, 
and  seemed  to  have  forgotten  their  offence,  yet 
he  took  the  benefit  of  the  present  prosperous 
state  of  his  affairs  to  indulge  his  resentment ;  and 
that  they  might  not  communicate  with  factious 
spirits  in  Italy,  have  leisure  to  over-rate  their  ser- 
vices, or  to  set  an  example  to  the  rest  of  the  army 
of  exorbitant  demands,  he  ordered  them  to  be 
broke  and  disbanded  in  Africa.  The  remainder 
of  the  troops  who  had  given  him  the  victory  in 
that  country,  he  ordered,  after  receiving  the  ne- 
cessary refreshments,  to  proceed  in  the  voyage  to 
Spain,  where  he  had  still  some  resistance  to  ap- 
prehend from  the  sons  of  Pompey. 

Leaving  the  army  therefore  to  pursue  this 
course,  Caesar  himself  took  shipping  again  in  the 
island  of  Sardinia  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  June ; 
and,  being  some  time  detained  by  contrary  winds, 
arrived  at  Rome  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  the  fol- 
lowing month  ;5  having  since  the  time  of  his  de- 
parture from  Italy,  on  the  expedition  to  Africa, 
in  which  he  had  so  many  difficulties  to  surmount, 
spent  no  more  than  six  months. 

The  news  of  Caesar's  victory  had  been  some 
time  received.  The  principal  supports  of  the  re- 
public had  fallen  at  Thapsus  and  at  Pharsalia; 
and  as  the  sons  of  Pompey,  though  favourably 
received  by  their  late  father's  adherents  in  Spain, 
were  not  yet  supposed  to  be  in  condition  to  resist 
the  victor,  the  revolution  in  his  favour  seemed  to 
be  complete,  and  every  part  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire subjected  to  his  power.  Nothing  now  re- 
mained, but  that  he  should  take  possession  of 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliii.  c.  12.  Appian.  de  Bello  Civili, 
Hb.  ii.   Florus,  Eutropius,  Hirtius. 


2  Plut.  in  Caps.  3  About  400.000Z. 

4  Plut.  in  Ceea.  5  Hirtius  de  Bell.  Afr.  c.  86. 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


311 


that  sovereignty  to  which  he  aspired,  and  in 
which,  it  soon  after  appeared,  that  to  him  there 
was  a  charm,  even  in  the  court  that  was  paid  to 
him,  as  well  as  in  the  possession  of  power. 

Whatever  distress  the  surviving  members  of 
the  commonwealth  may  have  suffered  on  the  loss 
of  their  relations  and  friends,  who  had  fallen  in 
the  late  bloody  transactions  of  this  war,  or  what- 
ever mortification  they  may  have  felt  on  the  loss 
of  their  own  political  consequence,  as  partners  in 
the  empire  of  the  world,  no  symptoms  of  aversion, 
or  unwilling  submission,  appeared  on  the  part  of 
the  people ;  all  orders  of  men  hastened  to  pay 
their  court  to  the  victor,  and,  by  their  servile  adu- 
lations, to  anticipate  the  state  of  degradation  into 
which  they  were  soon  to  be  reduced. 

In  the  name  of  the  senate  and  people,  a  conti- 
nual thanksgiving  of  forty  days  was  decreed  for 
the  late  victory  at  Thapsus.  The  power  of  dic- 
tator was  conferred  on  Caesar  for  ten  years,  and 
that  of  censor,  which  gave  the  supreme  disposal 
of  honours  and  rank  in  the  commonwealth,  and 
which,  on  account  of  the  abuse  to  which  it  was 
subject,  had  been  some  time  abolished,  was  now 
under  a  new  title,  that  of  Prcefectus  Morum,  re- 
stored in  his  person.  At  the  same  time  the  no- 
mination of  some  of  the  officers  of  state,  formerly 
elected  by  the  people,  was  committed  to  him.  He 
was,  in  the  exercise  of  these  powers,  to  be  pre- 
ceded by  seventy-two  lictors,  triple  the  number 
of  those  who  used  to  attend  the  dictators,  and  he 
was  to  enjoy,  for  life,  many  of  the  inferior  pre- 
rogatives, which,  under  the  republic,  served  to 
distinguish  the  first  officers  of  state  ;  such  as  that 
of  giving  signals  for  the  horses  to  start,  or  for 
the  other  sports  to  begin  at  the  games  of  the  cir- 
cus ;  and  that  of  delivering  his  opinion  before  any 
one  else  in  the  senate.  It  was  likewise  ordered, 
that  he  should  have  in  the  senate  a  gilded  chair 
of  state,  placed  next  to  that  of  the  consul ;  and, 
as  if  it  were  intended  to  join  ridicule  with  these 
extraordinary  honours,  it  was  decreed  that  as  the 
conqueror  of  Gaul,  in  his  triumphs  he  should  be 
drawn  by  white  horses,  to  put  him  on  a  foot  of 
equality  with  Camillus,  to  whom  this  distinction 
had  been  given,  as  the  restorer  of  his  country 
from  its  destruction  by  the  ancestors  of  that  na- 
tion ;  that  his  name  should  be  inserted,  instead 
\jf  that  of  Catullus,  as  the  person  who  had  re- 
built the  capitol ;  that  a  car,  like  that  of  Jupiter, 
should  be  placed  for  him  in  the  same  temple,  and 
near  to  the  statue  of  the  god  himself;  and  that 
his  own  statue,  with  the  title  of  a  demi-god, 
should  be  erected  on  a  globe  representing  the 
earth. 

It  is  said  that  Caesar  refused  many  of  the  ho- 
nours which  were  decreed  to  him ;  but  in  these, 
which  he  no  doubt  encouraged,  or  favourably  re- 
ceived, he  sufficiently  betrayed  a  vanity  which 
but  rarely  accompanies  such  a  distinguished  su- 
periority of  understanding  and  courage.  Though 
in  respect  to  the  ability  with  which  ne  rendered 
men  subservient  to  his  purpose ;  in  respect  to  the 
choice  of  means  for  the  attainment  of  his  end ;  in 
respect  to  the  plan  and  execution  of  his  designs, 
he  was  far  above  those  who  were  eminent  in  the 
history  of  mankind;  yet  in  respect  to  the  end 
which  he  pursued,  in  respect  to  the  passions  he 
had  to  gratify,  he  was  one  merely  of  the  vulgar, 
and  condescended  to  be  vain  of  titles  and  honours, 
which  he  has  shared  with  persons  of  the  meanest 
capacity.     Insensible  to  the  honour  of  being 


deemed  the  equal  in  rank  to  Cato  and  Catullus, 
to  Hortensius  and  Cicero,  and  the  equal  in  repu- 
tation to  Sylla,  to  Fabius,  and  to  the  Scipios,  he 
preferred  being  a  superior  among  profligate  men, 
the  leader  among  soldiers  of  fortune,  and  to  ex- 
tort  by  force  from  his  fellow  citizens  a  deference 
which  his  wonderful  abilities  must  have  made 
unavoidable,  even  if  he  had  possessed  the  mag- 
nanimity to  despise  it. 

Caesar,  soon  after  the  distinctions  now  men- 
tioned were  bestowed  upon  him,  addressed  him- 
self to  the  Roman  senate  and  people,  in  a  speech 
which,  being  supposed  to  proceed  from  a  master, 
was  full  of  condescension  and  lenity,  but  from  a 
fellow  citizen  was  fraught  with  insult  and  con- 
tumely. A  speech  delivered  on  so  remarkable  an 
occasion  was  likely  to  be  in  substance  preserved ; 
and  under  the  government  of  his  successors,  by 
whom  he  was  numbered  with  the  gods,  it  was 
not  likely  to  get  abroad  but  with  a  view  to  do 
him  honour.  "Let  no  man,"  he  said,  "imagine 
that,  under  the  favour  of  my  exalted  situation,  I 
am  now  to  indulge  myself  in  acts,  or  even  in  ex- 
pressions, of  severity  ;  or  that  I  am  to  follow  the 
example  of  Marius,  of  Cinna,  of  Sylla,  or  of  most 
others,  who,  having  subdued  their  enemies,  dropt, 
in  the  height  of  their  fortune,  that  character  of 
moderation,  under  which  they  had  formerly  en- 
ticed men  to  their  party.  I  have  appeared  all 
along  in  my  true  character,  and  now,  in  the 
height  of  my  power,  have  no  change  to  make  in 
my  conduct.6  The  more  my  fortunes  advance, 
the  more  I  will  endeavour  to  use  them  properly. 
My  sole  object,  while  I  endeavoured  to  nse  above 
my  enemies,  was  to  secure  for  myself  a  situation 
in  which  I  might  exercise  virtue  with  dignity 
and  safety;  and  I  shall  not  now  imitate  the  ex- 
amples which  I  myself  often  have  condemned,  nor 
sully  the  splendour  of  my  victories  by  an  improper 
use  of  my  power. 

"  As  the  favours  of  fortune  are  won  by  vigour, 
so  they  are  preserved  by  moderation,  and  should 
be  most  carefully  preserved  by  those  who  enjoy 
the  greatest  share  of  them.  I  covet  sincere  affec- 
tion and  genuine  praise;  not  the  adulation  that 
springs  from  fear  and  hatred.  These  are  my 
serious  thoughts,  confirmed  on  reflection  ;  and 
you  shall  find  me  governed  by  them  in  all  the 
actions  of  my  life.  I  do  not  mean  to  be  your  lord 
or  your  tyrant,  but  your  chief  and  your  leader. 
When  the  state  has  occasion  for  my  authority, 
you  shall  find  in  me  a  dictator  and  a  consul;  but 
on  ordinary  occasions,  no  more  than  a  private 
man. 

"  I  have  spared  many  who  were  repeatedly  in 
arms  against  me.  I  have  shut  my  ears  to  the  in- 
formations of  the  hidden  designs  of  others,  and 
have  destroyed  all  letters  and  papers  which  could 
lead  to  a  detection  of  my  secret  enemies.  To 
most  of  you  I  can  have  no  resentment ;  and  I  do 
not  incline  to  raise  prosecutions  against  those 
who  may  think  they  have  incurred  my  displea- 
sure. Live,  therefore,  with  me  from  this  tim« 
forward  in  confidence,  as  children  with  their  fa- 
ther. 1  reserve  to  myself  the  power  of  punishing 
the  guilty,  as  far  as  justice  requires;  but  will  pro- 
tect the  innocent,  and  reward  the  deserving. 

"  Let  not  these  appearances  of  military  force 
alarm  you.    The  troops  which  are  quartered  in 


6  Dio.  Cash.  lib.  xliii  c.  IS. 


312 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


the  city,  and  which  attend  my  person,  are  des- 
tined to  defend,  not  to  oppress  the  citizens  ;  and 
they  will  know,  upon  every  occasion,  the  limits 
of  their  duty. 

"  Uncommon  taxes  have  lately  been  levied  in 
the  provinces  and  in  Italy,  but  not  for  my  private 
use.  I  have  in  reality  expended  my  fortune, 
and  contracted  immoderate  debts  in  the  public 
service ;  and,  while  I  myself  have  borne  so  great 
a  part  of  the  burden,  am  likewise  made  to  bear 
the  blame  of  what  others  have  exacted."  He 
concluded  with  assurances,  that  the  arrears  which 
were  due  to  the  troops,  and  the  other  debts  of 
the  public,1  should  be  paid  with  the  least  possible 
inconvenience  to  the  people. 

In  this  speech  was  conveyed,  not  the  indignant 
and  menacing  spirit  of  Sylla,  who  despised  the 
very  power  of  which  he  was  possessed ;  but  the 
conscious  state  and  reflecting  condescension  of  a 
prince  who  admired  and  wished  to  recommend 
nis  greatness.  The  Roman  people,  in  former 
instances  of  usurpation,  had  experienced  sanguin- 
ary and  violent  treatment,  and  they  now  seemed 
to  bear  with  indifference  the  entire  suppression 
of  their  political  rights,  when  executed  by  hands, 
that  refrained  from  proscriptions  and  murders. 
But  as  Caesar  seemed  to  think  his  present  eleva- 
tion the  highest  object  of  human  wishes,  there 
were  some  who  thought  their  present  subjection 
the  lowest  state  of  degradation  and  misery. 
"What  should  I  do  in  such  times?"  says  Cicero 
to  his  correspondent,  "books  cannot  always  amuse 
me.  I  go  into  any  company,  affect  to  be  noisy, 
and  laugh,  to  conceal  my  sorrow."2 

The  populace  were  gratified  with  shows,  pro- 
cessions, and  feasts,  and  with  the  gratuities  that 
were  given  them  in  money.  Caesar  had  four 
separate  triumphs  in  one  month.  The  first  for 
his  conquest  of  Gaul,  at  which  Vercingetorix, 
the  prince  of  the  Arverni,  by  a  custom  cruel  and 
odious  in  all  its  parts,  was  led  in  chains,  and 
afterwards  put  to  death.  The  second  for  his 
victory  in  Egypt,  at  which  Arsinoe,  the  sister  of 
the  queen,  was  exhibited  in  fetters,  and  by  her 
youth  and  beauty  excited  a  general  compassion, 
which  preserved  her  life.  A  third  for  the  defeat 
of  Pharnaces,  where  the  trophies,  as  has  already 
been  mentioned,  were  marked  with  the  words, 
I  came,  1  saw,  I  vanquished.  The  last  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  king  of  Numidia,  in  which  the 
infant  son  of  that  prince  was  carried  in  procession. 
This  captive  having  received  a  literary  education 
at  Rome,  became  afterwards,  according  to  Plu- 
tarch, an  historian  of  eminence.3 

Although  triumphs  were  not  obtained  for  the 
defeat  of  fellow  citizens,  and  nothing  in  these 
processions  had  reference  to  Pompey,  yet  the 
effigies  of  many  considerable  senators,,  who  had 
fallen  in  the  civil  war,,  were  carried  before  the 
victor's  chariot. 

In  these  processions,  Caesar  is  said  to  have 
carried  to  the  treasury,  in  all,  sixty  thousand  ta- 
lents in  money  ;4  two  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
twenty  two  chaplets  or  crowns  of  gold,  weighing 
twenty  thousand  four  hundred  and  fourteen 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliii.  c.  15.  &c. 

2  Cic.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  ix.  ep.  26.  Miraris  tam  ex- 
hiliratam  esse  servitutem  nostram.  Quid  ergo  fa- 
ciam?— ibi  loquor  quod  in  solum  ut  dicitur,  et  gemitum 
in  risus  maximos  transfero. 

3  Plut.  in  Ca;s.  Dio.  Cass.         4  About  10,000,000/. 


pounds:5  He  at  the  same  time  distributed  to 
each  private  man  of  the  army,  five  thousand  de- 
narii or  drachmas,  about  one  hundred  and  sixty 
one  pounds  sterling :  to  each  centurion,  double : 
to  the  tribune,  quadruple  :  to  the  people,  an  attic 
mina  of  a  hundred  drachmas,  or  about  three 
pounds  four  shillings  and  seven  pence  a  man.6 

The  soldiers,  who  walked  in  these  processions, 
in  chaunting  their  ballads  and  lampoons,  took  the 
usual  petulant  liberties  with  their  leader,  alluded 
to  the  disorders  of  his  youth  and  to  the  crimes  of 
his  age ;  and  showed  that  they  were  not  deceived 
by  the  professions  which  he  made  of  a  zeal  for 
the  rights  of  the  people.  "If  you  observe  the 
laws,"  they  said,  "you  shall  be  punished  ;  but  if 
you  boldly  transgress  them  all,  a  crown  is  your 
reward."  These  appearances  of  freedom  in  the 
troops,  perhaps,  flattered  the  people  with  some 
image  of  the  ancient  familiarity  of  ranks  which 
subsisted  in  times  of  the  republic ;  but  the  license 
of  mere  soldiers  of  fortune  brings  too  often  the 
reverse  of  freedom  to  the  people ;  and  in  whatever 
manner  those  of  Rome  were  qualified  to  judge 
of  their  own  situation,  it  is  likely  that  the  pa- 
geants, which  now  entertained  them,,  were  part 
of  the  means  which  Caesar  employed  to  reconcile 
them  to  his  usurpation,  and  to  divert  their 
thoughts  from  the  prospect  of  a  military  govern- 
ment with  which  they  were  threatened.  Farther 
to  secure  these  effects,,  he  continued  to  multiply 
shows  and  public  diversions.  He  himself,  at  the 
close  of  his  triumphs,  walked  in  procession  at 
the  opening  of  magnificent  edifices  he  had  built,, 
and  in  his  return  at  night  from  this  ceremony, 
attended  by  multitudes  of  the  people,  was  lighted 
by  torches  borne  on  elephants.7  At  the  same 
time  he  erected  theatres,  and  exhibited  dramatic 
performances  in  different  parts  of  the  city,  and 
amply  indulged  the  taste  of  the  populace  for  en- 
tertainments of  every  sort..  He  introduced  not 
only  gladiators  to  fight  in  single  combat,  but  par- 
ties on  foot  and  on  horseback  to  engage  in  con- 
siderable numbers  on  opposite  sides,  and  to 
exhibit  a  species  of  battles.  Among  these  he 
showed  the  manner  of  fighting  from  elephants, 
having  forty  of  these  animals  properly  mounted, 
and  the  manner  likewise  of  fighting  at  sea,  hav- 
ing vessels  on  a  piece  of  water  which  was  formed 
for  the  purpose.  In  most  of  these  shows,  the 
parties  who  were  engaged,  being  captives  or 
malefactors  condemned  to  die,  gave  a  serious  ex- 
hibition of  the  utmost  efforts  they  could  make  in, 
real  fight. 

Among  the  other  articles  of  show  and  expense 
which  composed  the  magnificence  of  these  enter- 
tainments, are  mentioned  the  blinds  or  awnings 
of  silk,  a  material  then  of  the  highest  price,,  which 
were  spread  over  the  public  theatres  to  shade  the 
spectators  from  the  sun,  and  to  enable  them  un- 
disturbed, from  under  these  delicate  coverings,  to 
enjoy  the  sights  of  bloodshed  and  horror  which 
were  presented  before  them.  Two  human  sacri- 
fices, we  are  told,  were  at  the  same  time  offered 
up  in  the  field  of  Mars,  by  priests  specially  named 
for  this  service.  Of  this  shocking  exhibition,  the 
historian  does  not  explain  the  occasion.^  The 
whole  was  attended  by  a  feast,  to  which  the 


5  The  Roman  pondo  consisted  of  ten  ounces,  about 
800,000/. 

6  Appian.  Sueton.  7  Dio.  Cat*.  Suetonius. 
8  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliii.  c  24. 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


313 


people  were  invitee!,  and  at  which  twenty  thou- 
sand benches  or  couches  were  placed  for  these 
numerous  guests.9  So  great  was  the  concourse 
from  the  country  to  this  entertainment,  that  mul- 
titudes lay  in  the  streets,  or  lodged  in  booths 
erected  for  the  occasion.  Many  were  trampled 
under  foot,  and  killed  in  the  crowds.  Among 
those  who  perished  in  this  manner,  two  Roman 
•senators  are  mentioned. 

This  method  of  gaining  the  people,  by  Matter- 
ing their  disposition  to  dissipation  and  idleness, 
was  already  familiar  at  Rome.  It  had  !>een  em- 
ployed under  the  republic  in  procuring  favour, 
and  in  purchasing  votes  by  those  who  aspired  to 
the  offices  of  state.  It  was  now  intended  by 
Caesar  to  effect  the  revolution  he  had  in  view, 
and  to  reconcile  the  populace  of  Rome,  who  had 
for  some  time  governed  the  empire,  to  the  loss  of 
their  political  consequence,  in  being  deprived  of 
a  power  which  they  were  no  longer  worthy  to 
hold.  It  is  probable,  that  the  arms  of  Cresar 
were  not  more  successful  in  subduing  those  who 
opposed  him  in  the  field,  than  these  popular  arts 
were  in  gaining  the  consent  of  his  subjects  to  the 
dominion  he  was  about  to  assume. 

From  this  time  forward,  Caesar  took  upon  him- 
self all  the  functions  of  government,  and  while  he 
suffered  the  forms  of  a  senate  and  popular  assem- 
blies to  remain,  availed  himself  of  their  name  and 
authority  without  consulting  with  either,  affixing 
without  scruple  the  superscription  of  particular 
senators  to  the  decrees  or  edicts,  which  he  sent 
abroad  into  the  provinces.10  "  My  name,"  says 
Cicero,  "is  often  prefixed  to  public  deeds  which 
are  sent  abroad,  as  having  been  moved  or  drawn 
up  by  me,  and  which  come  back  from  Armenia 
or  Syria  as  mine,  before  I  have  ever  heard  of 
them  at  Rome.  Do  not  imagine  I  am  in  jest ; 
for  I  have  letters  from  persons,  whose  names  1 
never  heard  of  before,  thanking  me  for  the  ho- 
nour I  have  done  them  in  bestowing  the  title  of 
king."  u 

Equally  absolute  in  the  city  as  in  the  provinces, 
Caesar  placed  whoever  he  thought  proper  on  the 
rolls  of  the  senate  \  and,  without  regard  to  birth, 
declared  some  to  be  of  Patrician  rank.  He  re- 
called some  who  had  been  driven  into  exile  for  ille- 
gal practices,  and  reinstated  in  their  ranks  many 
whom  the  censors  had  degraded.12  in  all  the  elec- 
tions, he  named  half  the  magistrates,  or  in  a  man- 
date, addressed  to  the  tribes,  took  upon  him  t<>  di- 
rect the  people  whom  they  were  to  choose.13  In  the 


9  Pint,  in  Ciesar. 

10  It  is  well  known,  that  the  senatfis  consulta  bore 
the  names  of  the  senators  by  whom  they  were  pro- 
posed. 

11  Ante  audio  senatus  consultnm  in  Armeniam  et 
Syriam  esse  perlatum,  quod  in  rneam  Ben  tent  i  am  fac- 
tum esse  dicatur,  quam  omnino  Rientionefl)  nNain  de 
ea  re  esse  fact  a  in.  Atque  hoc  nolim  me  jocare  putes, 
nam  mini  scito  jam,  a  regibus  nltimis  ailatas esse  li- 
teras,  qui  bus  mini  fjratias  asiant  quod  se  mea  senten- 
tia  reges  appellaverini ;  quos  ego  non  modo  reges 
app.-illatos,  sed  omnino  nato  nesciebam.  Cicero  ad  Fa- 
miliares,  lib.  ix.  ep  15. 

12  At  this  time,  he  with  much  difficulty  was  per- 
suaded, at  the  intercession  of  the  senate,  to  permit  the 
return  of  Caius  Marcellus,  who  at  Athens,  on  his  way 
into  Italy,  was,  upon  motives  which  have  not  been  ex- 
plained, assassinated  by  one  of  his  own  attendants. 
This  Marcellus  was  consul,  U.  C.  703. 

13  The  words  of  Cesar's  mandate  were,  M  Caesar 
dictator  tribui,  &c.  &c.  commendo  vobis  ilium,  &c.  &c. 
ut  vestro  suftragio  suam  dignitatem  teneat.  Sutton, 
in  Cesar. 

2R 


exercise  of  so  much  power,  he  became  reserved  and 
difficult  to  access,  familiar  only  with  persons 
whom  he  himself  had  raised,  and  who  had  talenta 
amusing  or  serviceable,  and  without  any  preten- 
sions to  alarm  his  jealousy.1'*  Nevertheless,  if  the 
Romans  could  have  overlooked  what  was  offen- 
sive in  his  manner,  or  illegal  in  the  powers  w  hich 
he  had  thus  usurped,  many  of  his  acta  were  in 
themselves,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  so 
able  a  personage,  worthy  of  a  great  prince,  and 
tending  to  reform  abuses,  as  well  as  to  facilitate 
the  summary  proceedings  of  the  despotical  power 
he  had  assumed. 

Among  the  first  acts  of  Caesar's  reign,  the  law 
of  Sylla,  by  which  the  children  of  the  proscribed 
had  been  excluded  from  holding  any  office  in  the 
state,  was  repealed.  The  judiciary  law,  which 
had  undergone  so  many  alterations,  and  which 
in  its  latest  form,  admitted  some  of  the  inferior 
class  of  the  people14  on  the  roll  of  the  judges  or 
jurymen,  was  now  reformed,  so  as  to  limit  the 
exercise  of  the  judicature  to  the  senators  and 
knights.  A  scrutiny  was  made  into  the  titles  of 
those  who  had  been  in  the  practice  to  receive 
corn  at  the  public  granaries,  and  their  numbers 
were  greatly  reduced.16  Of  the  corporations 
which  had  been  multiplied  for  factious  purposes, 
many  were  abolished,  and  the  original  compa- 
nies of  the  city  alone  were  permitted  to  remain. 
Many  punishments,  for  the  better  restraining  of 
crimes,  were  increased.  To  the  ordinary  punish- 
ment of  murder,  was  joined  the  confiscation  of 
the  whole  estate ;  to  that  of  some  other  crimes, 
the  confiscation  of  one  half.  The  kalendar  was 
reformed  upon  the  principles  established  by  the 
Egyptian  astronomers.  The  reckoning  by  lunar 
months,  and  the  use  of  irregular  intercalations, 
which  had  been  frequently  made  for  party  and 
political  purposes,  had  so  deranged  the  terms,  that 
the  festivals  to  be  observed  by  reapers  did  not 
happen  in  harvest,  or  those  of  the  vintage  in 
autumn.  To  restore  them  therefore  to  their  pro- 
per dates  in  the  kalendar,  no  less  than  an  inter- 
calation of  sixty-seven  days,  or  above  two  months, 
was  required.  This  intercalation  was  made  in 
the  present  year,  between  the  months  of  Novem- 
l>er  and  December,  so  that  the  name  of  Decem- 
ber was  transferred  from  the  time  of  the  autumnal 
equinox,  to  that,  where  it  stili  remains,  of  the 
winter  solstice. 

Under  the  government  of  Caesar,  sumptuary 
laws  were  framed  to  restrain  the  expense  of  the 
table)  and  be  bimsril  expressed  a  great  zeal  to 
correct  the  abuse  which  prevailed  in  this  article. 
Being  sensible  that  Italy  was  greatly  depopulated 
by  the  distractions  <  t  the  commonwealth,  and  by 
the  devastations  of  the  late  civil  war,  he  took 
measures  to  restore  the  numbers  of  the  people, 
both  by  detaining  the  natives  of  Italy  at  home, 
and  by  inviting  foreigners  to  settle.    He  gave 


14  Cieer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  iv.  ep  9.  Ib.  lib.  vi.  ep.  14. 

15  The  trtbuni  /Erarii. 

lb  The  leaders  of  faction  under  the  republic,  and  no 
one  probably  more  than  Caesar  himself,  in  order  to  in- 
crease  the  numbers  of  their  partisans,  had  augmented 
this  list,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  become  a  great  abuse. 
Dion.  CasfiitlS  says,  it  was  at  this  tune  reduced  by 
Cffsar  to  one  half  Suetonius  specifies  the  number 
from  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  to  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand.  Plutarch  and  Appian  stats 
the  reduction,  so  as  to  be  understood  of  the  numbers 
of  the  whole  people,  in  comparing  the  muster  taken 
before  the  civil  war  w  ith  the  one  now  made. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


premiums  to  those  who  had  families  :  he  ordered, 
that  no  citizen  above  twonty  nor  under  ten,  ex- 
cept belonging  to  the  army,  should  remain  out  of 
Italy  above  three  years  at  a  time ;  and  that  the 
sons  of  senators,  except  in  the  family  or  retinue 
of  the  public  officers,  should  not  go  abroad ; 
that  all  landholders  in  Italy  should  employ  no 
less  than  one  third  freemen  on  their  lands; 
that  all  practitioners  of  liberal  arts,  particularly 
foreign  physicians  settling  at  Rome,  should  be 
admitted  on  the  rolls-  of  the  people ;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  extended  the  privilege  of  Romans 
to  whole  cities  and  provinces  in  different  parts  of 
the  empire, I:  by  these  means  increasing  the  num- 
ber of  Roman  citizens,  or  at  least  increasing  the 
number  of  those  who  were  to  bear  this  title. 
Sensible  that  he  himself  had  become  dangerous 
to  the  republic,  by  liaving  his  power  as  a  provin- 
cial officer  improperly  prolonged,  he  took  mea- 
sures to  prevent  a  similar  danger  to  the  govern- 
ment, of  which  he  himself  had  now  acquired  the 
possession,,  limiting  the  duration  of  command  in 
the  provinces,  if  with  the  title  of  propraetor  to  one 
year,  or  with  that  of  proconsul  to  two  years ;  a 
regulation  in  which  he  showed  how  well  he  un- 
derstood the  nature  of  the  ladder  by  which  he 
himself  hail  mounted  to  his  present  elevation,  and 
how  much  he  desired  to  withhold  the  use  of  it 
from  any  one  else  who  might  be  disposed  to  tread 
in  his  steps,  or  to  dispute  nis  continuance  in  the 
height  he  had  gained. 

While  Caesar,  on  a  supposition  that  he  himself 
was  to  hold  the  reigns  of  government,  was  pro- 
viding for  the  security  of  the  power  he  had  esta- 
blished in  the  capital,  and  on  a  supposition  that 
he  had  no  enemy  left  in  the  field,  or  that  the  re- 
mains of  the  adverse  party  in  the  provinces  might 
be  extinguished  by  his  officers,  was  betaking  him- 
self to  civil  affairs  and  to  popular  arts,  he  had  re- 
ports from  Spain  which  convinced  him,  that  his 
own  presence  might  stiff  be  necessary  to  repress 
a.  party,  which  began  to  resume  its  vigour  under 
the  sons  of  Pompey.  He  had  sent  Didius,  with 
the  fleet  and  army,  from  Sardinia,  to  secure  the 
possession  of  Spain ;  but  this  service  was  found 
to  be  more  difficult  than  was  at  first  apprehended. 
He  had  himself,  in  appearance,  reduced  this  pro- 
vince ;  but  many  humours  had  broke  out  in  it, 
while  he  was  afterwards  so  much  occupied  in 
other  parts  of  the  empire.  Even  the  troops  which 
had  joined  his  standard,  mutinied  during  the  un- 
certain state  of  his  fortunes  in  Thessaly  and 
Egypt ;  and  though,  upon  the  death  of  Cassius 
Longinus,  and  the  succession  of  Trebonius,  their 
discipline  was  in  appearance  restored ;  yet  con- 
sciousness of  the  heinous  offence  they  had  com- 
mitted against  Caesar  made  them  doubt  of  his 
forgiveness  ;  and,  joined  with  the  inclination  and 
isespect  which  they  yet  entertained  for  the  family 
of  Pompey,  determined  them  to  take  part  against 
him.  They  had  opened  a  secret  correspondence 
with  Scipio,  while  he  was  yet  at  the  head  of  a 
powerful' army  in.  Africa,  and  encouraged  him  to 
send  a  proper  officer-  into  Spain  to  take  the  com- 
mand of  such  forces  as  could  be  raised  in  the  pro- 
vince. 

Young  Pompey  was  sent  for  this  purpose.  In 
his  way,  he  put  into  the  island  of  Majorca,  and 
was  there  some  time  detained  by  sickness,  or  re- 
mained in  expectation  that  he  might  prevail  on 


1  Dio.  Cass.  Sueton.  Appian. 


the  natives  to  espouse  his  cause.  The  troops  on 
the  continent,  in  the  mean  time,  even  before 
Pompey  arrived  to  take  the  command  of  them, 
declared  themselves  openly  against  Caesar,  and 
erased  his  name  from  their  bucklers.  They 
obliged  his  lieutenant  Trebonius  to  fly  from  their 
quarters,  and  owned  T.  GLuintus  Scapula  and 
Q..  Apronius  for  their  generals. 

In  this  posture  of  affairs,  young  Pompey  ar 
rived  in  Spain,  took  the  command  of  this  army, 
and  either  received  or  forced  the  submission  of 
the  principal  towns.  He  was  likewise  strength- 
ened by  the  accession  of  all  the  Roman  settlers  in 
the  province  who  retained  any  zeal  for  the  re- 
public, and  by  the  remains  of  former  armies  who 
had  been  levied  by  his  father,  especially  such  of 
that  army  which  had  served  under  Afranius  on 
the  Segra,  as  were  left  in  Spain  ;  and  by  many 
officers  of  rank,  who,  having  escaped  from  Thes- 
saly or  Africa  upon  the  late  calamities  of  their 
party,,  had  taken  refuge  in  this  country.  Among 
these,  Labienus  and  Varus,  with  as  many  as 
could  be  saved  from  the  massacre  at  Thapsus, 
were  assembling  anew  under  the  standard  of 
Pompey.  The  two  brothers,  Cnaeusand  Sextus, 
were  joined  together,  and  supported  by  the  name 
of  their  father,  which  was  still  in  high  veneration  ;. 
they  had  assembled  thirteen  legions.  Among 
these,  were  two  legions  of  native  Spaniards,  who 
had  deserted  from  Trebonius;2  one  that  was  raised 
from  the  Roman  colonists;  and  a  fourth  which 
had  arrived  from  Africa^  with  the  elder  of  tha 
two  brothers^ 

Q..  Fabius  Maximus  and  GL  Pedius  or  Di- 
dius,3 the  officers  of  Caesar,  being  unable  to  make 
head  against  this  force,  remained  on  the  defen- 
sive, and  by  the  reports  which  they  made  to  their 
commander,  represented  the  necessity  of  his  own 
presence  in  the  province. 

The  continuance  of  the  dictatorial  power  in 
Caesar's  person,  had  superseded  the  usual  suo 
cession  in  the  offices  of  state.  Lepidus  still  re- 
mained in  his  station  of  general  of  horse ;  and, 
with  a  council  of  six  or  nine  praefects  being  left 
to  command  at  Rome,  Caesar  set  out  in  the 
autumn  for  Spain.  He  ordered  troops  from  Italy 
to  reinforce  those  already  employed  in  this  ser- 
vice, and,  in  twenty-seven  days  after  his  depart- 
ure from  Rome,  arrived  at  Saguntum.4 

Upon  the  news  of  Caesar's  approach,  Cnaeus 
Pompeiiis  had  assembled  all  his  force  on  the 
Boetis,  posted  his  brother  Sextus  with  a  proper 
garrison  at  Corduba,  and  himself  endeavoured  to 
reduce  Ulia,  a  town  which  still  held  out  against 
him  in  that  neighbourhood.  Caesar's  first  object, 
upon  his  arrival  in  Spain,  was  to  preserve  this 
place  from  falling  into  the  enemy's  hands.  For 
this  purpose,  he  detached  eleven  cohorts  under 
the  command  of  L.  Julius  Paciaecus,  with  orders; 
if  possible,  to  throw  themselves  into  the  town. 
The  night  in  which  they  marched  for  this  pur- 
pose, being  stormy  and  dark,  they  passed  the  first 
posts  of  the  besiegers  unnoticed.  When  near 
the  gates,  they  were  challenged  ;  but  the  officer 
who  led  the  van,  having  answered  in  a  low  voice, 
that  they  were  a  detachment  ordered  to  the  foot 
of  the  wall  in  search  of  some  entry,  by  which, 
under  the  cover  of  the  night,  they  might  surprise 


2  Hirtius  de  Bell.  Hisp.      3  Dio.  Cass.  ibid.  c.  31. 
4  Agp.  de  Bell  Civil,  lib.  ii.  or  as  Strabo  writes,  at 

ObulirOib.  iii  p.  160. 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


315 


the  garrison,  they  were  suffered  to  pass,  and  pre- 
senting themselves  at  one  of  the  gates,  upon  a 
signal  that  had  been  agreed  upon,  they  were  ad- 
mitted into  the  town. 

While  Caesar  thus  reinforced  the  garrison  of 
Ulia,  he  himself,  to  make  a  diversion  in  their  fa- 
vour, marched  up  to  Corduba,  cutoff  a  party  that 
had  been  sent  from  thence  to  observe  his  motions, 
and  threatened  the  town  with  a  siege.  Sextus, 
who  was  in  the  place,  being  alarmed,  sent  press- 
ing representations  to  his  brother,  who  accord- 
ingly abandoned  his  lines  before  Ulia,  and  march- 
ed to  his  relief    Both  armies  encamped  on  the 
Guadalquivir.*    The  parties  that  were  sent  for- 
ward by  them  to  scour  the  country,  or  to  cover 
their  quarters,  were  engaged  in  daily  skirmishes. 
But  the  two  brothers,  being  in  possession  of  the 
principal  stations,  and  in  condition  to  protract  the 
war,  continued  to  act  on  the  defensive,  Caesar, 
on  his  part,  made  some  movements  in  order  to 
disconcert  them,  and  to  find,  if  possible,  an  op- 
portunity of  coming  to  action  ;  but  the  country 
being  hilly,  and  the  towns  generally  built  upon 
heights,  every  where  furnished  strong  posts  for 
the  enemy,  and  prevented  his  making  any  pro- 
gress.   The  winter  at  the  same  time 
C.  J.  Casar,  approached,  and  exposed  his  army 
M^E^Le      to  consi^craD'e  hardships  from  the 
piilus,         severity  of  the  season,  and  from  the 
M.  E.  Coss.  scarcity  of  provisions.    Under  these 
U  C  708    disau<vaIltages>  ne  undertook  the  siege 
"of  Allegua,  and  on  the  twentieth  of 
February,  after  an  obstinate  resist- 
ance, obliged  that  town  to  surrender.8 

Our  accounts  of  these  operations,  which  are 
ascribed  to  Hirtius,  and  which,  with  his  other 
performances  are  annexed  to  Caesar's  Commen- 
taries, being  less  perfect  than  other  parts  of  the 
collection,  all  we  can  distinctly  learn  from  them 
is,  that  after  a  variety  of  different  movements, 
which  gave  rise  to  frequent  skirmishes,  the  ar- 
mies in  the  month  of  March  came  to  encamp  in 
the  plain  of  Munda,  about  five  miles  from  each 
other;  that  Caesar  was  about  to  leave  his  station, 
when  in  the  morning  of  his  intended  departure, 
he  had  intelligence,  that  the  enemy  had  been 
under  arms  from  the  middle  of  the  preceding 
night,  and  were  meditating  some  attempt  on  his 
camp.  This  intelligence  was  followed  by  the 
sudden  appearance  of  their  army  on  some  ele- 
vated grounds  near  the  town  of  Munda ;  but  as 
they  snowed  no  disposition  to  come  into  the 
plain,  Caesar,  after  some  hesitation,  advanced  to 
attack  them. 

In  the  army  of  Pompey,  together  with  the 
flower  of  a  warlike  people,  the  natives  of  Spain, 
were  assembled  many  veterans  of  the  Roman  le- 
gions, inured  to  blood ;  many  Roman  citizens  of 
rank,  now  pushed  to  despair,  or  warned,  by  the 
fate  of  their  party  at  Thapsus,  not  to  expect 
safety  from  the  mercy  of  a  victorious  enemy, 
and  not  to  have  any  hopes,  but  in  their  swords. 
Under  these  impressions,  they  waited  for  Caesar's 
approach  with  a  proper  countenance,  aed  on  the 
lirst  onset  repulsed  and  put  to  flight  thctroops  by 
whom  they  were  attacked.  In  this  extremity, 
Caesar  ran  into  the  ranks  of  his  own  men  ;  said, 
they  were  delivering  him  over  to  boys ;  laid  hold 
of  a  sword  and  a  shield,  and  calling  out  that  this 


then  should  be  the  last  day  of  his  lift,  and  of 
their  services,  took  a  place  in  the  ranks  as  9 
mere  legionary  soldier.  In  this  manner  he  re- 
newed the  action,  and  being  reduced  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  animating  his  men  with  the  example 
of  his  own  personal  valour,  committed  his  for- 
tune and  his  life  to  the  decision  of  a  contest,  in 
which  his  ability  as  an  officer  could  no  longer 
have  any  share  ;  but  while  the  event  was  still  in 
suspense,  Bogud,  an  African,  commanding  a 
body  of  horse  m  his  service,  having  made  an  at- 
tempt to  pierce  into  Pompey's  camp,  drew  La- 
bienus from  his  postin  the  field  to  coverit.  This 
accident  turned  the  fortune  of  the  day.  The 
troops,  who  till  then  valiantly  sustained  Caesar's 
attack,  believing  that  Labienus  deserted  them, 
instantly  fled  in  disorder.  The  slaughter  from 
thence  forward  turned  as  usual  entirely  against 
those  who  fled.  Thirty  thousand  fell  upon  the 
field,  and  among  them  three  thousand  Roman 
citizens  of  high  condition,  with  Labienus  and 
Accius  Varus  at  their  head.  Seventeen  officers 
of  rank  were  taken,  with  thirteen  Roman  eagles 
or  legionary  standards. 

Caesar  acknowledged,  that  having  on  other 
occasions  fought  for  victory,  he  had  now  been 
obliged  to  fight  for  his  life.  He  had  a  thousand 
men  killed,  and  five  hundred  wounded,  before 
the  enemy  gave  way.  Part  of  the  vanquished 
army  retired  into  the  town  of  Munda,  part  into 
the  camp,  and  in  their  respective  posts  prepared 
to  defend  themselves  to  the  last  extremity.  Cae- 
sar, on  the  approach  of  night,  took  possession  of 
all  the  avenues  by  which  either  might  escape; 
and  it  is  said,  that  the  troops  he  employed  in  this 
service,  instead  of  traverses  of  earth  or  stone  to 
obstruct  the  highways;  raised  up  mounds  of  the 
dead  bodies. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  following  day, 
Caesar  having  left  the  town  of  Munda  in  this 
manner  blocked  up  or  invested,  set  out  for  Cor- 
duba, which  Sextus,  the  younger  of  the  two 
brothers,  upon  the  news  of  the  battle,  had  al- 
ready abandoned. 

Cnaeus,  on  seeing  the  rout  of  his  own  army, 
fled  with  a  small  party  of  horse  on  the  road  to 
Carteia.7  Here  he  had  collected  most  of  his 
shipping  and  naval  stores ;  but  the  news  of  his 
defeat  having  arrived  before  him,  the  people  were 
divided  in  their  inclinations.  Part  had  already 
sent  a  deputation  with  an  offer  of  their  services 
to  Caesar ;  part  still  adhered  to  the  family  of 
Pompey,  and  from  these  opposite  dispositions 
had  proceeded  to  actual  violence  and  bloodshed 
in  the  streets.  Pompey  himself  was  wounded  in 
one  of  their  scuffles,  and  expecting  no  safety  in 
a  place,  in  which  so  many  of  the  innabitants  had 
declared  against  him,  he  took  ship,  and  put  to 
sea  with  thirty  galleys.  He  was  pursued  by 
Didius,  who  commanded  Caesar's  squadron  at 
Gades.;  and  being  obliged  in  a  few  days  to  stop 
for  a  supply  of  water,  of  which  he  had  been  i'.I 
provided  at  his  sudden  departure  from  Carteia, 
he  was -overtaken,  most  of  his  ships  destroyed, 
and  he  himself  obliged  to  seek  for  saiety  on  shore. 
Soon  after  he  landed,  he  dismissed  his  attend- 
ants, or  was  deserted  by  them ;  and  falling  into 
the  hands  of  the  enemy,  though  greatly  weakened 
by  his  wounds  and  loss  of  blood,  he  continued  to 


5  The  Bceti». 


6  Hirtius  de  Bell  Hisp. 


7  Now  Gibraltar. 


316 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V 


defend  himself,  until  he  was  overpowered  and 
slain.  His  head,  according  to  the  barbarous 
custom  of  the  times,  was  sent  to  the  conqueror, 
and  exposed  at  Hispalis. 

In  the  preceding  transactions  of  the  war,  every 
circumstance  contributed  to  the  fall  of  the  re- 
public, and  to  the  success  of  Caesar.  In  the  very 
outset  of  the  contest,  half  the  nobility,  ruined  by 
prodigality  and  extravagance,  had  been  desirous 
of  anarchy  and  confusion.  Citizens  high  in  civil 
rank,  and  with  fortunes  entire,  were  generally 
glad  to  forego  their  political  consequence  in  ex- 
change for  ease  and  safety.  Even  the  arms 
which  should  have  protected  the  commonwealth, 
were  in  the  hands  of  mere  soldiers  of  fortune, 
who  were  inclined  to  favour  that  side  from  which 
they  looked  for  the  establishment  of  military 
government ;  they  fought  to  procure  great  power 
and  estates  for  themselves,  not  to  preserve  laws 
which  gave  property  and  the  security  of  wealth 
to  others.  Many  of  the  senators  indeed  per- 
ceived the  impending  ruin,  and  were  prevailed 
upon  to  make  some  efforts  for  the  preservation 
of  the  state,  but  on  most  occasions  too  hastily 
despaired  of  their  cause.  It  was  not  thought 
honourable  or  safe  for  a  citizen  to  survive  his 
freedom.  Upon  this  principle,  the  friends  of  the 
republic,  while  they  escaped  from  the  enemy, 
perished  by  their  own  hands. 

Soon  after  the  action  at  Munda,  Scapula,  one 
©f  the  officers  lately  at  the  head  of  the  republican 
party  in  Spain,  turned  the  practice  of  suicide  into 
a  kind  of  farce.  Having  retired  to  Corduba 
from  the  field  of  battle,  he  ordered  a  magnificent 
pile  of  wood  to  be  raised  and  covered  with  car- 
pets ;  and  having  given  an  elegant  entertainment, 
and  distributed  his  money  among  his  attendants 
and  servants,  he  mounted  to  the  top  of  this 
fabric,  and  while  one  servant  pierced  the  master 
with  his  sword,  another  set  fire  to  the  pile. 
Thus  the  victories  of  Caesar  were  completed  by 
his  enemies ;  and  while  he  gained  a  fresh  step  at 
every  encounter,  they  who  opposed  him  went 
headlong,  and  abandoned  their  country  to  its 
ruin. 

The  province  of  Spain,  under  a  proper  con- 
duct of  its  force  and  resources,  if  it  had  not  been 
able  to  stop  at  once  the  career  of  Caesar's  victo- 
ries, was  surely  sufficient  to  have  given  him  more 
trouble  than  any  other  part  of  the  empire.  Its 
natives  brave,  and  addicted  to  war,  were  inferior 
to  the  Romans  only  in  policy  and  discipline. 
They  had  been  averse  to  the  party  of  Caesar,  and 
would  not,  even  in  its  highest  prosperity,  prefer  it 
to  the  cause  they  had  originally  espoused.  Being 
mixed  with  the  remains  of  Roman  armies  which 
iiad  been  broken  and  dispersed  in  the  field,  they 
still  maintained  every  place  of  defence  against 
the  conqueror  ;  and,  within  the  walls  of  cities  to 
which  they  retired,  defended  themselves  to  the 
last  extremity. 

Caesar,  having  been  employed  part  of  the 
spring  and  the  following  summer  in  subduing 
this  scattered  enemy,  prepared  to  leave  the  pro- 
vince. He  assembled  the  principal  inhabitants 
at  Hispalis;  and  having  upbraided  them  with 
their  animosity  to  himself  and  to  the  Roman 
people,  he  put  them  in  mind  of  his  early  con- 
nexion with  their  country,  as  quaestor  and  as 
praetor,  and  of  his  repeated  good  offices  in  the 
capacity  of  senator  and  magistrate ;  having  made 
ft  proper  establishment  for  the  government  of  the 


province,  he  set  out  for  Italy,1  and  arrived  at 
Rome  in  October.2  Although  it  was  contrary  to 
the  practice  of  former  ages  to  admit  of  triumphs 
where  the  vanquished  were  fellow-citizens,  he 
took  a  triumph  for  his  late  victory  at  Munda ; 
and  the  more  to  amuse  the  people  who,  whatever 
be  the  occasion,  are  captivated  with  such  exhibi- 
tions, he  appointed  separate  triumphs,  on  the 
same  account,  to  Q,.  Fabius  Maximus,  and  to 
Didius,  who  had  acted  under  him  in  that  service. 

These  triumphs,  over  the  supposed  last  de- 
fenders of  the  public  liberty,  and  over  the  perish- 
ing remains  of  the  family  of  Pompey,  so  long 
respected  at  Rome,  instead  of  the  festivity  which 
they  were  intended  to  inspire,  were  attended 
with  many  signs  of  dejection.  But  none  took 
upon  him  to  censure,  or  was  qualified  to  stem, 
the  torrent  of  servility  by  which  all  orders  of  men 
were  carried.  The  same  succession  of  games 
and  entertainments  were  ordered  as  in  the  former 
year.  The  senate  and  people  indeed  had  no 
longer  any  concessions  to  be  added  to  those  al- 
ready made  to  the  conqueror,  and  it  was  difficult 
to  refine  on  the  language  of  adulation,  which 
they  had  so  amply  employed  in  former  decrees  $ 
but  something  to  distinguish  the  present  situation 
of  affairs,  to  show  the  ardour  of  some  to  pay 
their  court,  and  to  disguise  the  discontent  and 
the  sorrow  of  others,  was  thought  necessary  on 
the  present  occasion.  A  thanksgiving  was  ap- 
pointed, and  ordered  to  continue  for  fifty  days. 
The  anniversary  of  the  twentieth  of  April,  the 
day  on  which  the  news  of  the  victory  at  Munda 
was  received  at  Rome,  was  ordered  to  be  for  ever 
celebrated  with  games  of  the  circus.3  Even  they 
who  felt  a  secret  indignation  at  the  elevation  of  a 
single  person  to  act  as  lord  of  the  commonwealth, 
concurred,  in  appearance,  with  these  resolutions 
in  honour  of  Caesar.4  They  thought  that  the 
full  cup  was  most  likely  to  nauseate,  and  that  ex- 
treme provocation  was  most  likely  to  rouse  the 
spirits  of  free  men,  if  any  yet  remained. 

In  the  concessions  which  were  made  to  Caesar, 
whether  suggested  by  his  friends  or  by  his  ene- 
mies, there  was  no  attempt  to  preserve  any  ap- 
pearance of  the  republic,  or  to  veil  the  present 
usurpation.  The  senate,  in  presenting  their 
several  decrees,  waited  upon  him  in  a  body  as 
subjects  to  acknowledge  their  sovereign  ;  were 
received  by  him  on  his  chair  of  state,  and  in  all 
the  form  of  a  royal  ceremony,  stretching  forth  his 
hand  to  each  as  they  approached.  While  he 
carried  the  external  show  of  his  elevation  to  this 
height,  Pontius  Acquilla,  one  of  the  tribunes, 
being  seated  in  the  exercise  of  his  office,  had  suf- 
fered him,  in  one  of  his  processions,  to  pass, 
without  rising  from  his  place.  This  he  greatly 
resented.  "  Must  I,"  he  said  to  those  who  at- 
tended him,  "refer  the  government  to  this 
tribune  J"  And  for  some  days,  in  granting  re- 
quests or  petitions,  he  affected  to  guard  his  an- 
swers ironically,  by  saying,  "Provided  that  Pon- 
tius Acquilla  will  permit."5    The  Consulate  was 


1  Antony  had  set  out  from  Konu  to  meet  Caesar, 
but  to  the  great  surprise  and  alarm  m?  every  body,  re 
turned  unexpectedly  to  Rome.    Cicero  ad  Att.  xii.  18. 

It  was  known  afterwards,  that  Antony  returned 
under  the  surprise  of  an  order  given  by  Caesar  to  oblige 
him  to  pay  for  houses,  &c  bought  at  Pompey's  sale 
Cicer.  Phil.  ii.  29.   Ibid.  xxxi.  29. 

2  Velleius  Paterculus.         3  T)io.  Cassius. 

4  Plutarch,  in  Caes.  5  Sueton.  in  Caei.  e.  7% 


Chap.  I.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


317 


offered  to  him  for  ten  years,  but  he  declined  it,  as 
he  destined  this  and  the  other  offices  of  state  for 
the  gratification  of  his  friends.  He  himself  had 
assumed  the  title  of  consul  in  his  late  triumph, 
and  immediately  after  resigned  it  to  Q,.  Fabius 
Maximus. 

Such,  from  henceforward,  was  to  be  the  man- 
ner ot  conferring  honours  under  the  monarchy 
01  Rome.  Families  had  become  noble  in  conse- 
quence of  being  admitted  into  the  senate,  or  in 
consequence  of  having  borne  any  of  the  higher 
offices  of  state,  such  as  that  of  consul  or  praetor. 
Instead  of  titles,  they  recited  the  names  of  an- 
cestors who  had  been  in  these  offices,  and  instead 
of  ensigns  armorial,  erected  the  effigies  or  images 
of  such  ancestors.  Caesar,  that  he  might  have 
more  frequent  opportunities  to  gratify  his  retain- 
ers, paid  no  regard  to  the  customary  establish- 
ment of  the  senate,  and  increased  its  numbers  at 
pleasure,  by  inserting  in  the  rolls  persons  of  every 
description,  to  the  amount  of  nine  hundred.  He 
augmented  the  number  of  praetors  to  fourteen, 
and  that  of  quaestors  to  forty  ;  and  even,  without 
requiring  that  his  friends  should  pass  through 
these  offices,  rewarded  them  at  pleasure  with  the 
titular  honours  of  consular,  praetorian,  patrician, 
&c.  *  and  extended  his  munificence  likewise  to 
the  provinces,  by  admitting  aliens  separately,  or 
in  collective  bodies,  to  the  privilege  or  appellation 
of  Roman  citizens. 

In  the  midst  of  appearances,  which  seemed  to 
throw  a  ridicule  on  the  ancient  forms  of  the  re- 
public, as  well  as  to  substitute  a  military  govern- 
ment in  their  stead,  Caesar  named  himself,  to- 
gether with  Mark  Antony,  as  consuls  for  the 
following  year.  This  compliment  paid  to  the 
civil  establishment,  by  condescending  to  bear  the 
name  of  legal  office,  though  very  illegally  as- 
sumed, flattered  the  citizens  with  hope  that  he 
meant  to  govern  under  some  form  of  a  republic.7 
Nothing,  however,  followed  from  these  appear- 
ances ;  the  state  which  he  affected,  his  dress,  his 
laurel  wreath,  the  colour  and  height  of  his  bus- 
kins, the  very  seal  which  he  chose  to  make  use 
of,  being  the  impression  of  a  Venus  armed,  in 
ostentation  of  his  supposed  celestial  extraction ; 
the  numerous  guards  and  retinue,  exceeding  two 
thousand  men,  with  which  he  was  constantly 
attended;8  the  satisfaction  with  which  he  seemed 
to  receive  the  forced  servility  of  thos^  whom  his 
sword  had  subdued,  betrayed  a  mind  which, 
though  possessed  of  real  superiority,  had  not 
sufficient  elevation  to  disdain  the  false  appear- 
ances of  it. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  year,  CI.  Fabius  Maxi- 
mus, who  had  been  a  few  months  consul,  died 
before  he  had  vacated  the  office ;  and  about  noon 
of  the  same  day,  Caesar,  who  had  assembled  the 
tribes,  ordered  them  to  take  the  form  of  the 
centuries,  and  to  elect  Caninius  consul  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  day.  Plutarch  says,  that  Cicero 
exhorted  the  people  to  be  speedy  in  paying  their 
court  to  this  new  consul:  "for  this  magistrate 
may  be  out  of  office  before  we  can  reach  him." 
Cicero  himself,  referring  to  this  farcical  election, 
writes  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his  friends,  "  we  have 
had  a  consulate,  during  which  no  one  either  ate 
or  drank,  and  yet  nothing  extraordinary  happen- 
ed ;  for  so  great  was  the  vigilance  of  this  officer, 


6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliii.  c.  47. 
■8  Uicer.a  l  Att.  lib.  xiii.  ep.  52. 


7  Appian. 


that  he  never  slept  all  the  time  he  was  in  office. 
You  may  laugh  at  these  things,"  he  says;  "but 
if  you  were  here,  you  would  cry."9 

On  the  following  day,  Caesar, 
U.  C.  703.  with  all  the  powers  and  ensigns 
C.  J.  Casar  °^  dictator,  took  possession  of  the 
Diet.  4to.  '  consulate  in  conjunction  with  An- 
M  E.  Lepi-  tony.  He  intended,  after  having 
dus  m  e.  C.  hey  this  office  for  a  few  days  in 
Mag.  Eq.  nis  own  P61"8011)  to  resign  it  in 
Cn.  Domitius  favour  of  Dolabella,  though  a 
Calvisius  young  man,  still  far  short  of  the 
in  sequentem  \e„a\  age>  Tne  execution  of  this 
annum  aesip-     ■  *?    .7°  i_ 

natus  non  intention,  however,  was  some  tune 
iniit.  delayed  at  the  request  of  Mark 

Antony,  who,  being  jealous  of 
Dolabella,  endeavoured  to  obstruct  his  prefer- 
ment. 

Caesar  himself  passed  the  winter  in  assiduous 
application  to  civil  affairs,  and  in  forming  pro- 
jects to  embellish  the  capital,  and  to  aggrandize 
the  empire.  He  made  some  regulations  for  the 
better  government  of  the  city.  Under  this  title 
may  be  reckoned  his  prohibiting  the  use  of  letters, 
of  purple,  and  of  pearls,  except  to  persons  of  a 
certain  rank,  and  to  them  only  at  great  festivals, 
and  on  remarkable  occasions ;  together  with  his 
reviving  the  ancient  sumptuary  laws  respecting 
the  expense  of  the  table.  For  the  better  execution 
of  these  laws,  he  appointed  inspectors  of  the 
markets,  with  orders  to  seize  all  illicit  articles  of 
provision;  and  if  any  thing  of  this  sort  were 
known  to  escape  the  inspectors,  he  sent  officers 
to  seize  them  from  the  tables  on  which  they  were 
served.  To  check  the  luxury  of  the  times  in 
other  articles,  he  imposed  duties  on  the  importa- 
tion of  foreign  commodities. 

Under  the  ordinary  pretence,  that  the  laws 
were  become  too  voluminous,  he  ordered  them  to 
be  digested  into  a  code,  with  a  view  to  simplify 
and  to  reduce  them  into  a  narrower  compass;  in 
this  measure  attempting  a  reformation  which  man- 
kind, in  certain  situations,  generally  wish  for,  but 
which  no  man  can  accomplish  without  the  pos- 
session of  absolute  power. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  despotical  government, 
with  which  Caesar  abridged  the  laws,  he  acted  at 
once  as  legislator  and  as  a  judge.  As  instances 
of  his  severity  in  the  latter  capacity,  it  is  men- 
tioned, that  he  annulled  a  marriage,  because  it 
had  l>een  contracted  no  more  than  two  days  after 
the  woman  had  parted  from  a  former  husband ; 
and  to  this  he  joined  his  punishing  senators  for 
extortion  in  the  provinces,  by  expulsion  from  the 
senate. 

His  mind,  at  the  same  time,  entertained  pro- 
jects of  great  variety  and  extent.  To  drain  the 
great  marshes  which  rendered  the  air  so  un- 
healthy, and  so  much  land  unserviceable  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Rome ;  to  cut  across  the  isth- 
mus of  Corinth,  to  erect  moles,  and  form  har- 
bours on  the  coast  of  Italy;  to  make  highways 
across  the  Apennines ;  to  build  a  new  theatre 
that  should  exceed  that  of  Pompcy  ;  to  erect  pub- 
lic libraries,  and  make  a  navigable  canal  from  tho 
Anio  and  the  Tiber  to  the  sea  at  Teracina ;  to 

9  Cicero  ad  Familiar,  lib.  vii.  ep.  10.  Ita  ( 'annuo 
consule  scito,  nemine  prandisse.  Nihil  tainen  co  con- 
stile  mali  factum  est.  Fuit  enim  mirinca  vigilaotia 
qui  toto  suoconsulatu  somnum  non  viderit  ilxc  tibi 
ridicula  videtitur:  non  enim  .i  dis.  Qua;  si  videria  la- 
clir\  mas  non  icnereg. 


318 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


build  a  magnificent  temple  to  Mars.  These 
projects  are  justly  mentioned  as  meritorious  in 
the  sovereign  of  a  great  empire;  and  it  must  be 
confessed,  that  power  would  be  but  a  wretched 
possession,  if  there  were  not  something  of  this 
sort  to  be  done  after  the  toils  of  ambition  were 
over. 

The  measure  which  of  all  others  contributed 
most  to  the  honour  of  Caesar,  did  we  suppose 
him  entitled  to  the  powers  he  assumed,  was  the 
general  indemnity  which  he  granted  to  all  who 
had  opposed  him.  Some  he  even  employed  in 
the  administration  of  government,  and  promoted 
in  the  state.  He  placed  Caius  Cassius  and 
Marcus  Brutus,  for  this  year,  on  the  list  of 
praetors,  and  entrusted  them  with  the  higher 
jurisdiction  of  the  city.  To  the  widows  of  many 
who  died  in  opposition  to  himself,  he  restored 
their  portions,  and  gave  their  children  part  of 
their  patrimony.1  He  replaced  the  statues  of 
Sylla  and  of  Pompey,  which  the  populace,  in 
flattery  to  himself,  had  thrown  down  ;  "  and  by 
this  means,"  says  Cicero,  "  he  firmly  established 
his  own. 

It  appeared,  on  many  occasions,  that  Caesar 
meant  to  contrast  his  own  conduct  with  that  of 
Sylla;2  his  own  clemency  with  the  bloody  exe- 
cutions performed  by  the  other.  The  comparison, 
no  doubt,  is  curious,  and  must  occur  to  every 
person  who  reads  their  story.  Sylla  had  been 
excited,  by  extreme  provocations,  to  turn  his 
arms  against  a  party  in  possession  of  the  capital, 
and  he  drew  his  sword  to  punish  injuries  done 
no  less  to  the  republic  than  to  himself.  While 
he  was  master  of  the  state,  he  acted  indeed  like 
a  person  who  did  not.  care  how  odious  he  rendered 
despotical  power,  for  he  did  not  mean  to  retain  it. 
But  he  mixed  with  the  resentment  of  a  personal 
enemy,  the  high  views  of  a  noble  citizen,  who 
|j*eposed  to  reform  the  state  by  clearing  it  of 
.many  corrupted  and  dangerous  members.  VVhen 
he  had  accomplished  this  purpose,  he  disdained 
the  pageantry  of  high  station,  was  above  receiv- 
ing the  adulation  which  proceeds  from  servility, 
©r  wishing  to  enjoy  a  continual  precedence  in  the 
^management  of  affairs,  which  requires  no  extra- 
ordinary capacity.  Embarked  by  fortune  on  a 
tempestuous  sea,  when  he  had  conducted  the 
vessel  safe  into  port,  he  quitted  the  helm ;  and 
fcfter  having  been  master,  was  not  afraid  to  place 
himself  among  his  countrymen  as  a  fellow-citi- 
zen ;  and  in  this  stale  of  equality  his  greatness 
of  mind  secured  to  him  a  distinction,  which  no 
degree  of  precedency,  and  no  measure  of  prero- 
gative, could  have  bestowed. 

To  this  character  that  of  Caesar,  in  many  par- 
ticulars, may  be  fairly  considered  as  a  contrast. 
He  himself  had  stirred  up  the  disorders  which 
produced  the  civil  war  in  which  he  engaged.  He 
had  no  injuries  either  public  or  private  to  resent; 
his  aifected  clemency,  in  sparing  a  few  captives, 
in  the  beginning  or  in  the  course  of  his  opera- 
tions, was  belied  by  the  wantonness  with  which 
he  entered  on  a  war,  in  which  the  blood  of  many 
thousands  of  his  fellow-citizens  was  to  be  unne- 


1  Sueton.    Dio.  lib.  xliii. 

2  Quonium  reliqui  crudolitate  odium  effugere  non 
potuerunt  neque  victoriam  diutius  tenere,  prater  unum 
L.  Syllani  quein  iinitaturus  non  sum.  Haec  nova  sit 
ratio  vinccn  li,  ur  miserioordia  et  Hberalitate  nos  mu- 
ni am  us.    Oicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  ix  ep.  7. 


cessarily  shed.8  If  he  had  been  Reluctant  in  the 
shedding  of  blood,  his  mercy  would  have  appear, 
ed,  in  avoiding  so  destructive  a  contest,  not  in. 
ostentatiously  sparing  a  few  of  the  many  whose 
lives  his  wanton  ambition  brought  into  hazard. 
His  clemency  should  have  appeared  at  the  Rubi- 
con, not  at  Corfinium ;  in  leaving  his  country  to 
enjoy  its  liberties,  not  mereiy  in  sparing  those 
whom  no  man  in  his  senses  would  destroy,  a  peo- 
ple who  were  willing  to  submit,  and  whom  he 
desired  to  govern. 

Caesar  used  to  ridicule  the  resignation  of  Sylla 
as  an  act  of  imbecility,4  and  was  himself  fond  of 
precedence  as  well  as  of  power.  The  degree  of 
vanity  which  he  is  said  to  had  indulged,  in  ac 
cepting  the  frivolous  honours  which  were  now 
conferred  upon  him  by  acts  of  the  senate,  is  in- 
deed scarcely  credible.  Among  these  is  men- 
tioned a  decree  that  he  should  have  precedency 
of  all  magistrates,  and  the  privilege  of  being  al- 
ways dressed  in  the  triumphal  robes;  of  having 
a  gilded  chair  of  state,  and  a  place  of  distinction 
at  all  the  public  games ;  that  he  should  be  allow- 
ed to  deposit  a  suit  of  armour  in  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Feretrius,  an  honour  appropriated  to 
those  who,  like  Romulus,  had  killed,  with  their 
own  hands,  a  leader  of  the  enemy ;  that  his  lie- 
tors  should  have  their  fasces  always  bound  with 
laurel ;  that  himself,  in  coming  from  the  Latin 
festivals,  should  enter  the  city  on  horseback ;  that 
he  should  have  the  title  of  Father  of  his  Country, 
and  be  so  designtd  on  the  coins  ;  that  the  anni- 
versary of  his  birth-day  should  be  kept  as  a  festi- 
val ;  that  statues  should  be  erected  to  him  in  all 
the  towns  of  Italy,  and  in  the  temples  of  the  city  ; 
that  the  statues,  without  any  consideration  of  his 
titles  to  these  honours,  should  be  adorned  with  the 
civic  and  obsidionary  crowns ;  the  first  a  badge 
worn  by  those  who  had  saved  a  fellow-citizen  m 
battle,  the  second  by  those  who  had  delivered  the 
city  itself  from  a  siege.5 

The  senate  and  people,  observing  that  these 
distinctions  were  agreeable  to  Caesar,  subjoined, 
that  his  robes  should  be  cut  in  imitation  of  that 
of  the  ancient  kings  of  Rome;  that  he  should 
have  an  escort  of  knights  and  senators ;  that  it 
should  be  permitted  to  swear  to  his  destiny ;  that 
all  his  decrees,  without  exception,  should  be  ra- 
tified ;  that,  at  the  end  of  five  years,  a  festival 
should  be  held  in  honour  of  him,  as  of  a  person 
of  divine  extraction ;  that  an  additional  college  of 
priests  should  be  established  to  perform  the  rites 
which  were  instituted  for  that  occasion ;  that  isi 
all  gladiatorian  sports,  whether  at  Rome  or  in  the 
provincial  towns,  one  day  should  be  dedicated  to 
him ;  that  a  crown  of  gold  set  with  gems,  like 
those  of  the  gods,  should  be  carried  before  him 
into  the  circus,  attended  with  a  thensus  or  car 
like  that  on  which  the  idols  of  the  gods  were 
carried ;  that  he  should  have  the  title  of  Julian 
Jove — have  a  temple  erected  for  himself,  in  con- 
junction with  the  goddess  of  Clemency— and,  to 
complete  the  ridicule  of  these  institutions,  that 
Mark  Antony  should  be  appointed  the  priest  of 
this  sacred  fane.6 

From  these  particulars,  which,  to  characterise 


3  It  is  said  that  400,000  Romans  perished  in  this 
contest. 

4  Syllam  nescisse  literas  qui  dictaturam  depciuerit. 
Sueton.  in  Jul.  Caes.  lib.  lxxvii. 

5  Dio.  Cass  lib.  xliv.  c  4.  6  Ibid.  c.  G. 


Chap.  I. J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


319 


the  ambition  of  the  person  to  whom  they  refer, 
and  the  manners  of  the  age,  are  selected  from 
those  mentioned  by  the  original  historian/  it 
was  no  longer  to  he  doubted,  that  Caesar  wished 
to  establish  a  monarchy  on  the  ruins  of  the  re- 

Subltc.  He  himself  was  extremely  arrogant  in  his 
ehaviour,  and  so  unguarded  in  his  expressions 
as  to  say,  That  the  republic  was  but  a  name, 
that  his  words  should  be  carefully  observed,  for 
that  he  meant  every  word  should  have  the  force 
of  a  law. 

To  so  much  arrogance  and  affectation  of  king- 
ly state,  joined  to  absolute  power,  nothing  was 
wanting  but  the  title  of  King.  This  Caesar  him- 
self evidently  appeared  to  have  the  vanity  to  de- 
sire. His  retainers  and  flatterers,  on  different 
occasions,  endeavoured  to  surprise  the  people  into 
a  concession  of  it ;  but  notwithstanding  the  pow- 
ers of  sovereignty,  which  he  exercised  without 
control,  and  the  honours  of  divinity,  which  were 
decreed  to  him  by  general  consent,  his  influence 
was  not  sufficient  to  reconcile  the  Roman  people 
to  the  name  of  King.  One  of  his  emissaries, 
willing  to  suggest  the  propriety  of  bestowing 
this  title,  or  to  insinuate  Caesar's  purpose  of 
assuming  it,  had  bound  the  head  of  one  of  his 
statues  with  a  royal  fillet.  The  tribunes  Marul- 
lus  and  Caesetius,  affecting  great  zeal  for  the 
honour  of  Caesar,  as  well  as  for  the  majesty  of 
the  Roman  state,  made  inquiry  after  the  author 
of  an  insinuation  so  derogatory  to  both ;  and  re- 
ceiving information  of  the  guilty  person,  in  order 
to  check  such  insinuations  for  the  future,  sent 
him  to  prison.  This  officious  interposition  of  the 
tribunes,  though  pretending  to  vindicate  Caesar 
himself  from  so  odious  an  imputation,  hd  received 
with  marks  of  displeasure ;  and  hearing  these 
officers  extolled  as  the  restorers  of  the  public 
liberty  with  the  appellation  of  the  Bruti,  "Brutes 
indeed,"  he  said  they  were;  but  took  no  farther 
notice  of  the  matter. 

Soon  after  this  incident,  some  one,  or  a  few  in 
the  assembly  of  the  people,  saluted  him  with  the 
title  of  king.  But  on  hearing,  instead  of  accla- 
mations, a  general  murmur  of  dislike,  he  silenced 
this  unreasonable  piece  of  flattery,  saying,  That 
his  name  was  Ccesar,  and  not  king.  Here  too 
the  tribunes  again  interposed,  and  raised  prose- 
cutions against  the  authors  of  such  treasonable 
expressions.  But  in  this  instance  Caesar  lost  his 
patience,  and  complained  in  the  senate  that  fac- 
tious men,  undt*r  the  pretence  of  discharging 
the  public  office  of  magistracy,  propagated  insinu- 
ations injurious  to  his  character,  and  tending  to 
alarm  the  people  with  false  apprehensions.  Such 
offences,  he  said>  merit  capital  punishment ;  but 
he  should  be  satisfied,  with  degradation  from  of- 
fice. This  sentence  was  accordingly  inflicted ; 
and  from  thenceforward  it  was  not  doubted,  that 
Caesar  aspired  to  the  title,  as  well  as  the  power 
of  a  monarch. 

This  opinion  was  still  farther  confirmed,  when 
on  the  sixteenth  of  February,8  at  the  Lnipercalia 
(a  festival,  which  being  continued  down  from 
barbarous  ages,  served  as  a  monument  of  primae- 
val simplicity  and  rudeness),  the  same  piece  of 
flattery,  in  making  tender  of  a  crown,  was  re- 
newed by  Antony,  then  in  the  office  of  consul, 
and  the  chief  confidant  of  Caesar. 


It  was  the  custom  in  this  festival  of  the  Luper- 

calia,  for  the  first  officers  of  state,-  and  tne  first  of 
the  nobles  to  present  themselves  naked  in  the 
streets,  carrying  thongs  of  undressed  hide,  with 
which  they  ran  through  the  crowd,  and  struck 
at  those  who  happened  to  be  placed  within  their 
reach.  The  stroke  was  thought  a  remedy,  in 
particular,  for  barrenness  in  women ;  and  num- 
bers of  this  sex  crowded  in  the  way  to  receive  it. 

In  the  ceremony  now  to  be  performed,  Mark 
Antony  bore  his  part  as  consul ;  and  Caesar  sat 
on  his  gilded  chair  of  state  in  his  triumphal  robes 
to  behold  the  spectacle..  Antony  stopped  before 
him,  and  presented  him  with  a  royal' crown,  say- 
ing, "  This  crown  the  Roman  people  confer  upon 
.  Caesar  by  my  hands."  A  few  of  the  spectators 
seemed  to  applaud  ;  but  Caesar,  perceiving  that 
the  people  in  general,  by  their  silence,  gave  signs 
of  displeasure,  pushed  away  the  crown  with  his 
hand;  and  upon  this  action,  received  from  the 
people,  by  an  universal  shout  of  applause,  an  un- 
questionable explanation  of  their  former  silence. 

To  try  the  effect  of  a  moderation  which  was  so 
much  applauded,  Antony  threw  himself  upon 
the  ground  at  Caesar's  feet,  repeated  his  offer  of 
the  crown,  and  hoped  that  the  people  might  join 
him  in  pressing  the  acceptance  of  what  was  so 
j  modestly  refused ;  but  with  no  better  success 
than  in  the  former  attempt. 

That  the  merit  of  this  refusal,  however,  might 
not  be  forgotten,  or  that  the  offer  might  be  held 
equal  to  the  actual  investiture  of  the  crown,  an 
entry  was  made  in  the  Fasti  or  public  records,  by 
the  directions  of  Antony,  "That  the  consul 
i  having,  by  the  order  of  the  Roman  people,  pre- 
sented a  crown,  and  offered  to  confer  the  majesty 
of  king  on  Caius  Julius  Caesar,  perpetual  dicta- 
tor, he  had  declined  to  receive  it."9 

The  Roman  republic  had,  for  some  time,  sub- 
sisted in  a  very  disorderly  state ;  the  people 
having  dominion  over  many  other  nations,  scarce- 
ly admitted  any  species  of  government  among 
themselves.  The  inhabitants  of  Rome,  assum- 
ing the  prerogatives  of  the  collective  body  of  Ro- 
man citizens,  who  now  not  only  extended  over 
all  Italy,  but  were  disj>ersed  throughout  the  em- 
pire, generally  assembled  in  tumults,  whose  pro- 
ceedings nothing  but  force  could  regulate,  and  at 
every  convulsion  gave  an  immediate  prospect  ot 
military  government.  All  who  wished  to  pre 
serve  the  republic,  endeavoured  to  extend  the 
prerogatives  of  the  senate,  and  to  prevent,  as 
much  as  possible,  these  ill-formed  assemblies  of 
the  people  from  deliberating  on  matters  of  state ; 
and  it  might,  no  doubt,  have  been  still  better  for 
the  empire,  if  the  spirit  of  legal  monarchy  could 
at  once  have  been  infused  into  every  part  of  the 
commonwealth ;  or  if,  without  farther  pangs  or 
convulsions,  the  authority  of  a  prince,  tonqiered 
with  that  of  a  senate,  had  been  firmly  established. 
But  men  do  not  at  once  change  their  habits  and 
opinions,  nor  yield  their  own  pretensions  upon 
speculative  notions  of  what  is  suited  to  the  state 
of  their  country.  Caesar  aspired  to  dominion  in 
order  to  gratify  his  personal  vanity,  not  to  correct 
the  political  errors  of  the  times;  and  his  contem- 
poraries born  to  the  rights  of  citizens,  still  eon- 
tended  for  personal  independence  and  equality, 
however  impossible  it  might  be  longer  to  preserve 


7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliv.  c.  6. 

8  Cicer.  Philip,  ii.  c.  34. 


9  Cicer.  Thilip  ii.  e.  34. 


320 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


IBook  V. 


any  species  of  republic  at  the  head  of  such  an 
empire. 

Ever  since  the  expulsion  of  Tarquin,  the  name 
of  king  had  been  odious  at  Rome.  The  most 
popular  citizens,  as  soon  as  they  became  sus- 
pected of  aspiring  to  kingly  power,  became  ob- 
jects of  aversion,  and  were  marked  out  as  a  prey 
to  the  detestation  of  their  country.  Thus  fell 
Manlius  Capitolinus,  the  Gracchi,  Apuleius,  and 
others  who  were  loaded  with  this  imputation. 

The  Romans,  accustomed  to  see  vanquished 
kings  the  sport  of  popular  insolence,  led  in  tri- 
umph, put  to  death;  or  if  suffered  to  live,  made  to 
languish  in  poverty  and  neglect — accustomed  to 
see  kings,  who  were  their  own  allies,  submitting 
their  cause  to  the  judgment  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple, or  suing  for  favour,  considered  monarchy 
itself  as  an  appurtenance  of  servility  and  barba- 
rism ;  and  the  project  to  give  a  king  to  the  Ro- 
mans as  an  attempt  to  degrade  them  into  barba- 
rians and  slaves. 

The  maxim,  which  forbids  assassination  in 
every  case  whatever,  is  the  result  of  prudent  re- 
flection, and  has  a  tendency  to  allay  the  jealousy, 
and  to  mitigate  the  cruelty  of  persons  who,  by 
violent  usurpations,  which  laws  cannot  restrain, 
have  incurred  the  resentment  of  mankind.  Even 
tyrants,  it  is  supposed,  are  cruel  from  fear,  and 
become  merciful  in  proportion  as  they  believe 
themselves  secure;  it  were  unwise,  therefore,  to 
entertain  maxims  which  keep  the  powerful  in  a 
continual  state  of  distrust  and  alarm.  This  pru- 
dential morality,  however,  was  entirely  unknown 
in  the  ancient  republics,  or  could  not  be  observed, 
without  surrendering  the  freedom  for  which  the 
citizens  contended.  Amongst  them  the  people 
were  obliged  to  consider,  not  what  was  safe,  but 
what  was  necessary ;  and  could  not  always  de- 
fend themselves  against  usurpations,  neither  by 
legal  forms,  nor  by  open  war.  It  was  thought 
allowable,  therefore,  to  employ  artifice,  surprise, 
and  secret  conspiracy  against  an  usurper;  and 
this  was  so  much  the  case  at  Rome,  that  no 
names  were  held  in  greater  veneration,  than  those 
of  citizens  who  had  assassinated  persons  suspected 
of  views  dangerous  to  the  commonwealth ;  or 
who.  by  any  means  whatever,  rendered  abortive 
the  projects  of  adventurers  who  attempted  to  arm 
any  party  against  the  legal  constitution  of  their 
country. 

Caesar,  having  attempted  to  join  the  title  of 
king  with  the  powers  of  perpetual  dictator,  had 
reason  to  distrust  a  people  who  were  actuated  by 
such  conceptions.  He  was  an  object  of  private 
as  well  as  of  public  resentment,  having  usurped 
the  government  over  those  whom  he  had  cruelly 
injured ;  over  the  fathers,  the  brothers,  and  sons 
of  those  who  had  fallen  by  his  sword.  He  ac- 
cordingly, for  some  time,  had  the  precaution  to 
keep  a  military  guard  attending  his  person ;  but, 
grown  familiar  with  those  he  had  offended,  and 
secure  in  his  personal  courage,  he  dropt  this  pre- 
caution, and  began  to  reign  with  the  confidence 
of  a  lawful  monarch.  Although  he  had  incurred 
60  much  resentment,  he  disdained  to  stand  in 
awe  of  it,  and  ventured  to  join  the  confidence  of 
innocence  with  the  highest  measures  of  guilt. 
This  conduct  indeed  was  uncommon,  and  the 
effect  of  a  daring  courage,  but  unworthy  of  the 
penetration  and  skill  with  which  he  had  hitherto 
conducted  his  affairs.  It  may  serve  to  confirm, 
what  has  been  already  observed,  that,  amongst 


the  many  accomplishments  which  he  possessed, 
and  together  with  the  abilities  which  rendered 
him  superior  to  every  direct  opposition,  he  was 
actuated  by  a  vanity  which  bordered  on  weak- 
ness^ Misled,  perhaps^  by  this  passion,  he  per 
sisted  in  his  emulation  to  the  glory  of  Sylla,  and 
would  show  to  the  world,,  that  he  who  had  not 
resigned  his  power  could  walk  the  streets  of 
Rome,  unattended,  with  as  much  safety  as  the 
other,,  who  had  the  magnanimity  to  restore  the 
constitution  of  his  country  ;  joined  to  this  weak 
ness,  he  had  too  mean  an  opinion  of  those  who 
composed  the  commonwealth,,  greatly  sunk  in- 
deed in  their  political  characters,  but  not  fallen 
into  that  state  of  personal  weakness,,  which  hi» 
security  and  contempt  of  them  seemed  to  imply. 

Above  sixty  citizens  of  noble  extraction  were 
found,  who  thought  their  late  condition  as  msiem- 
bers  of  the  republic  could  still  be  recovered.  Some 
had  been  stunned  with  their  fall,  but  not  quite 
overwhelmed;  others,  who,  on  specious  pretences, 
had  assisted  in  obtaining  the  victories  of  Caesar, 
detested  the  monarchy  which  he  was  pleased  to 
assume.  In  the  first  period  of  the  civil  war  many 
imagined,  that  the  contest  was  to  end  in  substi- 
tuting one  party  for  another,  not  in  the  entire 
subversion  of  the  republican  government;  and 
they  were  inclined,  as  soon  as  fortune  should  de- 
clare in  favour  of  either  party,  to  be  reconciled 
with  those  that  prevailed.1  But  when  it  evident- 
ly appeared,  that  Caesar,  by  suppressing  the  last 
remains  of  opposition  to  himself  in  every  part  of 
the  empire,  meant  to  establish  a  monarchy  in  his, 
own  person,  a  secret  indignation  filled  the  breasts 
of  those  who,  upon  a  foot  of  family  consequence^ 
or  personal  ability,  had  any  pretensions  to  politi- 
cal importance.  To  such  persons  the  dominion 
of  an  equal  appeared  insufferable..  Many  of 
them  affected  servility,  in  conferring  the  extrava- 
gant honours  which  had  been  decreed  to  Caesar, 
as  the  mask  of  a  sullen  displeasure,  which,  con- 
scious of  a  tendency  to  betray  itself,  took  the  dis- 
guise of  the  opposite  extreme.. 

The  question  respecting  the  expedience  of 
monarchical  government  did  not  enter  into  the 
deliberations  of  any  one.  If  it  had  been  urged 
that  a  king  was  necessary  ;  it  would  have  been 
asked,  Who  gave  the  right  to  Caesar  ?  If  the 
people  in  general  were  corrupt,  were  the  bank- 
rupts, and  outlaws,  and  soldiers  of  fortune  that 
formed  the  court  of  Caesar  unblemished  ?  If  the 
great,  the  able,  and  experienced  citizens,  who 
were  qualified  to  support  the  republic,  were  now 
no  more,  by  whose  sword  had  they  perished  ?  or 
who  was  to  blame  for  the  ruin  that  had  befallen  the 
commonwealth  7  If  the  corrupt  arts,  the  trea- 
sons, the  murders,  encouraged  or  executed  by 
Caesar,  had  made  a  change  of  government  neces- 
sary, the  first  act  of  that  new  government,  for  the 
instruction  of  mankind*,  ought  to  have  been  to 
punish  the  author  of  so  many  disorders  and 
crimes,  not  to  reward  him  with  a  crown.. 

Many  of  Caesar's  officers,  and  the  nearest  to 
his  person,  were  as  much  in  this  mind  as  any 
other  citizens  ;  and  on  this  supposition,  so  fami- 
liar was  the  thought  of  proceeding  to  the  last  ex- 
tremities against  him,  that,  when  Antony  came 
to  meet  Caesar,  on  his  return  from  Spain,  Trebo- 


1  Cicero  ad  Familiar. 

2  Cicer.  Philip,  lib.  ii  c.  14. 


Chap.  I.) 

nius  ventured  to  sound  his  inclinations  respect- 
ing a  design  on  Caesar's  life.3  Although  Antony 
did  not  adopt  the  measure,  he  did  not  betray  Tre- 
bonius, nor  did  he  appear  to  be  surprised  at  the 
propos.il.  It  was  afterwards  suggested,  that  An- 
tony should  be  invited  to  a  share  in  the  conspira 
cy ;  an  J  the  proposal  was  dropt  only  on  account 
of  the  refusal  which  he  had  already  given  to 
Trebonius;  so  readily  was  it  believed,  that  every 
noble  Roman  would  rather  share  in  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country,  as  an  independent  citizen, 
than  as  a  retainer  to  the  most  successful  usurper. 

It  is  well  known,  that  a  conspiracy  accordingly 
was,  at  this  time,  formed  against  the  life  of  Cae- 
sar, although  the  first  steps  and  the  consultations 
of  the  parties  are  no  where  minutely  recorded. 
The  principal  authors  of  it  were  Caius  Cassius 
and  Marcus  Brutus,  then  praetors  in  the  city; 
Decimus  Brutus  and  Trebonius,  who  had  both 
served  in  hi<*h  rank  under  Caesar  himself,  and  of 
whom  the  first  was  destined  by  him  to  the  com- 
mand in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  to  the  consulate  in 
the  following  year. 

Caius  Cassius  was  early  noted  for  a  high  and 
impetuous  spirit.  It  is  observed,  that  being  a  boy 
when  Sylla  was  at  the  height  of  his  power,  he 
struck  the  son  of  the  dictator  for  having  said, 
That  his  father  was  the  master  of  the  Roman 
people.  The  tutor  of  young  Sylla  having  carried 
a  complaint  to  Poinpey,  the  boys  were  called,  and 
questioned  on  the  subject  of  the  quarrel,  "  Do 
but  repeat  your  words  again,"  said  Cassius ; 
"  and  in  this  presence  I  will  strike  you."  He 
had  distinguished  himself  in  Syria,  by  collecting 
the  remains  of  the  unfortunate  army  of  Crassus, 
With  which  he  repelled  the  attempt  of  the  Par- 
thians  on  that  province.  He  followed  Pompey 
in  the  civil  war,  and  commanded  a  squadron  of 
the  fleet  on  the  coist  of  Sicily  at  the  time  of  the 
battle  of  Pharsalia.  From  thence  he  went  into 
Asia,  with  a  professed  intention  to  wait  for  the 
arrival  of  the  victor  from  Alexandria,  and  to 
drop  all  farther  opposition  against  him ;  but 
even  then,  .according  to  Cicero,  would  have  put 
Caesar  to  death,  if  he  had  not  debarked  on  a 
different  side  of  the  Cydnus,  from  that  on  which 
he  was  at  first  expected  to  land.4 

Marcus  Brutus  was  the  nephew  of  Cato  by  his 
sister  Servilia ;  and  so  much  the  favourite  Of  Cae- 
sar, who  was  said  to  have  had  an  intrigue  with  his 
mother,  that  he  was  by  some  supposed  to  be  his 
son.  The  father  of  Brutus,  in  the  civil  wars  of 
Sylla,  had  been  on  the  side  of  Marius,  and  having 
fallen  into  Pompey's  hands,  was  by  him  put  to 
death.  The  son  retained  so  much  resentment,  on 
this  account,  that  he  never  accosted  or  saluted 
Poinpey  till  after  the  civil  war  broke  out ;  when, 
thinking  it  necessary  to  sacrifice  all  private  con- 
siderations to  the  public  cause,  he  joined  him  in 
Macedonia,  and  was  received  with  great  marks 
of  distinction.  This  young  man,  either  on  ac- 
count of  his  uncle  Cato,  or  on  account  of  the  ex- 
ectation  generally  entertained  of  himself,  was 
eld  in  the  highest  estimation.  Being  taken 
prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Pharsalia,  he  was  not 
only  protected  by  the  victor,  but  sent  into  the 
province  of  Cisalpine  Gaul  with  the  title  of 
governor;  where,  during  the  war  in  Africa 
against  Scipio  atid  the  king  of  Numidia,  he  re- 


3  Cicer  Philip,  lib  ii.  e.  1|.  4  Ibid,  c  11. 


5^1 

mained,  perhaps,  rather  under  safe  custody  than 
in  high  confidence  with  Caesar.  He  was  this 
year,  together  with  Caius  Cassius.  who  married 
his  sister,  promoted  to  the  dignity  of  praetor;  and 
though  of  less  standing  than  Cassius,  had  the 
precedence  by  the  partiality  of  Caesar.  This  cir- 
cumstance was  supposed,  at  the  time  that  Brutus 
and  Cassius  were  actually  framing  their  con- 
spiracy, to  have  occasioned  a  breach  between 
them. 

Cassius  is  reputed  to  have  been  the  prime 
mover  in  the  design  against  Caesar's  life ;  and  to 
have  been  the  author  of  anonymous  calls  to  vin- 
dicate the  freedom  of  Rome,  which  were  posted 
up  or  dropped  in  public  places;  and  which,  from 
the  prevailing  spirit  of  discontent,  found  a  ready 
acceptance.  Labels  were  hung  upon  the  statues 
of  the  ancient  Brutus,  and  billets  were  dropped, 
in  the  night,  upon  the  judgment-seat  of  the  prae- 
tor of  this  name,  exciting  him  to  imitate  his  an- 
cestors, by  restoring  the  republic;  "You  sleep, 
you  are  not  Brutus;"  and  on  the  statues  of  his 
supposed  ancestor,  the  elder  Brutus,  was  written, 
"Would  you  were  alive!"  These  expressions 
of  a  secret  disaffection,  and  prognostics  of  some 
violent  design,  either  escaped  the  attention  of 
Caesar,  or  were  despised  by  him ;  but  were  easily 
understood  by  persons  who  looked  for  a  deliver- 
ance from  the  indignities  to  which  they  felt  them- 
selves exposed.  While  Cassius  and  Marcus 
Brutus  entered  into  a  formal  concert  on  this  sub- 
ject, numbers  pined  under  the  want  of  that  con- 
sideration to  which  they  thought  themselves 
born;  many  were  provoked  by  particular  in- 
stances of  vanity  or  arrogance  in  the  present 
dictator  ;5  and  upon  the  least  hint  of  a  design 
against  him,  were  ready  to  join.  "  I  am  sorry 
you  should  be  ill  at  so  critical  a  time,"  said 
Brutus  to  Legarius.  "  I  am  not  ill,"  said  the 
other,  "if  you  have  any  intentions  worthy  of 
yourself."6 

Great  numbers  daily  acceded  to  the  plot,  of 
whom  the  following,  besides  Brutus  and  Cassius, 
are  the  principal  names  upon  record;  Caecilius, 
and  Bucolianus,  two  brothers ;  Rubrius  Rex,  &. 
Ligarius,  M.  Spurius,  Scrvilius  Galba,  Sextius 
Naso,  Pontius  Acquila.  Th^se  had  ever  been  on 
the  side  of  the  senate,  or  adherents  of  Pompey. 
The  following  had  acted  in  the  war  under  Caesar ; 
Decimus  Brutus,  C.  Casca,  Trebonius,  Tullius 
Cimbcr,  Minucius,  and  Basilus;7  they  are  said  in 
all  to  have  amounted  to  sixty.8  Cicero  was  known 
to  detest  the  usurpation  of  Caesar;  to  rnourn  over 
the  fall  of  the  commonwealth,  over  the  humilia- 
tion of  the  senate,  and  the  diminution  of  his 


5  C.-esar  had  about  this  time,  a  visit  from  the  queen 
of  Egypt,  who  lived  with  him  at  his  gardens  on  tho 
Tiber.  (Cicer  ad  Attic,  lib.  xiv.)  Many  who  overlooked 
his  usurpation,  and  the  violence  he  did  to  the  consti- 
tution of  his  country,  were  scandalized  at  the  intimacy 
in  which  he  lived  with  this  woman.  Being  accustomed 
to  the  distinctions  of  a  court,  and  considering  Cnesar 
as  the  monarch,  she  treated  the  citizens,  who  were 
still  admitted  to  him  on  a  foot  of  equality,  as  depend- 
ants and  subjects  He  himself,  with  all  his  state,  was 
polite.  As  an  apology  for  having  made  Cicero  wait 
too  long  in  Ij  s  anti-chamber,  he  accosted  him  with 
Baying,  4  I  tow  can  I  hope  to  be  tolerated,  when  even 
Marcus  Tullius  Cicero  is  made  to  wait?  If  any  one 
could  forgive  it.  he  would  ;  but  the  world  m  ist  detest 
me."  Cleopatra,  it  is  probable,  made  no  such  apology 
when  she  gave  cause  to  complain  of  her  arrogance. 

6  Sue  ton.  in  Ca;sare. 

7  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  if     8  Sueton  m  Omr. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


322 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


own  political  consequence  ;  but  he  was  not  con- 
sulted in  this  design.  The  authors  of  it  relied  on 
his  support,  in  case  they  should  be  successful ; 
but  they  knew  too  well  his  ingenuity  in  suggest- 
ing scruples  and  difficulties,  to  bring  him  into 
their  previous  deliberations  on  so  arduous  an  en- 
terprize. 

The  conspirators,  in  forming  their  projectr 
generally  sounded  the  minds  of  persons  before 
they  made  any  formal  or  direct  proposal.  Brutus 
being  in  company  with  Statilius,  Favonius,  and 
La  bio,  proposed,  among  other  problematical 
questions,  some  doubts  concerning  the  expedi- 
ency of  assassinating  tyrants.  Favonius  observed, 
that  such  actions  led  to  civil  war,  and  that  this 
was  worse  than  usurpation.  Statilius  said,  that 
no  wise  man  would  engage  in  so  hazardous  an 
enterprise  to  serve  a  parcel  of  knaves  and  fools. 
Labio  contended  warmly  with  both ;  and  Brutus 
changing  the  subject,  thought  no  more  of  Stati- 
lius or  Favonius,  but  communicated  the  design 
to  Labio,  who  immediately  embraced  it. 

As  so  many  were  concerned,  and  as  they  re- 
mained some  time  in  suspense  as  to  the  proper 
time  and  place  for  the  execution  of  their  purpose, 
it  is  singular  that  the  conspiracy  should  have 
come  to  such  a  height  undiscovered.  But  Caesar 
did  not  encourage  informers;  his  great  courage 
preserved  him  from  the  jealousies  by  which  others 
in  less  dangerous  situations  are  guided.  He 
trusted  to  his  popularity,  to  his  munifience,  to  the 
rofessions  of  submission  which  were  made  to 
im,  and  to  the  interest  which  he  supposed  many 
to  have  in  the  preservation  of  his  life.  He  had 
not  only  dismissed  the  guards,  which  at  his  return 
to  Rome  had  attended  him ;  and  was  commonly 
preceded  only  by  his  lictors  and  the  usual  retinue 
of  his  civil  rank  ;  but  had  suffered  the  veterans  to 
disperse  on  the  lands  which  had  been  assigned  to 
them,  unfurnished  Italy  of  troops,  and  had  trans- 
ported the  greater  part  of  the  army  into  Mace- 
donia, reserving  only  a  small  body  under  Lepidus 
in  the  suburbs  of  Rome.  His  own  mind,  though 
fond  of  appearance  of  superiority,  it  is  probable, 
was  easily  satiated  with  the  pageantry  of  state. 
His  thoughts  became  vacant  and  languid  in  the 
possession  of  a  station  to  which  he  had  struggled 
through  so  much  blood ;  and  his  active  mind  still 
urged  him  to  extensive  projects  of  war  and  con- 
quest.1 He  accordingly  planned  a  series  of  wars 
which  were  not  likely  to  end  but  with  his  life. 
He  was  to  begin  with  revenging  the  death  of 
Crassus,  and  reducing  the  Parthians.  He  was 
next  to  pass  by  Hyrcania  and  the  coasts  of  the 
Caspian  Sea  into  Scythia ;  from  thence,  by  the 
shores  of  the  Euxine  Sea,  into  Sarmacia,  Dacia, 
and  Germany  ;  and  from  thence,  by  his  own  late 
conquests  in  Gaul,  to  return  into  Italy;2  for  this 
purpose  he  had  already  sent  forward  into  Mace- 
donia seventeen  legions  and  ten  thousand  horse.3 
As  Caesar  was  likely,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  extent  of  his  projects,  to  be  employed  some 
time  in  the  execution  of  them,  he  thought  proper 
to  anticipate  the  election  of  magistrates  at  Rome, 
and  to  arrange,  before  his  departure,  the  whole 
succession  to  office  for  some  years.  Dion  Cassius 
says,  that  his  arrangement  was  made  for  three 
years ;  Appian,  for  five  years.    It  is  certain,  that 


1  Dio.  Casa.  Appian.  Plutarch. 

2  Plutarch,  in  Ca;sare. 

3  Appian.  dc  Bell.  Civil.  lib.  ii. 


he  fixed  the  succession  to  office  for  two  subse- 
quent years.  Hirtius  and  Pansa  were  destined 
to  the  consulate  in  the  first ;  Decimus  Brutus 
and  Plancus,  in  the  second.4  He  continued  to 
increase  the  number  of  magistrates,  that  he  might 
have  more  opportunities  to  gratify  his  retainers 
and  friends.  The  quaestors,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned, he  augmented  to  forty,  the  rediles  to  six, 
the  praetors  to  sixteen.  Among  the  latter  he 
named  Venfcidius,  a  native  of  Picenum,  who  had 
been  taken  and  led  in  triumph,  while  the  people 
of  that  district,  with  the  other  Italians,  on  account 
of  their  claim  of  being  enrolled  as  citizens,  were 
at  war  with  Rome.  Ventidius  had  subsisted  by 
letting  mules  and  carriages.  In  the  pursuit  of 
this  business  he  had  followed  the  army  of  Caesar 
into  Gaul ;  and  becoming  known  to  that  general, 
was  gradually  trusted  and  advanced  by  him.  His 
career  of  preferment  continued  up  to  the  dignity 
of  consul,  and  he  himself,  as  has  been  formerly 
observed,  came  at  last  to  lead,  in  the  capacity  of  a 
victorious  general,  a  procession  of  the  same  kind 
with  that  in  which  he  had  made  his  first  entry  at 
Rome  as  a  captive. 

This  arrangement,  in  which  Caesar,  by  an- 
ticipating the  nomination  of  magistrates,  pre- 
cluded the  citizens  from  the  usual  exercise  of  their 
rights  of  election,  made  the  subversion  of  the  re- 
public more  felt  than  any  of  the  former  acts  of 
his  power,  and  gave  the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy 
a  great  advantage  against  him.  The  prospect  of 
his  approaching  departure  from  Rome,  which  was 
fixed  for  the  month  of  March,  urged  the  speedy 
execution  of  their  purpose.  The  report  of  a 
response  or  prediction,  which  some  of  the  flat- 
terers of  Caesar  had  procured  from  the  college  of 
Augurs,  bearing  that  the  Parthians  were  not  to 
be  subdued  but  by  a  king,5  appeared  to  be  the 
prelude  of  a  motion  to  vest  him,  in  his  intended 
expedition  against  the  Parthians,  with  the  title, 
and  with  the  ensigns  of  royalty,  to  be  borne,  if  not 
in  the  city,  at  least  in  the  provinces.6 

A  meeting  of  the  senate  being  already  sum- 
moned, for  the  Ides,  or  fifteenth,  of  March,  the 
proposal  to  bestow  on  Caesar  the  title  of  king,  as  a 
qualification  enjoined  by  the  Sybils  to  make  war 
on  the  Parthians,  was  expected  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal business  of  the  assembly.  This  circum- 
stance determined  the  conspirators  in  the  choice' 
of  a  place  for  the  execution  of  their  design.  They 
had  formerly  deliberated,  whether  to  pitch  upon- 
the  Campus  Martius,  and  to  strike  their  blow  in 
the  presence  of  the  Roman  people  assembled,  or 
in  the  entry  to  the  theatre,  or  in  a  street  through 
which  Caesar  often  passed  in  the  way  to  his  own 
house.7  But  this  meeting  of  the  senate  seemed 
now  to  present  the  most  convenient  place,  and 
the  most  favourable  opportunity.  The  presence 
of  the  senate,  it  was  supposed,  would  render  the 
action  of  the  conspirators  sufficiently  awful  and 
solemn ;  the  common  cause  would  be  instantly 
acknowledged  by  all  the  members  of  that  body  5 
and  the  execution  done  would  be  justified  under 
their  authority.  If  any  were  disposed  to  resist, 
they  were  not  likely  to  be  armed ;  and  the  affair 
might  be  ended  by  the  death  of  Caesar  alone,  or 
wifhout  any  effusion  of  blood  beyond  that  which 
was  originally  intended. 


4  Cicero  ad  Attic,  lib.  xiv.  ep.  6. 

5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliv  c.  15. 

6  Zonaras,  lib.  x.  c.  14. 

7  Sutton,  in  Caisare. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


323 


It  was  at  first  proposed  that  Antony,  being  likely 
to  carry  on  the  same  military  usurpations  which 
( Jsesar  had  begun,  should  be  taken  off  at  the 
same  time;  but  this  was  overruled.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  Antony,  and  every  other  senator  and 
citizen,  would  readily  embrace  the  state  of  in- 
dependence and  personal  consideration  which 
was  to  be  offered  to  them;  or  if  they  should  not 
embrace  it,  they  would  not  be  of  sufficient  num- 
bers or  credit  to  distress  the  republic,  or  to  overset 
that  balance  of  parties  in  which  the  freedom  of 
the  whole  consisted.  It  was  supposed  that  the 
moment  Csesar  fell,  there  would  not  be  any  one 
left  to  covet  or  to  support  a  usurpation  which  had 
been  so  unfortunate  in  his  person.  "  If  we  do 
any  thing  more  than  is  necessary  to  set  the  Ro- 
mans at  liberty,"  said  Marcus  Brutus,  "  we  shall 
be  thought  to  act  from  private  resentment,  and  to 
intend  restoring  the  party  of  Pompey,  not  the 
republic."8 

The  intended  assembly  of  the  senate  was  to 
be  held  in  one  of  the  recesses  of  Pompey's  thea- 
tre. It  was  determined  by  the  conspirators,  that 
they  should  repair  to  this  meeting  as  usual,  either 
separately,  or  in  the  retinue  of  the  consuls  and 
praetors ;  and  that,  being  armed  with  concealed 
weapons,  they  should  proceed  to  the  execution  of 
their  purpose  as  soon  as  Caesar  hud  taken  his 
seat.  To  guard  against  any  disturbance  or  tu- 
mult that  might  arise  to  frustrate  their  intentions, 
Decimus  Brutus,  who  was  master  of  a  troop  of 
gladiators,  undertook  to  have  this  troop,  under 
pretence  of  exhibiting  some  combats  on  that 
day  to  the  people,  posted  in  the  theatre,  and  ready 
at  his  command  for  any  service.9 

During  the  interval  of  suspense  which  preen b  d 
the  meeting  of  the  senate,  although  in  public 
Brutus  seemed  to  perform  all  the  duties  of  his 
station  with  an  unaltered  countenance;  at  home 
he  was  less  guarded,  and  frequently  appeared  to 
have  something  uncommon  on  his  mind.  His 
wife  Poreia  suspected  that  some  arduous  design 
respecting  the  state  was  in  agitation ;  and  when 
she  questioned  him,  was  confirmed  in  this  appre- 
hension, by  his  eluding  her  inquiries.  Thinking 
herself,  by  her  extraction  and  by  her  alliance,  en- 
titled to  confidence,  she  bore  this  appearance  of 
distrust  with  regret  ;  and,  under  the  idea  that  the 
secret  which  was  withheld  from  her,  must  be 
such  as,  upon  any  suspicion,  might  occasion  the 
torture  to  be  employed  to  force  a  confession  ;  and 
supposing  that  she  herself  was  distrusted  more 
on  account  of  the  weakness  than  of  the  indiscre- 
tion of  her  sex,  she  determined  to  make  a  trial 
of  her  own  strength,  before  she  desired  that  the 
secret  should  be  communicated  to  her.  For  this 
purpose  she  gave  herself  a  wound  in  the  thigh, 
and  while  it  festered,  and  produced  acute  pain 
and  fever,  she  endeavoured  to  preserve  her  usual 
countenance,  without  any  sign  of  suffering  or 
distress.  Being  satisfied  with  this  trial  of  her 
own  strength,  she  told  her  husband  the  particu- 
lars, and  with  some  degree  of  triumph  added, 
"Now  you  may  trust  me  ;  lam  the  wife  of  Bru- 
tus and  the  da  ughter  of  Cato  %  keep  me  no  longer 
in  doubt  or  suspense  upon  any  subject  in  which 
I  too  must  be  so  deeply  concerned."  The  cir- 
cumstance of  her  wound,  the  pretensions  which 
she  otherwise  had  to  confidence,  drew  the  secret 


from  her  husband,  anil  undoubtedly  from  thence- 
forward, by  the  passions  which  were  likely  to 
agitate  the  mind  of  a  tender  and  affectionate 
woman,  exposed  the  design  to  additional  hazard 
of  a  discovery  and  of  a  failure. 

But  the  morning  of  the  Ides  of  March,  the  day 
on  which  this  conspiracy  was  to  be  executed,  ar- 
rived, and  there  was  yet  no  suspicion.  The  con- 
spirators had  been  already  together  at  the  house 
of  one  of  the  praetors.  Cassius  was  to  present 
his  son  that  morning  to  the  people,  with  the  cere- 
mony usual  in  assuming  the  habit  of  manhood  ; 
and  he  was,  upon  this  account,  to  be  attended  by 
his  friends  into  the  place  of  assembly.  He  was 
afterwards,  together  with  Brutus,  in  their  capa- 
city of  magistrates,  employed  as  usual,  in  giving 
judgment  on  the  causes  that  were  brought  be- 
fore them.  As  they  sat  in  the  praetor's  chair 
they  received  intimation  that  Caesar,  having  been 
indisposed  over  night,  was  not  to  be  abroad  ;  and 
that  he  had  commissioned  Antony,  in  his  name, 
to  adjourn  the  senate  to  another  day.  Uj>on  this 
report,  they  suspected  a  discovery ;  and  while 
they  were  deliberating  what  should  be  done,  Po- 
pilius  Laenas,  a  senator  whom  they  had  not  en- 
trusted with  their  design,  whispered  them  as  he 
passed,  "I  pray  that  God  may  prosper  what  you 
have  in  view.  Above  all  things  despatch."  Their 
suspicions  of  a  discovery  being  thus  still  farther 
confirmed,  the  intention  soon  after  appeared  to 
be  public.  An  acquaintance  told  Casca,  "You 
have  concealed  this  business  from  me,  but  Brutus 
told  me  of  it."  They  were  struck  with  surprise  ; 
but  Brutus  presently  recollected  that  he  had  men- 
tioned to  this  person  no  more  than  Casca's  inten- 
tion of  standing  for  aedile,  and  that  the  words 
which  he  spoke  probably  referred  only  to  that 
business;  they  accordingly  determined  to  wait 
the  issue  of  these  alarms.10 

In  the  mean  time  Caesar,  at  the  persuasion  of 
Decimus  Brutus,  though  once  determined  to 
remain  at  home,  had  changed  his  mind,  and 
was  already  in  the  streets,  being  carried  to  the 
senate  in  his  litter.  Soon  after  he  had  left  his 
own  house,  a  slave  came  thither  in  haste,  desired 
protection,  and  said  he  had  a  secret  of  the  greatest 
moment  to  impart.  He  had  probably  over- 
heard the  conspirators,  or  had  observed  that  they 
were  armed ;  but  not  being  aware  how  pressing 
the  time  was,  he  suffered  himself  to  be  detained  till 
Caesar's  return.  Others,  probably,  had  observed 
circumstances  which  led  to  a  discovery  of  the 
plot,  and  Caesar  had  a  billet  to  this  effect  given 
to  him  as  he  passed  in  the  streets;  he  was  in- 
treated  by  the  person  who  gave  it  instantly  to 
read  it ;  and  he  endeavoured  to  do  so,  but  was 
prevented  by  the  multitudes  who  crowded  around 
him  with  numberless  applications;  and  he  still 
carried  this  paper  in  his  hand  when  he  entered 
the  senate. 

Brutus  and  most  of  the  conspirators  hail  taken 
their  places  a  little  while  before  the  arrival  of 
Caesar,  and  continued  to  be  alarmed  by  many 
circumstances  which  tended  to  shake  their  reso- 
lution. Porcia,  in  the  same  moments,  being  in 
great  agitation,  exposed  herself  to  public  notice. 
She  listened  with  anxiety  to  every  noise  in  the 
streets ;  she  despatched,  without  any  pretence  of 


8  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xliv.  c.  15. 


9  Ibid. 


JO  Appisn.  de  Bell  Civil  lib.  ii. 


&4  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  V\ 


business,  continual  messages  towards  the  place 
where  the  senate  was  assembled  ;  she  asked  every 
person  who  came  from  that  quarter  if  they  ob- 
served what  her  husband  was  doing.  Her  spirit 
at  last  sunk  under  the  effect  of  such  violent  emo- 
tions; she  fainted  away,  and  was  carried  for  dead 
into  her  apartment.  A  message  came  to  Brutus 
in  the  senate  with  this  account.  He  was  much 
affected,  but  kept  his  place.1  Popilius  Laenas, 
who  a  little  before  seemed,  from  the  expression  he 
had  dropped,  to  have  got  notice  of  their  design, 
appeared  to  be  in  earnest  conversation  with  Cae- 
sar, as  he  lighted  from  his  carriage.  This  left 
the  conspirators  no  longer  in  doubt  that  they 
were  discovered ;  and  they  made  signs  to  each 
other,  that  it  would  be  better  to  die  by  their  own 
hands  than  to  fall  into  the  power  of  their  enemy. 
But  they  saw  of  a  sudden  the  countenance  of 
Lamas  change  into  a  smile,  and  perceived  that 
his  conversation  with  Caesar  could  not  relate  to 
such  a  business  as  theirs. 

Caesar's  chair  of  state  had  been  placed  near  to 
the  pedestal  of  Pompey's  statue.  Numbers  of 
the  conspirators  had  seated  themselves  around  it. 
Trebonius,  under  pretence  of  business,  had  taken 
Antony  aside  at  the  entrance  of  the  theatre. 
Cimber,  who,  with  others  of  the  conspirators, 
met  Caesar  in  the  portico,  presented  him  with  a 
petition  in  favour  of  his  brother  who  had  been  ex- 
cepted from  the  late  indemnity;  and  in  urging  the 
prayer  of  this  petition,  attended  the  dictator  to  his 
place.  Having  there  received  a  denial  from  Caesar, 
uttered  with  some  expressions  of  impatience  at 
being  so  much  importuned,  he  took  hold  of  his 
robe,  as  if  to  press  the  intfeaty.  Nay,  said  Caesar, 
this  is  violence.  While  he  spoke  these  words, 
Cimber  flung  back  the  gown  from  his  shoulders; 
and  this  being  the  signal  agreed  upon,  called  out 
to  strike.  Casca  aimed  the  first  blow.  Caesar 
Started  from  his  place,  and  in  the  first  moment 
of  surprise,  pushed  Cimber  with  one  arm,  and 
laid  hold  of  <~"asca  .with  the  other.  But  he  soon 
perceived  that  resistance  was.  vain:  and  while 
the  swords  of  the  conspirators  clashed  with  each 
other,  in  their  way  to  his  body,  he  wrapped  him- 
self up  in  his  gown,  and  fell  without  any  farther 
struggle.  Tt  was  observed,  in  the  superstition  of 
the  times,  that  in  falling,  the  blood  which  sprung 
from  his  wounds  sprinkled  the  pedestal  of  Pom 
pey's  statue.  And  thus  having  employed  the 
greatest  abilities  to  subdue  his  fellow-citizens, 


with  whom  it  would  have  been  a  much  greater 
honour  to  have  been  able  to  live  on  terms  of 
equality,  he  fell  in  the  height  of  his  security,  a 
sacrifice  to  their  just  indignation;  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  what  the  arrogant  have  to  fear  in  tri- 
fling With  the  feelings  of  a  free  people,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  lesson  of  jealousy  and  of  cruelty  to 
tyrants,  or  an  admonition  not  to  spare,  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  their  power,  those  whom  they  may  have 
insulted  by  usurping  it. 

When  the  body  lay  breathless  on  the  ground, 
Cassius  called  out,  that  there  lay  the  worst  of 
men.2  Brutus  called  upon  the  senate  to  judge 
of  the  transaction  which  had  passed  before  them, 
and  was  proceeding  to  state  the  motives  of  those 
who  were  concerned  in  it,  when  the  members, 
who  had  for  a  moment  stood  in  silent  amazement, 
rose  on  a  sudden,  and  began  to  separate  in  great 
consternation.  All  those  who  had  come  to  the 
senate  in  the  train  of  Caesar,  his  lictors,  the  or- 
dinary officers  of  state,  citizens,  and  foreigners, 
with  many  servants  and  dependants  of  every  sort, 
had  been  instantly  seized  with  a  panic;  and  as  if 
the  swords  of  the  conspirators  were  drawn  against 
themselves,  had  already  rushed  into  the  streets* 
and  carried  terror  and  confusion  wherever  they 
went.  The  senators  themselves  now  followed. 
No  man  had  presence  of  mind  to  give  any  ac- 
count of  what  had  happened,  but  repeated  the 
cry  that  was  usual  on  great  alarms  for  all  persons 
to  withdraw,  and  to  shut  up  their  habitations  and 
shops.  This  cry  was  communicated  from  one 
to  another  in  the  streets.  The  people,  imagining 
that  a  general  massacre  was  somewhere  begun, 
shut  up,  and  barred  all  their  doors  as  in  the  dead 
of  night,  and  every  one  prepared  to  defend  his 
own  habitation. 

Antonv,  upon  the  first  alarm  had  changed  his 
dress,  and  retired  to  a  place  of  safety.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  conspirators  must  have  intended 
to  take  his  life,  together  with  that  of  Caesar;  and 
he  fled  in  the  apprehension  of  being  instantly  pur- 
sued. Lepidus  repaired  to  the  suburbs,  where 
the  legion  he  commanded  was  quartered  5  am*!  un- 
certain whether  Csesar's  death  was  the  act  of  the 
whole  senate,  or  of  a  private  party,  waited  for  ar* 
explanation,  or  an  order  from  the  surviving  con 
sul,  to  determine  in  what  manner  he  should  act.? 
In  these  circumstances  a  general  pause,  and  an 
interval  of  suspense  and  silence,  took  place  ovej 
the  whole  city. 


CHAPTER  H. 

General  Consternation  on  the  Death  of  Ccesar—  Tumultuary  Assembly  of  the  People— Declara 
tions  of  Cinna  and  Dolabella— Appearance  of  Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  Forum-— Their  return 
to  the  Capitol— Meeting  and  Debate  in  the  Senate— Act  of  Oblivion— Speech  of  Brutus  to  the 
People— Funeral  of  Caesar— insurrection  of  the  People— Policy  qf  Antony— Appearance  of 
Odavius—His  Difference  with  Antony— Both  have  recourse  to  Arms— Aspect  of  Things—* 
Antony  proceeds  to  expel  Decimus  Brutus  from  the  Cisalpine  Gaul. 


IN  the  general  consternation,  occasioned  by 
the  death  of  Caesar,  the  authors  of  this  important 
event  appeared  to  be  no  less  at  a  loss  what  to  do, 
than  the  other  members  of  the  senate,  on  whom 

1  Plat,  in  Bruto. 

1  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lib.  xii.  ep.  1.  Nequissimum  occi- 
tj.tu  oisn.  2  Appian.  db  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 


it  was  brought  by  surprise.  The  danger  of  exe- 
cuting the  first  part  of  their  design  had  appeared 
so  great,  that  they  looked  no  farther,  or  they  im- 
agined that  with  Caesar's  life  every  difficulty 
would  be  ended ;  and  that  the  senate  and  people, 
restored  to  their  authority  and  privileges,  would 
naturally  recur  to  their  usual  forms.  Finding 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


themselves  deserted  in  the  senate,  and  not  know- 
ing to  what  dingers  they  might  still  be  exposed, 
they  wrapped  up  the  left  arm  in  their  gowns;  a 
preparation  which  the  Romans,  in  the  habit  of 
using  a  shield,  generally  made  when  alarmed 
with  arty  prospect  of  violence. 

The  conspirators  thus  in  a  body,  with  their 
swords  yet  stained  with  blood,  went  forth  to  the 
streets  proclaiming  security  and  liberty,  and  invit 
wig  every  one  to  concur  with  them  in  restoring 
the  commonwealth.  They  were  joined  by  many 
Who,  though  not  accessary  to  the  conspiracy, 
chose  to  embark  with  them  in  the  present  state 
of  their  fortunes.  Of  these  are  particularly  men- 
tioned Lentulus  Spinther,  Favonius,  Acquinas, 
Dolabella,  Murcus,  Peticus,  and  Cinna.  But 
observing  that  the  people  in  general  did  not  show 
any  hearty  approbation  of  their  cause ;  and  know- 
ing that,  besides  the  legion  which  Lepidus  com- 
manded in  the  suburbs,  there  were  in  the  city 
multitudes  of  veterans,  who  having  received  grants 
of  land  from  Caesar,  either  had  not  yet  gone  to 
take  possession  of  them,  or  having  been  at  their 
settlements,  had  returned  to  pay  court  to  their 
patron  before  his  departure  from  Rome ;  and  sus- 
pecting that  Antony,  now  the  sole  consul  and 
supreme  officer  of  state,  was  likely  to  exert  the 
powers  of  a  magistrate  against  them^  and  being 
on  every  side  beset  with  dangers  of  which  they 
knew  not  the  extent,  they  determined  to  take  re- 
fuge in  the  capitol,  and  with  the  gladiators  of 
Decimus  Brutus,  who  had  already  taken  posses- 
sion of  that  fortress,  to  wait  the  issue  of  this  ge- 
neral scene  of  suspense. 

Multitudes  of  the  people,  observing  that  the 
persons  who  had  occasioned  this  general  alarm 
were  themselves  an  the  defensive,  and  no  way 
inclined  to  extend  the  effusion  of  blood,  ventured 
forth  into  the  streets,  and  many  crowded  to- 
gether in  the  forum  or  ordinary  place  of  resort.4 
The  first  person  that  took  any  public  part  upon 
this  occasion  was  Cinna,  the  son  of  him  who  had 
been  a  leader  of  the  Marian  party,  brother-in-law 
of  Caesar,  and  now,  by  his  nomination,  advanced 
to  the  dignity  of  praetor.  This  relation  of  the 
deceased,  to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  tore  the 
praetor's  gown  from  his  own  shoulders;  declared 
that  in  this  act  he  then  abdicated  his  office,  as 
having  been  unwarrantably  obtained  by  the  no- 
mination of  an  usurper;  and  he  proceeded  to 
make  a  harangue  to  the  people,  in  which  he  re- 
presented Caesar  as  a  tyrant,  extolled  the  con- 
spirators as  the  restorers  of  liberty  to  their  coun- 
try, and  proposed  that  they  should  have  the 
proper  safeguards  to  their  persons,  and  be  invited 
to  assist  in  the  assembly  of  the  people. 

Dolabella,  who  had  been  nominated  by  Caesar 
to  succeed  in  the  office  of  consul,  which  he  him- 
self was  ahout  to  vacate,  thinking  that  the  in- 
tended succession  was  now  open  to  him  upon 
Caesar's  death,  reversed  the  first  part  of  Cinna's 
conduct,  by  assuming  the  robes  and  ensigns  of 
consul,  to  which  he  had  no  title ;  but  joined  with 
the  abdicated  praetor  in  applauding  the  authors 


4  Appian  says,  that  the  friends  of  the  conspirators, 
by  distributing  money,  endeavoured  to  form  a  party 
among  the  populace.  The  necessity  of  this  expedient, 
if  real,  is  sufficient  to  show  bow  desperate  the  attempt 
was  of  restoring  democratical  government  to  the  in- 
habitants of  Rome,  composed  of  the  refuse  of  Italy, 
»nd  of  the  provinces  collected  to  enjoy  the  rewards  of 
idleness  and  faction. 


of  Caesar's  death,  expressed  his  wish  that  he  him- 
self had  been  a  partner  in  the  glory  of  their  ac- 
tion, joined  with  Cinna,  in  proposing  that  these 
restorers  of  liberty  should  be  invited  to  the  assem- 
bly of  the  people,  and  that  the  anniversary  of  the 
present  day  should  be  observed  for  ever,  as  a  fes- 
tival sacred  to  the  restoration  of  the  common- 
wealth. 

The  partizans  of  Caesar,  yet  unacquainted  with 
the  extent  of  their  own  danger,  had  absented 
themselves,  and  the  assembly  consisted  chiefly  of 
persons  to  whom  these  proposals  were  agreeable. 
The  motions  that  were  now  made  by  the  late 
prcetor  and  the  supposed  consul  accordingly  pre- 
vailed, and  the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  were  in- 
vited to  descend  from  the  capitol.  But  of  this 
invitation  only  Marcus  Brutus  and  Cassius  took 
the  benefit.  Having  joined  the  assembly,  they 
severally  addressed  themselves  to  the  multitude 
with  an  air  of  dignity  and  consciousness  of  merit, 
as  being  the  procurers  of  that  liberty  which  the 
people  were  now  to  enjoy,  and  by  which  they 
were  enabled  to  judge  for  themselves.  They 
contrasted  the  late  usurpation  of  Caesar5  with  the 
free  constitution  of  the  republic ;  observed,  that 
with  respect  to  themselves,  unsupported  as  they 
were  by  any  military  force,  they  could  have  no 
intention  to  supplant  the  usurper  in  the  possession 
of  his  power,  and  could  have  no  object  besides  the 
restoration  of  the  laws  and  the  freedom  of  their 
country.  And  they  exhorted  the  audience,  in 
terms  rather  popular,  than  really  applicable  to 
the  present  state  of  affairs,  to  make  the  same  use 
of  their  deliverance  from  an  usurped  and  violent 
domination  which  their  ancestors,  at  the  expul- 
sion of  Tarquin,  had  made  of  a  similar  event. 
They  specified  the  merit  which  many  persons 
had  in  this  enterprise,  particularly  that  of  Deci- 
mus Brutus,  who  had  furnished  the  company  of 
gladiators,  which,  in  entering  on  this  business, 
made  the  principal  part  of  their  strength  ;  and 
observed,  that,  notwithstanding  the  splendid  for- 
tune to  which  Decimus  Brutus  might  have  as- 
pired under  Caesar's  influence,  he  had  preferred 
tlie  rights  of  his  fellow-citizens  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  commonwealth.  They  turned  the 
attention  of  the  audience  on  the  case  of  Sexteius 
Pompeius,  the  only  surviving  son  of  the  great 
Pompey,  now  unjustly  deemed  an  outlaw  and  a 
rebel.6  "  In  the  person  of  this  young  man,"  they 
said,  "  you  have  the  last  of  a  noble  family,  who, 
in  the  contest  for  freedom,  have  sacrificed  them- 
selves for  the  republic,  even  he  is  still  beset  by 
the  emissaries  of  the  late  usurper,  who,  pretend- 
ing public  authority,  are  armed  for  his  destruc- 
tion with  swords,  yet  red  with  the  blood  of  his  la- 
ther and  of  his  brother."  They  moved  the  people, 
that  so  unjust  a  war  should  l>e  instantly  sus- 
pended, and  that  this  young  man  should  be  re- 
stored to  the  rights  of  his  ancestors  ;  that  the 
tribunes  Caesetius  and  Marullus,  being  unjustly 
degraded  by  Caesar,  in  violation  of  that  saen  d 
law,  which  he  himself,  upon  much  less  grounds, 
had  made  his  pretence  for  a  civil  war,  should  now 
be  restored  to  all  their  dignities. 


5  Appian.de  BelloCivili,  lib.  ii.  Dio. Cass.  lib.  xliv. 
c.  21. 

6  This  young  man  having  absconded  for  some  time 
after  the  defeat  and  death  of  his  brother  at  MuadA, 
had  aeain  appeared  in  Spain  at  the  head  of  a  consi- 
derable force,  and  defeated  Asinius  Pollio,  who  liaV 
been  employed  by  t'n  sar  against  him. 


226 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


In  these  fond  anticipations  of  freedom,  the 
authors  of  this  attempt  to  restore  the  republic, 
enjoyed  for  once  the  fruits  of  their  labour,  and 
spoke  to  a  numerous  assembly  of  the  Roman 
people,  seemingly  unrestrained  and  unawed  by 
military  force.  The  city,  however,  had  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  consternation  with  which  the 
people  was  seized ;  the  present  assembly  was  not 
sufficiently  attended  by  persons,  on  whom  the 
conspirators  could  rely  for  their  safety.  It  was 
thought  most  prudent,  therefore,  that  Brutus  and 
Cassius  should  return  to  their  friends  in  the  Ca- 
pitol, and  that  from  this  place  they  should  treat 
of  an  accommodation  with  Antony,  and  with  the 
other  leaders  of  the  opposite  party. 

On  the  following  day,  Antony,  seeing  that  the 
restorers  of  the  commonwealth  remained  in  the 
capitol,  and  abstained  from  violence  against  any 
of  the  supposed  friends  or  adherents  of  Caesar, 
ventured  abroad  from  his  lurking  place,  and  re- 
sumed the  dress  and  ensigns  of  consul.  In  this 
capacity  he  received  a  message  from  the  conspi- 
rators, desiring  a  conference  with  himself  and 
with  Lepidus.  Antony,  though,  in  times  of  re- 
laxation and  security,  extravagant,  dissipated, 
and  in  appearance  incapable  of  serious  affairs.;1 
yet  in  arduous  situations  he  generally  belied 
these  appearances,  was  strenuous,  cautious,  and 
able.  He  did  not  yet  perceive  how  far  the  party 
of  Caesar  was  or  was  not  extinguished  with  its 
leader.  The  only  military  force  in  Italy  was  at 
the  disposal  of  Lepidus,  of  whom  he  was  jealous. 
In  his  answer,  therefore,  he  assumed  an  appear- 
ance of  moderation  and  regard  for  the  common- 
wealth, and  referred  every  question  to  the  senate, 
which  he  had  already  summoned  to  assemble. 

In  expectation  of  this  meeting  of  the  senate,  all 
parties  were  busy  in  consultations,  and  in  solicit- 
ing support  to  their  interest.  The  friends  of  the 
conspirators  were  in  motion  all  night  visiting  the 
senators,  and  preparing  measures  for  the  follow- 
ing day.  The  veterans  of  Csesar,  both  officers 
and  legionary  soldiers,  apprehending  that  the 
grants  of  land  lately  made  to  themselves  might  be 
recalled,  went  to  and  fro  in  the  streets,  and  made 
application  wherever  they  had  access,  with  repre- 
sentations and  threats.  They  even  provided 
themselves  with  arms,  and  prepared  to  overawe 
the  senate  by  their  numbers. 

In  the  course  of  the  same  night,  Lepidus  had 
marched  into  the  city  with  the  legion  he  com- 
manded, and  took  possession  of  the  forum.  To 
the  people  who  assembled  around  him  he  la- 
mented the  death  of  Caesar,  and  inveighed  against 
the  authors  of  this  unexpected  event.  By  this 
declaration,  he  encouraged  the  partizans  and  re- 
tainers of  the  late  dictator  to  come  abroad,  and 
rendered  the  streets  and  passages  exceedingly 
dangerous  for  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  of 
the  opposite  party.  Cinna,  who,  to  evince  his 
zeal  for  the  reviving  republic,  had  resigned  the 
office  of  praetor  conferred  upon  him  by  Csesar, 
was  attacked  on  his  way  to  the  senate,  and  nar- 
rowly escaped  with  his  life. 

Antony,  in  that  busy  night,  had.  by  his  credit 
with  Calpurnia  the  widow  of  Csesar,  got  posses- 
sion of  all  his  memorials  and  of  all  his  writings, 

1  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  says  Cicero  upon  this  occa- 
sion, he  minds  eating  and  drinking  even  more  than 
mischief.  (Cicero  ad  Attic  lib.  xiv.  ep.  3.  quern  qui- 
dem  ego  ffipulanim  ma;ris  arhitror  rationem  habere, 
quam  quidqiam  mali  cogitare.) 


and  had  secured  an  immense  sum  of  money, 
which  had  been  deposited  by  him  in  the  temple 

of  Ops.  2 

On  the  following  day,  being  the  eighteenth  day 
of  March,  the  senate  assembled,  as  soon  as  it  wa<* 
light,  in  the  temple  of  the  Earth.  The  veterans 
beset  the  doors.3  Dolabella  presented  himself 
ushered  in  by  the  lictors,  and  took  possession  of 
one  of  the  consuls'  chairs.  Antony  being  seated 
in  the  other,  moved  the  assembly  to  take  into 
consideration  the  present  state  of  the  common- 
wealth. He  himself  professed  great  zeal  for  the 
republic,  and  a  disposition  to  peace.4  The  greater 
part  of  those  who  spoke  after  Antony  justified  or 
extolled  the  act  of  the  conspirators,  and  moved 
that  they  should  have  public  thanks  and  rewards 
for  their  services.  This  they  supported  by  a 
charge  of  usurpation  and  tyranny  against  Caesar. 
Upon  this  point,  however,  Antony  thought  pro- 
per to  interpose;  reminded  the  senators  how 
nearly  many  of  them  were  concerned  in  this  ques- 
tion. "  They  who  are  to  vote  in  it,"  he  said, 
"  will  please  to  observe,  that  if  Csesar  shall  be 
found  to  have  acted  with  legal  powers,  his  acts 
will  remain  in  force  ;  if  otherwise,  all  the  proceed- 
ings that  took  place  during  his  administration 
must  be  erased  from  your  records  ;  and  his  bod}?, 
as  that  of  a  traitor  and  a  tyrant,  made  fast  on  a 
hook,  must  be  dragged  through  the  streets,  and 
cast  into  the  Tiber.  This  sentence  would  affect 
the  remotest  parts  of  the  empire,  or  would  extend, 
in  its  application,  farther  perhaps  than  we  should 
be  able  to  enforce  it  by  our  arms.  Part  indeed  is 
in  our  power.  Many  of  us  hold  offices,  or  are 
destined  by  Caesar's  nomination  to  offices,  either 
at  home  or  abroad.  Let  us  begin  with  divesting 
ourselves  of  what  we  now  hold  ;  and  with  re- 
nouncing our  expectations  for  the  future.  After 
we  have  given  this  proof  of  our  disinterestedness, 
our  allies  abroad  will  listen  to  us>  when  we  speak 
of  recalling  the  favours  granted  to  them  by  the 
late  dictator." 

By  this  artful  turn,  which  was  given  by  An- 
tony to  the  subject  now  under  deliberation,  many, 
who  in  the  late  arrangements  made  by  Caesar, 
held  places  in  the  senate  or  magistracy,  or,  who 
were  by  his  appointment  destined  to  succeed  to 
high  offices  at  home  or  abroad,  were  greatly  dis- 
concerted. Some  of  those  who  were  actually  in 
office,  as  retainers  of  the  late  usurpation,  resigned 
their  powers,  and  laid  down  the  ensigns  of  ma- 
gistracy on  the  steps  where  they  sat ;  but  Dola- 
bella, who,  in  consequence  of  a  destination  made, 
though  not  fulfilled  by  Caesar,  had  recently  as- 
sumed the  consular  robes,  and  who,  being  under 
the  legal  age,  had  no  hopes  of  being  re-elected  by 
the  free  voice  of  the  people,  notwithstanding  his 
declaration  in  favour  of  the  authors  of  Caesar's 
death,  pleaded  for  the  necessity  of  sustaining  all 
the  acts  and  decrees  of  that  usurper. 

While  the  senators  were  engaged  in  debate  on 
the  terms  of  their  first  resolution,  relating  to  tho 
act  of  the  conspirators  and  the  death  of  Caesar, 
the  people,  who  had  assembled  in  great  multi- 


2  Cicero  says,  septies  Millies  H.  S.  about  six  mil- 
lions sterling.  Philip  ii.  c.  37.  4000  talents.  Plut.  in 
Anton. 

3  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib  xiv.  ep.  14.  Nonne  omni  ratione 
veterani  qui,  armati  aderant,  cum  presidii  nos  nihil 
haberemus,  defendendi  fuerunt  ? 

4  Ibid.  Philip  i.  c  1 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


'621 


tudes  in  the  market-place,  became  impatient  to 
know  what  was  passing,  and  pressed  on  the  doors 
of  the  temple  where  the  senate  was  met,  with 
some  attempts  to  force  or  break  them  open.5  On 
this  occasion,  Antony  and  Lepidus  thought  pro- 
per to  go  forth,  under  pretence  of  appeasing  the 
tumult!  but  with  a  real  intention  to  observe  what, 
in  this  critical  state  of  affairs,  was  the  prevailing 
disposition  of  the  people,  with  a  full  resolution  to 
be  governed  in  their  own  measures,  by  what 
seemed  to  be  the  will  of  the  multitude.  Finding 
the  humour  of  the  majority,  and  the  disposition 
of  the  troops  such  as  they  desired,  menacing  and 
sanguinary  against  the  conspirators,  they  endea- 
voured to  inflame  their  passions,  employing  signs 
and  gestures  of  indignation,  rather  than  words, 
which  could  not  be  heard.  Among  other  ex- 
pressions of  this  nature,  Antony  laid  open  his 
bosom,  to  show  the  armour  with  which  he  had 
thought  necessary,  in  the  senate,  and  amidst  so 
many  concealed  enemies,  to  guard  his  life.  By 
this,  and  other  signs  which  he  made,  he  insinu- 
ated that  Caesar  had  fallen  in  consequence  of  his 
excessive  confidence,  and  of  the  clemency  with 
which  he  had  spared  those  who  became  his  mur- 
derers. 

From  this  scene,  which  passed  in  the  streets, 
Antony  returned  to  the  senate  ;6  and  the  debate 
being  resumed,  Dolabella  alleging  the  confusion 
which  must  arise  from  a  general  suspension  of 
magistracy,  and  the  disorders  attending  general 
elections  at  so  critical  a  time,  insisted,  that  all 
magistrates  now  in  office  should  continue.  Ci- 
cero pleaded  for  a  general  amnesty  and  oblivion 
for  the  past ;  enumerated  the  evils  which  had  been 
brought  on  the  republic,  by  the  contentions  and 
by  the  vindictive  spirit  of  party  ;  proposed  that 
none  should  be  questioned  for  Caesar's  death,  nor 
any  one  be  called  to  account  for  violence  committed 
under  his  authority ;  that  the  arrangements  made 
by  Caesar  should  remain  ;  that  every  one  destined 
to  office,  should  in  his  turn  succeed  according  to 
that  destination  ;  and  that  all  the  provisions  made 
for  the  army  should  be  fully  secured  to  them.7 

After  some  opposite  opinions  on  the  question 
had  been  delivered,  Antony  concluded  the  debate 
with  a  tone  of  more  authority  than  he  had  hither- 
to assumed.  "  While  you  deliberated,"  he  said, 
"on  the  conduct  which  you  were  to  hold  with 
respect  to  the  conspirators,  I  chose  to  be  silent ; 
but  when  you  changed  the  question,  and  pro- 
posed to  condemn  the  dead,  I  ventured  only  to 
make  one  objection,  which  being  removable  by 
yourselves,  ought  to  have  been  the  least  of  all 
your  difficulties.  And  yet  I  find  it  is  sufficient 
to  stop  all  your  proceedings  !  What  are  we  to 
think  of  the  remaining  objections  ?  The  whole 
fabric  of  the  empire  rests  at  this  moment  on  esta- 
blishments made  by  Caesar ;  at  home  on  the 
arrangements  he  has  made  in  the  succession  to 
office  ;  abroad  on  the  grants  of  possessions  or  im- 
munities made  by  him  to  princes,  cities,  corpora- 
tions, and  provinces,  and  on  the  several  condi- 
tions he  has,  in  return,  stipulated  with  them  on 
behalf  of  the  Roman  people.  Imagine  then,  upon 
the  subversion  of  what  he  has  established,  what 
scenes  of  confusion  must  follow.  It  is  true,  con- 
fusion at  a  distance  may  not  affect  you;  but  the 
scene  in  Italy  will  be  sufficient  to  occupy  your 


utmost  attention.  Will  the  veterans,  do  you 
think,  who  have  not  yet  laid  down  their  arms,  or 
not  lost  the  use  of  them,  of  whom  many  thou- 
sands are  now  in  this  city,  will  they  allow  them- 
selves to  be  stripped  of  the  grants  which  were 
made  to  them  in  reward  of  long,  dangerous,  and 
faithful  services?  You  have  heard  their  voice, 
last  night  in  the  streets.  You  have  heard  their 
menaces  against  the  authors  of  our  present  dis- 
tresses. Will  they  behold  with  patience  the 
body  of  their  favourite  leader  dragged  with  igno- 
miny in  the  streets?  Will  they  bear  with  an 
indignity,  which,  though  done  to  his  memory, 
must  involve  a  forfeiture  of  all  that  they  themselves 
have  received,  or  a  disappointment  of  all  they  ex- 
pect in  reward  of  their  services  ?  Will  the  Ro- 
man people  in  general  submit  to  have  the  princi- 
pal author  of  their  present  greatness  stigmatised 
by  your  decrees  as  a  criminal,  and  to  have  his 
assassins  rewarded  with  honours? — The  propo- 
sal to  me,  in  all  its  parts,  appears  wild  and  im- 
practicable. Let  the  conspirators,  if  you  will, 
escape  with  impunity,  provided  they  are  sensible 
of  the  favour  that  is  shown  to  them  ;  but  talk  not 
of  rewards  to  them ;  nor,  under  pretence  of  cen- 
suring the  conduct  of  your  late  dictator,  wildly 
open  a  scene  of  confusion,  by  subverting  all  your 
present  establishments.  My  opinion  is,  that  the 
acts  of  Caesar,  without  exception,  should  be  rati- 
fied, and  that  all  affairs  should  be  suffered  to 
move  on  in  the  channels  in  which  he  has  left 
them.  On  these  preliminary  conditions  I  will 
submit  to  an  accommodation,  and  agree  that  we 
think  no  more  of  the  past." 

In  delivering  this  speech,  Antony  having  per- 
ceived so  powerful  a  support  in  the  legion  which 
now  had  possession  of  the  furum,  in  the  veterans, 
and  in  the  promiscuous  multitudes  of  people  who 
were  assembled  round  the  doors  of  the  senate, 
expressed  himself  with  assurance  and  great  ve- 
hemence. A  decree  was  accordingly  passed,  by 
which  all  prosecutions,  on  account  of  Ciesar's 
death,  were  prohibited;  all  his  acts,  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  were  confirmed  ;  all  his  plans  ordered 
to  be  carried  into  execution  ;  and  all  the  grants  of 
land,  which  had  been  made  by  him  to  the  vete- 
rans, specially  ratified.8 

This  decree  being  to  be  carried  to  the  people 
for  their  assent  on  the  following  day,  and  the 
accommodation  of  parties  being  so  far  advanced, 
the  conspirators  intimated  an  inclination  to  ad- 
dress themselves  to  the  people;  and  were  instant- 
ly attended  by  great  numbers,  who  assembled  to 
hear  them  on  the  ascent  of  the  capital.9  Brutus 
spoke  from  the  steps.  He  explained  the  motives 
upon  which  his  friends  and  himself  had  thought 
proper  to  betake  them  to  their  present  retreat ; 
and,  in  speaking  on  this  subject,  complained  of 
the  outrage  which  had  been  offered  to  Cinna, 
who,  though  not  concerned  in  the  death  of  C&- 
sar,  was  attacked,  for  having  been  supposed  to 
approve  of  what  they  had  done.  He  enumerated 
the  distresses  which  had  afflicted  the  c  unmon- 
wealth,  from  the  time  at  which  Caesar  commenced 
hostilities  to  the  present  hour;  "A  period,  du- 
ring which  the  best  blood  of  the  republic,"  he 
said,  "was  continually  shedding,  in  Spain,  in 
Macedonia,  and  in  Africa,  to  gratify  the  ambi- 
tion or  vanity  of  a  single  man.    These  things 


5  Appian.  do  Bello  Civ.  lib.  ii. 
7  Dio.  Case.  lib.  xliv.  c.  34. 


6  Ibid. 


8  Appian.  de  Bell  Civil,  lib.  ii. 

9  Ciccr.  ad  Attic  lib.  xv.  ep.  1. 


328 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION. 


[Book  V. 


however,"  continued  he,  "  we  consented  to  over- 1 
look,  and  in  suffering  Caesar  to  hold  the  higher 
offices  of  state,  became  bound,  by  our  oath  of 
fidelity,  not  to  call  any  of  his  past  actions  in  ques- 
tion. If  we  had  likewise  sworn  to  submit  our- 
selves to  perpetual  servitude,  our  enemies  might 
have  some  colour  for  the  accusation  of  perjury, 
which  we  are  told  is  now  laid  to  our  charge ;  but  the 

Eroposal  of  any  such  engagement  we  should 
ave  rejected  with  indignation,  and  we  trust  that 
every  Roman  citizen  would  have  done  so  also. 
Sylla,  after  having  gratified  his  revenge  against 
many  who  were  no  doubt  his  own  enemies,  at 
the  same  time  that  they  were  enemies  of  the 
public,  at  last  restored  the  commonwealth  ;  but 
Caesar,  without  any  pretence,,  besides  the  gratifi- 
cation of  his  own  ambition,  continued,  in  the 
city  and  in  the  provinces,-  to  usurp  all  the  powers 
of  the  empire.  The  treasury  he  treated  as  his 
property,  and  the  magistrates  of  Rome  as  his 
creatures,  to  be  placed  or  displaced  at  his  pleasure. 
One  of  the  last  acts  of  his  life,  in  preparing  for 
his  departure  from  Rome,  was  to  fix  the  succes- 
sion of  magistrates  for  several  years ;  in  order 
that  in  his  absence  you  might  not,  by  choosing 
your  own  officers,  recover  the  habit  of  exercising 
that  freedom,  and  of  enjoying  those  rights,  of 
which  he  meant  to  deprive  you  for  ever." 

From  this  account  of  Caesar's  usurpation, 
Brutus  proceeded  to  speak  of  the  grants  which 
had  been  made  to  the  veterans.  He  acknow- 
ledged the  long  and  faithful  services  which  those 
men  had  performed  against  the  enemies  of  the 
commonwealth  in  Gaul,  in  Germany,  and  in 
Britain ;  approved  of  the  provision  which  had 
been  made  for  them,  and  assured  them  of  his 
concurrence  in  carrying  this  provision  into  full 
execution.  At  the  same  time  he  lamented  the 
sufferings  of  those  who  had  been  stripped  of  their 
ancient  possessions,  to  make  way  for  those  new 
grants ;  proposed  that  they  should  have  a  com- 
pensation from  the  treasury,  and  hoped  that  the 
justice  of  the  commonwealth  would  be  employed 
in  equally  protecting  the  rights  of  every  citizen." 

This  speech  was  received  with  applause;  and 
on  the  following  day  the  act  of  oblivion  being 
confirmed  by  the  people,  and  the  children  of  An- 
tony having  been  sent1  as  hostages  to  the  capitol, 
the  conspirators  came  down  from  thence,  and 
were  received  with  loud  acclamations.  After 
parties  had  saluted  each  other  with  mutual  con- 
gratulations and  expressions  of  friendship,  Cas- 
sius  retired  to  sup  with  Antony,  and  Brutus  with 
Lepidus.  The  republic  appeared  to  be  thoroughly 
re-established.  The  nobles  in  general  expressed 
their  satisfaction  in  the  present  situation  of  af- 
fairs, and  extolled  the  authors  of  Caesar's  death 
as  the  restorers  of  freedom  to  their  country. 
Many,  however,  who  had  shared  in  the  late 
usurpation,  having  tasted  of  military  power,  and 
being  unable  to  acquiesce  in  the  condition  of 
mere  citizens,  however  dignified;  or  to  accommo- 
date themselves  to  the  restraints  and  formalities 
of  legal  government,  were  likely  to  prove  bad 
members  of  the  reviving  republic.  Antony  in 
particular  considered  himself  as  the  successor  of 
Caesar,  and  could  not  for  a  moment  cease  to  think 
how  he  might  grasp  the  sovereignty,  and  dispose 
of  all  the  dignities  and  emoluments  of  the  state. 
The  senate  had  weakly,  under  the  show  of 


moderation,  resolved  to  confirm  Caesar's  will  and 
to  ratify  all  his  acts,  both  public  and  private  r 
they  had  decreed  that  the  remains  of  Caesar  should 
be  honoured  with  a  public  funeral,  which  was  to 
be  conducted  in  the  manner  which  his  friends- 
should  think  proper. 

Antony  was  prepared  to  take  advantage  of 
these  circumstances,  towards  preserving  the  party 
of  Caesar  both  in  the  army  and  in  the  city,  not 
doubting  that,  while  this  party  remained,  he  him- 
self should  remain  at  its  head.  For  this  purpose, 
he  published  Caesar's  will,  in  which  he  knew  that 
there  were  many  clauses  likely  to  gratify  the 
people,  and  to  inflame  their  minds  against  his 
assassins.  Among  these,  were  a  legacy  of  mo- 
ney to  be  distributed  to  the  inferior  citizens,  at 
the  rate  of  twenty-five  attic  drachmas,  about  two 
pounds  ten  shillings  a  man;2  or,  according  to 
Octavius,  quoted  by  Dion  Cassius,  300  H.  S. 
about  the  same  sum  ;  together  with  an  assign- 
ment of  his  gardens  on  the  river,  as  public  walks 
for  the  service  and  pleasure  of  the  people.  Many 
legacies  were  likewise  bequeathed  to  private  per- 
sons. The  inheritance  with  the  name  of  Caesar, 
was  devised  to  Octavius,  grandson  to  his  sister 
Julia.  The  succession,  in  case  of  the  failure  of 
this  young  man,  was  devised  to  Decimus  Brutus, 
who,  at  the  same  time,  together  with  Mark  An 
tony,  was  made  guardian  to  the  young  Csesar, 
and  executor  of  the  will. 

Upon  the  publication  of  this  will,  the  partizani* 
of  Antony  took  occasion  to  extol  the  munificence 
and  generosity  of  Caesar  towards  the  Roman 
people,  to  blacken  the  conduct  of  the  conspirators, 
representing  that  of  Decimus  Brutusr  in  particu- 
lar, as  equal  to  parricide;  and  Antony,  in  this 
manner  having  secured  the  public  attention  and 
favour,  proceeded  to  celebrate  the  funeral  with 
all  the  honours  that  were  due  to  a  public  benefac- 
tor, and  to  a  common  parent  of  the  people. 

Caesar's  body,  in  the  general  consternation,  had 
been  left  for  some  hours  on  the  spot  where  it  fell. 
It  was  at  last  borne  on  a  litter  by  a  few  slaves  to 
his  own  house.  In  this  confusion,  one  of  the 
arms,  all  over  blood,  was  left  hanging  over  the 
side  of  the  litter ;  and  this  circumstance,  though 
at  the  time  in  appearance  unnoticed,  yet  remained 
with  a  deep  impression  on  the  minds  of  those 
who  beheld  it.  On-  examining  the  body,  there 
were  found  twenty-three  wounds  sufficiently 
ghastly,  although  no  more  than  one  or  two  were 
mortal.  Antony  determined  to  exhibit  this  spec- 
tacle to  the  people,  accompanied  with  that  of  the 
robes,  which  were  pierced  and  torn  in  the  strug- 
gle with  which  Caesar  fell,  and  all  over  stained 
with  his  blood.  He  likewise  ordered  a  solemn 
dirge  to  be  performed,  with  interludes  of  music, 
agreeable  to  the  practice  at  Roman  funerals,  and 
suited  to  that  particular  occasion.  He  himself 
prepared  to  speak  the  oration ;  and  a  day  being 
fixed  for  the  solemnity,  a  pile  was  raised  in  the 
Campus  Martius,  near  to  the  tomb  of  Julia,  the 
daughter  of  the  deceased,  and  the  wife  of  Pom- 
pey.  Although  it  was  intended  that  the  body 
should  be  consumed  on  this  pile  in  the  Campus 
Martius,  the  funeral  oration  was  to  be  spoken 
from  the  rostra  in  the  forum,  and  a  coucn  was 
placed  there  adorned  with  ivory  and  gold,  on 
which  was  laid  the  corpse  with  an  effigy  of  the 
deceased,  covered  with  purple,  and  over  it  a  tro- 


1  Cicer.  Philip,  i.  «.  1. 


2  Appian.  &  "Hul.  Oivili.  lib  ii 


Chap.  II.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


phy,  on  which  was  to  be  hung  the  robes  in  which 
he  was  killed.  The  whole  of  this  pageant  was 
covered  up,  and  adorned  with  a  gilded  canopy  of 
state.  In  bearing  it  to  the  forum,  the  pall  was 
carried  by  magistrates  then  in  office,  or  by  per- 
sons who  had  passed  through  the  highest  stations 
of  the  commonwealth.  But  in  the  procession, 
the  streets  were  so  crowded,  that  no  order  could 
be  kept,  and  multitudes  who  ought  to  have  passed 
in  regular  procession,  hurried  by  the  shortest 
ways  to  the  place  at  which  the  obsequies  were  to 
be  performed.3 

Antony  began  the  funeral  oration,  with  an 
apology  for  intruding  on  the  patience  of  many, 
who  possibly  took  no  particular  concern  in  the 
catastrophe  of  Caesar's  life.  "  Had  Caesar  been 
a  private  man,"  he  said,  "  I  should  have  pro- 
ceeded to  his  funeral  in  silence ;  but  one  who  has 
died  in  the  first  station  of  the  republic,  is  entitled 
to  public  notice.  And  my  own  station  as  consul, 
were  I  qualified  for  the  task,  would  have  imposed 
on  me  a  special  duty  on  this  occasion;  but  in 
this  instance,  the  eulogium  of  the  dead  must  pro- 
ceed from  a  higher  authority  than  mine.  The 
senate  and  the  people  of  Rome  have  spoken,  and 
they  have  left  to  me  only  the  task  of  repeating 
what  they  have  said."  After  these  words,  he 
read  over  the  decrees  of  the  senate  and  people, 
enumerating  the  titles,  dignities,  honours,  and 
powers  which  had  been  conferred  on  Caesar.  He 
spoke  of  the  lustre  of  his  family,  the  graces  and 
accomplishments  of  his  person,  and  of  his  singu- 
lar abilities;  gave  a  general  account  of  the  wars 
in  which  he  had  been  engaged ;  his  splendid  suc- 
cesses and  the  accession  of  glory  and  of  empire 
he  had  procured  to  the  Roman  state :  and  when 
he  had  gained  so  far  on  the  attention  of  his  audi- 
ence, he  addressed  himself  to  the  popular  part  in 
particular.  "  When  you  were  oppressed,"  he 
said,  "  by  a  faction  that  engrossed  all  the  powers 
and- dignities  of  the  commonwealth,  Caesar  gene- 
rously interposed  in  your  behalf.  When  this 
faction  had  withdrawn  themselves  from  the  alle- 
giance that  was  due  to  the  government  of  their 
country  ;  and  when  they  had  actually  armed  first 
the  provinces  of  Spain,  afterwards  Macedonia, 
Greece,  Asia,  Africa,  and  all  the  eastern  parts  of 
the  empire  against  you,  he  braved  the  storms  of 
winter  and  the  superior  force  of  the  enemy  ;  he  dis- 

Sersed  the  cloud  which  had  gathered  aver  your 
eads;  he  carried  the  glory  of  your  arms  into 
Asia,  Africa,  Egypt,  and  yet  a  third  time  into 
Spain.  His  enemies  every  where  experienced 
his  valour  in  battle,  and  his  clemency  in  victory. 
He  pardoned  many  who  were  repeatedly  in  arms 
against  him;  and  when  he  dreaded  the  effects  of 
an  excessive  lenity  towards  those  who  appeared 
to  be  incorrigible,  he  sought  for  pretences  to  par- 
don his  enemies  under  the  show  of  gratifying  his 
friends. 

"  On  the  subject  of  his  administration  in  the 
state,  I  need  not  make  any  observation  to  you. 
You  were  witnesses  of  his  conduct.  Descended 
of  your  ancient  kings,  he  had  more  glory  in  re- 
fusing a  crown  that  was  ollered  to  him,  than 
they  had  in  wearing  it  with  all  its  honours. — 
You  loved  him — you  set  him  at  the  head  of  your 
riesthood — at  the  head  of  your  army — at  the 
ead  of  the  republic; — you  declared  his  person 


sacred  as  that  of  your  tribunes- -you  declared  him 
the  father  of  his  country — you  showed  him  to  the 
world,  adorned  with  the  ensigns  of  sovereign 
power — your  dictator,  your  guardian,  and  the 
terror  of  your  enemies.  But  he  is  no  more ! — 
This  sacred  person  is  now  breathless  before  you. 
The  father  of  his  country  is  dead  :  not,  alas!  of 
disease— not  of  the  decline  of  years — not  by  the 
hands  of  foreign  enemies — not  far  from  his  own 
country — but  here  within  your  walls,  and  in  the 
Roman  senate,  in  the  vigour  of  health,  in  the 
midst  of  all  his  designs  for  your  prosperity  and 
glory.  He  who  often  repelled  the  swords  of  his 
enemies,  has  fallen  by  the  hands  of  treacherous 
friends,  or  by  the  hands  of  those  whom  his  cle- 
mency had  spared. — But  what  availed  his  cle- 
mency ?  what  availed  the  laws  with  which  he  so 
anxiously  guarded  the  lives  of  his  fellow-citizens? 
His  own  he  could  not  guard  from  traitors.  His 
mangled  body,  and  his  gray  hairs  clotted  with 
blood,  are  now  exposed  in  that  forum  which  he 
so  often  adorned  with  his  triumphs;  and  near  to 
that  place  of  public  debate,  from  which  he  so 
often  captivated  the  people  of  Rome  with  his 
eloquence."* 

At  this  passage,  it  is  said  that  Antony  began 
to  change  the  tone  of  lamentation  into  that  of 
rage ;  that  he  raised  his  voice  to  indignation  and 
threats,  but  that  he  was  checked  by  a  general 
murmur  of  the  senators;  and  that  he  thought 
proper  again  to  soften  his  expressions.  "  The 
gods,"  he  said,  "are  masters  of  the  fortunes  of 
men.  It  is  our  part  to  forget  the  past,  to  look 
forward  to  the  future,  to  cultivate  peace  among 
ourselves,  and  to  accompany  this  hero  witn 
songs  of  praise  to  the  mansion's  of  the  blest." — 
Having  spoke  these  words,  he  tucked  up  his 
robe,  and  disengaged  his  arms  as  for  some  vehe- 
ment action  ;  and  standing  over  the  bier  in  which 
the  effigy  was  laid,  uncovered  it;  hut,  as  starting 
from  the  sight,  or  struck  into  silence,  he  held  up 
the  torn  and  bloody  garment  to  view,  sunk  again 
into  a  sorrowful  tone,  and  prayed  that  it  were 
possible  for  him  to  redeem  that  precious  life  with 
his  own.  Being  interrupted  with  a  general  cry 
of  lamentation  from  the  people,  he  made  a  pause 
to  hear  the  interlude.  At  a  passage  of  song, 
in  which  Caesar  was  personated  in  the  illowing 
words,  "  For  this  I  spared,  that  they  might  mur- 
der me;"  a  general  cry  of  indignation  burst  from 
the  multitude)-  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  effigy 
of  the  dead,  with  all  its  wounds  and  stains  of 
blood,  being  raised  to  view,  the  people  could  no 
longer  be  restrained.  Part  ran  to  avenge  his  blood" 
on  the  persons  of  the  conspirators,  and  part  tore 
up  the  benches  and  tribunals  of  the  magistrates, 
dismantled  the  senate-house,  brought  into  heaps 
the  spoils  of  the  supposed  enemies  of  f'acsnr,  and 
forgetting  the  preparations  which  had  been  made 
for  a  funeral  pile  in  the  field  of  Mars,  brought 
the  most  precious  combustible  materials  they 
could  find  to  light  a  fire  in  the  fcrum,  on  Which 
to  consume  tlx?  body  of  the  dead. 

From  this  beginning,  the  people  continued 
during  the  whole  night  to  bring  fresh  materials. 
The  officers  who  had  attended  the  procession, 
stripped  off  the  robes  in  which  they  were  dressed 
and  cast  them  in  the  flames.  Women  crowded 
to  the  pile,  and  threw  upon  it,  as  a  sacrifice  to 


3  Sueton,  in-CaesaT. 
T 


4  Dio  fas*,  lib  xliv  e.  49. 


'S'30  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  V. 


the  manes  of  the  dead,  the  ornaments  of  their 
own  persons,  the  gorgets  and  the  praetextas  of 
their  children.  The  people,  in  general,  appeared 
to  be  seized  with  an  epidemical  phrensy,  of  which, 
neither  the  degree  of  their  attachment  to  Caesar 
in  his  life-time,  nor  the  manner  in  which  they 
Mad  received  the  first  accounts  of  his  death,  had 
given  any  adequate  expectations :  they  ran 
through  the  streets  denouncing  vengeance  on  his 
enemies,  and  proceeded  to  violence  against  every 
person  who  was  represented  as  such.  Helvius 
China  being  mistaken  for  Cornelius  of  the  same 
name,  who-,  on  the  preceding  day  had  declared  his 
approbation  of  the  conspiracy,  was  put  to  death 
by  the  populace,  his  body  torn  in  pieces,,  and  his 
head  carried  in  procession  on  the  point  of  a  spear.1 
The  perpetrators  of  this  murder  being  led  by  the 
retainers  and  dependants  of  Cesar's  family, 
snatched  lighted  brands  from  the  funeral  pile, 
and  attacked  the  houses  of  Brutus,  Cassius,  and 
the  other  conspirators.  They  even  attempted  to 
demolish  Pompey's  theatre,  in  which  Caesar  had 
been  killed,  and  lighting  many  fires  at  once  in 
different  parts  of  the  city,  threatened  the  whole 
with  immediate  destruction. 

In  these  riots,  though  projected  by  Antony,  the 
public  disorder  was  carried  to  a  greater  height 
than  he  had  wished  or  foreseen.  His  intention 
was  to  incite  a  popular  cry  against  the  authors  of 
Caesar's  death,  and  to  check  the  senate  in  any 
opposition  they  were  likely  to  give  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  own  designs.  But  when  the  crimes 
which  were  committed  began  to  reflect  dishonour 
on  the  party  of  Caesar,  and  when  all  persons  of 
property  were  alarmed,  and  the  city  itself  was 
threatened  with  ruin,  he  found  himself  obliged, 
with  the  authority  of  magistrate,  to  interpose  and 
put  an  end  to  tumults  of  so  dangerous  a  nature. 
For  this  purpose,,  in  concert  with  Dolabella,  he 
issued  an  edict,  prohibiting  the  populace  to  as- 
semble in  arms  on  any  pretence  whatever,  and 
posted  guards  in  different  parts  of  the  town  to 
secure  the  observance  of  it. 

Antony  having  by  these  means  restored  the 
peace  of  the  city,  and  dispersed  all  the  crowds 
which  had  assembled,  except  that  which  still  re- 
mained at  the  place  of  Caesar's  funeral,  where 
the  populace  continued  for  some  time  to  feed  the 
pile,  he  made  a  journey  to  the  country,  and  re- 
mained in  Campania  great  part  of  April  and  May. 
During  this  time  he  was  assiduous  in  his  visits 
to  the  quarters  and  new  settlements  of  the  vete- 
rans, on  whom  he  was  tor  the  future  to  rely  for 
support  in  the  pretensions,  which  it  is  probable 
he  had  already  conceived,  and  which  were  much 
too  high  for  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth. 
In  his  absence,  one  Ematius,  who  had  formerly 
assumed  the  name  of  Marius,  and  under  this 
popular  designation  had  been  busy  in  disturbing 
the  public  peace,  and  who,  upon  this  account, 
had  by  the  late  dictator  himself  been  driven  from 
the  city,  now  again  appeared,  affected  to  lead  in 
the  riotous  honours  which  were  paid  to  the  me- 
mory of  Caesar,  and,  attended  by  the  populace, 
erected  an  altar  or  monument  on  the  spot  where 
the  corpse  had  been  burnt,  and  drew  multitudes 
thither  as  to  a  place  of  devotion.  On  this  occa- 
sion, Dolabella,  who  had  offended  many  of  the 
more  respectable  citizens,  by  assuming,  without 
any  regular  authority,  the  dignity  of  consul,  now 


1  Sueton.  in  Cfes.  Plut.  Ibid.  Appian.  Dio.  Cass  &c. 


recovered  their  favour  by  a  vigorous  exercise  of 
his  power  against  this  impostor,  gave  orders  that 
Ematius  should  be  put  to  death,  many  of  his  ac- 
complices thrown  from  the  Tarpeian  rock,  and 
the  monument  or  altar  they  had  erected  should 
be  razed  to  the  ground.2 

By  these  executions,  the  peace  of  the  city 
seemed  to  be  established,  and  even  the  common 
wealth  itself  in  some  measure  restored.  Both 
the  consuls  affected  the  character  of  ordinary 
magistrates,  showed  a  proper  deference  to  the 
senate,  and  in  all  things  endeavoured  to  give  sa- 
tisfaction to  the  friends  of  the  republic.  Antony 
upon  his  return  to  the  city,  consulted  the  prin- 
cipal senators  upon  every  motion  which  he  pro- 
posed to  make,  and  referred  the  determination  of 
every  question  to  the  free  discussion  of  that  body. 
He  affected  to  have  no  secrets ;  and  though  em- 
powered by  the  late  act  of  the  senate  to  carry 
into  execution  the  different  articles  of  Cses-ar's 
will,  and  to  complete  all  his  intended  arrange- 
ments, he  did  not,  under  this  description,  propose 
any  measure  but  what  was  generally  known  and 
approved.3 

In  pursuance  of  this  system  of  moderation,  it 
was  proposed  by  Antony,  that  Sextus,  the  re- 
maining son  of  Pompey,  who  under  the  authority 
of  the  late  dictator  had  been  declared  an  out-law, 
should  be  restored  to  his  country,  and  have  a 
compensation  in  money  for  the  losses  which  had 
been  sustained  by  his  family :  and,  to  provide 
likewise  for  the  future  safety  of  the  common- 
wealth, as  well  as  for  that  of  private  persons,  it 
was  proposed  that  a  law  should  be  enacted  to 
abolish  for  ever  the  name  and  power  of  dictator. 
At  the  same  time,  all  the  honorary  votes  which 
had  passed  in  favour  of  Brutus  and  Cassius,  and 
every  act  which  had  a  tendency  to  mitigate  the 
animosity  of  Caesar's  party,,  to  pacify  the  veterans, 
and  to  incline  them,  without  any  farther  disturb- 
ance, to  settle  on  the  lands  which  had  been  allot- 
ted to  them,  had  his  concurrence. 

The  senate,  in  order  to  terminate  as  soon  as 
possible  every  occasion  of  public  uneasiness  or 
alarm,  although  they  greatly  disapproved  of  the 
reward  that  was  given  to  the  army,  for  having, 
in  a  manner,  subdued  the  republic,  and  had  rea- 
son to  dread  the  precedent,  yet  hastened  to  the 
performance  of  all  Caesar's  engagements,  in  order 
to  deprive  the  veterans  of  any  pretence  for  mul- 
tiplying their  demands,  or  remaining  together  in 
arms. 

These  circumstances  had  a  very  favourable  as- 
pect, and  the  storm  which  threatened  the  city  and 
the  commonwealth  appeared  to  be  laid.  Many 
had  foretold  that  the  permission  of  a  public  funeral 
to  Caesar  would  have  dangerous  consequences'; 
and  during  the  late  tumults  and  riots  thought 
themselves  sufficiently  justified  in  these  predic- 
tions. But  their  apprehensions  now  appeared  to 
have  been  groundless,  and  the  authors  of  the  late 
moderate  counsels,  in  which  the  senate  was  in- 
duced to  temporise,  and  to  make  concessions  in 
such  matters  as  were  of  less  moment,  in  order  to 
appease  the  animosity  of  parties,  and  to  obtain 
their  consent  in  matters  of  more  consequence, 
were  now  highly  applauded. 

All  the  conspirators,  in  the  height  of  the  lato 


2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliv.  c.  50  et  51.  App.  de  Bell.  Ciy, 
lib.  ii. 

3  Cicero  Philip,  lib.  i.  c.  1. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


331 


disorders  which  arose  on  account  of  Caesar's  fune- 
ral, had  withdrawn  from  the  city,  and,  under  dif- 
ferent honourable  pretences  which  were  furnished 
them  by  the  senate,  continued  to  absent  them- 
selves from  Rome.  Many  of  them  had  been 
formerly  named  to  the  government  of  provinces, 
and  now  proceeded  to  take  possession  of  their 
lots.  Decimus  Brutus,  in  this  capacity,  repaired 
to  the  Cisalpine  Gaul,  Trebonius  to  Asia,  and 
Tullius  Cimber  to  Bythinia. 

Marcus  Brutus  had  been  appointed  to  the  go- 
vernment of  Macedonia,  and  Cassius  to  that  of 
Syria ;  but  the  two  last  being  actually  in  office  as 
praetors,  could  not  take  possession  of  provinces 
until  the  expiration  of  their  year,  nor  could  they 
regularly  absent  themselves  from  the  city,  with- 
out some  decree  from  the  senate  to  dispense  with 
their  attendance  as  officers  of  state.  Under  the 
present  favourable  aspect  of  public  affairs,  and 
after  the  consuls  had  given  such  evident  proofs 
of  their  respect  for  the  commonwealth,  it  was 
supposed  that  the  authors  of  the  late  revolution 
might  now  return  in  safety  to  the  capital ;  and 
Cicero  himself,  on  this  occasion,  was  so  confident 
of  the  perfect  restoration  of  peace  to  the  republic, 
that  in  writing  to  Atticus,  he  assures  him,  that 
n  Brutus  may  now  walk  the  streets  of  Rome  with 
a  crown  of  gold  on  his  head."  In  this,  however, 
with  all  his  penetration,  he  had  overrated  the 
professions,  and  mistaken  the  designs  of  Antony. 
This  profligate  adventurer,  the  more  dangerous 
that  he  was  supposed  by  his  debaucheries  dis- 
qualified for  any  deep  or  arduous  design,  had  as- 
sumed the  disguise  of  moderation  and  deference 
to  the  senate,  merely  to  conceal  his  intentions, 
until  he  had  formed  a  party  on  which  he  could 
rely.  He  had  so  far  imposed  on  the  public,  by 
affecting  to  be  alarmed  with  danger  to  his  own 
person  from  the  riots  which  he  was  employed  to 
suppress  after  the  funeral  of  Caesar,  that  the  se- 
nate permitted  him  to  arm  his  friends ;  and  suf- 
fered him,  under  their  own  authority,  to  assemble 
a  powerful  body  of  men,  amounting  to  some  thou- 
sands, chiefly  composed  of  officers  who  had  served 
under  the  late  dictator,  and  who  now  submitted 
to  act  as  the  guards  of  Antony's  person.4  Being 
thus  strengthened,  when  the  return  of  Brutus 
and  Cassius  was  mentioned  to  him.  he  betrayed 
the  falsehood  of  his  former  professions.  "  They 
cannot  be  safe,"  he  said,  "in  the  midst  of  so 
many  of  Cajsar's  retainers  and  friends."5 

Antony  was  greatly  awed  by  the  abilities  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius,  by  the  respect  which  was 
paid  them  by  the  public,  by  their  credit  with  the 
senate,  and  by  their  determined  resolution  to 
maintain  its  authority.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
.fortify  himself  against  them,  he  maintained  a 
continual  correspondence  with  the  veterans  of  the 
late  Caesar's  army,  courted  their  attachment,  and 
stated  himself  as  their  protector  and  leader.  In 
this  capacity,  he  made  his  visit  to  their  settlements 
in  Campania,  where,  it  has  been  observed,  he 
passed  the  greater  part  of  the  months  of  April 
and  May.  At  his  return,  he  endeavoured  to 
strengthen  himself  still  more,  by  entering  into  a 
concert  with  Lepidus,  who,  in  the  quality  of 
second  in  command  to  Caesar,  or  general  of  the 
horse  to  the  dictator,  remained  at  the  head  of  all 
the  military  forces  in  Italy.  He  engaged  himself 


to  obtain  for  Lepidus  the  dignity  of  chief  pontiff ; 
and,  in  order  to  cement  the  union  of  their  fami- 
lies, proposed  a  marriage  of  his  own  daughter 
with  the  son  of  this  officer.  He  had  been  averse 
to  the  promotion  of  Dolabella ;  and,  at  the  death 
of  Csesar,  would  have  opposed  his  assuming  the 
dignity  of  consul,  if  he  had  not  been  prevented 
at  first,  by  the  uncertainty  of  his  own  situation, 
and  afterwards  by  the  countenance  whicn  this 
intruder  into  public  office  began  to  receive  from 
the  senate.  In  these  circumstances,  to  dispute 
the  accession  of  Dolabella,  would  be  to  throw 
him  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  republican 
party ;  he  thought  proper,  therefore,  to  disguise 
his  inclinations,  and  took  measure  to  gain  him, 
or  at  least  to  set  him  at  variance  with  the  authors 
of  the  late  conspiracy.  For  this  purpose,  he 
made  a  tender  of  his  services  to  procure  him  an 
appointment  to  command  in  any  of  the  more  ad- 
vantageous provincial  situations. 

Notwithstanding  that  Cassius  was  already 
appointed  to  the  government  of  Syria,  Antony, 
according  to  agreement,  undertook  to  support  the- 
pretensions  of  Dolabella,  and  to  aid  him  in  sup- 
planting Cassius  at  the  meeting  of  the  senate, 
which  was  to  be  held  on  the  first  of  June. 
Having  in  this  manner,  with  great  industry  and 
application,  strengthened  himself  by  his  coalition 
with  Lepidus  and  Dolabella,  the  one  at  the  head 
of  the  army,  the  other  his  own  colleague  in  the 
principal  office  of  the  state  ;  and  having  secured 
the  attachment  and  support  of  the  veteran  soldiers 
recently  settled  in  Italy,  he  no  longer  kept  any 
terms  with  the  senatorian  party,  or  with  the 
friends  of  the  republic.  Having  formerly  ob- 
tained a  resolution  of  the  senate  to  confirm  all 
the  acts,  and  to  maintain  the  arrangements 
which  had  been  devised  by  Caesar,  and  being 
master  of  the  papers  and  memorials  in  which 
these  were  contained,  he  brought  extracts  and 
quotations  from  them  in  support  of  his  several 
proposals,  without  producing  the  originals;  and 
in  this  form  commenced,  m  the  name  of  the 
dead,  a  reign  more  arbitrary  than  that  of  the 
living  Caesar  had  been.  As  he  had  never  com- 
municated to  any  one  the  papers  or  memorials 
from  which  these  authorities  were  drawn,  he 
expunged  or  he  inserted  whatever  he  thought 
proper,  or  even,  without  taking  this  trouble, 
framed  his  quotations  on  every  subject  to  the 
purpose  which  he  meant  to  serve.  He  made 
Caesar's  memorials  to  teem  with  intended  laws 
and  acts  of  the  senate,  and  of  the  people;  with 
grants  and  forfeitures  of  lands;  with  the  pardon 
of  crimes  and  recalls  from  banishment  ;  with  or- 
ders for  levying  contributions  from  princes,  states, 
and  private  persons;  with  compositions  to  be  ex- 
acted from  towns  and  corporations  ;  for  the  ran- 
som of  their  possessions,  liberties,  and  franchises; 
and  even  with  distinct  resolutions  and  decisions 
relating  to  matters  which  took  their  rise  after 
Caesar's  death.6  His  wife  Fulvia,  the  widow  of 
Clodius,  likewise  availed  herself  of  this  valuable 
mine,  and  sold  offices  and  commissions,  together 
with  entire  provinces  and  kingdoms,7  to  those 
who  were  willing  to  pay  her  price. 

Among  the  acts  of  Antony,  during  this  con- 
sulate, is  mentioned,  a  change  which  he  made  in 
the  judiciary  law,  by  which  he  obtained,  that  a 


4  Appian.de  Bell  Civ.  lib.  i. 

5  C(cer.  ad  Familiar,  lib  \i.  ep.  1. 


6  Oicer,  Philip.  H.  c.  38. 

?  Ibidem  ad  Atticum,  lib.  xiv.ep.  12. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Eook  V. 


certain  number  of  centurions  should  be  entered 
on  the  rolls  of  the  judges,  in  place  of  the  revenue 
officers1  whom  Csesar  had  excluded.  Relying  on 
this  and  other  artifices,  which  procured  him  the 
support  of  the  army,  he  rose  every  day  in  his 
presumption;  and  while  he  incited  Dolabella  to 
persist  in  supplanting  Cassius  in  the  province  of 
Syria,  he  himself  proposed  to  supp'ant  Brutus  in 
his  nomination  to  the  government  of  Macedonia. 
By  this  appointment,  he  meant  to  place  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  army,  which  Caesar,  to  be  in 
readiness  for  his  Asiatic  or  Parthian  expedition, 
had  transported  into  Macedonia ;  and  it  appeared 
afterwards  to  be  his  design,  as  soon  as  he  had 
obtained  the  command  of  this  army,  to  procure 
an  appointment  to  supersede  Decimus  Brutus  in 
the  province  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and.  under  pre- 
tence of  expelling  him  from  thence)  to  transport 
this  army  again  into  Italy. 

In  order  to  obtain  acts  for  so  much  of  these 
purposes  as  he  was  then  about  to  execute,  he 
summoned  all  the  members  of  the  senate2  to  as- 
semble on  the  first  of  June.  He  had  brought 
into  the  city,  to  overawe  this  assembly,  great 
numbers  of  the  veterans,  on  whom  he  himself, 
besides  confirming  the  settlements  which  had 
been  assigned  to  them  by  Caesar,  had  bestowed 
considerable  favours.  At  this  meeting  of  the 
senate,  few  of  the  members,  who  were  inclined 
to  oppose  the  consul,  thought  that  they  them- 
selves could  with  safety  attend.  "Even  Hirtius 
and  Pansa,  though  named  for  the  consulate  of 
the  following  year,  and  protected  by  the  dignity 
which  belonged  to  that  destination,  thought 
proper  to  absent  themselves.3 

At  a  call  of  the  senate,  so  ill  attended,  An- 
tony obtained  for  himself,  without  opposition, 
the  government  of  Macedonia,  with  the  com- 
mand of  the  army  which  had  been  destined  for 
Asia,  but  which,  from  Caesar's  death,  had  re- 
mained in  that  province.  He  at  the  same  time 
obtained  for  Dolabella  the  province  of  Syria  to 
the  exclusion  of  Cassius;  and  by  these  several 
acts  stated  himself  and  his  colleague  as  in  open 
enmity  with  the  leaders  of  the  republican  party, 
whom  they  had  lately  affected  to  court,  but  whom 
they  now  proceeded  to  strip  of  the  preferments 
and  honours  which  had  been  assigned  to  them 
by  the  commonwealth. 

"  Under  pretence  of  making  compensation  to 
Cassius  and  Brutus  for  the  loss  of  the  provinces 
of  Macedonia  and  Syria,  of  which  they  were 
now  deprived,  Antony  procured  them  appoint- 
ments which  they  considered  as  an  additional 
insult;  that  of  Brutus  to  inspect  the  supplies  of 
corn  from  Asia  ;  and  that  of  Cassius,  to  super- 
intend the  supplies  of  the  same  kind  which  were 
brought  from  Sicily. 

While  the  senate  complied  with  Antony  in  his 
demands  on  these  several  subjects,  they  endea- 
voured to  restrain  his  abuse  of  the  supposed  will 
and  memorials  of  Caesar.  For  this  purpose  they 
appointed  a  committee  of  their  own  number  to 
inspect  the  contents  of  those  papers,  and  to  attest 
the  reality  of  such  notes  and  instructions  as  were 
to  be  carried  into  execution  under  the  authority 
of  the  senate.  Antony,  however,  paid  no  regard 
to  this  appointment,  nor  even  suffered  the  com- 
mittee to  meet  in  discharge  of  the  duty  for  which 
they  were  named. 

1  Tribuni  ^rarii.     1  Cicero  ad  Attic,  lib  xv  ep.  6. 
3  Ibid.  Philip,  i.  c.  3. 


About  this  time4,  and  alarmed  by  tb«se  vio- 
lences, Cicero,  who  had  hitherto  maintained 
some  degree  of  neutrality  or  moderation  between 
the  parties,  departed  from  Rome.  He  had,  before 
the  death  of  Caesar,  intended  to  withdraw  into 
Greece,  under  pretence  of  superintending  the 
education  of  his  son  at  Athens,  and  had  obtained 
Caesar's  consent,  and  the  leave  of  the  senate  for 
that  purpose.  On  Caesar's  death,  having  hopes 
that  the  republic  was  about  to  revive,  he  took 
his  resolution  to  remain  in  the  city ;  but  being 
now  satisfied  that  these  hopes  were  vain  ;  or,  in 
his  own  terms,  observing,  "  that,  although  the 
tree  had  been  cut  down  on  the  ides  of  March, 
its  roots  were  yet  entire,  and  made  vigorous 
shoots,"  he  resumed  his  former  design  of  absent- 
ing himself;  and  instead  of  applying  to  the 
senate  for  leave,  accepted  from  Dolabella,  the 
newly  appointed  governor  of  Syria,  a  commission 
of  lieutenancy,  which  he  was  to  employ  as  a 
pretence  for  crossing  the  Ionian  sea.  In  execu- 
tion of  this  design  he  arrived  on  the  twenty-sixth 
of  June  at  Antium,  where  he  found  Brutus,  with 
his  wife  Porcia,  and  mother  Servilia,  with  other 
persons  of  distinction.  He  gave  it  as  his  opinion, 
that  Brutus  and  Cassius  should  accept  of  the 
commissions  assigned  to  them  as  inspectors  of 
the  supplies  of  corn  from  Sicily  and  Asia,  and 
should  repair  to  their  several  provinces  for  that 
purpose.  While  the  company  were  yet  de- 
liberating on  this  subject,  they  were  joined  by 
Cassius,  who,  upon  Cicero's  repeating  what  ho 
had  said,  answered,  with  a  stern  countenance, 
that  he  would  not  go  into  Sicily,  nor  accept  as  a 
favour,  what  was  intended  as  an  affront.  He 
complained,  that  opportunities  had  been  lost  of 
rendering  effectual  the  first  ami  principal  step 
which  had  been  taken  to  deliver  the  common^ 
wealth,  and  was  inclined  to  blame  Decimus 
Brutus  for  some  part  of  this  neglect.  Cicero 
censured  the  conduct  of  the  whole  party,  for  not 
having  secured  the  completion  of  a  business  that 
was  so  successfully  begun.  "You  ought,"  he 
said,  "immediately,  upon  the  death  of  Caesar, 
to  have  assumed  the  government,  to  have  called 
the  senate  by  your  own  authority,  and  to  have 
taken  advantage  of  the  spirit  that  was  generally 
raised  among  the  people  for  the  recovery  of  their 
legal  constitution." 

In  the  result  of  this  conference,  Brutus  and 
Cassius,  as  well  as  Cicero,  took  their  resolution 
to  depart  from  Italy;  and  the  two  former,  with 
so  much  resentment  of  the  indignity  which  they 
had  suffered  in  their  appointment  to  inspect  the 
importation  of  corn,  that  they  engaged  Servilia5 
to  employ  her  influence  in  having  this  appoint- 
ment expunged  from  the  public  acts  or  records  of 
the  senate.  Before  their  departure,  they  wrote  a 
joint  letter  to  Antony,  conveyed  in  expressions 
that  were  guarded  and  polite;  but  demanding  an 
explanation  of  the  terms  in  which  they  stood 
with  him,  and  of  the  purposes  for  which  he  had 
assembled  the  veterans  of  Caesar  in  such  num- 
bers at  Rome.  Some  time  after  this  letter  was  sent 
they  drew  up  a  joint  edict  or  manifesto,  setting 
forth  the  cause  of  their  absence  from  the  capital, 
and  protesting  against  the  violence  which  was 
daily  offered  to  the  constitution  of  the  republic. 

In  answer  to  this  letter,  and  to  the  paper  with 
which  it  was  followed,  Antony  issued  a  manifesto 

4  The  middle  of  June. 

5  The  mother  of  Brutus 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


333 


full  of  invecJive  and  contumely,  and  which  he 
transmitted,  under  a  formal  address,  to  the  prae- 
tors Brutus  and  Cassius,  accompanied  with  a 
letter  in  the  same  style.  The  originals  of  these 
several  papers  are  lost ;  but  in  reply  to  the  last, 
we  find  addressed  to  Antony,  and  signed  by  Bru- 
tus and  Cassius.  the  following  original  preserved 
among  the  letters  of  Cicero  : 

"Brutus  and  Cassius,  praetors,  to  Antony, 
consul,  &c. 

"We  have  received  your  letter,  which,  like 
your  manifesto,  is  full  of  reproach  and  of  threats, 
and  very  improper  from  you  to  us.  We  have 
done  you  no  injury  ;  and  if  we  were  inclined  to 
hostilities,  your  letter  should  not  restrain  us.  But 
you  know  our  resolutions,  and  you  presume  to 
threaten  us,  to  the  end  that  our  pacific  conduct 
may  be  imputed  to  fear.  We  wish  you  all  the 
preferments  and  honours  which  are  consistent 
with  the  freedom  of  the  commonwealth.  We 
have  no  desire  to  quarrel  with  you  ;  but  we  value 
our  liberties  more  than  we  value  your  friendship. 
Consider  well  what  you  undertake,  and  what  you 
Can  support.  Do  not  be  encouraged  so  much  by 
the  length  of  Caesar's  life,  as  warned  by  the  short 
duration  of  the  power  he  usurped.  We  pray  to 
God,  that  your  designs  may  be  innocent ;  or,  if 
they  be  not  innocent,  that  -they  may  be  as  little 
hurtful  to  yourself  as  the  safety  of  the  common- 
wealth can  permit." 3 

These  altercations  led  to  an  open  breach.  The 
praetors  wrote  to  Decimus  Brutus,  Trebonius, 
and  Cimber,  to  put  their  several  provinces  in  a 
state  of  defence,  and  to  make  what  farther  pro- 
vision they  could  of  men  and  money  as  for  a 
certain  war.7  Cicero,  in  continuing  his  voyage  to 
Greece,  had  arrived  on  the  sixth  of  August  at 
Leucopetrse,  beyond  Rhegium  ;  and  had  set  out 
from  thence ;  but  being  put  back,  was  met  by 
some  citizens  at  Rhegium,  just  arrived  from 
Rome,  who  brought  him  copies  of  the  edicts  or 
manifestos  issued  by  Cassius  and  Brutus,  with  a 
report,  that  a  full  meeting  of  the  senate  was  ex- 
pected on  the  first  of  September  ;  that  Brutus  and 
Cassius  had  sent  circular  letters  requesting  the 
attendance  of  all  their  friends ;  that  Antony  was 
likely  to  drop  his  designs;  that  the  cause  of  the 
republic,  having  so  favourable  an  aspect,  his  own 
departure  was  censured,  and  his  presence  was 
earnestly  wished  for. 

Upon  these  representations,  Cicero  took  his 
resolution  to  return  to  Rome,  and  arrived  again 
at  Pompeii,  on  the  nineteenth  of  August.8  Here, 
among  the  accounts  of  what  had  passed  in  the 
senate  on  the  first  of  that  month,  he  was  informed 
that  Piso,  the  father  of  Calpurnia,  and  father-in- 
law  of  the  late  Caesar,  had,  notwithstanding  this 
connection  and  his  interest  in  the  remains  of  the 
late  usurpation,  vigorously  opposed  the  measures 
of  Antony;  and,  on  that  occasion,  had  acquired 
great  distinction  as  a  man  of  ability,  and  as  an  up- 
right citizen  ;  but  that  not  being  properly  sup- 
ported in  the  senate,  he  had  declined  any  farther 
struggle,  and  had  absented  himself  on  t  lie  follow- 
ing day. 

Cicero,  though  not  greatly  encouraged  by  these 
reports,  continued  his  journey  to  Rome;  and 


6  Cicer.  ad  Fain,  lib,  ii.  ep.  3  Dated  4fh  of  Aueuit. 
•T  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  xvi.  ep  7.  8  Ibid. 


having  arrived,  on  the  last  of  August,  found  that 
the  expectations  which  he  had  been  made  to  en- 
tertain of  Antony's  intentions  were  void  of  foun- 
dation ;  and  that  the  outrages  he  was  likely  tc 
commit  were  such,  as  to  make  it  extremely  un- 
safe for  any  distinguished  friend  of  the  republic 
to  come  in  his  power.  For  this  reason,  Cicero, 
on  the  first  of  September,  sent  an  excuse  to  the 
senate,  pleading  the  ill  state  of  his  health,  which 
obliged  him  to  remain  shut  up  in  his  own  house. 
Antony  considered  his  absence  from  the  senate  as 
an  affront  to  himself,  or  as  giving  too  much  coun- 
tenance to  the  suspicions  which  were  entertained 
of  his  violent  intentions..  Under  this  impression 
he  burst  into  rage,  and  sent  an  officer  to  require 
the  attendance  of  Cicero,  threatening,  if  he  per- 
sisted in  his  supposed  contumacy,  to  pull  down 
his  house  about  his  ears :  the  ordinary  method, 
of  forcing  those  to  submission,  who  shut  them- 
selves up,  or  took  refuge  in  their  dwellings  from 
the  sentence  of  the  law.  He  was  dissuaded,  how- 
ever, from  any  attempt  to  execute  his  threat ;  and 
being  himself  absent  from  the  senate  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  Cicero  ventured  to  take  his  seat,  and, 
in  the  absence  of  the  consul,  delivered  that  ora- 
tion which  is  entitled  the  first  Philippic.  In  this 
speech  he  accounted  for  his  late  retirement  from 
the  capital,  and  for  his  present  return,  in  terms 
strongly  reflecting  on  the  conduct  and  adminis- 
tration of  the  present  consul. 

Antony,  in  his  turn,  greatly  exasperated  by 
the  accounts  he  received  of  Cicero's  speech,  pre- 
pared to  reply  at  a  subsequent  meeting  of  the 
senate  ;  and  delivered  himself  accordingly  with 
great  acrimony  against  his  antagonist.  These 
mutual  attacks,  thus  made  in  the  absence  of  the 
parties,  produced  from  Cicero  that  famous  oration 
which  is  entitled  the  second  Philippic ;  a  model 
of  eloquence  in  the  style  of  ancient  invective;  but 
which,  though  put  in  the  form  of  an  immediate 
reply  to  imputations  supposed  to  be  made  in  his 
presence,  never  was  at  all  delivered,  and  is  to  be 
considered  as  a  mere  rhetorical  pleading  in  a  fic- 
titious case.  The  offence,  however,  which  was 
given  by  the  publication  of  this  invective,  made  a 
principal  part  in  the  quarrel,  which  the  parties 
never  ceased  to  pursue,  till  it  ended  with  Cicero's 
life. 

While  the  consul  Antony  in  this  manner  threw 
off  the  mask  of  a  legal  magistrate,  and  acted  iu 
some  measure  as  a  person  who  succeeded  to  the 
milit  <ry  usurpation  erected  by  Ca?sar,  a  new  ac- 
tor appeared  on  the  stage  of  public  aflairs,  from 
whose  youth  nothing  important,  it  was  thought, 
could,  for  some  time,  be  expected.  This  was 
Caius  Octavius,  the  grand  nephew  of  Julius 
Cajsar,  by  his  niece  Attia,  and  the  son  of  Octa- 
vius, who,  in  the  course  of  state  preferments,  had 
arrived  at  the  dignity  of  praetor  ;  and  in  tins  rank, 
having  governed  the  province  of  Macedonia,  died 
suddenly  on  his  return  from  thence.  His  widow 
the  mother  of  this  young  man,  married  Philippus, 
a  citizen  of  moderate  parts,  but  upright  inten- 
tions, in  the  house  of  Philippus  the  young  ( )c- 
tavius  was  brought  up,  and  passed  his  early 
years,  while  his  grand-uncle  was  engaged  in  the 
most  active  parts  of  his  life,  and  while  he  was  in- 
sinuating himself  by  intrigues,  or  forcing  his  way 
at  the  head  of  armies  to  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Roman  empire.  Elevated  by  his  connection  with 
this  relation  to  a  high  situation  and  to  higher 
views,  he  had  followed  him  in  the  late  campaign 


334 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


against  the  sons  of  Pompey  in  Spain,  and  was 
intended,  though  a  minor,  to  succeed  Lepidus, 
under  the  dictator,  as  general  of  the  horse. 

Upon  the  return  of  Caesar  into  Italy,  and  after 
the  army  destined  for  the  war  in  Asia  had  been 
transported  into  Macedonia,  the  young  Octavius 
was  sent  to  Apollonia,  as  a  place  at  which  he 
might  continue  his  studies,  and  his  military  ex- 
ercises, and  be  in  the  way  to  join  the  army,  and 
to  attend  his  uncle  in  the  projected  expedition  to 
the  East. 

After  Octavius  had  been  about  six  months  at 
Apollonia,  a  messenger  arrived  in  the  beginning 
of  the  night  with  accounts  of  Caesar's  death, 
bearing,  that  he  had  fallen  in  the  senate;  but 
without  determining  whether  he  fell  by  the  hands 
of  a  few,  or  in  the  execution  of  a  general  resolu- 
tion of  the  whole  body.  The  young  man  was 
greatly  dejected  and  perplexed  in  his  thoughts. 
The  military  men  then  about  him  advised  him  to 
repair  to  the  quarters  of  the  army  in  Macedonia, 
and  to  put  himself  at  their  head.  But  his  step- 
father Philippus,  and  his  mother  Attia,  in  their 
letters,  had  cautioned  him  against  this  or  any 
other  ambitious  resolution;  they  advised  him  to 
return  into  Itaby  in  the  most  private  manner,  and 
warned  him  to  avoid  giving  any  umbrage  to  the 
partizans  of  the  republic,  who  had  now  got  the 
ascendant  at  Rome,  and  would  not  allow  any 
person  whatever  to  tread  in  the  dangerous  steps 
of  his  late  uncle. 

Octavius  accordingly  embarked  for  Italy  ;  and 
as  he  knew  not  what  might  be  the  disposition  of 
the  troops  who  were  then  stationed  at  Brundu- 
sium, he  chose  to  land  at  Lupia,  a  place  at  some 
little  distance,  and  on  the  same  coast.  Here  he 
received  farther  accounts  from  Rome,  with  par- 
ticulars of  the  conspiracy;  the  proceedings  of  the 
senate ;  accommodation  of  the  parties ;  the  tu- 
mults that  arose  at  Caesar's  funeral ;  the  will,  and 
his  own  share  in  it :  but  his  friends  still  persisted 
in  recommending  a  private  station,  and  advised 
him  even  to  drop  his  pretensions  to  the  name  and 
inheritance  of  Caesar.  But  this  young  man, 
though  only  turned  of  eighteen,  took  upon  him 
to  decide  for  himself  in  this  matter.  He  sent  an 
officer  to  sound  the  disposition  of  the  garrison  at 
Brundusium;  and  finding  that  they  were  in- 
clined to  revenge  the  death  of  their  late  favourite 
leader,  and  that  they  resented  the  other  proceed- 
ings of  the  republican  party,  he  proceeded  in  per- 
son to  Brundusium  in  the  most  public  manner, 
•and  was  met  at  the  gates  by  the  troops,  who  re- 
ceived him  with  all  the  honours  thought  due  to 
the  son  of  Caesar. 

From  this  time  forward,  Octavius  assumed  the 
name  and  designation  of  his  late  uncle.  He  was 
soon  after  attended  by  persons  of  all  ranks  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  Brundusium,  and  sent  for- 
ward to  Rome  with  a  retinue,  to  which,  as  he 
passed  on  the  way,  he  received  continual  acces- 
sion of  numbers.  The  veterans,  in  general,  who 
had  grants  of  land,  flocked  to  him ;  complained 
jf  the  remissness  of  Antony,  in  suffering  the 
assassins  of  his  own  friend  and  benefactor  to  go 
unpunished,  and  declared  their  resolution  to  be 
revenged  as  soon  as  any  person  appeared  to  lead 
them.  Octavius  thanked  them  for  their  grateful 
respect  to  his  father's  memory,  but  exhorted 
them  to  moderation  and  submission.  He  wished 
to  know  the  state  of  parties  more  exactly  before 
he  should  declare  himself;  and  on  ins  journey  to 


Rome,  young  as  he  was,  employed  all  the  caution 
and  wariness  of  age  for  the  security  of  his  person, 
lest  any  disguised  enemies  should  have  insinuated 
themselves  among  a  multitude  of  professed  friends, 
who  were  yet  generally  unknown  to  him.  At 
Terracina,  about  fifty  miles  from  Rome,  he  re- 
ceived a  report,  that  the  consuls  had  superseded 
Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  provinces  of  Macedo- 
nia and  Syria,  and  had  assigned  them  inferior 
stations,  by  this  account,  at  Cyrene  and  Crete ; 
that  many  exiles  were  recalled,  particularly  Sex- 
tus  Pompeius  ;  and  that,  under  pretence  of  exe- 
cuting the  intentions  of  Caesar,  many  new  mem- 
bers were  admitted  into  the  senate.1 

Octavius,  upon  his  arrival  at  Rome,  found  his 
step-father  and  his  mother  under  great  apprehen- 
sions from  the  power  of  the  senate,  and  from  the 
general  dispositions  which  appeared  in  the  late 
act  of  indemnity  that  was  passed  in  favour  of 
those  who  had  borne  an  active  part  in  Caesar's 
death.  And  these  apprehensions  were  strongly 
confirmed  by  the  neglect  of  Antony,  who  took 
no  notice  of  his  arrival,  and  did  not  pay  that  at- 
tention which  might  be  thought  due  to  the  name 
of  Caesar  ;  but  he  neither  desponded  nor  exposed 
himself  by  any  hasty  act  of  presumption.  He 
said,  "  That,  being  so  young  a  man,  and  in  a  pri- 
vate station,  he  could  not  expect  that  the  first 
advances  should  be  made  to  him  from  the  Roman 
consul ;  that  he  would  soon  convince  the  senate 
of  his  dutiful  intentions  towards  them;  that  all 
the  world  must  applaud  in  him  the  endeavours 
he  should  make  to  bring  the  authors  of  his  father's 
death  to  justice;  that  the  act  of  indemnity,  in  fa- 
vour of  the  assassins,  had  passed  when  there  was 
no  one  to  oppose  it ;  but  that  a  charge  of  murder, 
when  directly  brought,2  could  not  be  slighted  by 
the  senate,  by  the  Roman  people,  nor  even  by 
Antony  himself:  that  to  decline  the  inheritance 
which  was  left  him,  would  be  disrespectful  to  the 
memory  of  Caesar,  and  injurious  to  the  Roman 
people,  in  whose  behalf  he  was  made  executor  of 
his  father's  will.  Caesar,"  he  said,  "  has  distin- 
guished me,  and  honoured  me  ;  and  I  had  rather 
(lie,  than  appear  unworthy  of  such  a  father." 
His  friends  were  silenced  by  the  appearance  of 
so  much  discretion  and  resolution.  They  broke 
off  the  conference  with  an  advice  which  already 
appeared  to  be  unnecessary,  That  he  should  do 
nothing  rashly,  nor  embrace  violent  measures, 
where  prudence  might  equally  gain  his  purpose. 

Next  morning  this  young  man,  attended  by  a 
numerous  company  of  his  friends,  repaired  to  the 
forum,  and  presented  himself  before  the  praetor 
C.  Antonius,  in  order  to  declare  in  form  his  ac- 
ceptance of  the  inheritance  of  his  late  uncle,  and 
in  order  to  be  invested  with  the  name  of  Caesar. 
From  thence  he  went  to  Pompey's  gardens,  where 
Antony  then  resided;  and  after  being  made  to 
wait,  for  some  time,  in  a  manner  that  sufficiently 
expressed,  on  the  part  of  Antony,  a  dislike  to  his 
visit,  he  was  admitted  to  a  conference. 

The  young  Octavius,  having  been  educated  as 
the  nearest  relation  to  Caesar,  and  destined  to  in- 
herit his  fortunes,  had  conceived  the  extent  of 
his  own  importance  from  the  height  of  Caesar's 
power  ;  he  considered  the  sovereignty  of  the  em- 
pire, in  some  measure,  as  his  birthright,  and  his 
own  interest  as  the  central  point  to  which  all 
public  transactions  should  tend.    In  this  confer- 


}  Appian.  <1e  Bello  Civile,  lib.  ii.  2  Ibid. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


335 


once  with  Antony,  he  is  said  to  have  betrayed 
more  of  this  character  than  suited  his  present 
condition,  or  than  could  be  reconciled  with  the 
discretion  with  which  he  had  acted  on  other  oc- 
casions. He  entered  with  the  consul  on  a  review 
of  his  conduct  as  an  officer  of  state,  from  the 
death  of  Caesar  to  the  present  moment;  thanked 
him  for  the  regard  he  had  in  some  things  shown 
to  his  father's  memory,  and  with  equal  confidence 
censured  and  arraigned  him  in  others.  "You 
did  well,"  he  said,  "in  opposing  the  thanks  which 
the  senate  was  about  to  decree  to  the  murderers 
of  my  father  and  of  your  own  benefactor  and 
friend  ;  and  you  did  well  in  depriving  Brutus  and 
Cassius  of  the  important  provinces  of  Macedonia 
and  Syria ;  but  why  preclude  my  just  resent- 
ments'by  an  act  of  indemnity?  Why  assign 
any  provinces  at  all  to  those  assassins  ?  Why 
suffer  Decimus  Brutus,  in  particular,  with  so 
great  a  force  to  keep  possession  of  Gaul  1  This 
is  not  only  to  spare  but  to  arm  them  against  me." 
He  concluded  by  demanding  restitution  of  the 
money  which  Antony  had  seized  in  the  temple  of 
Ops.3  to  the  end  that  he  might,  without  delay, 
pay  off  to  the  Roman  people  the  legacies  be- 
queathed to  them  by  Caasar. 

Octavius,  in  this  first  specimen  of  his  boldness 
and  address,  although  he  ventured  to  insult  the 
Roman  consul,  paid  court  to  the  army  and  to  the 
people;  and  perhaps  wished  for  the  reputation  of 
having  quarrelled  with  Antony  on  the  subject  of 
his  remissness  in  avenging  the  death  of  Caesar, 
and  of  his  own  impatience  to  pay  off  the  contents 
of  his  will.  Antony,  being  surprised  and  piqued 
at  the  arrogance  of  his  speech,  and  of  his  preten- 
sions, endeavoured  to  check  his  ambition,  by  put- 
ting him  in  mind,  that  although  he  was  named 
the  heir  of  Cesar's  estate,  he  must  not  pretend  to 
inherit  his  dignities;  that  the  Roman  constitu- 
tion acknowledged  no  hereditary  powers ;  that  he 
ought  to  remember  in  whose  presence  he  stood; 
that  the  Roman  consul  must  be  equally  indiffer- 
ent to  his  approbation,  or  to  his  censure.  "  To 
me,"  he  said,  "  it  was  owing  that  your  uncle  was 
not  declared  a  usurper  and  a  tyrant ;  conse- 
quently, to  me  it  is  owing  that  you  have  any 
other  inheritance  by  him  besides  the  disgrace  of 
being  related  to  a  traitor,  whose  body  had  been 
dragged  through  the  streets,  and  cast  into  the 
Tiber.  As  to  any  money  which  may  have  been 
lodged  in  the  treasury,  of  that,"  he  said,  "  Csesar 
had  already  diverted  too  much  to  his  own  private 
uses ;  that  when  his  receipts  came  to  be  examined 
and  the  sums  not  accounted  for  to  be  Claimed, 
much  public  money  might  be  found  among  his 
effects;  that  Caesar  himself,  if  living,  could  not 
refuse  to  make  up  his  accounts;  and  that  a  pro- 
posal was  actually  in  agitation  to  have  them 
stated  and  examined." 

From  these  altercations,  Octavius  and  Antony 
parted  on  very  ill  terms,  and  were  publicly  known 
to  have  quarrelled.  Octavius,  from  an  affected 
zeal  to  put  the  people  in  possession  of  the  legacy 
bequeathed  to  them  by  his  father,  brought  his 
own  effects  to  sale.  Antony,  on  his  part,  pro- 
moted the  inquiry  into  the  applications  of  public 
money,  and  gave  out,  that  the  heirs  of  the  late 
dictator  would  have  "great  sums  to  refund,  and 
little  reversion.  These  heirs,  in  return,  pleaded 
the  late  decree  of  the  senate  and  people,  ratifying 


3  Plat,  in  Antonio.    Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 


all  Hjpsar's  a-ts,  and  consequently  precluding  all 
inquiries  into  this,  or  any  other  part  of  his  admi- 
nistration ;  but  as  Antony  could  fabricate  acts  of 
Caesar,  when  wanting,  to  his  purpose,  so  he 
could  set  aside  or  evade  real  acts  when  they  stood 
in  his  way. 

In  the  mean  time  the  friends  of  the  republic 
rejoiced  at  a  breach  which  seemed  to  weaken 
their  enemies,  and  gave  them  hopes,  that  a  com- 
petition for  the  succession  to  Caesar's  power 
would  divide  the  army,  and  shake  the  foundation 
on  which  that  power  was  supported.  In  this 
contest  Antony,  by  his  age,  his  authority,  and  by 
his  great  influence  in  the  commonwealth,  having 
so  much  the  advantage,  they  thought  it  safest  to 
promote  the  interest  of  his  antagonist,  who  was 
in  a  private  station,  a  minor,  under  the  direction 
of  relations  inclined  to  moderation,  and  strongly 
possessed  with  deference  to  the  senate.  Antony, 
by  his  arrogance,  and  the  public  contempt  with 
which  he  treated  the  heir  of  Caesar,  gave  offence 
to  the  party  from  which  he  hoped  for  support. 
Having  already  obtained  all  the  ends  which  he 
proposed  to  himself  in  courting  the  senate,  he 
pulled  off  the  mask,  and  set  them  at  defiance. 
Octavius,  on  the  contrary,  while  he  endeavoured 
to  supplant  his  antagonist  in  the  favour  of  the 
people,  affected  great  deference  to  the  senate  and 
regard  to  the  commonwealth.  He  even  changed 
his  language  in  public  respecting  the  conspira- 
tors, and  to  their  friends  affected  a  desire  to  be 
reconciled  with  them.  Being  at  the  country- 
house  of  Philippus,  near  to  that  of  Cicero,  he 
took  this  opportunity  to  pay  his  court  to  a  person 
of  so  much  consideration  in  the  republican  party; 
accosted  him  with  the  title  of  father,  and  men- 
tioning his  friends  of  the  conspiracy  with  respect, 
affected  to  put  himself  entirely  under  his  protec- 
tion.4 Cicero  being  either  the  dupe  of  these 
artifices,  or  willing  to  encourage  Octavius  against 
Antony,  seemed  to  listen  to  his  professions;  not- 
withstanding that  Philippus,  who  was  hfterestcd 
to  save  the  republic,  at  the  same  time  informed 
him  that  he  did  not  believe  this  artful  boy  was 
sincere.5 

While  the  young  Caisar  thus  strove  to  ingra- 
tiate himself  with  the  party  of  the  senate,  his 
chief  reliance  was  on  the  people.  He  opened  an 
office  for  the  payment  of  the  late  dictator's  legacy 
to  every  one  who  claimed  a  share  of  it ;  and  as 
these  liberalities  were  ascribed  to  the  d<  ceased, 
and  could  not  be  made  a  charge  of  corruption 
against  himself,  he  did  not  scruple  to  extend  them 
beyond  the  letter  of  the  will.  He  e/.leavoured 
at  the  same  time  to  make  it  be  belies!  that  by 
the  oppressions  of  Antony  he  was  straitened  for 
means  to  perform  his  duty  in  this  respect  to  the 
people;  recommended  to  his  agents  to  hasten  the 
sale  of  his  own  effects  at  any  price,  and  continu- 
ally brought  new  articles  to  the  market  in  order 
to  raise  money.6  Being  introduced  by  one  of 
the  tribunes,  he  delivered  a  harangue  to  the  peo- 
ple, in  which  be  declared  his  intention  to  exhibit 
shows  and  theatrical  ente  rtainments  in  honour  of 
his  late  father's  memory.7  He  proposed  to  have 
seated  himself  at  the  theatre  in  his  chair  of  state; 


4  Cic.  ad  Attic. lib.  xi v.  ep.  11.  Modo  venit  Octavius 
in  proximam  villain  Pbilippi,  mihi  totus  deilitus. 

5  Ibid.  lib.  xii.  ep.  15- 

6  Appian.  df>  Bell  Civ  lil>.  ii. 

7  Ciccr.  ad  Attic,  lib  xv.  en.  1. 


333 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Boos  V. 


but  in  this  particular  had  the  mortification  of 
being  forbid  by  the  tribunes.1 

Although  the  senators  in  general  promoted  the 
claims  of  Octavius,  and  considered  him  as  a  zea- 
lous confederate  against  Antony,  who  was  the 
principal  object  of  their  fears,  the  conspirators 
saw  in  him  the  representative  of  their  late  ene- 
my and  the  leader  of  Caesar's  army.  They  en- 
deavoured to  put  their  friends  on  their  guard 
against  him,  and  by  all  means  in  their  power  to 
counteract  his  popular  arts.  For  this  purpose 
the  public  entertainments,  which  were  this  year 
to  have  been  given  by  Brutus  in  the  quality  of 
praetor,  were  provided  and  exhibited  in  his  ab- 
sence with  great  splendour.  These  entertain- 
ments, from  animosity  to  the  family  of  Caesar, 
rather  than  from  a  regard  to  Brutus,  were  con- 
ducted by  C.  Antonius,  the  brother  of  the  pre- 
sent consul,  who  presided  in  the  place  of  his 
colleague  the  absent  praetor,  and  who  was  desirous 
on  this  occasion  to  divide  with  Octavius  the  po- 
pular favour  even  in  behalf  of  Brutus,  with  whom 
he  was  not  on  good  terms.2 

As  such  entertainments  were  intended  by  the 
Roman  officers  to  ingratiate  themselves  with  the 
people,  so  the  reception  they  met  with  was  con- 
sidered as  an  indication  of  their  success  or  disap- 
pointment in  any  object  they  had  in  view.  On 
the  present  occasion  the  Tereus  of  Aceius  being 
brought  on  the  stage,  and  every  sentiment  of 
liberty  applicable  to  the  times  being  greatly  ap- 
plauded, this  was  considered  as  an  intimation  of 
popular  favour  to  the  deliverers  of  their  country, 
and  to  Brutus  in  particular,  the  giver  of  the  feast. 
His  friends  thought  this  a  favourable  opportunity 
to  make  trial  of  their  strength ;  andas  the  Roman 
people,  still  supposed  to  be  the  sovereigns  of  the 
world,  were  accustomed,  like  other  despotical 
masters,  to  decide  on  the  greatest  affairs  as  mat- 
ters of  private  passion,  and  in  the  midst  of  their 
pleasures,  the  aristocratical  party  raised  a  cry, 
thar  the  restorers  of  public  liberty  should  be  re- 
called to  their  country.3  This  cry  was  not  re- 
turned by  the  audience,  and  the  performance 
itself  was  stopped  by  the  clamours  of  the  opposite 
party,  until  the  proposal  now  made  in  favour  of 
the  conspirators  should  be  withdrawn. 

Brutus  and  Cassius  finding  their  party  among 
the  people  so  little  able  to  support  them,  saw  no 
security  but  in  the  possession  of  provinces  which, 
in  case  of  an  open  attack  from  their  enemies, 
might  supply  them  with  money  and  arms  for 
their  defence.  They  determined,  therefore,  not- 
withstanding the  late  arrangements,  by  which 
they  were  superseded,  to  repair  to  the  provinces 
of  which  the  command  had  been  originally  in- 
tended for  them ;  Cassius  to  Syria,  and  Brutus  to 
Macedonia  and  Greece.  They  were  encouraged 
in  the  pursuance  of  this  resolution  by  the  divi- 
sions and  quarrels  which  arose  in  the  opposite 
party;  observing  that  the  adherents  of  the  late 
Caesar  were  ranged  on.  different  sides  with  Octa- 
vius or  with  Antony,  and  that  the  army  itself, 
though  extremely  averse  to  disputes  which  tended 
to  disturb  their  possession  of  the  government, 
were  likely  to  balance  or  hesitate  in  the  choice  of 
their  leader,  they  left  Italy  with  some  hopes,  that 
the  republic  might  revive  in  the  dissension  of  its 
enemies. 


The  officers  whom  Antony  had  assembled  aa 
a  guard  to  his  person,  ventured  to  expostulate 
with  him  on  a  breach  which  was  so  likely  to  re- 
duce their  force,  and  they  exhorted'  him  to  act.  in 
concert  with  Octavius,  at  least  until  they  had 
obtained  a  just  revenge  against  the  assassins  of 
Caesar.  On  this  occasion  Antony  entered  into 
the  reasons  of  his  past  conduct,  and  accounted  for 
the  concessions  which  he  had  made  to  the  senate, 
as  necessary  to  obtain  the  conditions  on  which 
the  present  flourishing  state  of  the  party  de- 
pended. He  reminded  his  friends  that  it  was  by 
his  means  that  Caesar's  acts  had  been  ratified ; 
that  it  was  by  his  means  that,  notwithstanding 
the  late  act  of  indemnity,  the  conspirators  had 
been  expelled  from  the  city,  and  stripped  of  their 
provinces. 

For  the  future,  he  assured  them,  that  bemg 
possessed  of  a  proper  force,  he  would  appear  un- 
disguised, and  give  sufficient  proof  of  his  regard 
to  Caesar's  memory,  and  to  the  interest  of  his  sur- 
viving friends. 

Antony,  in  compliance  with  the  intreaties 
which  were  now  made  to  him  at  this  conference, 
had  an  interview  with  Octavius ;  at  which  they 
were,  in  appearance,  reconciled  to  each  other  : 
but  their  pretensions  were  far  from  being  suffi- 
ciently adjusted  to  render  the  agreement  of  long 
continuance.  Octavius  aspired  to  a  degree  of 
consequence  which  Antony  by  no  means  thought 
necessary  to  admit  in  so  young  a  person.  His 
undoubted  title  to  the  inheritance  of  Caesar,  and 
the  attachment  of  Csesar's  personal  friends,  made 
Antony  consider  his  advancement  as  altogether 
incompatible  with  the  success  of  his  own  designs. 
Effects  of  their  jealousies  and  animosities  accord- 
ingly soon  after  appeared,  such  as  rendered-  an 
open  breach  again  unavoidable. 

A  vacancy  having  happened  in  the  college  of 
tribunes,4  Octavius,  though  far  short  of  the  legal 
age,  was  presented  by  his  friends  as  a  candidate 
for  this  station.  Antony,  without  declaring  him- 
self openly  against  them,  published  an  edict, 
threatening  with  prosecution  any  person  who 
should  make  a  proposition  to  the  people  contrary 
to  law ;  and  by  these  means  prevented  their  far- 
ther proceeding  in  this  design. 

Soon  after  this  act  of  authority,  on  the  part  of 
Antony,  to  check  the  ambition  of  the  young  Cae- 
sar, men  armed  as  for  an  assassination  were  dis- 
covered in  the  consul's  house.  They  were  not 
brought  to  any  public  examination ;  but  it  was 
given  out  that  they  had  been  suborned  by  Octa- 
vius. Whether  this  plot  was  fabricated,  in  order 
to  load  him  with  the  odium  of  it,  and  to  justify 
the  measures  which  Antony  himself  meditated  to 
take  against  a  person  supposed  to  have  aimed  at 
his  life,  or  whether  it  was  by  Antony  actually 
believed  to  be  real,  is  uncertain.  It  occasioned  a 
considerable  ferment  in  the  city,  and  the  parties 
reasoned  upon  it  as  they  were  severally  inclined. 
The  friends  of  Antony  persisted  in  accusing 
Octavius,  and  others  recriminated,  urging  as  a 
proof  of  Antony's  design  on  the  life  of  Caesar,  his 
having  recourse  in  this  manner  to  a  forgery, 
which  was  evidently  intended  to  exasperate  the 
army  and  the  people  against  his  antagonist,  and 
to  justify  the  violence  which  he  himself,  with  the 
first  opportunity,  meant  to  employ.5  Cicero, 


1  Cicer.  ad  Attic,  lib:  xv.  ep:  2. 

2  Appian.de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  li. 

3  Cicar.  aJ  Attic,  .ib.  xvi.  ep;  2, 


4  Appian  de  ,Bcllo  Civil  lib.  ife 


5  Ibid. 


Chap  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


337 


however,  says,  that  people  of  judgment  believed 
the  plot  on  the  part  of  Octavius  to  have  been 
real,  and  that  they  approved  of  it.6 

In  the  late  interval  of  military  usurpation,  the 
senators  in  general,  though  willing  to  resume  the 
government,  were  actually  unable  to  bear  the 
load  which  it  was  likely  to  lay  on  their  shoulders. 
They  rejoiced  at  the  breach  between  Octavius 
and  Antony ;  but  if  these  adventurers  should  con- 
tinue to  quarrel  about  the  spoils  of  the  common- 
wealth, the  greater  part  of  those  Who  had  any 
interest  in  defending  it  were  no  more  than  a  prey 
to  the  conqueror.  Clouds  hung  over  their  coun- 
cils on  every  side.  The  officers  who  had  served 
under  Caesar  in  the  late  civil  war,  were  posted  at 
the  head  of  armies  in  the  most  advantageous  situa- 
tions. Asinius  Pollio  had  the  command  in  the 
farther  province  of  Spain,  Lepidus  in  the  nearer; 
Plancus  commanded  in  Gaul,  and  Antony  in 
Macedonia.  The  veterans  remained  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Rome  with  swords  in  their 
hands,  anxious  for  the  settlements  which  had 
been  lately  assigned  to  them  by  Caesar.  These 
they  did  not  believe  to  be  secure,  without  the  de- 
struction of  every  law  and  of  every  form  which 
could  be  cited  to" favour  the  claims  of  the  former 
proprietors. 

Antony  made  rapid  advances  to  the  military 
usurpation  he  had  some  time  projected.  Having 
availed  himself  so  far  of  his  nomination  to  the 
government  of  Macedonia,  as  to  get  possession 
of  the  numerous  and  respectable  army  which 
Caesar,  on  their  way  to  the  Parthian  war,  had 
fransported  thither,  he  proceeded  to  exchange 
that  province  for  the  Cisalpine  Gaul ;  and,  un- 
der pretence  of  expelling  Decimus  Brutus  from 
thence,  had  ordered  the  army  of  Caesar  to  be 
transported  back  into  Italy.  Soon  after  the  de- 
fection of  the  supposed  plot  of  Octavius  he  de- 
parted from  Rome,  and  set  out  for  Brundusium. 
The  troops  which  he  had  ordered  from  Macedo- 
nia were  already  arrived  at  that  place ;  and  as  he 
had  intelligence  that  Octavius  had  his  emissaries 
employed  to  seduce  them,  he  hastened  to  prevent 
the  effect  of  this  design,  and  to  secure  his  own 
authority.  He  professed  to  employ  this  army 
merely  in  gaining  possession  of  the  province 
which  had  lately  been  decreed  to  him  by  the  peo- 
ple. But  in  the  desire  of  occupying,  with  an 
army,  that  very  station  from  which  Caesar  had  so 
successfully  invaded  the  republic;  and  which, 
according  to  the  expression  of  Cato  on  the  nomi- 
nation of  Caesar  to  that  province,  was  in-  reality 
the  citadel  or  commanding  station  which  gave 
possession  of  Rome,  he  sufficiently  evinced  the 
designs  which  he  had  formed  against  the  republic, 
and  no  less  alarmed  the  heir  of  Caesar,  who  ex- 
pected to  be  the  first  victim  of  his  power,  than  it 
threatened  the  senate  with  a  new  and  dangerous 
usurpation. 

Under  these  impressions,  while  Antony  took 
the  road  to  Brundusium,  Octavius  repaired  to 
Campania,  and,  by  large  donations7  in  money, 
engaged  the  veterans  who  were  settled  at  Cala- 
tia,  Casilinum,  and  Capua,  to  declare  for  himself. 
With  this  powerful  support,  he  published  his  in- 
tention to  withstand  the  consul,  and  took  measures 
to  procure  the  authority  of  the  senate  against  their 
common  enemy.    He  professed  great  zeal  for  the 


fl  Cicero  ad  Famil.  lib  xii.  ep.  23. 
7  Fi  ve  hundred  Denarii,  i.  e.  about  151 
2U 


cause  of  the  republic,  and  affected  to  put  himself 
entirely  under  the  direction  of  Cicero,  now  the 
most  respectable  member  of  the  senate  that  was 
left.  He  intreated  this  experienced  counsellor  to 
favour  him  with  an  interview  at  Capua.  "  Once 
more,"  he  said,  in  his  letter  upon  this  occasion, 
"save  the  republic."  At  their  conference  it  was 
deliberated  whether  Octavius  should  throw  him- 
self into  Capua  with  three  hundred  veterans  who 
had  joined  him,  and  there  stop  Antony's  march 
to  Rome ;  or  should  cross  the  Apennines,  to  give 
the  legions,  who  were  marching  from  Brundusf- 
um,  an  opportunity  to  execute  the  project  of  de- 
fection, which  he  believed  they  were  meditating 
in  his  favour.  In  this  question  he  affected  to  be 
determined  entirely  by  Cicero,  who  advised  him 
to  move  with  all  the  force  he  could  assemble 
towards  Rome.8 

In  compliance  with  this  advice,  Octavius  hav- 
ing assembled  ten  thousand- men,  without  waiting 
to  array,  or  even  to  have  them  completely  armed, 
advanced  by  hasty  marches  to  prevent  Antony, 
who  about  the  same  time  had  marched  from 
Brundusium,  and  was  hastening  to  advance  in 
the  same  direction.9 

The  city  was  thrown  into  a  great  alarm  by 
this  unexpected  approach  of  two  hostile  armies. 
Some  expressed  their  fears  of  Antony,  others  of 
Octavius,  and  some  of  both.  It  was  uncertain 
whether  they  advanced  in  concert  to  oppress  the 
republic,  or  in  competition  to  contend  for  its 
spoils.  Many  appearances  favoured  the  latter 
supposition  ;  and  the  late  reconciliation  gave  some 
credit  to  the  former. 

Octavius,  having  the  advantage  of  a  shorter 
march,  arrived  before  his  antagonist;  and  lying 
within  two  miles  of  the  city,  was  received  by 
Canutius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  whom  he  soon  af- 
ter sent  back  into  the  city,  with  assurances,  that 
he  had  assembled  his  party  not  to  second,  but  to 
oppose  the  designs  of  Antony;  and  that  his  pur. 
pose  was  to  employ  all  the  force  he  could  raise 
for  the  defence  of  the  commonwealth.  The  tri- 
bune Canutius,  in  reporting  what  passed  with 
Octavius,  exhorted  all  who  wished  to  preserve  the 
republic  to  lend  their  assistance  in  execution  of 
this  design. 

Upon  these  assurances,  delivered  by  a  tribune 
of  the  people,  the  gates  were  thrown  open  to 
Octavius,  and  he  entered  the  city,  though  not 
in  a  military  form,  yet  followed  by  a  numerous 
hind  of  attendants,  who  concealed  their  weapons. 
With  this  company  he  took  possession  of  the 
temple  of  Castor  ami  Pollux,  and  prepared  to 
explain  himself  to  a  numerous  concourse  of  peo- 
ple, who  were  hastening  into  the  area  or  court 
before  the  temple.  Being  introduced  by  the  tri- 
bune into  this  assembly,  as  a  person  who  had 
matters  of  great  moment  to  communicate  respect- 
ing the  state  of  the  republic  and  the  designs  of 
Antony,  he  began  his  speech  bv .commemorating 
the  merits  of  his  late  adoptive  father,  and  the  in- 
gratitude and  injustice  of  Antony;  declared,  that 
although  he  had  assembled  his  friends  merely  in 
his  own  defence,  he  was  ready  to  employ  them  in 
the  service  of  his  country,  and  submitted  himself 
entirely  to  such  directions  as  he  should'  receive 
from  the  powers  established  by  law  in  the  com- 
monwealth ;  observed,  that  they  could  not  possi- 


8  Appian.  d«  Bell  Civ.  lib.  ii. 

9  Cicero  ad  Att.  lib.  xvi.  »»p.  8 


338 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V 


bly  doubt  of  his  inclination  to  be  employed  at  least  j 
against  his  personal  enemies. 

It  was  probably  in  this  speech,  that  Octavius, 
being  to  make  a  solemn  asseveration,  pointed  to 
the  statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  with  these  words, 
"  So  may  I  arrive  at  my  father's  honours  !"1  He 
had  two  opposite  and  irreconcilable  parties  to 
please  on  this  occasion,  and  had  not  learned  that 
the  only  safe  course  in  such  cases  is  silence.  He 
offended  the  partizans  of  the  republic  by  the  vene- 
ration he  expressed  for  Caesar,  and  by  his  wish  to 
tread  in  his  steps ;  and  in  this,  perhaps,  commit- 
ted the  only  public  indiscretion  with  which  he  is 
chargeable  in  any  part  of  his  conduct.  But  what 
was  in  reality  a  more  dangerous  effect  of  this 
error,  he  offended  the  military  part  of  his  audi- 
ence by  the  regard  he  affected  to  entertain  for  the 
civil  government  of  the  state,  and  by  his  open 
declaration  of  war  against  Antony.  By  this  de- 
claration, military  men  found  themselves  not  in- 
vited to  enter,  as  they  expected,  on  the  secure 
possession  of  the  rewards  and  honours  which 
had  been  promised  to  them ;  but  called  upon  to  , 
fight  for  empire  against  their  late  fellow-soldiers, 
commanded  by  an  officer  from  whom  they  had 
high  expectations  as  a  friend,  and  much  to  fear 
as  an  enemy. 

Soldiers  of  fortune  being  thus  disappointed  of 
the  spoils  which  they  expected  to  seize,  and  of 
the  rewards  which  were  now  become  due  for 
former  services,  some  of  them  absolutely  re- 
nounced the  party  of  Octavius ;  others,  under 
pretence  of  providing  arms  and  necessaries  for 
the  field,  or  pleading  various  excuses,  desired 
leave  to  return  to  their  own  habitations.  The 
greater  part  of  the  veterans  actually  withdrew : 
but  Octavius,  young  as  he  was,  did  not  sink  un- 
der this  untoward  state  of  his  affairs.  He  had 
ordered  levies  in  Etruria,  and  in  the  district  of 
Ravenna.  These  levies,  upon  the  reputation  of 
the  ascendant  he  had  gained  in  the  city,  succeed- 
ed apace,  and  induced  military  adventurers  from 
every  quarter  to  espouse  his  cause. 

Many  who  had  served  under  Julius  Caesar, 
being  accustomed  to  the  life  of  a  soldier,  though 
settled  as  landholders  in  Italy,  were  not  yet  rooted 
in  the  condition  of  citizens,  or  in  that  of  husband- 
men. They  had  yet  fresh  in  their  memories  the 
license  and  the  spoils  of  war.  They  saw  them 
offered  anew  under  the  auspices  of  a  leader  who 
bore  the  name  of  Caesar,  and  whose  munificence 
was  known.  Many,  therefore,  who  had  recently 
h;ft  Octavius,  being  unwilling  that  others  should 
reap  the  harvest  in  which  they  themselves  had 
been  invited  to  partake,  again  repaired  to  his 
standard;  and,  as  fast  as  they  arrived,  were  sent 
to  Etruria,  into  different  quarters,  to  be  armed, 
arraved,  and  furnished  with  all  necessaries  for  the 
field> 

Octavius  from  thenceforward  conducted  him- 
self between  the  parties  with  great  address :  to  the 
veterans  be  talked  of  avenging  Caesar's  death :  to 
the  friends  of  the  republic  he  set  forth  the  dan- 
gerous designs  of  Antony,  affected  to  sacrifice  all 
private  resentment  to  his  zeal  for  the  common- 
wealth,3 even  promoted  the  election  of  Casca  into 
the  colleague  of  tribunes,4  and  affected  in  all  things 
to  be  governed  by  the  senate. 

1  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  xvi.  c.  15. 

2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlv.  c.  13.   App.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 

3  Cicer.  ad  Att.  lib.  xv.  ep.  12. 

4  Ibid.  lib.  xvi.  cp.  15.  I 


|  What  hopes,  in  the  mean  time,  could  be  formed 
for  the  state  1  Could  senators  entrust  the  age  or 
the  intention  of  this  crafty  boy,  nursed,  as  they 
observed,  in  the  midst  of  usurpation ;  and  who, 
by  arming  himself  without  any  legal  authority, 
had  given  evidence  of  an  assuming  and  audacious 
spirit  ?  They  stood  in  awe  of  Antony,  and  were 
afraid  to  provoke  him  by  an  open  declaration 
Octavius  did  not  yet  appear  to  be  in  condition  to 
cope  with  the  Roman  consul ;  and  if  he  were  in 
condition  to  do  so,  would  be  likely  to  form  designs 
equally  dangerous  to  the  commonwealth.  Anto- 
ny, with  a  numerous  armyr  had  all  the  authority 
of  government  in  his  hands.  The  dispositions 
of  Pansa  and  Hirtius,  the  consuls  named  by  Cae- 
sar for  the  ensuing  year,  were  yet  unknown. — 
Although  many  things  were  transacted  in  name 
of  the  senate,  this  order  of  men  scarcely  ventured 
to  resume  their  ordinary  functions,  and  shook 
under  the  rod  which  Caesar  had  lifted  over  them, 
even  while  it  hung  in  suspense  between  different 
divisions  of  his  remaining  party.5  Piso,  the  fa- 
ther-in-law of  Csesar,  had  ventured  to  oppose 
Antony.  Cicero  and  Publius  Servilius  after- 
wards followed  this  example.  "  But  all  that  we 
have  gained,"  said  Cicero,  "is  no  more  than  this, 
4;hat  the  Roman  people  may  perceive,  that  who- 
ever contends  for  liberty  is  not  safe  at  Rome." 
These  senators,  therefore,  together  with  L.  Cotta, 
L.  Caesar,  and  L.  Sulpicius,  had  in  despair,,  upon 
seeing  Antony  put  himself  at  the  head  of  an 
army,  absented  themselves  from  the  public  as- 
semblies. 

It  was  evident  from  every  circumstance,  that 
the  fate  of  the  empire  was  to  be  determined  by 
the  sword.  The  troops  feeling  their  consequence, 
affected  indifference  to  every  interest  but  their 
own,  and  presumed  to  treat  with  equal  contempt, 
in  their  turns,  the  different  persons  who  assumed 
the  command  of  them.  Of  the  five  legions  which 
had  been  quartered  in  Macedonia,  four  were  land- 
ed at  Brundusium  when  Antony  arrived  at  that 
place.  They  turned  out  on  his  coming,  but  did 
not  receive  him  with  the  usual  acclamations  and 
shouts.  They  closed  in  profound  silence  round 
the  platform  from  which  he  was  to  speak,  as  hav- 
ing suspended  their  judgment,  until  they  should 
know  what  gratuities  they  were  to  receive  in  re- 
ward of  their  services.  When  he  mentioned 
four  hundred  sestertii,  or  between  three  and  four 
pounds  a  man.6  This  being  far  short  of  the  re- 
wards that  were  expected  for  giving  a  new  mas- 
ter to  the  commonwealth,  he  was  answered  with 
signs  of  derision.  In  return  to  this  insolence, 
Antony  assumed  a  tone  which  tended  rather  to 
exasperate  than  to  overawe  his  audience.  He 
reproached  these  legions  with  ingratitude  for  the 
favour  he  had  recently  done  them,  in  changing 
their  destination  from  Parthia  to  the  Cisalpine 
Gaul ;  and  with  treachery,  in  having  suffered  to 
remain  among  them  the  emissaries,  whom  he 
knew  that  a  presumptuous  boy  had  employed  to 
debauch  them  from  their  duty.  "These,"  he 
said,  "shall  not  escape  me;  in  the  mean  time 
prepare  yourselves  to  march  into  the  province 
which  is  allotted  for  your  station." 

Antony,  while  he  yet  continued  to  speak,  had 
the  mortification  to  see  entire  cohorts,  with  their 

5  Cicer.  ad  Alt.  lib.  xiv.  ep.  5  et  6.  Ibid.  adDolabel- 
lam,  post  17. 

(3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlv.  c.  13.  or  according  to  Appian 
100~16s. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


officers,  withdraw  from  his  presence,  uttering 
words  of  contempt  and  of  scorn.  Seeing  the  de- 
sertion likely  to  become  general,7  and  being 
greatly  provoked,  he  dismissed  the  audience,  sen- 
tenced three  hundred  officers  and  private  men  to 
immediate  death,  and  stood  by  while  they  perish- 
ed under  the  hands  of  the  executioners.  Fulvia, 
who  had  attended  him  in  his  journey  to  Brundu- 
sium,  is  said  to  have  been  present  likewise  at  this 
scene,  and  to  have  satiated  her  revenge  of  the  in- 
sults offered  to  her  husband,  with  so  near  a  view 
of  the  executions,  as  to  have  her  clothes  stained 
with  blood.8 

The  offence  that  was  taken  at  these  cruelties 
gave  ample  encouragement  to  the  agents  of  Oc- 
tavius, who,  notwithstanding  the  threats  of  An- 
tony, still  continued  to  negotiate  in  the  quarters 
of  his  army.  Papers  were  dropt  and  handed 
about,  containing  a  contrast  of  Antony's  parsi- 
mony with  the  liberality  of  Octavius.  A  search 
was  made  for  the  authors  of  these  libels ;  but  the 
bad  success  with  which  it  was  attended,  served 
only  to  show  the  general  disaffection  of  the  army. 
The  accounts,  at  the  same  time,  which  were 
brought  of  the  progress  which  Octavius  made  in 
the  settlements  of  the  veterans,  and  of  his  recep- 
tion at  Rome,  gave  Antony  a  just  sense  of  his 
danger,  and  made  him  change  his  tone.  In  a 
second  address  to  the  army,  he  made  an  apology 
for  his  late  severities.  They  knew,  he  said,  his 
character,  that  it  was  neither  sordid  nor  severe ; 
that  the  sums  he  had  mentioned  were  no  more 
than  a  present  to  signalize  their  meeting,  and  an 
earnest  of  his  future  munificence.  He  did  not, 
however,  at  this  time,  make  any  addition  to  his 
former  bounty,  lest  it  should  appear  to  be  extorted 
from  him  by  fear. 

The  soldiers,  in  appearance,  satisfied  with  these 
declarations,  accepted  with  respect  the  sum  which 
had  been  offered  to  them;  submitted  to  the 
changes  which  had  been  made  among  their  of- 
ficers, and  marched  off  in  divisions  by  the  coast 
of  the  Adriatic  towards  Ariminum.  Antony 
himself,  with  an  escort  of  cavalry  and  infantry, 
seom posed  of  men  the  bravest  and  most  attached 
to  his  person,  whom  he  had  selected  from  the 
whole  army,  set  out  for  Rome.  At  his  arrival, 
the  horse  were  quartered  in  the  suburbs  ;  he  him- 
self, attended  by  a  body  of  foot,  entered  the  city, 
had  a  regular  guard  mounted  in  the  court  of  his 
own  house,  ordered  centinels  to  be  posted,  gave 
the  parole,  and  made  every  disposition  to  prevent 
surprise,  as  in  a  military  station.  Being  still 
vested  with  the  office  of  eonsul,  he  summoned 
the  senate  to  meet  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  Sep- 
tember; and,  in  the  proclamation  or  summons, 
declared,  that  if  any  senator  absented  himself  on 
that  day,  he  should  be  deemed  an  accessary  to 
the  plot  against  the  consul's  life,  which  had  been 
lately  discovered,  and  an  accomplice  in  the  other 
wicked  designs  known  to  be  in  agitation  against 
the  republic. 

Notwithstanding  this  pompous  threat,  Antony 
himself  did  not  attend  at  the  time  appointed ; 
but,  by  another  proclamation,  he  again  summoned 
the  senate  to  meet  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  the 
same  month.  He  intended,  on  this  day,  to  ob- 
tain a  decree  against  Octavius  ;  whom,  in  all  his 
manifestos,  he  qualified  with  the  name  of  Spar- 


7  Cicer  ad  Att.  lib.  xvi.ep  8. 

8  Ibid.  Philip,  iii.  c.  2  et  4. 


tacus;  as  having,  without  any  legal  authority, 
presumed  to  levy  war  against  the  state  ;9  but,  a* 
he  entered  the  porch  of  the  senate-house,  a  mes- 
senger arrived  with  accounts  that  the  Legio 
Martia  had  deserted  with  its  colours  to  Octavius. 
Before  he  had  recovered  this  shock,  another  mes- 
senger came  with  a  like  account  of  the  fourth 
legion.  He  entered  the  senate,  but  very  much 
disconcerted,  and  unprepared  to  act  in  circum- 
stances so  different  from  those  with  which  he  laid 
his  account  He  avoided  the  mention  of  Octa- 
vius^ and  pretending  to  have  called  the  assem- 
bly, without  any  particular  business,  he  made  a 
short  speech  and  adjourned.  From  this  meeting, 
hearing  that  one  of  the  revolted  legions  had  taken 
post  at  Alba,  he  instantly  repaired  to  that  place,  in 
hopes  of  reclaiming  them ;  but  was  received  with 
a  discharge  of  arrows  and  stones  from  the  battl*  - 
ments,  and  obliged  to  retire.  Fearing  that  the 
remainder  of  the  army  would  follow  this  example, 
he  ordered  them  an  additional  gratuity  of  five 
hundred  sestertii,  or  about  four  pounds  a  man. 
And,  to  give  them  an  immediate  prospect  of  ac- 
tion, which  is  often  the  most  effectual  means  of 
stifling  dangerous  humours  in  any  army,  he  de- 
clared his  intention  to  make  war  on  Decimus 
Brutus,  in  order  to  dislodge  him  from  the  pro- 
vince of  Gaul.  In  pursuance  of  this  intention, 
he  ordered  his  equipage  for  the  field,  and  set  up 
his  standard  at  Tibur,  to  which  place  he  expected 
that  all  his  friends  and  adherents  would  repair. 

Antony,  being  joined  by  the  last  of  the  trcops 
from  Macedonia,  had  still  three  legions  belonging 
to  that  army  ;  and  these,  together  with  the  vete- 
rans settled  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tibur,  who 
came  with  their  ensigns  and  colours  to  offer  theLr 
services,  amounted  in  all  to  four  legions,  besidis 
the  ordinary  attendance  of  irregular  troops,  and 
the  crowds  of  people  that  Hocked  to  his  standard 
With  this  formidable  power,  having  for  a  a  few 
days  overawed  the  city,  and  drawn  around  him 
the  greatest  part  of  the  senate,  and  of  the  eques- 
trian order,  with  many  of  the  people  who  had  so 
lately  declared  for  his  rival,  and  who,  in  the  con- 
tests of  such  parties,  ever  yield  to  the  present 
power,  and  are  the  property  of  him  who  can  best 
work  on  their  fears  ;  he  set  out  on  his  march  to 
Ariminum,  the  last  place  of  Italy  on  the  frontier 
of  Gaul. 

Octavius,  at  the  same  time,  had  assembled  his 
forces  at  Alba,  consisting  of  the  two  legions  who 
bad  lately  come  over  to  him  from  Antony,  one 
legion  of  new  levies,  together  with  two  of  the 
veterans  lately  embodied,  which,  not  being  full, 
were  completed  with  the  choice  of  his  new-raised 
men.  He  made  a  report  to  the  senate  of  tl*e 
number  and  description  of  the  troops  he  had  thus 
assembled,  and  received  their  thanks  and  congra- 
tulations. It  is  nevertheless  prolwible,  that  his 
services  were  received  by  this  body  with  great 
distrust  of  their  own  situation,  and  of  his  designs. 

Had  the  senate  been  free  to  choose  on  whose 
swords  they  were  to  rely  for  the  defence  of  their 
cause,  those  of  Cassius  and  Brutus,  with  the 
other  conspirators,  originally  drawn  in  behalf  of 
the  republic,  must  have  appeared  the  preferable 
choice.  Uncertain,  however,  of  the  effect  of  any 
direct  or  public  resolution  in  favour  of  those  who 
were  the  authors  of  Cscsar's  death,  they  left  the 
correspondence  to  be  maintained  with  them  to 
private  persons ;  and  senators  accordingly  wrote 

g  CiRpr.  Philip  iii.  c  8. 


310 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


in  their  private  capacity,  to  recommend  perse^ 
verance  and  the  utmost  exertion  of  their  zeal. 
"Such  is  the  state  of  the  republic,"  says  Cicero 
to  Cassius  ;  "  even  in  the  calmest  times,  scarcely 
able  to  support  itself.  What  must  it  be  in  the 
present  storm  1  All  our  hopes  are  in  you.  But 
if  you  have  withdrawn  yourselves  merely  for 
your  own  safety,  we  cannot  have  hopes,  not  even 
in  you.  If  you  intend  any  thing  worthy  of  your 
own  character,  I  wish  I  may  live  to  see  the  effect. 
The  republic,  at  any  rate,  must  revive  under 
your  efforts."1  He  adjured  Decimus  Brutus, 
by  the  example  of  Octavius,  who,  though  in  a 
private  station,  raised  armies  for  the  state ;  he  ad- 
jured him  by  the  example  of  the  faithful  legions 


who  deserted  from  Antony,  to  stand  by  the  com- 
monwealth; and  in  the  present  crisis  to  exert 
himself  to  the  utmost,  without  waiting  for  the 
orders  of  the  senate.2 

Cicero  had  already  proclaimed  his  animosity  to 
Antony,  and  besides  his  zeal  for  the  republic,  had 
a  particular  interest  in  abetting  any  party  that 
was  formed  against  this  dangerous  enemy.  Hear- 
ing that  he  was  gone  from  the  city,  and  that  all 
the  forces  in  its  neighbourhood  had  declared  for 
Octavius  or  for  the  senate,  he  himself  ventured, 
on  the  ninth  of  December,  to  return  to  Rome,3 
and  proposed  in  the  senate  that  they  should  de- 
cide on  the  plan  they  were  to  follow  in  this  ar- 
duous state  of  their  affairs. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Situation  and  Address  of  Octavius — Meeting  of  the  Senate — Progress  of  Antony — His  march 
into  Gaul — Message  of  Octavius  to  Decimus  Brutus — New  Consuls  Hertius  and  Pansa — 
Meeting  of  the  Smate — Deputation  to  Antony — His  Answer — Declared  an  enemy — Advance 
of  Hirtius  and  Octavius  to  raise  the  siege  of  Mutina — Brutus  and  Cassius  confirmed  in  the 
command  of  all  the  Eastern  Provinces — Progress  of  the  War  in  Gaul — Siege  of  Mutina, 
raised-*- J  unction  of  Antony  and  Lepidus — Consulate  of  Octavius. 


WHEN  Antony  left  Rome  to  take  possession 
of  the  Cisalpine  Gaul,  Octavius  was  in  arms  at 
the  gates  of  the  city,  and,  though  a  mere  youth 
Under  age,  was  furnished  with  every  art  which 
&ge  itself  could  bestow,  to  qualify  him  for  the 
part  he  was  to  act.  He  had  gained  upon  the 
army  by  donations  and  promises;  upon  the 
senate  by  public  professions  of  duty  and  of  zeal 
for  the  republic  ;  and,  On  particular  members,  by 
attentions  and  flattery.  The  legions,  which  had 
lately  come  over  to  him  from  Antony,  having  ex- 
hibited a  mock  fight,  he  ordered  them,  on  that  oc- 
casion, a  special  gratuity  of  five  hundred  sexter- 
tii,  or  four  pounds  a  man ;  saying,  that  as  this 
was  but  the  representation  of  a  battle,  the  reward 
was  proportional ;  but  if  he  should  ever  have 
occasion  to  employ  them  in  real  fights,  they 
should  have  as  many  thousands.4  In  this  situa- 
tion, it  became  necessary  for  the  senate,  either  to 
authorise  and  to  avail  themselves  of  this  ultrane- 
ous  support;  or,  by  refusing  it,  to  drive  the  vete- 
rans, and  all  the  military  party  which  still  revered 
the  name  of  Caesar,  into  measures  immediately 
fatal  to  the  republic. 

Upon  the  march  of  Antony  towards  Gaul, 
Octavius  had  already  sent  a  message  to  Decimus 
Brutus*  with  assurances  of  his  aid  in  defending 
that  province,  and  of  his  co-operation  every 
where  else  in  supporting  the  authority  of  the 
senate.  Hitherto  men  stood  in  awe  of  Antony, 
as  being  vested  with  the  authority  of  eonsul,  and 
threatening  to  treat  his  opponents  as  rebels  to  the 
commonwealth.  Even  Hirtius  and  Pansa,  des- 
tined to  succeed  him  in  the  consulship,  it  was 
supposed,  would  scarcely  venture  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  office  without  his  consent,  and  the 
usual  form  of  his  abdication ;  but  the  prospect  of 
a.  vigorous  support  from  Octavius,  relieved  many 


1  Cicer.  ad  Familiar.  lib.  xii.  ep.  2. 

2  Ibi  1  lib.  xi.  ep  7.  3  Ibid,  ep  5. 

4  Aopian  d?  B?U.  Civ.  lib.  ii. 

5  Dio.  Cass,  lib  xiv.  c.  L5. 


from  their  fears  of  Antony,  and  determined  them 
on  the  part  they  were  to  act. 

The  senate,  under  pretence  of  taking  measures 
that  the  succeeding  consuls  might  enter  on  their 
office  in  safety,  being  assembled  by  one  of  the 
tribunes  on  the  nineteenth  of  December,  a  mani- 
festo was  produced  from  Decimus  Brutus,  of 
which  no  copy  remains,  but  probably  stating  his 
right  to  the  province  of  Gaul,  and  representing 
the  injustice  of  Antony  in  attempting  to  dis- 
lodge him  by  force.  Octavius  was  at  the  same 
time  introduced  by  the  tribune,  and  pronounced  a 
panegyric  on  Brutus.6  Cicero,  in  a  speech  which 
is  still  extant,  extolled  the  conduct  of  the  young 
Csesar  in  arming  the  veterans,  as  a  generous 
effort  made  at  the  hazard  of  his  own  life,  and  of 
his  private  fortune,  to  defend  the  republic.  He 
applauded  the  two  legions  who  had  lately  de- 
serted from  Antony ;  and  warmly  urged  the 
senate  to  support  Decimus  Brutus  in  his  pro- 
vince. He  moved,  that  thanks  should  be  given 
to  these  officers,  and  to  the  troops  who  adhered 
to  them ;  and  that  the  consuls,  on  the  first  of 
January,  should  move  the  senate  farther  to  con- 
sider of  the  rewards  that  were  due  to  the  army, 
for  the  faithful  services  which  they  had  rendered 
to  the  commonwealth.  These  public  propositions 
he  blended  with  a  continual  and  vehement  in- 
vective against  Antony.7  He  obtained  decrees 
of  the  senate  to  the  several  effects  he  had  pro- 
posed ;  and  having  carried  those  decrees  to  the 
comitia  or  assembly  of  the  people  for  their  appro- 
bation, there  likewise  he  supported  them  with  a 
repetition  of  the  same  topics,  and  with  the  usual 
force  of  his  eloquence.8 

In  the  mean  time,  Antony,  being  arrived  on 
the  frontier  of  Gaul,  despatched  an  officer  to  De- 
cimus Brutus,  with  a  copy  of  his  own  commission 
from  the  Roman  people,  and  with  an  order  to 
evacuate  the  province.    To  this  message  he  had 


fi  Cicer.  ad  Fainil.  lib.  xi.  ep.  6.  Ibid.  Philip,  iii.  c.  4. 
7  Cicer.  Philip,  ii.  8  Ibid,  Philip,  iv. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


341 


for  answer,  that  Decimus  Brutus  held  his  com- 
mand by  authority  of  the  Roman  senate,  who 
alone,  by  the  laws,  were  entitled  to  dispose  of  the 
provinces  ;  and  that  he  would  not  surrender  what 
the  laws  of  his  country  had  enjoined  him  to  de- 
fend. Antony,  after  having  to  no  purpose  ex- 
changed repeated  messages  on  this  subject,  con- 
tinued his  march  into  the  province,  and  forced 
Brutus,  with  two  legions  and  some  new  levies, 
that  w  ere  under  his  command,  to  throw  himself 
into  Mutina,  where  he  had  formed  some  maga- 
zines from  the  stores  and  provisions  he  was  able 
to  collect  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  where  he 
proposed  to  wait  for  the  succours  which  he  was 
made  to  expect  from  Rome.  Antony  advanced 
to  Bononia  and  Claterna,  took  possession  of 
these  places,  and  having  invested  Mutina,  began 
to  besiege  it  in  form. 

Such  was  the  posture  of  affairs 
U.  C.  710.  in  the  end  of  December,  about 
C  Vibius  ten  montns  after  *he  death  of 
Pansa.  C.  Hir-  Caesar.9  On  the  first  of  January, 
tius,  both  the  consuls  Pansa  and  Hirtius, 
killed.   Octa-    being  to  enter  on  the  exercise  of 

PaLT'u  oi  their  office>  Proceeded  to  tne  se" 

his  rcsigna-  nate  from  the  temple,  where  they 

tion,  C.  Can-  had  offered  the  usual  sacrifices ; 

nus  succeeded  an(]  agreeablv  to  the  order  of  the 

PeTu^suc-^'  nineteenth  of  December,  moved 

eecded  Hir-  this  assembly  to  take  under  con- 

tius.  Vcvti-  sideration  the  present  state  of  the 

dms  succeeded  republic.10    Pansa  having  stated 

if  w  Ul'  WJZ  the  subject,  called  upon  his  father- 
dted  in  office.       .  J     '       .       >    .  , 

in-law,  (d.  Fusius  Calenus  to  de- 
liver his  opinion.  This  senator 
being  disposed  to  favour  Antony  advised,  that 
they  should  not  rashly,  take  any  violent  resolu- 
tion ;  that  they  should  send  a  deputation  "to  the 
late  consul,  with  instructions  from  the  senate  to 
lay  down  his  arms,  and  to  return  to  his  duty. 
This  motion  was  vehemently  opposed  by  Cicero, 
who,  in  a  speech  still  extant,"  insisted  that  An- 
tony was  already  in  effect  declared  an  enemy,  and 
ought  to  be  reduced  by  force,  not  gained  by  ne- 
gotiation and  treaty.  He  recounted  the  violences 
committed  by  him  in  his  late  consulate,  particu- 
larly the  acts  which  he  promulgated  under  the 
pretence  of  Caesar's  memorials  and  will.  *  From 
the  foundation  of  Rome  to  this  present  hour," 
he  said,  "  Antony  alone  has  had  the  impudence 
to  present  himself  in  this  assembly,  escorted  by  a 
military  force.  The  kings  never  attempted  it. 
The  boldest  adventurers,  and  they  who  were  most 
forward  to  revive  the  kingly  power,  never  ven- 
tured so  far.  I  remember  Cinna ;  T  have  seen 
Sylla;  and  last  of  all,  Caesar.  These  were  the 
persons,  who  since  the  expulsion  of  Tarquin, 
made  the  greatest  advances  to  kingly  power.  I 
do  not  say  that  they  were  unattended  in  the  se- 
nate; or  that  their  retinue  were  always  unarmed; 
they  were  followed  only  by  a  few,  and  with  con- 
cealed weapons.  But  this  daring  assassm  paraded 
in  the  streets  with  a  military  power,  moving  in 
cohorts  under  arms,  with  all  the  forms  of  a  regu- 
lar march.  He  posted  a  body  of  archers  with 
their  quivers  full,  and  even  chests  of  spare  ar- 
rows for  immediate  and  continued  action,  on  the 
very  steps  by  which  senators  were  to  ascend  into 
the  temple  of  Concord ;  you  have  ordered  pub- 


9  Appiap.  de  B--I1.  Civ.  lib.  ii.  10  Ibjcl.  lib.  iii. 

11  Cicer.  Philip,  v. 


lie  thanks  to  the  troops  that  have  drawn  their 
swords  against  him;  you  have  extolled  the  gene- 
rous magnanimity  of  a  young  man,  who,  without 
waiting  for  your  commission,  brought  a  hasty 
power  to  cover  the  city  from  his  violence  ;  and 
are  you  now  deliberating  whether  you  are  to 
soothe  his  fury  with  negotiation,  or  to  meet  it 
with  force?12  If  you  send  deputiesto  his  camp,  no 
matter  with  what  message,  you  will  appear  to  sur 
render;  you  will  appear  to  distrust  your  own  cause ; 
you  will  damp  the  ardour  of  your  own  troops ^ 
and  you  will  shake  the  faith  of  the  provinces." 

Such  was  the  purport  of  Cicero's  speech  re- 
specting the  conduct  of  Antony,  the  merits  of 
Decimus  Brutus,  of  Lepidus,  of  Octavius,  of  the 
legions,  and  of  the  veterans ;  and  of  L.  Egnatu- 
leius  the  tribune,  who  led  the  Legio  Martia  in  the 
late  choice  of  their  party.  In  the  close  of  the 
speech,  he  moved,  That  suitable  honours  should 
be  decreed  to  each;  that  the  senate  should  ratify 
all  the  proceedings  of  Brutus  in  defending  the 
province  of  Gaul;  that  Lepidus  should  have  a 
statue  erected  to  him ;  that  Octavius  should  have 
the  rank  of  propraetor,  be  confirmed  in  his  present 
command,  and  be  entitled  to  sue  for  the  offices 
of  state  before  the  legal  age;  that  three  years  of 
the  age  appointed  by  law,  should  be  dispensed 
with  in  behalf  of  Egnatuleius ;  that  the  veterans, 
who  had  taken  arms  under  Octavius,  and  the 
legions,  who  had  deserted  from  Antony  to  join  the 
standard  of  the  commonwealth,  should  have  the 
gratuities  that  were  promised  to  them  by  Octa- 
vius ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  present  war  should 
have  grants  of  land,  and  a  perpetual  exemption 
to  themselves  and  their  children  from  every  mili 
tary  service.  In  his  encomium  on  Brutus,  he  in- 
sinuated the  praise  that  was  due  to  him,  as  a 
partner  in  the  conspiracy  against  Ca'sar;  but, 
not  to  offend  the  partizans  of  Octavius,  declined 
entering  fully  on  that  subject.  He  pledged  him- 
self for  the  future  behaviour  of  Octavius.  "  This 
admirable  youn"  man,"  he  said,  "having  once 
tasted  of  true  glory,  having  found  himself  held 
forth  by  the  senate,  by  the  people,  and  by  all  or- 
ders of  men  as  a  citizen  dear  to  his  country,  and 
as  the  guardian  of  the  commonwealth,  never  can 
place  any  other  species  of  distinction  or  honour 
in  competition  with  this.  If  Julius  Caesar  had 
found  himself,  at  so  early  a  period  of  life,  in  such 
an  illustrious  point  of  view,  he  never  would  have 
sought  for  preferment  by  courting  the  populace, 
nor  have  betaken  himself  to  measures  inconijraU- 
ble  with  the  safety  of  Iris  country.  The  mind  of 
this  young  man  is  perfectly  known  to  me.  Love 
of  the  republic,  respect  to  the  senate  deferenci  to 
good  men,  the  desire  of  real  glory  are  his  ruling 
passions.  I  will  therefore  venture  to  pledge  mv 
honour  in  the  most  positive  assurance  s  to  yon, 
to  the  Roman  people,  and  to  the  commonwealth. 
I  promise,  I  undertake,  I  engage  that  C.  Cjesar 
will  continue  towards  the  republic  this  conduct 
which  he  now  holds,  and  that  he  will  always  be 
what  you  wish,  and  what  you  would  ehoose  that 
he  should  be." 

Octavius,  we  may  suppose,  had,  in  some  mea- 
sure, blinded  Cicero  with  his  flattery-,  yet  in  this 
panegyric  there  was  probably  more  of  what  tin; 
orator  wished  to  recommend  to  Octavius,  than  of 
what  he  believed  to  be  his  original  intention;  but 
this  designing  young  man  was  not  to  be  caught 


12  Cicer.  Philip,  v. 


342  • 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


in  such  snares.  He  knew  too  well  how  to  retort 
these  artifices,  even  at  an  age,  when  others 
scarcely  knew  that  such  arts  are  practised ;  and 
the  experienced  Cicero,  with  all  the  penetration 
and  wit  for  which  he  was  eminent,  was  the  dupe 
of  a  youth  who  possessed  the  deepest  of  all  artifices, 
that  of  suffering  himself  in  appearance  to  be  de- 
ceived, while  in  reality  he  employed  the  cunning 
of  others  to  his  own  purpose.1 

L.  Piso,  with  a  considerable  party  in  the  senate, 
inclined  to  moderate  the  resolutions  that  were 
proposed  against  Antony.  He  contended  that 
no  Roman  citizen  could  be  condemned  unheard ; 
that  the  senate  could  do  no  more  than  appoint 
him  a  day  of  trial,  and  cite  him  to  answer  for 
himself.  The  time  of  the  first  meeting  being 
already  spent  in  this  debate,  the  senate  adjourn- 
ed ;  and  the  subject  being  resumed  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  it  is  said2  that  Fusius  Calenus,  with  a 
torrent  of  abuse  and  reproach,  retorted  on  Cicero 
the  invective  which,  on  the  preceding  day,  he  had 
pronounced  against  Antony.  He  reproached 
him  with  the  obscurity  of  his  birth,  and  accused 
him  of  a  presumption,  which  was  supported  only 
by  a  talent  for  declamation,  often  employed  by 
him  against  the  best  citizens,  never  in  bringing 
real  criminals  of  state  to  punishment  "  What 
have  you  done,"  he  said,  accosting  Cicero, 
"either  at  home  or  abroad,  to  merit  the  high  de- 
gree of  consideration  to  which  you  lay  claim  1  In 
what  war  have  we  ever  prevailed  under  your 
auspices?  What  accession  of  territory  have  you 
ever  gained  to  the  Roman  state  ?  Even  in  respect 
to  your  boasted  talent  for  speaking,  you  do  but 
impose  upon  the  world  the  labours  of  retirement 
for  the  prompt  effusions  of  eloquence  ;  and  you 
publish  harangues,  which  you  had  neither  the  in- 
vention to  conceive,  nor  the  courage  to  deliver  in 
the  faee  of  any  public  assembly,  or  in  the  midst 
of  any  real  affairs.1'  He  accused  Cicero  of  having 
forced  Catiline  into  rebellion,  and  of  having  put 
to  death,  without  any  trial,  Cornelius  Lentulus, 
and  other  Roman  citizens  of  rank:  of  having 
lighted  the  fire  of  dissension  among  the  leaders  of 
the  present  unhappy  divisions  that  continued  to 
tear  the  republic,  and  of  having  blown  up  the 
flames  which  still  continued  to  consume  the  state  ; 
of  having  meanly  abandoned  the  cause  of  Pom- 
pey  upon  his  defeat  at  Pharsatia,  and  of  having 
instigated  assassins  to  take  away  the  life  of  Cresar, 
even  after  he  himself  had  implored  his  mercy, 
and  accepted  of  his  protection.  He  reproached 
him  with  a  fresh  instance  of  ingratitude,  in  this 
attempt  to  turn  the  arms  of  the  republic  against 
the  late  consul,  to  whose  clemency  he  himself  was 
indebted  for  his  life.  Having  mixed  this  invec- 
tive with  the  defence,  and  even  with  the  praises 
of  Antony,  he  concluded  with  calling  upon  the 
senate  to  consider  how  absurd  it  would  be  to  de- 
clare war  upon  a  magistrate,  who  acted  by  com- 
mission from  the  Roman  people,  at  the  head  of 
an  armv,  of  which  they  had  given  him  the  com- 
mand, and  in  the  very  province  which  they  had 
committed  to  his  government ;  and  this  merely  in 
support  of  a  young'man  who  had  presumed,  with- 
out any  public  authority,  to  levy  war  against  a 
Roman  officer  of  the  highest  rank,  and  in  favour 
of  a  rebel  who  had  presumed  forcibly  to  retain  a 
province,  which  the  Roman  people  had  ordered 
nim  to  surrender.    "  Such  men,"  he  said,  "  were 


1  Oicer.  Philip,  v.       2  Appian  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 


indeed  the  enemies  of  the  republic;  hut  he  did 
not  move  for  any  formal  declaration  against  them. 
The  times,"  he  observed,  "  will  not  suffer  us  to  do 
all  that  ought  to  be  done."  He  moved  only  that 
messengers  should  be  instantly  despatched  to  all 
the  parties  at  war  in  this  unfortunate  contest; 
that  all  of  them  should  be  required  to  lay  down 
their  arms,  and  to  submit  to  the  decisions  of  the 
senate  ;  that  if  any  one  of  them  should  disobey,  it 
would  then  be  full  time  to  declare  him  a  public  ene- 
my, and  to  give  to  the  consuls  the  usual  and  regular 
powers  to  guard  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth, 
and  to  reduce  disorderly  subjects  to  their  duty.3 

Such  are  the  abuses  of  an  admired  art,  as  vile 
and  odious  in  its  falsehoods,  as  in  the  genuine 
effusions  of  truth  it  is  noble  and  respectable ;  and 
this  speech,  compared  with  some  of  the  former, 
which  were  delivered  relating  to  the  same  per- 
sons, may  serve  to  exhibit  the  variety  of  colours 
with  which  the  same  subjects  and  characters  mav 
be  covered  in  debate,  and  by  which  public  assem- 
blies may  be  perplexed  in  their  councils.  The 
majority  of  the  senate  were  aware  however  of  An- 
tony's designs,  and  knew  the  danger  of  suffering 
him  to  get  a  military  establishment,  and  the  pos- 
session of  a  formidable  army  within  the  Alps; 
and  they  would  probably  have  come  to  a  severe 
resolution,  if  one  of  the  tribunes  had  not  inter- 
posed for  that  day,  and  forbid  their  proceeding 
any  farther  on  the  subject. 

The  senate  was  again  adjourned  until  the  next 
morning,  and  in  the  mean  time  the  relations  and 
family  of  Antony,  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  chil- 
dren, and  intimate  friends  went  into  mourning, 
passed  the  night  in  visiting  the  principal  mem- 
bers, or  in  waiting  for  the  people,  as  they  passed 
in  the  streets,  to  implore  their  protection.  When 
the  senate  was  about  to  assemble,  this  company 
of  suppliants  took  their  station  on  the  steps  of  tho 
temple,  and  embraced  the  knees  of  the  members 
as  they  passed. 

This  solemn  council,  when  met,  on  coming  to 
the  question,  took,  as  is  common  on  such  occa- 
sions, a  middle  course  between  the  extremes  which 
were  pointed  out  to  them.  They  so  far  treated 
Antony  as  a  friend,  as  to  order  a  deputation  of 
their  own  members  to  attend  him  in  his  camp ; 
but  the  message  which  they  sent  by  this  deputa- 
tion, sounded  more  like  a  declaration  of  war,  than 
an  overture  of  reconciliation  or  of  a  peace.4  They 
commanded  him5  not  to  disturb  in  his  government 
Dccimus  Brutus,  whom  they  qualified  with  the 
appellation  of  consul-elect ;  not  to  lay  siege  to 
Mutina ;  not  to  lay  waste  the  province ;  not  to 
make  any  levies  of  forces,  or  to  presume  to  con- 
tinue in  arms  against  the  authority  of  the  senate. 

L.  Piso,  Phihppus,  and  Servius  Sulpicius,  be- 
ing deputed  to  carry  these  orders,  had  farther  in 
charge  to  signify  to  Decimus  Brutus,  and  to  the 
troops  under  his  command,  the  entire  approbation 
of  the  senate,  and  the  high  esteem  and  honour6  in 
which  they  were  held  on  account  of  their  conduct. 
The  senate  at  the  same  time  entered,  on  their 
own  records,  the  honorary  decrees  which  had 
been  passed  in  favour  of  Decimus  Brutus,  Octa- 
vius,  Egnatuleius,  and  the  army,  in  terms  that 
had  been  proposed  by  Cicero ;  and  resolved,  that 

3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlv.  c.  18.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  28. 

4  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xii.  ep.  24. 

5  Decimus  Brutus  was  already  destined  to  succeed 
in  the  consulate  of  the  following  year 

6  Cic°r.  Philip  vi. 


Chap.  III. J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


the  gratuities  already  paid  by  Octavius  to  the 
veterans,  and  to  the  legions  who  had  lately  come 
over  from  Antony,  should  be  refunded  from  the 
treasury;  that  lands  should  be  allotted,  and  a 
continual  exemption  be  given  to  them  from  all 
military  service  after  the  present  war. 

When  the  deputies  were  gone  with  the  mes- 
sage which  they  had  received  from  the  senate,  the 
party  of  Antony  at  Rome  endeavoured  to  alarm 
the  people,  and  to  load  his  enemies  with  all  the 
consequences  that  were  likely  to  follow  from  the 
late  resolutions.  They  extolled  the  happy  effects 
of  moderation  and  peace,  observed  that  Antony 
was  a  person  of  a  daring  and  impetuous  spirit, 
and  ought  not  to  have  been  incensed ;  that  his 
party  was  strong ;  and  in  case  of  a  rupture,  would 
be  joined  by  numbers  of  profligate  men,  for 
whom  no  attempt  was  too  arduous,  and  against 
whom  the  friends  of  the  republic  could  not  be  too 
much  on  their  guard.7 

While  men  were  amused  with  such  discourses 
at  Rome,  Servius  Sulpicius,  one  of  the  three  de- 
puties on  whom  the  senate  chiefly  relied  for  the 
effect  of  their  commission,  died  on  the  journey. 
The  other  two  were  kindly  received  by  Antony, 
and  admitted  without  any  jealousy  or  distrust  to 
visit  the  approaches  he  Lad  made,  and  the  works 
he  had  erected,  against  the  town  of  Mutina. 

While  the  siege  was  continued  without  inter- 
ruption, the  commissioners  were  received  with 
affected  submission  to  the  orders  of  the  senate ; 
were  told  that  Antony  would  evacuate  the  pro- 
vince, disband  his  army,  and  return  to  a  private 
station  ;  that  he  would  forget  the  past,  and  agree 
to  a  sincere  reconciliation,  provided  that  the  le- 
gions then  under  his  command,  that  his  cavalry 
and  his  guards  were  properly  rewarded  and  ac- 
commodated with  grants  of  land,  and  put  upon  the 
same  footing  in  all  these  respects  with  the  troops 
of  Octavius ;  provided  that  the  arrangement  of 
the  provinces,  which  had  been  made  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Dolabella,  should  be  confirmed;  that 
the  acts  taken  from  the  will  and  memoirs  of  his 
late  colleague  should  be  ratified ;  that  no  account 
should  be  required  of  the  money  which  he  had 
taken  from  the  temple  of  Ops;  that  the  septem- 
viri,  or  commissioners  of  the  treasury,  should  not 
suffer  for  what  they  had  done  in  delivering  it  into 
his  hands :  that  a  general  indemnity  should  pass 
in  favour  of  all  his  adherents;  that  his  act  relat- 
ing to  judicatures  should  not  be  repealed ;  that 
upon  these  conditions  he  would  evacuate  the 
Gallia  Togata,8  but  retain  the  Comata,9  with  six 
legions,  to  be  completed  with  draughts  from  the 
troops  now  under  Decimus  Brutus ;  that  he 
should  have  this  force  as  long  as  Marcus  Brutus 
and  Caius  Cassius  should  remain  under  arms  ; 
and  that,  at  any  rate,  he  should  retain  his  division 
of  the  province  for  five  years. 

In  this  plan  of  accommodation,  Antony  en- 
deavoured to  frustrate  the  principal  articles,  by 
means  of  the  conditions  which  he  took  care  to 
subjoin  ;  and,  in  order  entirely  to  defeat  the  pur- 
pose of  his  antagonists,  he  sent  to  Rome,  in  the 
company  of  the  deputies  of  the  senate,  his  qunes- 
tor,  of  the  name  of  Cotyla,  with  orders  to  solicit 
his  interest,  and  to  intrigue  with  the  senators  and 
principal  citizens.10  Complaining  of  the  ascent  1- 
ant  his  enemies  had  gained  in  the  senate,  "  With 


7  Cicer.  Philip,  vii.  8  Within  the  Alps. 

0  Beyond  the  Alps.  10  Cicero.  Philip,  viii. 


j  what  countenance,"  he  said,  "  can  they  arraign 
the  administration  of  Caesar,  while  they  stfbmit 
to  that  of  Cicero  ?  If  they  allege  that  Caesar  was 
an  usurper,  what  is  this  Cicero,  who  pretends  to 
dictate  to  the  Roman  senate,  and  to  suspend  the 
orders  of  the  Roman  people?  Let  him  know 
that  I  claim  the  province  of  Gau'l,  in  consequence 
of  an  appointment  from  the  higbest  authority  in 
the  state,  and  he  may  be  assured  that  I  shall  treat 
Decimus  Brutus  as  a  rebel,  if  he  persist  in  with- 
holding it  from  me.  The  life  of  this  traitor  shall 
atone  for  that  noble  blood  which  he  shed  in  the 
senate-house,  and  shall  expiate  that  guilt  in  which 
Cicero  is  fast  involving  the  senate  iiself."11 

Antony,  in  this  commission  to  his  quaestor, 
and  in  his  public  declarations,  joined  with  the  in- 
solence of  the  matter,  affected  expressions  of  sub- 
mission to  the  senate ;  and  made  a  variety  of 
proposals,  either  to  gain  time,  or  to  curry  favour 
with  the  army,  whose  interest  he  pretended  tc 
have  greatly  at  heart.  The  deputies,  who  had 
been  employed  on  this  unsuccessful  business,  in- 
curred much  public  censure.  It  was  unworthy 
of  L.  Piso  and  of  L.  Philippus,  it  was  said,  to 
hold  any  intercourse  with  a  rebel,  who  refused  to 
comply  with  the  orders  that  were  sent  to  him.12 
Under  this  sense  of  the  matter,  at  a  meeting  of 
the  senate,  it  was  moved,  that  war  should  be  de- 
clared against  Antony,  and  that  every  senator 
should  assume  the  military  habit.  This  motion 
was  agreed  to  even  by  Lucius  Cesar,  uncle  to 
Antony;  a  decree  was  framed  upon  it,  and  pass- 
ed without  opposition,  by  which  the  army  under 
his  command  were  required,  by  a  certain  day,  to 
lay  down  their  arms.^ 

Upon  this  resolution,  obtained  by  those  who 
strove  for  the  preservation  of  the  commonwealth, 
great  rejoicings  were  made  over  all  Italy,  and  it 
did  not  then  appear  from  whence  any  real  dan- 
ger could  arise  to  the  authority  of  laws,  which 
were  so  properly  supported.  The  consuls,  it  was 
observed,  acted  with  great  \  igour ;  the  senate, 
the  middling  class,  and  the  citizens  in  general,  ex- 
pressed great  zeal.14  The  |>conIe  crowded  to  have 
their  names  enrolled  in  the  levies  that  were  or- 
dered.15 The  reputation  which  Cicero  gained  in 
bringing  public  affairs  into  this  situation,  set  him 
at  the  head  of  the  commonwealth ;  but  while  it 
placed  the  whole  administration  of  the  state  in  his 
hands,  it  made  him  an  object  of  great  animosity 
to  the  opposite  party,  and  of  some  envy  to  many 
persons  of  principal  consideration  in  his  own.  It 
was  under  the  impression  of  these  circumstances, 
he  complained  that  senators  of  the  first  rank  w  ere 
lukewarm,  were  timid,  or  ill  affected  to  the  cause 
of  the  republic's 

The  conduct  of  the  war  was  committed  to  the 
consuls,  and,  jointly  with  them,  to  Octavius,  in 
the  capacity  of  proprietor.  Orders  were  likewise 
despatched  to  Lepidus  and  to  Plancus,  to  co- 
operate with  these  ollicers.  The  first  was  yet  on 
his  march  into  Spain,  through  the  province  of 
Narbonne  ;  the  other  was  posted  on  the  Rhone.17 
The  treasury  being  so  much  exhausted  by  the 
late  embezzlements,  that  there  was  not  money 
sufficient  for  the  immediate  service,  it  was  agreed 


11  Appian.de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  i  i. 

12  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lilt.  xii.  ep.  4. 

13  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c  J:t,  :i0.    Cicer.  Philip,  viii. 

14  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lib.  xii.  ep.  4. 

15  Ibid.  lib.  xi  ep.  8.  16  Ibid. 
17  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  3& 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


that  all  citizens  should  pay  the  five  and  twentieth 
part  of  all  their  effects  ;  that  the  senators  should 

Eay,  over  and  above,  a  certain-  rate  for  all  the 
ouses  or  tenements  they  either  possessed  or  let 
to  tenants,  and  that  in  a'td  of  these  supplies,  re- 
quisitions of  money  and  of  arms  should  be  made 
through  all  the  towns  of  Italy. 

In  the  mean  time,  Octavius,  without  waiting 
for  the  authority  with  which  the  senate  had  lately 
invested  him,  had  followed  Antony  across  the 
Apennines,  and  took  post  with  his  army  at  the 
Forum  Cornelii,1  on  the  road  from  Ariminum 2 
to  Mutina.3  The  messages  which  passed  be- 
tween the  senate  and  Antony,  as  well  as  the  de- 
lays which  the  consuls,  under  the  pretence  of 
winter,  made  in  advancing  with  their  forces,  gave 
him  some  degree  of  uneasiness.  Pansa  was  em- 
ployed at  Rome  in  conducting  the  new  levies. 
Hirtius,  though  destined  to  take  the  field,  and  to 
join  Octavius,  was  still  detained  by  indisposition.4 
Antony  continued  the  siege  of  Mutina  without 
interruption. 

Octavius,  after  having  sent  many  pressing 
messages  to  hasten  the  march  of  the  consul,  was 
at  last  joined  by  him  at  the  Forum  Cornelii,  and 
fhey  advanced  together ;  forced  the  posts  which 
Antony  had  established  at  Claterna  and  Bono- 
nia,  and  encamped  at  the  latter  of  these  places.5 
Here  they  were  still  separated  by  the  Rhenus 
and  Lavinius  from  the  army  of  Antony,  which 
covered  the  siege  of  Mutina,  and  were  precluded 
from  any  communication  with  the  town.  They 
endeavoured,  however,  to  give  notice  of  their  ap- 
proach to  the  besieged ;  and  for  this  purpose,  the 
country  being  fiat,  they  hoisted  lights  on  the 
highest  trees ;  but  not  relying  entirely  on  these 
signals,  they  employed  a  dexterous  swimmer, 
who  undertook  to  pass  into  the  town  by  the 
channel  of  the  river,  and  to  carry  the  intelligence 
of  their  arrival  engraved  on  a  plate  of  metal. 

Upon  this  information,  Brutus  was  confirmed 
in  his  resolution  of  defending  the  place  to  the  last 
extremity,  and  prevailed  on  the  garrison,  under 
the  hopes  of  a  speedy  relief,  to  persevere  in  the 
toils  and  dangers  of  their  present  service.6 

The  senate,  notwithstanding  that  they  consi- 
dered the  preservation  of  the  republic  as  the  com- 
mon cause  of  all  those  who  could  hope  to  partake 
in  its  honours,  and  believed  that  the  present  con- 
suls, Hirtius  and  Pansa,  were  sincerely  embarked 
in  its  cause;  and  notwithstanding  the  confidence 
they  placed  in  Octavius  as  opposed  to  Antony, 
they  still  relied  chiefly  on  those  who  had  taken 
an  active  part  against  the  late  usurpation  of 
Caesar,  and  looked  to  Brutus  and  Cassius  for  a 
principal  support  against  the  remains  of  that  mili- 
tary faction.  On  this  account,  they  had  annulled 
the  proceedings  of  Antony  relating  to  the  distri- 
bution of  the  eastern  provinces,  reinstated  Marcus 
Brutus  in  the  government  of  Macedonia,  and 
Cassius  in  that  of  Syria ;  and,  by  these  ap- 
pointments, placed  the  whole  resources  of  the 
commonwealth,  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  ut- 
most boundary  of  the  empire,  under  their  au- 
thority.? 

Marcus  Brutus  and  Cassius  had  left  Italy  in 


1  Imola.         2  Rimini.        3  Now  Modena. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  35,  36. 

5  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xii.  ep.  5. 

6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  35,  36. 

7  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 


the  preceding  Autumn.  Brutus  had  passed 
through  Lucania.  Thither  Porcia  accompanied 
him,  with  the  melancholy  prospect  of  parting, 
perhaps  for  ever.  While  she  endeavoured  to 
conceal  her  grief,  she  was  betrayed  into  tears  by 
the  sight  of  a  picture,  which  represented  the 
parting  of  Hector  and  Andromache.  One  of  the 
company,  without  observing  the  distress  which 
Porcia  seemed  to  feel,  repeated  from  Homer  the 
lines  from  which  this  picture  was  taken.  My 
father,  my  brother,  and  my  husband  are,  Hec- 
tor, all  in  thee.6  "But  I  cannot  reply,"  said 
Brutus,  "  in  the  words  of  Hector,,  go  to  thy  maids, 
and  mind  thy  loom ;  for  although  Porcia  is  defi- 
cient in  strength  of  body,  in  her  mind  she  is 
formed  to  great  affairs."  9 

Brutus,  having  embarked  at  Elea,  sailed  into 
Greece,  where  he  was  received  with  every  mark 
of  respect,  Here  he  seemed  to  devote  himself 
entirely  to  study ;  but  had  his  agents  employed 
to  provide  what  was  necessary  against  the  storm,, 
which  he  had  reason  to  expect.  He  sent  Heros- 
tratus  into  Macedonia  to  sound  the  disposition  of 
the  troops  in  that  province,  and  drew  about  him- 
self all  the  young  Romans  who  were  then  at 
Athens,  attending  the  different  schools  which 
still  supported  the  reputation  of  that  place. 

While  Brutus  remained  in  Greece,  a  body  of 
troops,  under  the  command  of  an  officer,  named 
Apuleius,10  with  a  sum  of  money  amounting  to 
sixteen  thousand  talents,  collected  from  the  reve- 
nue of  Asia,  were  delivered  up  to  him.  The 
troops  who  had  served  lately  under  Vatinius  in 
lllyricum,  being  then  at  Dyrrachium,  deserted 
from  their  commander  to  join  him."  Those  un- 
der Caius  Antonius,  at  Apollonia,  followed  this 
example.  Part  of  Dolabella's  forces,  who  were 
marching  under  Cinna  into  Asia,  likewise  left 
their  party  to  join  that  of  the  republic.12  As 
Brutus  was  considered  in  Macedonia  and  Thes- 
saly  as  reviving  the  party  of  Pompey,  many  who 
had  served  under  that  leader,  and  were  yet  dis- 
persed in  those  parts,  flocked  to  his  standard,  so 
that  the  new  levies  he  had  ordered,  were  soon 
completed  to  the  amount  of  four  legions  and  five 
hundred  horse.  A  great  convoy,  with  spare  arms, 
which  Caesar  had  provided  for  the  Parthian  wai\ 
and  which,  by  the  order  of  Antony,  were  then  to 
be  again  returned  into  Italy,  were  intercepted  by 
him  at  Demetrias.  Upon  the  order  of  the  senate 
to  put  him  in  possession  of  Macedonia,  the  greater 
part  of  the  province,  then  under  the  command  of 
Hortensius,  acknowledged  his  authority.  At  his 
departure  from  Athens,  many  of  the  young  Ro- 
man nobility  made  a  part  of  his  retinue,  and 
among  these,  the  son  of  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero, 
who,  though  with  a  genius  for  letters  inferior  to 
that  of  his  father^  became  nevertheless  distin- 
guished as  a  soldier  in  the  course  of  the  war.13 

Cassius,  at  the  same  time,  had  gone  with  the 
utmost  despatch  into  Syria,  to  prevent  Dolabella, 
who  was  sent  by  the  opposite  party  to  take  pos- 
session of  that  province.  He  had  received  some 
supplies  of  men  and  of  money  from  Trebonius, 
then  commanding  at  Smyrna,  and  prevailed  with 


8  E/CTOp,  XTXg  ITU  /(i<0  (0"O-i  TTSJTHf  St  56  i   TTOTVtOt,  [i-nTYif^ 

'Hfc  xao-.yt'uros,   Iliad,  lib.  vi.  v.  439. 

9  For  these  particulars,  Plutarch  quotes  young  Bi- 
bulus,  the  son  of  Porcia  by  a  former  husband,  who  was 
present.    Plutarch,  in  Bruto. 

10  Cicer.  Philip,  xiii.  11  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.c.  27. 
12  Plutarch,  in  Bruto.  13  Ibid. 


Chap.  111.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


315 


part  of  the  cavalry  of  Dolabella,  on  their  march 
through  the  province  of  Asia,  to  abandon  their 
leader.  With  these  forces,  he  advanced  into  Ci- 
licia,  reduced  the  city  of  Tarsus,  and  continued 
his  march,  with  a  respectable  appearance,  into  his 
intended  province. 

At  the  arrival  of  Cassius,  the  forces  of  Syria 
were  divided,  and  the  opposite  parties  had  actu- 
ally committed  hostilities  against  each  other.  The 
troops  which  had  been  stationed  there  by  Julius 
Caesar,  had  even,  before  his  death,  mutinied,  and 
had  put  Sextus  Julius,  a  young  man  who  com- 
manded them,  to  death.  They  submitted  them- 
selves to  the  command  of  Ceecilius  Bassus,  one 
of  Pompey's  officers,  who,  having  escaped  from 
Pharsalia,  then  lay  at  Tyre,  and  in  this  change 
of  their  leader,  declared  for  the  party  of  the  re- 
public. They  defeated  Statius  Murcus,  whom 
Caesar  had  ordered,  with  three  legions,  to  reduce 
them,  and  made  it  necessary  to  bring  against 
them  a  reinforcement  of  three  legions  more  from 
Bythinia,  under  Marcus  Crispus.  This  officer 
had  accordingly  brought  these  forces,  and  was 
actually  engaged  in  the  siege  of  Apamea,  to 
which  Bassus  had  retired  when  Cassius  arrived 
in  Syria. 

There  were  now  in  this  province,  engaged  on 
apposite  sides,  no  less  than  eight  legions.  Upon 
the  arrival  of  Cassius,  the  two  legions  under 
Bassus  declared  for  him  ;  and  soon  after  the  other 
six,  moved  by  the  authority  of  his  commission 
from  the  senate,  or  gained  by  his  personal  cha- 
racter and  address,  followed  this  example.  Four 
more  legions,  who,  intending  to  join  Dolabella, 
were  marching  from  Egypt  through  Palestine,*1 
were  intercepted,  and  forced  to  receive  his  orders 
as  governor  of  Syria.  His  army,  by  these  differ- 
ent accessions,  amounted  to  twelve  legions. 

Upon  the  first  suspicion  that  Brutus  and  Cas- 
sius intended  to  possess  themselves  of  these  im- 
portant provinces,  Dolabella,  to  whom,  by  the 
influence  of  Antony,  the  command  in  Syria  had 
been  assigned,  set  out  from  Rome,  and  with  all 
possible  diligence  joined  some  troops  that  were 
placed  to  receive  him  on  the  side  of  Macedonia, 
passed  the  Hellespont,  and  continued  his  route 
to  the  east.  In  passing  through  the  province  of 
Asia,  he  had  an  interview  at  Smyrna  with  Tre- 
bonius,  professed  a  friendship  for  him,  affected 
great  respect  for  his  associates  in  the  conspiracy 
against  Csesar,  and  a  zeal  for  the  restoration  ol 
the  commonwealth.  Alter  this  conference  with 
the  governor  of  the  province,  he  put  his  army  in 
motion  with  the  most  pacific  appearances  on  the 
route  to  Ephesus ;  and  having  by  these  means  put 
Treboniusofi'his  guard,  he  returned  in  the  night, 
surprised  the  city  of  Smyrna,  seized  on  the  per- 
son of  the  governor,  and,  with  many  insults,  put 
him  to  the  torture, l&  continuing  him  under  it  for 
some  days,  in  order  to  extort  a  discovery  of  the 
treasure  which  he  supposed  to  be  hid  in  some 
repository  of  the  province  ;  but  on  the  third  day, 
Dolabella  having  satiated  his  mind  with  these 
cruelties,  gave  orders  that  Trebonius  should  he 
strangled,  his  head  severed  from  the  body,  and 
exposed  on  the  point  of  a  spear,  while  the  limbs 
were  dragged  through  the  streets. 

This  murder,  being  committed  on  the  person 
of  a  Roman  officer,  within  the  very  province  in 
which  he  was  appointed  to  command,  raised  a 

14  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.  c.  26,  27  28.     15  Ibid.  c.  29.  I 
2  X 


general  indignation.  Dolabella  was  declared  a 
public  enemy  by  the  senate.  The  conduct  of  the 
war  against  him  was  committed  to  Caius  Cassius, 
who  was  now  at  the  head  of  the  armies  in  Syria, 
and  who,  together  with  Marcus  Brutus,  was  au- 
thorised by  formal  decrees  to  retain  all  the  forces 
they  had  assembled,  and  all  the  resources  of 
which  they  were  possessed,  and  to  employ  them 
according  to  their  own  judgment,  where  the  ser- 
vice of  the  republic  seemed~most  to  require  their 
exertions.'6 

Thus  the  flames  of  war,  which  were  already 
lighted  in  Italy,  began  to  extend,  and  were  soon 
communicated  to  every  part  of  the  empire.  The 
opposite  armies  before  Mutina  continued  during 
the  winter  to  observe  each  other,  and  in  their  at- 
tempts to  give  or  to  withhold  relief  from  the  be- 
sieged, had  frequent  skirmishes  and  partial 
engagements.  The  chief  direction  of  affairs  at 
Rome,  in  the  mean  time,  had  devolved  on  Cicero, 
who  incited  the  senate  and  the  people,  with  all 
the  powers  of  his  eloquence  against  Antony. 
The  soldiers  in  general,  with  their  officers,  were 
notwithstanding  inclined  to  favour  this  declared 
enemy  of  the  commonwealth.  Ventidius  in  par- 
ticular, who  professed  to  range  himself  under 
Octavius,  was  in  reality  warmly  attached  to  his 
rival ;  and,  in  order  to  serve  him,  formed  a  design 
to  surprise  Cicero,  and  the  other  heads  of  the  re- 
publican party.  For  this  purpose,  he  assembled 
a  body  of  veterans  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rome, 
and  advanced  towards  the  city ;  but  his  design 
being  suspected,  and  the  persons  against  whom  it 
was  directed  having  taken  the  alarm,  and  with- 
drawn to  places  of  safety,  he  turned  away  to  Pice- 
num,  and  there  waited  the  issue  of  the  campaign.17 

The  senate,  during  the  dependance  of  these 
operations,  as  in  full  possession  of  the  republic, 
devised  laws,  to  prevent  for  the  future  those 
abuses  which  had  given  rise  to  the  present  disor- 
ders. They  resolved,  that  no  extraordinary  com- 
mission of  any  kind  should  be  gi\en  to  any  sin- 
gle person,  or  any  provincial  appointment  pro- 
longed beyond  a  year.18  While  they  were  thus 
employed,  separate  addresses  were  presented  to 
them  from  Lepidus  and  from  Plancus,  warmly 
recommending  an  accommodation  with  Antony. '9 
Cicero  made  his  observations  on  this  conduct,  in 
a  letter  to  Plancus-of  the  thirteenth  of  the  kalends 
of  April,  or  twentieth  of  March  ;  but  he  delivers 
himself  to  Lepidus  on  the  same  subject  with  more 
warmth,  alluding  to  some  recent  honours  which 
had  been  received  by  this  officer,  and  for  which 
he  neglected  to  make  the  proper  acknowledg- 
ments. "Iam  glad,"  he  said,  "that  you  wish 
to  reconcile  your  fellow-citizens  to  each  other.  If 
you  could  procure  them  peace  without  slavery, 
you  would  perform  a  most  acceptable  service  to 
your  country,  and  acquire  much  honour  to  your- 
self; but  if,  under  the  title  of  peace,  we  are  again 
to  become  the  slaves  of  a  profligate  villain,  be  as- 
sured that  every  man  in  his  senses  will  prefer 
death.  In  mv  opinion,  therefore,  it  will  be  wise 
in  you  to  desist  from  a  proposal,  which  neither 
the  senate,  the  people,  nor  any  good  man  can 
approve."20 


16  Cicer.  Philip,  xi. 

17  [bid.  x i i .    Cicer.  art  Familiar,  lib.  x.  ep.  16. 

18  Uio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c  39. 

19  Cicer.  Philip,  xii. 
I     20  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  \  ep.  6  -27 


346 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


Notwithstanding  these  sentiments,  publicly 
declared  by  a  person,  then  supposed  to  be  at  the 
head  of  the  republic,  numbers  in  the  city  and  in 
the  senate  espoused  the  cause  of  Antony.  Piso, 
at  whose  house  the  wife  and  children  of  this  sup- 
posed public  enemy  were  entertained,  openly 
corresponded  with  him.  The  consul  Pansa  pro- 
posed a  fresh  deputation  to  him  with  overtures  of 
peace,  and  his  party  in  the  senate  insidiously  of- 
fered to  devolve  the  honour  of  this  deputation 
xipon  Cicero  himself,  who  rejected  the  offer,  with 
proper  animadversion  on  the  danger  to  winch  his 
life  must  be  exposed  in  the  camp  of  his  enemy, 
and  discussed  with  his  usual  eloquence  the 
weakness  of  the  council  itself,  as  well  as  the 
great  impropriety  of  his  being  employed  in  it. 

While  this  measure  was  in  agitation,  Hirtius 
and  Octavius  appear  to  have  sent  a  joint  message 
to  Antony,  informing  him  of  what  had  been  pro- 
posed in  the  senate,  and  desiring  a  cessation  of 
arms,  with  liberty  to  convey  some  supply  to  the 
garrison  of  Mutina,  until  the  event  of  the  senate's 
deliberations  should  be  known.  Antony  replied 
in  terms  calculated  to  insinuate  himself  into  the 
favour  of  the  late  Caesar's  party,  and  to  gain  the 
affection  of  the  army  ;  but  full  of  reproach  and 
contumely  against  those  who  pretended  to  es- 
pouse the  cause  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
against  the  authors  of  the  present  councils  at 
Rome.  These  had  recently  procured  a  decree 
of  the  senate,  full  of  indignation  against  the  mur- 
derers of  Trebonius,  and  had  furnished  Marcus 
Brutus  and  Caius  Cassius  with  a  commission 
and  warrant  to  execute  public  justice  against  Do- 
kbella  on  this  account.  In  reference  to  these 
circumstances,  "  I  know  not  (said  Antony,  in  his 
answer  to  Hirtius  and  Octavius)  whether  I 
should  receive  more  satisfaction  from  the  death 
of  that  villain  Trebonius,  than  I  feel  indignation 
at, the  unjust  sentence  passed  against  Dolabella. 
That  the  Roman  senate  should  value  the  life  of 
that  vile  fellow  Trebonius,  more  than  they  did 
that  of  Caesar  himself,  the  father  of  his  country, 
is  surely  provoking  enough;  but  what  must  I 
feel,  when  I  see  you  Hirtius,  whom  Caesar  has 
raised  and  adorned  so  much,  that  I  am  persuaded 
you  scarcely  know  yourself ;  and  when  I  see  you, 
young  man,  who  have  no  pretence  to  considera- 
tion besides  the  name  of  Caesar,  which  you  have 
boldly  assumed,  contributing  all  in  your  power  to 
blast  the  memory  of  Caesar,  and  when  1  see  you 
both  endeavouring  to  oppress  his  friends,  com- 
mitting yourselves,  with  all  the  powers  of  the 
commonwealth,  into  the  hands  of  Marcus  Brutus 
and  of  Caius  Cassius,  who  were  his  murderers ; 
and  when  I  see  you  joined  against  me  to  rescue 
from  justice  this  assassin,  Decimus  Brutus,  who 
had  so  aggravated  a  part  in  the  same  crime  1  But, 
the  camp  and  the  head  quarters  of  Pompey  it 
seems  are  to  be  formed  anew,  and  to  bear  the 
name  and  the  authority  of  a  Roman  senate,  and 
the  exile  Cicero  is  to  be  set  up  at  the  head  of  this 
reviving  party. 

"  You  are  employed  in  avenging  the  death  of 
Trebonius,  I  am  employed  in  avenging  that  of 
Caesar;  we,  who  were  once  the  friends  of  Caesar, 
are  like  a  troop  of  gladiators  to  part,  and  from 
opposite  sides  to  fight  and  to  cut  one  another's 
throats  under  the  direction  of  Cicero,  who  is  be- 
come master  of  the  show !  But  for  me,  I  have 
taken  my  resolution,  and  will  neither  suffer  the 
veterans  to  be  stripped  of  their  just  rewards,  nor 


the  wrongs  which  are  intended  to  myself  and  to 
my  friends,  to  be  carried  into  execution.  If  hi 
this  I  am  supported,  and  succeed,  life  will  bo 
sweet ;  if  I  fall,  the  thought  of  what  you  are  to 
suffer,  from  the  very  party  you  are  now  endea- 
vouring to  raise  up  against  me,  will  even  then  bo 
some  consolation.  If  the  faction  of  Pompey  be 
so  insolent  in  its  ruin,  I  choose  that  you  rather 
than  I,  should  experience  the  effect  of  its  recove- 
ry, and  of  its  return  to  power." 

Antony,  in  all  his  discourses,  affected  to  be  in 
good  understanding  with  Lepidus  and  with 
Plancus,  who,  he  insinuated,  were  in  concert 
with  himself,  and  embarked  in  the  same  cause* 
But  whatever  secret  correspondence  these  officers 
may  have  held  together,  they  andPollio  likewise 
professed  the  highest  duty  to  the  senate,  and  af- 
fection to  the  commonwealth.  Plancus  having, 
for  some  time  after  the  commencement  of  the 
war,  declined  any  open  declaration,  now  informed 
the  senate  in  a  public  address,  That  he  had  hi- 
therto been  taking  measures  to  render  the  decla- 
ration he  should  make  of  real  moment  to  the 
republic  ;  that  he  had  remained  silent  so  long,  not 
from  any  hesitation  in  the  choice  of  his  party,  but 
from  a  desire  more  effectually  to  serve  that  party 
which  he  had  long  since  embraced ;  that  before 
he  declared  himself,  he  had  secured  the  co-  opera- 
tion of  his  officers,  the  affections  of  his  army,  and 
of  the  whole  province  in  which  he  was  stationed ; 
that  he  was  now  at  the  head  of  five  complete  le- 
gions well  affected  to  the  republic,  and,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  liberalities,  attached  to  himself; 
that  the  whole  province  was  unanimous  in  the 
same  cause ;  that  the  people,  with  a  zeal  which  a 
concern  for  their  own  freedom  or  safety  could  not 
surpass,  had  taken  arms  in  support  of  the  Ro- 
man republic ;  that  he  was  ready  to  obey  the  or- 
ders of  the  senate,  either  to  retain  his  command,, 
or  to  resign  it  to  any  person  they  should  appoint 
to  receive  it  from  him ;  that  he  would  remain  ia 
his  post,  or  advance  upon  the  enemy  ;  and  by 
the  last  of  these  measures,  if  it  should  be  thought 
expedient,  draw  upon  himself  the  whole  weight 
of  the  war ;  that  provided  he  could,  by  any  means, 
re-establish  the  commonwealth,  or  defer  its  ruin, 
the  manner  of  doing  it  was  indifferent  to  him.. 
Others,  he  said,  had  declared  themselves  for  the 
senate,  while  that  body,  being  greatly  alarmed, 
was  lavish  of  its  commendations  and  of  its  re- 
wards ;  but  that  if  he  had  missed  the  time  in 
which  his  services  were  likely  to  have  been  most 
highly  valued,  he  had  chosen  the  occasion  which, 
promised  from  them  the  greatest  benefit  to  the 
commonwealth,  a  consideration  which  should  be 
to  him  a  sufficient  reward  for  the  highest  service 
he  could  perform.2 

Pollio,  at  the  same  time,  wrote  to  Cicero,  ex- 
pressing a  violent  detestation  of  Antony's  party, 
and  of  the  designs  of  their  leader.  To  be  con- 
nected with  such  a  person  in  any  cause,  he  said, 
would  be  grievous ;  even  to  have  acted  under  Ca)- 
sar,  being  contrary  to  his  disposition  and  to  his 
principles,  was,  notwithstanding  the  circum- 
stances which  obliged  him  to  it,  now  become  suf- 
ficient matter  of  regret.  The  experience  of  his 
condition  under  that  usurper  had  made  him  more 
sensible  of  the  value  of  freedom,  and  of  the  misery 
of  dependence  and  servitude.    "  If  any  one  for 


1  Cicer.  Philip,  xiii.      2  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lib.  x.  c.8. 


OHAP.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


3-n 


the  future,"  he  continued,  "shall  pretend  to 
usurp  such  powers,  he  shall  find  in  me  an  open 
and  declared  enemy.  There  is  no  danger  to 
which  I  will  not  expose  myself  in  the  cause  of 
freedom."3 

While  the  party  of  the  senate  appeared  to  gain 
such  accessions  of  strength  by  the  declaration  of 
so  many  military  officers  in  the  different  pro- 
vinces, Decimus  Brutus  was  reduced  to  great 
straits  at  Mutina;  and  waited,  under  many  cir- 
cumstances of  distress,  for  the  opening  of  a  cam- 
paign, in  which  he  expected  that  his  own  fate, 
and  that  of  the  republic,  might  soon  be  deter- 
mined. On  the  approach  of  the  proper  season, 
the  consul  Pansa,  with  the  levies  he  had  made, 
amounting  to  four  legions,  marched  towards  Gaul, 
and  being  arrived  at  Bononia  on  the  fourteenth 
of  April,°was  next  day  to  have  joined  his  col- 
league, who  had  taken  post  with  Octavius,  to  ob- 
serve and  to  impede  the  progress  of  the  siege. 
To  facilitate  their  junction,  Hirtius  had  detached 
the  legion  which  was  called  the  Martia,  with  two 
praetorian  bands,  to  occupy  the  passes,  and  to 
strengthen  the  van  of  Pansa' s  army,  in  case  they 
should  be  disturbed  on  their  march.  Antony,  at 
the  same  time,  having  intelligence  of  their  route, 
marched  in  the  night  with  two  chosen  legions, 
the  second  and  third,  two  praetorian  cohorts, 
being  veteran  and  experienced  troops,  with  a  nu- 
merous body  of  irregulars  and  horse.  He  took 
post  at  a  village,  which  was  called  the  Forum  Gal- 
iorum,  and  posting  the  horse  and  irregulars  in 
open  view  in  the  field,  at  some  distance  from  the 
village,  he  placed  the  legions  and  irregular  infan- 
try in  ambuscade  under  the  cover  of  the  houses. 

When  Pansa's  army,  led  by  the  detachment 
which  Hirtius  had  sent  to  receive  them,  came 
in  sight  of  Antony's  horse  and  irregulars,  they 
could  not  be  restrained  until  the  posture  and 
strength  of  the  enemy  were  examined.  They 
broke" from  their  ranks,  and  without  waiting  till 
the  village  should  be  visited,  they  rushed  through 
a  defile  in  a  wood  or  morass  to  intercept  the  ene- 
my, who,  appearing  to  consist  of  horse  and  light 
infantry  alone,  could,  as  they  apprehended,  have 
no  hopes  of  safety  but  by  endeavouring  to  escape, 
which  it  was  necessary  by  an  immediate  attack 
to  prevent.  As  the  foremost  of  Pansa's  army 
were  passing  in  the  most  disorderly  manner  from 
this  defile,  in  pursuit  of  their  supposed  prey,  An- 
tony, with  the  legions,  placed  himself  in  their 
way,  and  forced  them  to  fly  with  great  slaughter. 
Pansa  himself  was  dangerously  wounded,  and 
his  army  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  the  camp  from 
which  they  had  marched  in  the  morning.  Here 
too  Antony  attempted  to  force  them,  but  was  re- 
pulsed ;  and  fearing  that  his  own  retreat  might 
be  cut  off,  took  his  resolution  to  retire,  and  en- 
deavoured, without  loss  of  time,  to  rejoin  the 
main  body  of  his  army  which  lay  before  Mutina. 

Antony  was  soon  justified  in  his  apprehensions 
of  the  danger  to  which  the  farther  pursuit  of  his 
victory  over  Pansa  might  have  exposed  him  ;  for 
Hirtius,  having  intelligence  of  the  movement  he 
had  made  in  the  night,  though  too  late  to  prevent 
its  effects,  had  left  his  camp  with  twenty  cohorts 
of  veterans,  arrived  at  the  Forum  Gallorum,  and 
was  in  possession  of  the  very  ground  on  which 
Pansa  had  been  defeated,  when  Antony,  return- 
ing from  the  pursuit  of  his  victory,  fell,  in  his 


3  Cicer.  a  I  Famil.  lib  x.  c.  31. 


turn,  into  the  same  snare  which  he  himself,  a 
few  hours  before,  had  so  successfully  laid  for  ins 
enemy,  was  accordingly  surprised  and  defeated 
with  great  slaughter,  and  with  the  loss  of  the 
eagles  or  standards  of  both  the  legions,  and  of 
sixty  ensigns  of  the  cohorts.  After  this  disaster, 
he  himself,  having  fled  with  the  cavalry,  arrived 
about  ten  at  night  in  his  camp  about  Mutina,4 
from  thence  sent  detachments  abroad  to  collect 
the  remains  of  Ms  scattered  party,  or  to  facilitate 
their  retreat.5 

Pansa  having  "been  carried  to  Bononia  on  ac- 
count of  the  wounds  he  had  received,  Hirtius 
took  the  command  of  his  division  of  the  army, 
and  effected  its  junction  with  his  own,  and  with 
that  of  Octavius. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  Antony  being  consider- 
ably weakened  by  his  loss  in  the  late  action,  and 
the  enemy  greatly  reinforced  by  their  junction, 
he  determined  to  keep  within  his  lines,  to  con- 
tinue the  blockade  of  Mutina,  and  to  await  the 
effect  of  the  distress  into  which  he  had  already- 
red  uced  the  besieged.  The  danger  to  which  De- 
cimus Brutus,  with  the  garrison,  were  exposed, 
at  the  same  time  hastened  the  endeavours  of  Hir- 
tius and  Octavius  to  force  the  besiegers  to  battle. 
For  this  purpose,  or  in  order  to  relieve  the  town, 
they  made  a  feint  to  throw  in  succours  on  a  side 
which  the  besiegers  had  deemed  inaccessible,  and 
which,  on  this  account,  they  had  but  slightly 
guarded.  Antony,  alarmed  by  this  attempt  to 
render  abortive  all  the  labours  he  had  sustained 
in  the  preceding  blockade,  drew  forth  his  army 
to  oppose  them,  and  by  this  movement  exposed 
himself  to  the  hazard  of  a  geneial  engagement. 
While  he  was  making  his  disposition  to  receive 
the  enemy  in  the  field,  his  lines  were  attacked  by 
a  sally  from  the  town,  and  it  became  necessary  to 
divide  his  forces.  He  himself,  with  that  part 
of  his  army  which  remained  with  him  to  make 
head  against  Hirtius  and  Octavius,  was  defeat- 
ed, fled  to  his  camp,  and,  being  pursued  thither, 
continued  to  give  way,  until  the  action  ended  by 
the  death  of  the  consul  Hirtius,  who,  after  he 
had  forced  the  intrenchments  of  the  enemy,  was 
killed,  and  fell  near  to  the  prsrtorium  or  head- 
quarters of  their  general. 

Upon  this  event,  Octavius,  not  having  the 
qualities  of  a  soldier  which  were  necessary  to 
replace  the  consul,  suffered  the  victorious  army, 
thus  checked  by  the  loss  of  their  commander,  to 
be  driven  back  from  the  ground  they  had  gained, 
and  left  Antony  again  in  possession  of  his  works. 

The  vanquished  party,  however,  feeling  all  the 
effects  of  a  defeat,  and  not  being  in  condition  to 
continue  the  siege,  resolved  to  decamp  in  the 
night;  and  they  executed  this  resolution  unob- 
served and  unmolested  by  their  enemies,  either 
from  the  town  of  Mutina  or  the  camp.  Octavius 
had  a  courage  and  ability  more  fit  for  the  council 
than  for  the  field;  and  Decimus  Brutus,  though 
at  break  of  day  he  observed  that  the  lines  of  the 
besiegers  seemed  to  be  evacuated,  yet,  as  he  had 
no  intelligence  from  the  camp,  remained  all  that 
day  in  suspense.  Even  after  he  had  received 
information  of  what  had  passed,  of  the  various 
events  of  the  action,  and  of  the  consul's  death, 
and  found,  that  he  was  from  thenceforward  to 
depend  on  Octavius  for  support  and  co  operation 


4  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib  r.  cp  30. 

5  Appiim.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib  iii 


345 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


in  the  war,  being  greatly  alarmed  by  the  neglect 
which  this  young  man  had  shown  in  not  joining 
him  the  moment  the  communication  between 
them  was  open;  and  not  being  in  condition  to 
act  alone,  having  neither  cavalry  nor  baggage- 
horses,  and  the  troops  being  greatly  reduced  by 
the  hardships  they  had  suffered,  he  was  obliged 
to  remain  inactive  while  the  enemy  continued 
their  retreat  undisturbed.1 

On  the  second  day  after  the  battle,  Decimus 
Brutus,  being  sent  for  by  Pansa  to  Bononia  to 
concert  the  future  operations  of  the  war,  he 
learned,  on  his  way,  that  this  consul  was  dead 
of  his  wounds. 

By  these  delays,  Antony  had  got  two  days 
march  a-head,  and,  without  halting,  reached  the 
fens  of  Sabatta  on  the  coast  of  Liguria.  Here 
the  country  being  of  difficult  access  he  thought 
himself  secure,  and  made  a  halt,  to  consider  of 
his  future  operations.  At  the  same  time  Venti- 
dius,  who,  upon  the  news  of  the  defeat  of  his 
friend  at  Mutina,  had  passed  the  Apennines  by 
hasty  marches,  followed  and  joined  him  at  this 
place.2 

In  the  first  accounts  of  Antony's  defeat  that 
were  carried  to  Rome,  it  was  reported,  that  his 
army  had  been  entirely  routed  ;  that  he  himself 
had  escaped  from  the  field  of  battle  with  only  a 
few  broken  remains  of  his  infantry  unarmed  ; 
and  that  to  recruit  his  numbers,  he  had  broken 
open  the  work-houses,  and  set  loose  and  enlisted 
the  slaves.0' 

Upon  these  representations  the  senate  were 
greatly  elated ;  and,  amidst  the  acclamations  of 
the  people,  ordered  a  feast  of  thanksgiving,  which 
was  to  last  for  sixty  days,  and  renewed  the  pro- 
clamation in  which  Antony,  and  all  who  had 
served  under  his  command,  were  declared  to  have 
forfeited  all  the  rights  of  citizens,  and  to  be  ene- 
mies of  their  country.4 

The  commonwealth  being  deprived  of  its  legal 
head  by  the  death  of  both  the  consuls,  Decimus 
Brutus,  as  next  in  succession,  according  to  the 
arrangement  which  had  been  made  for  the  en- 
suing year,  became  the  principal  object  of  con- 
sideration with  the  senate ;  and  being  supposed 
most  deeply  interested  in  the  preservation  of  the 
rre public,  was  the  person  on  whom  they  chiefly 
relied  for  the  support  of  their  cause.  The  sena- 
tors, accordingly,  seemed  to  drop  at  once  the 
high  regard  which  they  had  hitherto  paid  to  Oc- 
tavius, and  overlooking  his  pretensions  and  his 
influence  over  the  army,  gave  to  Brutus  the 
command  of  all  their  forces,  whether  in  Italy  or 
in  Gaul. 

Thus  ended  the  connexion  of  the  young  Cae- 
sar with  the  friends  of  the  republic, — an  alliance 
which  had,  on  both  sides,  probably  been  equally 
insincere.  The  young  man,  pretending  to  have 
his  eyes  opened  by  this  conduct  of  the  senate, 
and  supposing  that  the  party  of  Antony  was  less 
hostile  to  himself  than  that  which  had  now 
gained  the  ascendant  in  the  commonwealth,  he 
slighted  the  instructions  which  were  sent  to  him 
to  take  his  orders  from  Brutus,  retained  the  com- 
mand not  only  of  the  troops  which  had  followed 
his  own  standard,  but  the  command  likewise  of 
a  legion  which  had  been  raised  for  the  republic 


1  Oicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xi.  ep.  13.  2  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.  ep.  10  4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  39. 


by  Pansa.6  He  refused  to  co-operate  with  Deci- 
mus Brutus  in  pursuing  the  late  victory  against 
Antony,  and  had  influence  enough  with  dif- 
ferent bodies  of  the  army,  particularly  with  the 
fourth  legion  and  the  Martia,  to  hinder  their 
obeying  the  orders  they  had  received  from 
Rome.6 

In  this  manner,  as  the  respect  which  was  paid 
to  Octavius  by  the  senate  vanished  with  the  oc- 
casion which  they  had  for  his  services;  so  all  (he 
professions  he  made  of  concern  for  the  republic, 
and  of  zeal  for  its  restoration,  disappeared,  with 
the  interest  which  led  him  to  make  those  profes- 
sions. And  Decimus  Brutus,  the  person  now 
acknowledged  by  the  senate  as  consul-elect,  and 
head  of  the  republic,  for  whose  relief  Octavius 
affected  to  have  assembled  his  forces,  was  left  bv 
him  to  finish  the  remains  of  the  war  against 
Antony,  at  the  head  of  such  troops  as  had'  any 
degree  of  attachment  to  the  cause  of  the  re- 
public. 

Decimus  Brutus,  when  the  war  broke  out,  had 
a  military  chest  of  forty  thousand  sestertia,  about 
three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  pounds  ;  but 
the  whole  was  now  expended,  and  his  own  credit 
likewise  exhausted.  He  was,  from  this  time  for- 
ward, ill  supported  at  Rome,  all  motions  made  in 
his  favour  being  opposed  by  the  party  of  Octavius, 
as  well  as  by  that  of  Antony.  The  troops  that 
adhered  to  him  amounted  to  seven  legions ;  these 
he  subsisted  by  such  resources  as  he  himself 
could  command.  He  advanced  to  Dortona  on 
the  fourth  of  May  ;7  and  from  thence  continuing 
his  march  till  within  thirty  miles  of  the  enemy, 
he  received  intelligence,  that  Antony,  in  a  speech 
to  his  army,  had  declared  his  intention  to  pass 
the  Alps,  and  to  cast  himself  entirely  on  the 
friendship  of  Lepidus,  in  whose  disposition  he 
professed  to  have  great  confidence  ;  that  this  pro- 
posal being  disagreeable  to  the  army,  they  had 
declared  their  resolution  to  remain  in  Italy,  and 
exclaimed,  That  there  they  would  conquer  or 
perish  ;  that  Antony  had  been  disconcerted  by 
this  declaration,  and  had  continued  a  whole  day 
undetermined  as  to  his  future  operations ;  but 
in  order  to  conform  himself  to  the  inclination 
of  the  army,  and,  if  possible,  to  keep  his  footing 
in  Italy,  he  was  about  to  surprise  Pollentia,  a 
fortified  place  on  the  Tenarus,  and  had  de- 
tached Trebellius  with  a  body  of  cavalry  for  this 
purpose. 

Decimus  Brutus,  upon  this  intelligence,  sent 
forward  three  cohorts  to  prevent  the  design  on 
Pollentia ;  and  these  having  effected  their  march 
in  time  to  secure  the  place,  the  enemy,  by  this 
disappointment,  notwithstanding  their  late  reso- 
lution to  remain  in  Italy,  were  under  a  necessity 
of  passing  the  Alps.8  They  undertook  this  diffi- 
cult march  so  ill  provided  with  every  necessary, 
that,  according  to  Plutarch,  they  had  no  subsist- 
ence but  what  was  found  on  the  route,  consisting 
chiefly  of  wild  herbs,  fruits,  and  animals  not 
commonly  used  for  human  food;  but  Antony 
himself  discovered  a  patience  and  a  force  of 
mind  which  no  man,  judging  by  his  usual  way 
of  life,  could  have  expected  from  him ;  and,  by 
his  own  example,  supported  the  spirits  of  his  men 
through  the  greatest  distresses.9 


5  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xi  ep.  20. 

(5  Ibid.ep.  10.  19.  ?  Ibid.  ep.  10. 

8  Ibid.ep.  13  9  Pint,  in  Antonio. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


349 


Lepidus,  in  consequence  of  the  senate's  instruc- 
tions, or  of  his  own  desire  to  be  at  hand  to  take 
such  measures  as  the  state  of  the  war  in  Italy 
might  require,  had  discontinued  the  march  of  his 
army  into  Spain,  and  returning  through  the  pro- 
vince of  Narbonne,  had  passed  the  Rhone  at  its 
confluence  with  the  Soane ;  and  now,  hearing  of 
Antony's  march,  descended  on  the  left  of  these 
rivers,  and  took  a  situation  to  intercept  him,  not 
far  from  the  coast  at  the  Forum  Vocontium,  on 
a  small  river  called  the  Argenteum,  which  emp- 
ties itself  into  the  sea  at  Forum  Julii.10 

In  the  mean  time  Antony  had  passed  the  Alps, 
and  on  the  fifteenth  of  May  arrived  with  the  first 
division  of  his  army  at  Forum  Julii,  four-and- 
twenty  miles  from  the  station  of  Lepidus.  Ven- 
tidius  having  followed  about  two  days'  march  in 
the  rear  of  Antony,  and  having  again  joined  him 
at  this  place,  their  forces  consisted"  of  the  second 
legion  entire,  with  a  considerable  number  of  men, 
but  without  arms ;  the  broken  remains  of  many 
legions,  together  with  a  body  of  cavalry,  of  which, 
this  part  of  the  army  having  suffered  least  in  the 
late  action,  Antony  had  still  a  considerable  force. 
But  in  this  position  many  deserted  from  him,  arid 
his  numbers  were  daily  diminishing ;  Silanus  and 
Culeo,  two  officers  of  rank,  were  among  the  de- 
serters. 

Such  was  the  posture  of  affairs,  on  the  twenty- 
first  of  May,  when  Lepidus  gave  to  Cicero  the 
strongest  assurances'2  of  zeal  for  the  common- 
wealth. Plancus,  at  the  same  time,  had  taken 
post  on  the  Isere,13  had  thrown  a  bridge  over  that 
nver,  and  waited  for  the  arrival  of  Decimus  Bru- 
tus, whom  he  expected  to  join  him  by  the  most 
ordinary  passage  of  the  Alps  :14  but  while  he  lay 
in  this  position  he  received  a  message  from  Lepi- 
dus, informing  him  of  Antony's  approach,  and 
expressing  great  distrust  of  many  in  his  own 
army,  whom  he  suspected  of  a  disposition  to  join 
the  enemy.  Upon  these  representations,  Plan- 
cus marched  on  the  twentieth  of  May,  as  appears 
from  his  despatches  to  Rome  of  this  date,  expect- 
ed to  join  Lepidus  in  eight  days,  and  hoped,  by 
his  presence,  to  secure  the  fidelity  of  the  army, 
which  began  to  be  questioned.  He  wrote,  with 
great  confidence,  of  the  zeal  and  affection  of  his 
own  troops,  anil  was  pleased  to  say,  that  he  him- 
self, unsupported  by  any  other  force,  should  be 
able  to  overwhelm,  as  he  expresses  himself,  the 
broken  forces  of  Antony,  though  joined  by  the 
followers  of  that  muleteer  Ventidius.15 

In  the  mean  time,  the  armies  of"  Antony  and 
Lepidus  remaining  in  sight  of  each  other,  fre- 
quent messages  passed  between  the  leaders ;  and 
as  no  hostilities  were  committed,  the  soldiers  con- 
versed freely  together,  though  without  any  ap- 
parent effect.16  Lepidus  still  professed  to  govern 
himself  by  the  orders  of  the  senate,  and  to  emploj 
his  army  in  support  of  the  commonwealth.  But 
while  he  preserved  these  appearances,  he  sent  an 
order  to  countermand  the  junction  of  Plancus  ; 
and  having  convened  his  own  army,  as  usual, 
around  the  platform,17  from  which  it  was  the 
custom  to  harangue  the  troops,  he  addressed 


10  Frejus.  11  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  x.  ep.  17. 

12  Ibid.  13  [sura. 

14  Probably  by  Mount  Cenis,  or  the  channels  of  the 
Dorea  Baltea  and  the  Isere. 

15  (Jic.?r.  .id  Familiar,  lib.  x.  ep  13. 

16  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

17  The  feiuggestttm,  most  commonly  raised  of  turf. 


them  in  a  speech,  in  which  he  repeated  his  pro- 
fessions of  duly  to  the  republic,  and  urged  a 
vigorous  exertion  in  the  war.  It  had  not  yet  ap- 
peared to  what  point  these  professions  were  tend- 
ing, when  he  was  answered  with  exclamations, 
which  he  probably  expected,  from  some  leading 
persons  among  the  soldiers,  in  which  they  de- 
clared the  wishes  of  the  army  for  peace.  Two 
Roman  consuls,  they  said,  had  been  already 
killed  in  this  unnatural  quarrel.  The  best  blood 
of  the  republic  had  been  spilt,  and  the  most  re- 
spectable citizens  declared  enemies  of  their  coun- 
try; that  it  was  time  to  sheath  the  sword;  "for 
our  parts,"  they  said,  "we  are  determined  that 
our  arms,  from  henceforward,  shall  not  be  em- 
ployed on  either  side."18  From  this  audience  the 
army  of  Lepidus  proceeded  to  invite  Antony  into 
their  camp,  and  presenting  him  to  their  general 
as  a  friend,  terminated  the  war  between  them  by 
a  coalition,  in  appearance  forced  upon  Lepidus, 
but  probably  previously  concerted  with  himself. 

Antony  was  now  joined  with  Lepidus  in  the 
command  of  the  army  which  had  come  to  oppose 
him,  and  by  his  popularity,  or  superior  ability, 
soon  got  the  ascendant  of  his  colleague.  He  found 
himself  again  at  the  head  of  a  great  force,  com- 
posed of  the  remains  of  his  late  defeat,  three  le 
gions  that  had  joined  him  under  Ventidius,  and 
seven  of  which  the  army  of  Lepidus  consisted.19 

riancus,  being  still  upon  his  march,  persisted 
in  his  intention  to  join  Lepidus  notwithstanding 
he  had  received  an  order  or  instruction  from  him- 
self to  the  contrary ;  but  having,  at  last,  received 
positive  information  of  his  defection,  and  con- 
sidering the  danger  to  which  he  himself  must  l>e 
exposed  with  an  inferior  force  against  two  nnwiri 
united,  he  returned  to  his  post  on  the  Isere.  and 
sent  pressing  instances  to  hasten  the  march  of 
Decimus  Brutus,  and  of  other  succours  from 
Italy.20 

Lepidus.  even  after  the  reception  of  Antony 
into  his  camp,  addressed  the  senate  in  a  solemn 
declaration,  still  asserting  his  affection  to  the  com 
monwealth,  and  representing  the  late  change  of 
his  measures  as  the  effect  of  necessity  imposed 
upon  him  by  the  troops,  who,  in  a  mutinous 
manner,  refused  to  make  war  on  their  fellow- 
citizens.  While  he  made  these  professions,  he 
recommended  to  the  senate  the  exanqde  of  the 
army,  exhorted  them  to  drop  all  private  animosi- 
ties, to  make  the  public  good  the  rule  of  their 
conduct,  and  not  to  treat  as  a  crime,  the  humane 
and  merciful  disposition  which  fellow-citizens 
had  exercised  towards  each  other.21 

At  the  same  time  despatches  arrived  from 
Plancus  and  Decimals  I  rut  us,  both  treating  the 
pretended  mutiny  of  the  army  in  Gaul  as  a 
mere  artifice  of  their  general  to  conceal  his  own 
defection*38  The  city  was  greatly  alarmed,  even 
the  populace*  allecting  a  zeal  for  the  authority  of 
the  senate,  demolished  the  statues  which  had  been 
lately  erected  to  Lepidus.  The  senators,  incensed 
not  only  at  his  treachery,  but  at  the  false  profes- 
sions with  which  he  presumed  to  address  them 
on  the  subject,  proceeded  to  declare  him  a  public 
enemy,  and  resolved,  that  all  his  adherents,  who 
did  not  return  to  their  duty  before  the  first  o 


18  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  x.  ep.  2L 

19  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

20  CiC.  ad  Famil.  lib.  x.  ep.  21. 

21  Ibid.  ep.  35.  22  Ibid. 


350 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


September,  should  he  involved  in  the  same  sen- 
tence. Private  instructions  were  sent,  at  the 
same  time,  to  Marcus  Brutus,  and  to  Caius  Cas- 
sius,  urging  them  to  hasten  the  march  of  their 
forces  for  the  defence  of  the  capital.1 

During  these  transactions,  Octavius  remained 
inactive  on  the  frontiers  of  Italy.  The  demise 
of  the  two  consuls  opened  a  new  scene  to  his 
ambition.  This  event  came  so  opportunely  for 
his  purpose,  and  his  own  character  for  intrigue 
was  so  much  established,  that  he  was  suspected 
of  having  had  an  active  part  in  procuring  the 
death  of  those  officers.  It  was  said,  that  he  em- 
ployed some  emissaries  to  despatch  Hirtiusin  the 
heat  of  battle;  and  that  Pansa's  wound,  not  be- 
ing mortal,  he  suborned  the  person  who  dressed 
it,  to  render  it  so  by  an  injection  of  poison.  A 
surgeon  named  Glyco  was  actually  taken  into 
custody  on  this  account ;  the  suspicion  remained 
against  Octavius  till  the  last  moment  of  his  life, 
and  even  made  a  part  in  the  grievous  reproaches 
with  which  his  memory  continued  to  be  loaded 
after  his  death.2  It  was  rejected,  however,  at 
the  time,  even  by  Marcus  Brutus,  who  warmly 
interceded  with  Cicero  in  behalf  of  Glyco,  as  a 
person  who  was  himself  a  great  sufferer  by 
Pansa's  death,  and  who  bore  such  a  reputation 
for  probity  as  ought  to  have  secured  him  against 
this  imputation.3  The  testimony  of  Marcus 
Brutus,  when  given  in  favour  of  Octavius,  must, 
no  doubt,  be  admitted  as  of  the  greatest  authority, 
and  may  be  allowed,  in  a  great  measure,  to  re- 
move the  whole  suspicion. 

Octavius  himself  gave  out,  that  Pansa,  when 
dying  of  his  wounds,  desired  to  see  him  in  pri- 
vate, gave  him  a  view  of  the  state  of  parties,  and 
advised  him  no  longer  to  remain  the  tool  of  those 
who  meant  only  to  demolish  the  party  of  Caesar, 
in  order  that  they  themselves  might  rise  on  its 
ruins.  But  from  the  detail  of  what  passed  in  the 
interval  between  the  battle  of  Mutina  and  the 
death  of  Pansa,  of  which  Decimus  Brutus  sent 
an  account  to  Cicero,  it  does  not  appear  that  Oc- 
tavius could  have  seen  Pansa.  And  it  is  proba- 
ble, that  this  pretended  advice  of  the  dying  con- 
sul was  fabricated  afterwards,  to  justify  the  part 
which  Octavius  took  against  the  senate.4  The 
supposed  admonition  of  Pansa,  at  any  rate,  was 
probably  not  necessary  to  dissuade  Octavius  from 
continuing  to  support  the  republic  longer  than 
his  own  interest  required.  This  was  the  great 
rule  of  his  conduct,  and  if,  until  that  hour,  he 
continued  to  believe,  that  the  senate  intended  to 
raise  him  on  the  ruin  of  Antony's  party,  in  order 
that  he  might  become  their  own  master  and 
sovereign  of  the  commonwealth,  he  fancied  surely 
what  was  not  probable,  and  what  they  never  pro- 
fessed to  be  their  intention.  The  restoration  of 
the  republican  government,  and  of  the  senate's 
authority,  implied,  that  individuals  were  to  be 
satisfied  with  receiving  the  honours  of  the  re- 
public in  their  turn  ;  and  with  this  prospect,  Oc- 
tavius himself  affected  to  be  satisfied,  so  long  as  it 
suited  with  the  state  of  his  fortunes,  to  act  the 
part  of  a  republican. 

The  commonwealth  undoubtedly  sustained  a 
great  loss  in  the  death  of  the  two  consuls. 


Though  trained  up  under  Caesar,  and  not  pos- 
sessed of  any  remarkable  share  of  political  virtue, 
they  were  men  probably  of  moderate  ambition, 
tenacious  of  the  dignities  to  which  they  them- 
selves and  every  free  citizen  might  aspire,  but  not 
covetous  of  more.  They  were  likely,  therefore, 
to  acquiesce  in  the  civil  establishment  of  their 
country,  and  by  the  dignity  of  their  characters, 
to  overawe  the  more  desperate  adventurers,  whoso 
views  and  successes  were  inconsistent  with  the 
safety  of  the  commonwealth. 

If  the  consuls,  Hirtius  and  Pansa,  had  lived 
even  with  such  abilities  as  they  possessed,  they 
might  have  kept  Lepidus  within  the  bounds  of 
his  duty,  they  might  have  prevented  Antony  from 
recovering  the  defeat  which  he  had  lately  received 
at  Mutina,  and  obliged  Octavius,  if  not  to  drop 
his  ambitious  designs,  at  least  to  defer  the  execu- 
tion of  them  to  a  more  distant  period.  But,  imme- 
diately after  the  death  of  these  magistrates,  it 
became  evident,  that  this  young  man  was  dissa- 
tisfied with  his  situation  and  with  his  party,  he 
not  only  kept  at  a  distance  from  Decimus  Brutus, 
but  seemed  determined  not  to  take  any  part  in 
the  farther  operations  of  the  campaign.  The 
prisoners  that  were  in  his  hands  he  treated  as 
friends,  and  by  suffering  them,  without  any  ex- 
change or  ransom,  to  join  their  own  army,  gave 
hopes  that  he  was  ready  to  treat  on  reasonable 
terms  of  a  reconciliation  with  their  general.  He, 
at  the  same  time,  took  steps  with  the  senate  that 
seemed  to  prognosticate  a  rupture,  made  applica- 
tion for  a  triumph,  in  which  neither  his  age,  his 
rank,  nor  his  share  in  the  late  action,  or  in  the 
victory  obtained  over  Antony,  in  any  degree  sup- 
ported him ;  and  having  failed  in  this  attempt 
he  declared  his  intention  to  sue  for  the  office  o. 
consul. 

Octavius,  when  he  offered  himself  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  consulate,  according  to  Dion  Cassius. 
affected  to  insist  that  Cicero5  should  be  associated 
with  him  in  the  office,6  and  should  take  the  whole 
administration  on  himself.  For  his  own  part,  he 
said,  that,  in  this  association,  he  aspired  only  to 
the  title  of  magistrate ;  that  all  the  world  must 
know,  the  whole  authority  of  government,  and 
all  the  glory  to  be  reaped  in  the  public  service 
would  redound  to  his  colleague ;  that,  in  this  re- 
quest, and  in  that  he  had  made  for  a  triumph, 
he  had  no  object  but  to  gain  a  situation  in  which 
he  might  lay  down  his  arms  with  honour,  as 
having  such  a  public  attestation  in  behalf  of  his 
services.7 

Cicero,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the  same 
historian,  fell  into  the  snare  that  was  laid  for  him 
by  this  artful  boy,  supported  his  pretensions,  and 
was  willing  to  become  the  colleague  and  the  tutor 
of  this  reviving  Caesar. 

Octavius  afterwards  boasted  of  the  artifice  he 
had  employed  in  this  piece  of  flattery  to  Cicero, 
as  the  only  means  he  had  left,  at  that  time,  to  se- 
cure the  continuance  of  his  military  command.8 
But  the  senators,  and  the  partizans  of  the  conspi 
rators,  in  particular,  were  greatly  exasperated. 
The  proposition  appeared  so  strange,  that  no  tri- 
bune, no  person  in  any  office,  not  even  any  private 
citizen,  could  be  found  to  move  it.9    The  ani- 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii.  5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  42. 

2  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  i.  c.  10.  6  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

3  Cicer.  ad  Brutum,  ep.  6.  edit.  Olivet,  torn.  9.  7  Cicer.  ad  Brutum,  pp.  30.  8  Pint,  in  Cicer. 

4  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xi.  ep.  13.  9  Cicer.  ad  Brutum,  o\>.  18. 


Chap.  III.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


351 


mosity  of  Cicero  to  Antony  had  already,  they 
thought,  carried  him  too  far  in  supporting  the 
pretensions  of  this  aspiring  young  man.  If  he 
should  prevail  on  the  present  occasion,  all  that  the 
senate  had  hitherto  done  to  restore  the  constitu- 
tion would  be  fruitless.  A  person,  who  presumed 
to  claim  the  office  of  consul  at  an  age  so  impro- 
per, and  so  far  short  of  that  which  the  law  pre- 
scribed, was  likely,  when  possessed  of  this  power, 
to  set  no  bounds  to  his  usurpations.  In  order, 
therefore,  to  elude  his  requisition,  they  were 
obliged  to  defer  the  elections,  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  appointed  ten  commissioners  under  pretence 
of  inquiring  into  the  abuses  committed  in  Anto- 
ny's administration,  and  of  distributing  to  the 
army  the  gratuities,  and  of  executing  the  settle- 
ments devised  for  their  late  services,  but  probably 
with  a  real  intention  to  vest  these  commissioners 
with  the  chief  direction  of  affairs,  until  it  could 
be  determined  who  should  succeed  in  the  office 
of  consul,  and  who  should  be  intrusted  with 
the  safety  of  the  republic.  The  partizans  of 
the  commonwealth  were  now,  in  appearance, 
superior  to  their  enemies,  but  far  from  being 
secure  in  possession  of  the  superiority  they  had 
gained.10 

The  senate,  in  order  to  exclude  Octavius  from 
this  commission,  without  giving  him  any  particu- 
lar reason  to  complain  of  their  partiality,  at  the 
same  time  left  out  Decimus  Brutus ;  and  by  this 
equal  exclusion  of  persons  at  the  head  of  armies 
from  the  management  of  affairs,  in  which  the 
armies  were  so  much  concerned,  they  enabled 
Octavius  to  fill  the  minds  of  the  soldiers  with  dis- 
trust of  the  civil  power,  and  to  state  the  interests 
of  the  civil  and  military  factions  as  in  opposition 
to  each  other."  He  no  longer,  therefore,  dis- 
guised his  aversion  to  the  senate;  complained, 
that  they  treated  him  disrespectfully,  called  him 
a  boy,  who  must  be  amused,12  decked  out  with 
honours,  and  afterwards  destroyed.13  "  I  am  ex- 
cluded," he  said,  "from  the  present  commission, 
not  from  any  distrust  in  me,  but  from  the  same 
motive  from  which  Decimus  Brutus  is  also  ex- 
cluded, a  general  distrust  of  every  person  who  is 
likely  to  espouse  the  interests  of  the  army ;  and, 
from  these  exclusions,  it  is  evident  what  they  in- 
tend with  respect  to  the  claims  of  the  veterans, 
and  with  respect  to  their  expectations  of  a  just 
reward  for  their  services."14 

Upon  the  junction  of  Antony  with  Lepidus, 
the  senate  felt  the  necessity  of  paying  a  little 
more  attention  than  they  had  lately  done  to  the 
interest  of  Octavius.  Instead  of  appointing  him 
to  act  under  Decimus  Brutus,  as  they  at  first  in- 
tended, they  joined  him  in  the  command  of  the 
army ;  and  in  this  new  situation  required  him  to 
co-operate  in  defending  Italy  against  the  united 
forces  of  Antony  and  Lepidus. 

Octavius  instantly  communicated  to  the  army 
these  orders  of  the  senate,  with  insinuations  of 
the  hardships  which  they  were  now  to  undergo 
on  being  sent  on  a  fresh  service,  before  they  had 
received  the  rewards  which  were  promised  and 
due  to  them  for  the  former ;  and  he  proposed,  that 


10  Appian.  de  Belt.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

11  Cicer.  ad  Familiar,  lib.  xi.  ep  20. 

12  Ibid.  ep.  21. 

13  Laudandum  adolescentem,  ornandum,  tollendum 
—This  last  word  is  ambiguous.  This  saying  was  im- 
puted to  Cicero,  but  is  peremptorily  denied. 

14  Sueton.  in  Octavio,  c.  12. 


they  should  send  deputies  to  the  senate  with  pro- 
per representations  on  this  subject. 

A  number  of  centurions  were  accordingly  se- 
lected to  carry  the  mandate  of  the  army  to  Rome. 
As  they  delivered  their  message  in  the  name  of 
the  legions,  without  any  mention  of  Octavius, 
this  was  thought  a  favourable  opportunity  to  ne- 
gotiate directly  with  the  troops,  without  consult- 
ing their  leader ;  and  the  senate  accordingly  sent 
a  commission  for  this  purpose,  with  the  hopes 
that  they  might  be  able  to  detach  the  whole 
army  from  their  general,  or  that  at  least  they 
might  be  able  to  engage,  in  their  own  cause, 
those  legions  in  particular,  who  had  deserted 
from  Antony,  with  professions  of  zeal  for  the 
commonwealth. 

Octavius,  to  counteract  this  design  before  the 
commissioners  employed  in  the  execution  of  it 
arrived,  drew  forth  his  army,  and  in  a  speech 
complained  of  this  and  of  the  former  injuries  he 
had  received  from  the  senate  :  "  Their  intention," 
he  said,  "is  to  cut  off  separately  all  the  leaders 
of  Caesar's  party.  When  they  have  accomplished 
this  purpose,  the  army  too  must  fall  at  their  feet.14 
They  will  recall  the  grants  of  land  which  have 
been  made  to  you,  and  will  deprive  you  of  the 
just  reward  of  all  your  faithful  services.  They 
charge  me  with  ambition  ;  but  what  evidence  is 
there  of  my  ambition  ?  Have  I  not  declined  tho 
dignity  of  praetor,  when  you  offered  to  procure  it 
for  me  ? — My  motive  is  not  ambition,  but  the 
love  of  my  country  ;  and  for  this  1  am  willing  to 
run  any  hazard  to  which  I  myself  may  be  ex- 
posed ;  but  cannot  endure,  upon  any  account, 
that  you  should  be  stripped  of  what  you  have  so 
dearly  bought  by  your  services  in  the  public 
cause.  It  is  now  become  evident,  that  in  order 
to  prevent  the  most  dangerous  powers  from 
coming  into  the  hands  of  your  enemies,  and  in 
order  to  ensure  the  rewards  to  which  you  are  so 
justly  entitled,  it  is  necessary  that  your  friends 
should  be  raised  to  the  head  of  the  common- 
wealth. In  the  capacity  of  consul  I  shall  be  able 
to  do  justice  to  your  merits  ;  to  punish  the  mur- 
derers of  my  father,  to  be  revenged  of  your  ene- 
mies, and  at  last  to  bring  these  unhappy  domestic 
dissensions  to  an  end."  16 

This  harangue  was  returned  with  acclama- 
tions of  joy,  and  a  second  deputation,  to  be 
escorted  by  four  hundred  men,  was  instantly  ap- 
pointed from  the  army,  demanding  the  consulate 
for  their  general.  The  officers  employed  in  this 
service  were  repeatedly  admitted  to  audiences  in 
the  senate.17  In  answer  to  the  objections  which 
were  drawn  from  the  defects  of  their  general's 
age  and  title,  they  urged  former  precedents  ;  that 
of  Scipio,  of  Dolabclla,  and  the  special  act  relating 
to  Octavius  himself,  in  whose  favour  ten  years 
of  the  leoal  age  were  already  dispensed  with. 
One  of  the  officers,  in  this  singular  deputation, 
while  the  senate  proposed  a  delay  in  order  to  de- 
liberate on  the  matter,  is  said  to  have  shown  the 
hilt  of  his  dagger  ;  and  some  one  of  the  party  who 
escorted  the  deputies,  in  resuming  his  arms  at  thw 
door  of  the  senate-house,  was  heard  to  say,  in 
girding  the  belt  of  his  sword,  If  you  will  not  con- 
fer the  consulate  on  Octavius,  this  shall.  To 
these  menacing  insinuations,  Cicero,  who  had 
jokes  imputed  to  him,  on  occasions  that  weie 


15  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii.  10  Ibid. 

17  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  42. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


equally  serious  to  himself  and  to  the  republic,  is 
said  to  have  replied,  Nay,  if  you  pray  in  that 
language,  you  will  surely  be  heard. 

While  the  senate  delayed  giving  any  direct 
answer  to  this  military  demand,  they  again  sent 
a  deputation  of  their  own  members  with  money 
to  be  distributed  to  the  legions,  hoping,  by  this 
means,  to  divert  them  from  the  project  which 
they  had  formed  in  favour  of  their  general.  But 
Octavius  being  secretly  apprised  that  a  sum  of 
money  was  sent  to  corrupt  his  army,  and  observ- 
ing that  the  soldiers  were  impatient  at  having  no 
immediate  return  to  their  own  message,  chose 
not  to  await  the  trial  of  this  dangerous  experi- 
ment, separated  the  legions  into  two  columns, 
marched  directly  to  Rome ;  and  on  his  way  being 
met  by  the  deputies  of  the  senate,  he  commanded 
them,  at  their  peril,  not  to  approach  the  army,  or 
to  interrupt  its  march. 

Upon  the  news  of  his  approach,  the  city  was 
thrown  into  great  consternation.  The  senate, 
believing  they  had  erred  in  offering  too  little 
money  to  the  troops,  ordered  the  former  bounty 
to  be  doubled.1  They  resolved  that  Octavius 
should  be  admitted  to  the  consulate ;  or,  accord- 
ing to  Dion  Cassius,  that  he  should  have  the 
title  and  ensigns  of  consul,  but  without  the  actual 
power ;  that  he  should  have  a  place  in  the  senate 
among  those  who  had  been  consuls;  that  he 
should  be  prsetor  at  the  first  elections,  and  con- 
sul at  the  following.  2  And  thus  having  done 
enough  to  show  their  fears,  but  not  to  disarm,  or 
to  lull  the  ambition  of  this  presumptuous  young 
man,  they  sent  new  deputies,  with  every  symp- 
tom of  trepidation  and  alarm,  to  intimate  these 
resolutions. 

Soon  after  this  deputation  from  the  senate  was 
despatched,  two  legions,  lately  transported  from 
Africa,  and  ordered  for  the  defence  of  the  city, 
having  arrived  at  the  gates,  the  senators,  with 
their  party  among  the  people,  resumed  their 
courage  :  they  were  even  disposed  to  recall  their 
late  concessions,  and  began  to  exclaim,  that  it 
were  better  to  perish  in  defending  their  liberties, 
than,  without  any  struggle,  to  fall  a  prey  to  their 
enemies.  Persons  of  every  description  assumed 
the  military  dress,  and  ran  to  their  arms. 

There  were  now  at  Rome  three  legions,  with 
a  thousand  horse  ;  one  legion  having  been  left 
there  by  Pansa  when  he  marched  towards  Gaul. 
These  troops  were  posted  on  the  side  from  which 
the  enemy  was  expected,  on  the  Janiculum  and 
the  bridge  which  led  from  thence  to  the  city. 
Galleys  were  ordered  to  be  in  readiness  at  Ostia, 
to  convey  the  public  treasure  beyond  the  sea,  in 
case  it  should  become  necessary  to  take  this  mea- 
sure to  save  it :  and  it  was  determined  to  seize 
the  mother  and  sister  of  Octavius,3  who  were 
then  supposed  to  be  at  Rome,  and  to  detain  them 
as  hostages.  But  this  intention  was  frustrated 
by  the  timely  escape  of  these  women,  who,  appre- 
hending some  danger,  had  already  withdrawn 
from  the  city.  Their  flight,  or  the  early  precau- 
tion which  they  themselves,  or  their  friends,  had 
taken  in  this  matter,  was  considered  as  the  evi- 
dence of  a  long  premeditated  design  on  the  part 
of  Octavius. 

Under  this  impression,  and  that  of  the  supe- 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  41. 

3  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib  iii. 


rior  force  with  which  it  was  known  Octavius 
was  prepared  to  assail  them,  the  senators  again 
lost  hopes  of  being  able  to  resist ;  but  they  flat- 
tered themselves,  that  the  resolution  they  had 
taken  to  defend  the  city,  would  not  be  known  in 
time  to  prevent  their  first  message  to  the  army 
from  being  delivered.  Their  concessions  were 
accordingly  published  among  the  troops  ;  but  ap- 
pearing to  be  forced,  were  received  with  contempt, 
and  served  only  to  encourage  the  presumption  of 
the  soldiers,  and  to  hasten  their  march.  As  the 
army  drew  near  to  the  city,  all  the  approaches 
were  deserted  by  those  who  had  been  placed  to 
defend  them,  and  the  advanced  guard  of  Octa- 
vius passed  to  the  Mons  Gluirinalis,  without  be- 
ing met  by  any  person  in  the  quality  either  of 
friend  or  of  enemy.  But,  after  a  little  pause,  num- 
bers of  his  own  party  among  the  people  having 
gone  forth  to  receive  him,  the  streets  were  in- 
stantly crowded  with  persons  of  all  ranks,  who 
hastened  to  pay  their  court.4 

Octavius  having  halted  his  army  during  the 
night  in  the  first  streets  which  they  entered ;  on 
the  following  day,  with  a  proper  escort,  and 
amidst  the  shouts  and  acclamations  of  the  multi- 
tude, took  possession  of  the  forum.  The  troops 
who  had  been  assembled  to  oppose  him,  at  the 
same  time  left  their  stations,  and  made  an  oflfer  of 
their  services.  Cornutus,  one  of  the  officers  who 
commanded  those  troops,  having  in  vain  endea- 
voured to  prevent  this  defection,  killed  himself. 
Cicero  is  said  to  have  desired  a  conference  with 
his  young  friend ;  but  when  he  seemed  to  pre- 
sume on  his  former  connection,  was  coldly  an- 
swered, that  he  had  been  slow  in  his  present 
advances. 

In  the  following  night  a  rumour  was  spread, 
that  the  Martia  and  the  fourth  legion,  which 
made  a  part  in  the  army  of  Octavius,  but  sup- 
posed to  be  particularly  attached  to  the  senate 
on  account  of  the  late  honorary  decrees  which 
had  passed  in  their  favour,  had  declared  against 
the  violent  measures  of  their  leader ;  that  they 
offered  to  protect  the  senate  and  people  in  their 
legal  assemblies,  and  in  any  resolutions  they 
should  form  on  the  present  state  of  the  republic. 
Numbers  of  senators  believed  this  report,  and 
were  about  to  resume  their  meetings.  Crassus, 
one  of  the  prsetors,  set  out  for  the  Picenum,  where 
he  had  considerable  influence,  in  order  to  assemble 
what  forces  he  could  raise  to  secure  the  success 
of  this  design  ;  but  before  morning  this  report 
w?s  known  to  be  groundless,  and  all  orders  of 
men  returned  to  their  former  dejection  and  sub- 
mission. 

At  break  of  day  Octavius  removed  the  army 
from  the  streets  of  Rome  into  the  Campus  Mar- 
tius.  He  did  not  suffer  any  acts  of  cruelty  to  be 
committed,  or  make  any  inquiry  after  those  who 
had  been  forward  in  opposing  his  claims.  He 
affected  the  clemency  of  his  late  uncle  ;  but  like 
him  too,  without  any  scruple,  laid  his  hands  on 
the  public  treasure,  made  a  distribution  to  the 
army  of  the  sums  which  had  been  first  decreed  to 
them ;  and  engaged  for  himself,  soon  after,  to  add 
from  his  own  estate  what  had  been  successively 
promised.  Having  ordered  that  the  election 
of  consuls  should  immediately  proceed,  he  with- 
drew with  the  army,  affecting  to  leave  the  people 


4  Appian.  de  Bello  Civ.  lib.  iii. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


to  a  free  choice.  And  being  himself  elected, 
together  with  CI.  Pedius,  whom,  without  any 
mention  of  Cicero,  he  had  recommended  for  this 
purpose,  he  returned  in  solemn  procession  to 
offer  the  sacrifices  usual  on  such  occasions,  and 
entered  on  his  office  on  the  twenty-first  of  Sep- 
tember, the  day  before  he  completed  his  twen- 
tieth year.5 

On  this  occasion  the  young  Caesar,  in  the  ca- 
pacity of  consul,  made  a  speech  to  the  troops, 
acknowledging  their  services;  but  avoided  im- 

Kuting  to  their  interposition  the  honours  which 
e  had  recently  obtained  in  the  city.  For  these 
honours  he  returned  his  thanks  to  the  senate, 
and  to  the  assemblies  of  the  people.  These  he 
accosted  as  the  sovereigns  of  the  empire;  and 
was  answered  by  an  affected  belief  of  his  sin- 
cerity. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  servility  with  which  so 
many  honours  had  been  decreed  to  Julius  Caesar, 
it  was  enacted,  that  Octavius  should  for  ever  take 
rank  of  every  consul,  and  the  command  of  every 
general,  at  the  head  of  his  own  army ;  that  he 
should  have  an  unlimited  commission  to  levy 


troops,  and  to  employ  them  where  the  necessities 
of  the  state  might  require  -fi  that  his  adoption  into 
the  family  of  Caesar  should  now  be  ratified  in  the 
most  solemn  manner  by  the  assembly  of  the  Cu- 
riae ;  a  form  which  the  laws  of  the  republic  re- 
quired in  every  such  case,  and  in  which  he  had 
been  formerly  prevented  by  the  intrigues  of  An- 
tony ;  that  the  act  declaring  Dolabella  an  enemy 
of  his  country  should  be  repealed,  and  an  inquest 
set  on  foot  for  the  trial  of  those  who  had  been 
concerned  in  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar. 

In  consequence  of  this  establishment,  numbers 
were  cited,  and  upon  their  non-appearance  were 
condemned.  Among  these  were  Marcus  Brutus 
and  Caius  Cassius.  In  giving  sentence  against 
them,  the  judges  affected  to  show  their  ballots ; 
and  a  citizen,  of  the  name  of  Silicius  Coronas, 
being  of  the  number,  likewise  held  up  his  ballot 
into  public  view  ;  but,  in  the  midst  of  this  tide  of 
servility  and  adulation,  had  the  courage  to  acquit 
the  accused.  His  courage  for  the  present  passed 
without  animadversion,  but  he  was  reserved,  with 
silent  resentment,  as  an  object  of  future  punish- 
mentj 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Proceedings  of  the  new  Consul — State  of  the  Eastern  Provinces — Interview  of  Octavius,  Antony, 
and  Lcpidus,  with  their  Coalition — The  Proscription  or  Massacre — Death  of  Cicero — Sequel 
of  the  Massacre — Succession  of  Consuls — Severe  Exaction  of  Taxes — State  of  Sextius  Pom- 
peius — Movements  of  Antony  and  Octavius  respectively — Both  bend  their  course  to  the  East — 
Posture  and  Operations  of  Brutus  and  Cassius — Their  arrival  and  progress  in  Europe — 
Campaign  at  Philippi — First  Action  and  Death  of  Cassius —  Second  Action  and  Death  of  Brutus. 


THE  republic,  of  which  Octavius  was  now, 
in  appearance,  the  legal  magistrate,  had  declared 
open  war  against  Antony  and  Lepidus;  and,  in 
consequence  of  this  declaration,  the  forces  of  De- 
cimus  Brutus  and  of  Plancus,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned, had  advanced  to  the  Rhone  and  the  Isere, 
but  had  been  obliged  again  to  retreat,  in  order  to 
avoid  coming  to  action  with  a  superior  enemy. 
It  was  considered,  therefore,  as  the  first  object  of 
the  consul  to  reinforce  that  army  of  the  republic, 
and  to  carry  the  decrees  of  the  senate  into  execu- 
tion against  those  who  presumed  to  dispute  their 
authority.  He  accordingly  marched  from  the 
city  as  upon  this  design;  but  it  soon  after  ap- 
peared, that  he  had  been  some  time  in  corres- 
pondence with  these  supposed  enemies  of  their 
country  ;  that  he  intended  to  join  them  against 
the  senate,  and,  with  their  forces  united,  to  resist 
the  storm  which  was  gathering  against  them  in 
the  east,  under  the  governors  of  Macedonia  and 
Syria. 

While  the  siege  of  Mutina  was  still  in  depend- 
ance,  Marcus  Brutus  had  drawn  his  forces  to- 
wards the  coast  of  Epirus,  with  intention  to  pass 
into  Italy  ;  but  having  received  a  report  that  Do- 
labella, then  in  the  province  of  Asia,  had  trans- 
ported a  body  of  men  from  thence  to  the  Cher- 
sonesus, 8  and  that  he  seemed  to  intend  the 
invasion  of  Macedonia,  he  was  obliged  to  return 


5  Veil.  Paterculus,  lib.  ii.  c.  65. 

6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.c.  39. 

7  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

8  Cicer.  ad  Brutum,  ep.  2. 

?  V 


for  the  defence  of  his  own  province  ;  and  from 
thenceforward,  by  the  state  of  the  war  in  Syria 
was  hindered,  during  some  time,  from  taking  any 
part  in  the  allairs  of  the  west. 

Dolabella,  in  consequence  of  his  appointment 
to  the  government  of  Syria,  after  the  murder  of 
Trebonius,  had  assembled  a  fleet  on  the  coast,  to 
accompany  the  march  of  his  army  by  land,  and 
to  dispute  the  possession  of  that  province  with 
Cassius.9  His  operations,  however,  began  in 
that  quarter  with  his  receiving  a  great  check  to 
his  hopes  in  the  defeat  of  his  fleet ;  his  galleys 
having  been  dispersed,  and  all  his  transports  ta- 
ken by  Lentulus,  who  had  served  under  Trebo- 
nius, and  who  now  commanded  the  fleets  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius  in  those  seas.ia  Notwith- 
standing the  defeat  of  his  forces  at  sea,  he  advanced 
by  land  intoCilicia;  and  while  his  antagonist  lay 
in  Palestine,  to  intercept  the  legions  that  were 
coming  to  join  him  from  Egypt,  he  made  consi- 
derable levies,  took  possession  of  Tarsus,  reduced 
the  party  which  Cassius  had  left  at  iEgn,  and 
proceeded  to  Antioch ;  but  finding  the  gates  of 
this  town  were  shut  against  him,  he  continued 
his  march  to  Laodicaea,  where  he  was  admitted  ; 
being  determined  to  make  a  stand  at  this  place, 
he  again  assembled  the  remains  of  his  fleet,  in 
ordci  to  bring  his  supply  of  stores  and  provisions 
by  sea.11  Having  encamped  and  intrenched  his 
army  close  to  the  walls  of  Laodicaea,  he  threw 


9  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lib.  xii.  ep.  13. 
11  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.  c.  30, 


10  Ibid,  ep  15. 


354 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


down  part  of  the  ramparts,  to  open  a  communi- 
cation between  his  camp  and  the  town.1 

Cassius,*  having  intelligence  of  this  progress 
made  by  Dolabella  in  Syria,  and  of  his  disposi- 
tions to  secure  Laodicaaa,  prepared  to  dislodge 
him  from  thence.  For  this  purpose  he  advanced 
to  Pallos,  at  the  distance  of  twenty  miles  from  the 
enemy's  station,  and  took  measures,  by  cutting 
off  his  supplies  both,  by  sea  and  by  land,  to  reduce 
Mm  by  famine.  In  execution  of  this  design,  he 
endeavoured  to  procure  shipping  from  every  part 
of  the  coast,  extending  from  Rhodes  to  Alexan- 
dria ;  but  found  that  most  of  the  maritime  states 
of  Asia  were  already  drained  by  his  enemy,  or 
were  unwilling  to  declare  themselves  for  either 
party.  The  port  of  Sidon  was  the  first  that  fur- 
nished him  any  supply  of  vessels  ;  but  the  officer 
who  commanded  them  having  ventured  to  appear 
before  Laodicaaa,  was  unable  to  cope  with  the 
navy  which  Dolabella  had  collected  from  his  late 
defeat ;  and,  though  he  defended  himself  with 
great  obstinacy,  and  with  great  slaughter  of  the 
enemy,  after  many  ships  were  sunk  on  both 
sides,  suffered  a  capture  of  five  galleys  with  all 
their  crews.  Notwithstanding  this  check,  Cas- 
sius  was  soon  after  joined  by  squadrons  from 
Tyre,  Aradus,  and  even  from  Cyprus.  The  go- 
vernor of  this  island,  contrary  to  the  orders  of 
Cleopatra,  his  sovereign,  who  had  assembled  her 
fleet  to  support  Dolabella,  ventured  to  change 
their  destination,  and  to  take  part  with  Cassius.2 

With  this  accession  of  force,  Cassius  being 
again  in  condition  to  block  up  the  harbour  of 
Laodlcsea,  presented  himself  for  this  purpose,  and 
two  engagements  followed  ;  in  the  first  of  which 
the  advantage  was  doubtful ;  in  the  second,  the 
victory  declared  for  Cassius,  and  rendered  him 
master  of  the  coast.  Holding  his  enemy,  there- 
fore, blocked  up  by  sea,  he  continued  to  press 
upon  the  town  from  the  land,  and,  by  the  fifth  of 
June,  had  reduced  the  besieged  to  great  distress ; 
but  while  he  seemed  to  rely  entirely  on  the  effects 
of  this  circumstance,3  he  carried  on  a  corres- 
pondence with  the  garrison,  and,  on  a  day  con- 
certed with  the  officer  on  duty,  was  admitted  into 
the  place. 

Dolabella,  finding  that  the  town  was  delivered 
up,  chose  to  fall  by  the  sword  of  one  of  his  own 
men,  of  whom  he  requested  the  favour  to  save 
him.  by  this  last  act  of  duty,  from  falling  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemies.  The  troops  who  had  served 
under  him  acknowledged  the  authority  of  his  ri- 
val, and  took  the  oath  of  fidelity  usual  in  ranging 
themselves  under  a  new  general.  Cassius  seized 
what,  money  he  found  in  the  public  treasury, 
or  in  the  temples  at  Laodicaaa,  laid  the  citizens 
under  a  heavy  contribution,  and  put  some  of 
those  who  had  been  most  forward  in  saving  his 
enemy  to  death.4 

Such  was  known,  some  time  before  the  battle 
of  Mutina,  to  be  the  event  of  affairs  in  Asia ; 
and  the  fortunes  of  Marcus  Brutus  and  Cassius, 
they  being  supposed  to  have  twenty  legions  under 
their  command,  with  all  the  resources  of  the 
Eastern  empire,  were  still  in  a  thriving  condition, 
when  Octavius,  soon  after  his  nomination  to  the 
office  of  consul,  under  pretence  of  urging  the  war 
against  Antony  and  Lepidus,  had  taken  his  de- 

1  Cicer.  ad  Farail.  lib.  xii.  ep.  13. 

2  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 

3  Cicer.  ad  Famil.  lib.  xii.  ep.  13. 

4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iii. 


parture  from  Rome,  leaving  his  colleague,.  Pedius, 
in  the  administration  of  the  city.  To  him  he  had 
given  instructions  to  obtain,  as  of  his  own  accord, 
the  revocation  of  the  acts  by  which  Antony  and 
Lepidus  had  been  declared  public  enemies.  He 
incited  the  army,  at  the  same  time,  to  demand  a 
reconciliation  of  parties,  and  administered  an  oath 
to  them,  in  which  they  swore  not  to  draw  their 
swords  against  any  of  the  troops  who  had  ever 
served  under  Caesar.  As  Pedius  made  no  men- 
tion of  his  colleague  in  making  his  motion  in 
favour  of  Antony  and  Lepidus,  the  senate,  not 
knowing  how  far  it  might  be  agreeable  to  Octa- 
vius, referred  the  whole  matter  to  himself  ~T  and, 
upon  his  having  signified  his  approbation,  pro- 
ceeded to  revoke  their  former  decree  of  attainder.5 
By  these  means  Octavius,  without  appearing 
himself  as  the  author  of  this  change,  transferred 
the  imputation  of  treason  from  Antony  and  Le- 
pidus to  Brutus  and  Cassius,  with  their  adhe- 
rents in  the  late  conspiracy  against  the  life  of 
Caesar. 

As  soon  as  the  state  of  parties  was  thus  trans- 
formed,. Octavius  congratulated  the  senate  on.  the 
wisdom  of  their  measures,  and  from  thencefor- 
ward treated  with  Antony  and  Lepidus  as  friends, 
corresponded  with  them  on  the  subject  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  invited  them,  without  loss  of 
time,  to  return  into  Italy. 

Under  pretence  of  this  revolution  in  the  go- 
vernment, Plancus  withdrew  his  forces  from  the 
army  of  Decimus  Brutus,  and  espoused  the  cause, 
which  the  republic  itself,  under  the  authority  of 
the  consuls,  appeared  to  avow.  Pollio  likewise 
followed  this  example. 

In  consequence  of  these  separations,  Decimus 
Brutus  was  left  singly  to  withstand  the  force  of 
so  many  enemies  who  were  united,  and  now  sup- 
ported against  him  with  the  authority  of  the  state 
itself.  He  still  had  ten  legions,  of  which  the 
four  with  which  he  had  defended  the  city  of  Mu- 
tina during  the  preceding  winter,  were  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  sufferings  of  that  service. 
With  the  other  six,  being  raw  and  undisciplined 
troops,  he  did  not  think  himself  in  condition  to 
continue  the  war  against  so  many  enemies  ;  and 
he  determined,  therefore,  to  withdraw  by  lllyri- 
cum  into  Macedonia,  and  to  join  himself  with 
the  forces  which  were  raised  for  the  republic  in 
that  province.  But  in  the  execution  of  this  de- 
sign he  found,  that  in  civil  wars  armies  are  not 
easily  retained  on  the  losing  side,  and  had  occa- 
sion to  observe,  that  they  are  never  hearty  in 
behalf  of  civil  institutions  against  a  professed  in- 
tention to  establish  military  government.  On 
pretence  of  the  hardships  of  the  proposed  march, 
he  was  deserted  first  by  the  new  levies,  and  after- 
wards by  the  veterans,  with  all  the  irregulars, 
who,  except  a  few  Gaulish  horse,  went  over  with 
their  colours  to  the  enemy.  Of  those  who  re- 
mained, he,  under  the  deepest  impressions  of 
despair,  allowed  as  many  as  chose  it  to  depart ; 
and  with  only  three  hundred  horsemen  who  ad- 
hered to  him,  set  out  for  the  Rhine,  intending  to 
make  his  intended  retreat  through  Germany. 
But,  in  proportion  as  difficulties  multiplied  on  his 
way,  the  little  troop  which  attended  him  greatly 
diminished ;  and  being  reduced  to  ten,  he  ima- 
gined that,  with  so  few  in  his  company,  he  might 
even  pass  through  Italy  undiscovered.    He  ac* 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.  c  44. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


355 


cordingly  disguised  himself,  and  returned  to 
Aquileia;  but  being  there  seized,  though  un- 
known, as  a  suspicious  person,  and  being  con- 
ducted to  an  officer  of  the  district  who  knew  him, 
he  was,  by  the  orders  of  Antony,  put  to  death.6 

Thus,  while  all  the  military  powers  of  the  east 
were  assembled  under  Marcus  Bnitus  and  Cas- 
sius,  with  a  professed  design  to  restore  the  re- 
public, those  of  the  west  were  equally  united  for 
a  contrary  purpose.  Antony  and  Lepidus  having 
passed  the  Alps,  descended  the  Po,  and  advanced 
towards  Mutina.  Octavius  being  already  in  that 
neighbourhood  with  his  army,  they  met,  with 
five  legions  of  each  side,  on  the  opposite  banks  of 
the  Lav'mus,  not  far  from  the  scene  of  their  late 
hostile  operations  against  each  other.  The  leaders 
agreed  to  hold  a  conference  in  a  small  island 
formed  by  the  separation  and  re-union  of  two 
branches  of  the  river.  To  the  end  that  they 
might  have  equal  access  to  this  island,  bridges 
were  laid  on  the  divisions  of  the  Lavinus  by 
which  the  island  was  formed.  The  armies  drew 
up  on  the  opposite  banks  ;  and  as  the  recent  ani- 
mosities of  Antony  and  Octavius  still  left  some 
remains  of  distrust  between  them,  Lepidus  first 
entered  alone  into  the  place  that  was  intended  for 
their  conference  ;  and  having  seen  that  no  snares 
were  laid  by  either  party,  he  made  the  signal 
agreed  on,  and  was  joined  by  the  other  two  with- 
out any  attendants. 

Octavius  now  met  with  Antony  in  a  character 
more  respectable  than  that  in  which  he  had  for- 
merly appeared  to  him,  and,  with  the  dignity  of 
the  Roman  consul  in  office,  had  the  place  of  ho- 
nour assigned  to  him.  They  continued  their  con- 
ference during  this  and  the  two  following  days  ;7 
and  at  the  expiration  of  this  time  made  known 
to  their  armies,  that  they  had  agreed  on  the  fol- 
lowing articles :  That  Octavius,  in  order  to  di- 
vest himself  of  every  legal  advantage  over  his 
associates,  should  resign  the  consulate  j  that  the 
three  military  leaders,  then  upon  an  «qual  foot- 
ing, should  hold  or  share  among  them,  during 
five  years,  the  supreme  administration  of  affairs 
in  the  empire ;  that  they  should  name  all  the 
officers  of  state,  magistrates,  and  governors  of 
provinces;  that  Octavius  should  have  the  exclu- 
sive command  in  Africa,  Sardinia,  and  Sicily, 
Lepidus  in  Spain,  and  Antony  in  Gaul;  that 
Lepidus  should  be  substituted  for  Deeimus  Bru- 
tus in  the  succession  to  the  consulate  for  the  fol- 
lowing year,  and  should  have  the  administration 
at  Rome,  while  Octavius  and  Antony  pursued 
the  war  against  Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  east; 
that  the  army,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  should  have 
settlements  assigned  to  them  in  the  richest  dis- 
tricts and  best  situations  of  Italy.  Among  the 
last  were  specified  Capua,  Rhegium,  Venusia, 
Beneventum,  Nuceria,  Ariminum,  and  Vibona. 

To  ratify  this  agreement,  the  daughter  of  Ful- 
via,  the  wife  of  Antony,  by  Clodius  her  former 
husband,  was  betrothed  to  Octavius.  He  was 
said  to  have  already  made  a  different  choice,  and 
consequently  to  have  had  no  intention  to  fulfil 
this  part  of  the  treaty  ;8  but  the  passions,  as  well 
as  the  professions,  of  this  young  man,  were  al- 
ready sufficiently  subservient  to  his  interest.9 

While  the  army  was  amused  by  the  publica- 
tion of  these  several  articles,  the  circumstances 


which  chiefly  distinguished  this  famous  coalition, 
was  the  secret  resolution,  then  taken,  to  extin- 
guish at  once  all  future  opposition  to  the  Caesa- 
rian party,  by  massacring  all  their  private  and 
public  enemies.  They  drew  up  a  list,  of  which 
the  numbers  are  variously  reported,  comprehend- 
ing all  those  who  had  given  them  private  or  pub- 
lic offence,  and  in  which  they  mutually  sacrificed 
their  respective  friends  to  each  other's  resentment. 
Antony  sacrificed  his  uncle  Lucius  Caesar  to  the 
resentment  of  Octavius ;  who,  in  his  turn,  sacri- 
ficed to  that  of  Antony,  Cicero,  with  Thoranius, 
his  own  guardian,  and  his  father's  -colleague  in 
the  office  of  praetor.10  Lepidus  gave  up  his  own 
brother  L.  Paulus;  and  all  of  them  agreed  to  join 
with  these  private  enemies  every  person  supposed 
to  be  attached  to  the  republican  government, 
amounting  in  all  to  three  hundred  senators  and 
two  thousand  of  the  equestrian  order,  besides 
many  persons  of  inferior  note,  whose  names  they 
deferred  entering  in  the  list  until  their  arrival  at 
Rome.  They  meant,  as  soon  as  they  should  be 
in  possession  of  the  capital,  to  publish  the  whole 
list  for  the  direction  of  those  who  were  to  be  em- 
ployed in  the  execution  of  the  massacre.  But 
as  there  were  a  few  whose  escape  they  were  par- 
ticularly anxious  to  prevent,  they  agreed  that  the 
murders  should  begin,  without  any  warning,  by 
the  death  of  twelve  or  seventeen  of  their  most 
considerable  enemies,  and  among  these  by  the 
death  of  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero."  They  ratified 
the  whole  by  mutual  oaths;  and  having  publish- 
ed all  the  articles,  except  that  which  related  to 
the  massacre,  the  plan  of  reconciliation  between 
the  leaders  was  received  by  the  armies  with 
shouts  of  applause,  and  was  supposed  to  be  the 
beginning  of  a  period  in  which  military  men 
were  to  rest  from  their  labours,  and  to  enjoy 
undisturbed  the  most  ample  reward  of  their  ser- 
vices. 

This  celebrated  cabal,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Second  Triumvirate,  having  thus  planned 
the  division  or  joint  administration  of  an  empire 
which  each  of  them  hoped  in  time  to  engross  for 
himself,  they  proceeded  to  Rome  with  an  aspect 
which,  to  those  who  comjKtsed  the  civil  establish- 
ment of  the  commonwealth,  was  more  terrible 
than  that  of  any  faction  which  had  been  hitherto 
formed  for  its  destruction. 

In  former  times,  individuals  rose  to  the  head 
of  parties  or  factions,  and  brought  armies  to  their 
standard  by  the  natural  ascendant  of  superior 
abilities;  and  either  disdained  the  advantages  of 
usurped  dominion,  or  knewhow  to  employ  their 
powers  in  exertions  not  unworthy  of  human 
reason.  Bat  in  this  instance,  persons  obscure, 
or  only  known  by  their  profligacy,  were  folkiwed 
by  armies  who  conceived  the  design  of  enslaving 
their  country.  The  spirit  of  adventure  pervaded 
the  meanest  rank  of  the  legions,  and  every  sol- 
dier grasped  at  the  fruits  that  were  to  be  reaped 
in  subduing  the  commonwealth.  If  .no  person 
had  offered  to  put  himself  at  their  head,  they 
themselves  would  have  raised  up  a  leader  whom 
they  might  follow  in  seizing  the  spoils  of  their 
fellow-citizens. 

Lepidus,  noted  for  his  want  of  capacity,  being 
in  the  rank  of  praetor  when  Ca>sar  took  posses- 
sion of  Rome,  and  being  the  only  Roman  officet 


fi  Appian.  de  Bell  Civ  lib.  iii.        7  Ibid.  lib.  iv.  10  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  '27. 

8  .Dio.  Casa.  lib.  xlvi.  c.  54,  o5,  5C  9  Ibid.         \     11  Appian.  do  Bell.  Civil,  lib.  ir 


353 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


{Book  V. 


of  state  who  Was  willing  to  prostitute  the  dig- 
nity of  his  station,  by  abetting  the  violence 
which  was  now  done  to  the  constitution,  was  en- 
trusted with  power,  and  the  command  of  an 
army,  merely  because  he  brought  the  name  and 
authority  of  a  magistrate  to  the  side  of  the  usur- 
pation. The  use  of  his  name  had  been  likewise 
convenient  to  Antony  in  the  late  junction  or 
coalition  of  their  armies  ;  and  was  now  neces- 
sary or  convenient  to  both  the  other  parties  in 
this  famous  association,  as  he  held  a  kind  of  ba- 
lance between  them,  and  was  to  witness  transac- 
tions in  which  neither  was  willing  to  trust  the 
other. 

Antony,  possessed  of  parts  which  were  known 
chiefly  by  the  profligate  Use  which  he  made  of 
them,  seeking  to  rej«ir  by  rapine  a  patrimony 
which  he  had  wasted  in  debauch;  and  some- 
times strenuous  when  pressed  by  necessity,  yet 
ever  relapsing  in  every  moment  of  ease  or  relax- 
ation into  the  vilest  debauchery  or  dissipation. 

Octavius,  yet  a  boy,  only  known  by  acts  of 
perfidy  and  cunning  above  his  years;  equally  in- 
different to  friendship  or  enmity,  apparently  de- 
fective in  personal  courage,  but  followed  by  the 
remains  of  Caesar's  army,  as  having  a  common 
cause  with  themselves  in  securing  the  advantages 
which  they  severally  claimed  by  virtue  of  his  au- 
thority. He  was  now  about  the  twentieth  year  of 
his  age,  had  been  already  two  years  at  the  head 
of  a  faction,  veering  in  his  professions  and  in  his 
conduct  with  every  turn  of  fortune ;  at  one  time 
reconciled  with  the  authors  of  Caesar's  death,  and 
courting  the  senate,  by  affecting  the  zeal  of  a 
citizen  for  the  preservation  of  the  commonwealth : 
at  another  time,  courting  the  remnant  of  his  late 
uncle's  army,  by  affecting  concern  for  their  inte- 
rests, and  a  solicitude  for  the  security  of  the 
grants  they  had  obtained  from  Caesar :  at  variance 
with  Antony  on  the  score  of  personal  insults  and 
incompatible  pretensions,  even  charged  with  de- 
signs on  his  life ;  but  reconciled  to  him,  in  ap- 
pearance, from  considerations  of  interest  or  pre- 
sent conveniency.  He  had  already,  in  the 
transactions  of  so  short  a  life,  given  indications 
of  all  the  vilest  qualities  incident  to  human  na- 
ture, perfidy,  cowardice,  and  cruelty ;  but  with 
an  ability  or  cunning  which,  if  suffered  to  con- 
tinue its  operations,  was  likely  to  prevail  in  the 
contest  for  superiority  with  his  present  rivals  in 
the  empire. 

Such  was  the  received  description  of  persons 
Who  had  now  parcelled  among  themselves  the 
government  of  the  world,  and  whose  vices  were 
exaggerated  by  the  fears  of  those  who  were  likely 
to  suffer  by  the  effects  of  their  power.  Under 
the  dominion  of  such  a  junto,  if  any  one  were 
left  to  regret  the  loss  of  public  liberty,  or  to  feel 
the  state  of  degradation  into  which  citizens  were 
fallen ;  if  any  one  could  look  forward  from  the 
terrors  of  a  present  tyranny  to  the  prospect  of  fu- 
ture evils ;  to  them  surely  a  scene  of  expectation 
was  opening  the  most  gloomy  that  ever  had  pre- 
sented itself  to  mankind;  persons,  apparently 
incapable  of  any  noble  or  generous  purpose, 
coveting  power  as  a  license  to  crimes,  supported 
by  bands  of  unprincipled  villains,  were  now  ready 
to  seize  and  to  distribute,  in  lots  among  them- 
selves, all  the  dignities  of  the  state,  and  all  the 
patrimony  of  its  members. 

In  human  affairs,  however,  the  prospect,  whe- 
ther good  or  bad  in  extreme  is  seldom  verified 


by  the  end  ;  and  human  nature,  when  seemingly 
driving  to  the  wildest  excess,  after  a  series  of 
events  and  struggles,  settles  at  last  in  some  sort 
of  mediocrity,  beyond  which  it  never  is  pushed 
but  by  occasional  starts  and  sallies.  The  first 
entry  of  this  triumvirate  on  the  scene  of  their 
government,  indeed,  was  such  as  could  scarcely 
be  supported  in  the  sequel  of  any  tyranny  ol 
usurpation  whatever. 

The  triumvirs  being  on  their  way  to  Rome,  their 
orders  for  the  immediate  execution  of  seventeen 
of  the  principal  senators  had  been  received  before 
their  arrival,  and  several  were  accordingly  sur- 
prised and  murdered  in  their  houses,  or  in  the 
streets.  The  first  alarm  appearing  the  more 
terrible,  as  the  occasion  of  these  murders  was 
unknown,  struck  all  orders  of  men  with  a  gene- 
ral amazement  and  terror.  The  streets  were 
presently  deserted,  and  hushed  in  silence,  except 
where  armed  parties  skulked  in  search  of  their 
prev,  or  by  the  cries  which  they  raised,  gave 
mutual  intimation  of  the  discoveries  they  made. 
Persons  who  found  themselves  pursued,  at- 
tempted to  set  the  city  on  fire,  in  order  to  faci- 
litate their  own  escape.  Pedius,  the  consul, 
continued  all  night  in  the  streets,  endeavouring 
to  prevent  the  calamity  of  a  general  fire.  In 
order  to  quiet  the  minds  of  those  who  were  not 
aimed  at  in  this  execution,  he  published  the 
names  of  the  seventeen,  with  assurances  that  the 
executions  were  not  to  proceed  any  farther.1  It 
has  been  supposed,  that  the  design  was  no  farther 
communicated  to  this  magistrate,  and  that  he 
would  have  opposed  the  extremes  to  which  it  was 
carried ;  but,  on  the  following  night,  he  died  cf 
the  fatigue  he  had  incurred  on  this  occasion,  and 
the  public  assurances  he  had  given  were  attended 
with  no  effect. 

The  triumvirs  marched  separately  towards  the 
city,  and  made  their  entry  on  three  several  days. 
As  they  arrived  in  succession,  they  occupied 
every  quarter  with  guards  and  attendants,  and 
filled  every  public  place  with  armed  men,  and 
with  military  standards  and  ensigns.  In  order 
to  ratify  the  powers  they  had  devised  for  them- 
selves, they  put  the  articles  of  their  agreement 
into  the  hands  of  the  tribune  Publius  Titius,  with 
instructions,  that  they  should  be  proposed  and 
enacted  in  the  public  assembly  of  the  Roman 
people ;  and  put  in  the  form  of  a  legal  commission, 
or  warrant,  for  the  government  they  had  usurped. 
By  the  act  which  passed  on  this  occasion,  the 
supreme  power  or-  sovereignty  of  the  republic, 
during  five  years,  without  any  reserve  or  limita- 
tion, was  conferred  on  Octavius,  Antony,  and 
Lepidus ;  and  a  solemn  thanksgiving  l>eing  or- 
dered for  the  events  already  passed,  which  led  to 
this  termination,  the  citizens  in  general,  under 
the  deepest  impressions  of  terror  and  sorrow, 
were  obliged  to  assume  appearances  of  satisfac- 
tion and  joy. 

As  the  first  act  of  this  government,  two  lists 
or  proscriptions  were  delivered  to  the  proper  of- 
ficers of  the  army,  and  posted  in  different  parts 
of  the  city  ;  one  a  list  of  senators,  the  other  a  list 
of  persons  of  inferior  rank,  on  whom  the  troops 
were  directed  to  perform  immediate  execution. 
In  consequence  of  these  orders,  all  the  streets, 
temples,  and  private  houses,  instantly  became 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv. 

2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.    Appian.  lib.  iv. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


357 


scenes  of  blood.3  At  the  same  time,  there  ap- 
peared on  the  part  of  the  triumvirs  a  manifesto, 
in  which,  having  stated  the  ingratitude  of  many 
whom  Caesar  had  spared,  of  many  whom  he  had 
promoted  to  high  office,  and  whom  he  had  even 
destined  to  inherit  his  fortunes,  and  who,  never- 
theless, conspired  against  his  life,  they  alleged 
the  necessity  they  wen;  under  of  preventing  the 
designs  of  their  enemies,  and  of  extirpating  a 
'dangerous  faction,  whom  no  benefits  could  bind, 
and  whom  no  considerations,  sacred  or  profane, 
Could  restrain.  "  Under  the  influence  of  this 
faction,"  they  said,  "  the  perpetrators  of  a  horrid 
murder,  instead  of  being  called  to  an  account, 
are  entrusted  with  the  command  of  provinces, 
and  furnished  with  resources  of  men  and  money 
to  support  them  against  the  efforts  of  public  jus- 
tice, and  against  the  indignation  of  the  Roman 
people.  Some  of  these  murderers,"  they  con- 
tinued, "we  have  already  chastised  ;  others,  being 
at  the  head  of  powerful  armies,  threaten  to  frus- 
trate the  effects  of  our  just  resentment.  Having 
such  a  conflict  to  maintain  in  the  provinces,  it 
would  be  absurd  to  leave  an  enemy  in  possession 
of  the  city,  and  ready  to  take  advantage  of  any 
unfavourable  accident  that  may  befall  us  in  de- 
fence of  the  commonwealth.  For  this  reason, 
we  have  determined  to  cut  off  every  person  who 
is  likely  to  abet  their  designs  at  Rome,  and  to 
make  this  desperate  faction  feel  the  effects  of  that 
war  which  they  were  so  ready  to  declare  against 
us  and  our  friends. 

"  We  mean  no  harm  to  the  innocent,  and  shall 
molest  no  citizen,  in  order  to  seize  his  property. 
We  shall  not  insist  on  destroying  even  all  those 
whom  we  know  to  be  our  enemies;  but  the  most 
guilty,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  Roman  people,  as 
well  as  ours,  to  have  removed,  that  the  republic 
may  no  longer  be  torn  and  agitated  by  the  quar; 
rels  of  parties  who  cannot  be  reconciled. 

"  Some  atonement  is  likewise  due  to  the  army 
insulted  by  the  late  decrees,  in  which  they  were 
declared  enemies  to  the  commonwealth. 

"  We  might,"  they  continued,  "  have  surprised 
and  taken  all  our  enemies  without  any  warning, 
or  explanation  of  our  conduct;  but  we  chose  to 
make  an  open  declaration  of  our  purpose,  that  the 
innocent  may  not,  by  mistake,  be  involved  with 
the  guilty,  nor  even  be  unnecessarily  alarmed." 
They  concluded  this  fatal  proclamation,  with  a 
prohibition  to  conceal,  rescue,  or  protect  any  per- 
son whose  name  was  proscribed;  and  thov  de- 
clared, that  whoever  acted  in  opposition  to  this 
order,  should  be  considered  as  one  of  the  number, 
and  involved  in  the  same  ruin.  They  declared, 
th  it  whoever  produced  the  head  of  a  person 
proscribed,  if  a  free  man,  he  should  receive 
twenty-five  thousand  Attic  drachms  or  denarii, 
and  if  a  slave,  should  have  his  liberty,  with  ten 
thousand  of  the  same  money ;  and  that  every 
slave  killing  his  master,  in  execution  of  this  pro- 
scription, should  have  his  freedom,  and  be  put  on 
the  rolls  of  the  people  in  the  place  of  the  person 
he  had  slain. 

At  the  time  that  this  proclamation  and  the 
preceding  lists  were  published,  armed  parties  had 
already  seized  on  the  gates  of  the  city,  and  were 
prepared  to  intercept  all  who  attempted  to  escape. 
Others  began  to  ransack  the  houses,  and  took 
their  way  to  the  villas  and  gardens  in  the  sub. 


3  JDjo.  Cass.  lib.  xlvi.    Appian.  lib.  iv. 


urbs,  where  it  was  likely  that  any  of  the  pro- 
scribed had  retired.  By  the  disposition  they 
made,  the  execution  began  in  many  places  at 
once,  and  those  who  knew  or  suspected  their  own 
destination,  like  the  inhabitants  of  a  city  taken 
by  storm,  were  on  every  side  surrounded  by  ene- 
mies, from  whom  they  were  to  receive  no  quarter. 
To  many,  it  is  observed  by  historians,  that  their 
own  nearest  relations  were  objects  of  terror,  no 
less  than  the  mercenary  hands  that  were  armed 
against  them.  The  husband  and  the  father  did 
not  think  himself  secure  in  his  concealment, 
when  he  supposed  it  to  be  known  to  his  wife  or 
to  his  children.  The  slaves  and  freedmen  of  a 
family  were  become  its  most  terrible  enemies. 
The  debtor  had  an  interest  in  circumventing  his 
creditor,  and  neighbours  in  the  country  mutually 
dreaded  each  other  as  informers  and  spies.  The 
money  which  the  master  of  a  family  was  sup- 
posed to  have  in  his  house,  was  considered  as  an 
additional  reward  to  the  treachery  of  his  domes- 
tics. The  first  citizens  of  Rome  were  prostrate 
at  the  feet  of  their  own  slaves,  imploring  protec- 
tion and  mercy,  or  perished  in  the  wells  or  com- 
mon sewers,  where  they  attempted  to  conceal 
themselves. 

Persons  having  any  private  grudge  or  secret 
malice,  took  this  opportunity  to  accomplish  their 
ends.  Even  they  who  were  inclined  to  protect 
or  conceal  the  unhappy,  were  terrified  with  the 
prospect  of  being  involved  in  their  ruin.  Many, 
who  themselves,  contrary  to  expectation,  were 
not  in  the  list  of  the  proscribed,  enjoyed  their 
own  safety,  in  perfect  indifference  to  the  distress 
of  their  neighbours ;  or,  that  they  might  distin- 
guish themselves  by  their  zeal  for  the  prevailing 
cause,  joined  the  executioners,  assisted  in  the 
slaughter,  or  plundered  the  houses  of  the  slain. 

There  were  killed,  in  the  beginning  of  this 
massacre,  Salvius,  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  peo- 
ple, together  with  Minucius  and  Annalis,  l>oth 
in  the  office  of  proctors.  Silicius  Coronas,  a  per- 
son already  mentioned,  who  being  one  of  the 
judges  at  the  citation  of  Marcus  Brutus  and 
Caius  Cassius  for  the  murder  of  Julius  Caesar,  had 
ventured,  in  the  presence  of  Octavius,  to  hold  up 
into  view  the  ballot  by  which  he  acquitted  them, 
and-  who,  although  at  that  time  in  appearance 
overlooked,  now  perished  among  the  proscribed. 

Many  tragic  particulars,  in  these  narrations, 
seem  to  be  copied  from  former  examples  ot  what 
happened  under  Marius  China  and  Sylla,  of  per 
sons  betrayed  by  their  servants,  their  confidants, 
and  nearest  relations,  and  with  a  treachery  and 
cruelty,  which  seemed  to  increase  with  the  cor- 
ruptions of  the  age  ;  but  yet  not  without  instances 
of  heroic  fidelity  and  generous  courage,  of  which 
human  nature,  itself  ever  appears  to  be  capable, 
even  in  the  most  degenerate  times. 

The  slave  of  one  of  the  proscribed,  seeing  sol- 
diers come  towards  the  place  where  his  master 
lay  concealed,  took  the  disguise  of  his  clothes, 
and  presented  himself  to  be  killed  in  his  stead. 
Another  slave  agreed  to  personate  his  master, 
and  being  carried  in  his  litter,  was  killed,  while 
the  master  himself,  acting  as  one  of  the  bearers 
of  the  litter,  escaped.  Another  having  been  for- 
merly branded  by  his  master  for  some  offence, 
was  easily  suspected  of  a  desire  to  seize  this  op- 
portunity of  being  revenged ;  but  he  chose  the 
opposite  part.  While  his  master  fled,  he  put 
himself  in  the  way  to  stop  his  pursuers,  produced 


353 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


a  head,  which  he  had  severed  from  a  dead  body 
in  the  streets,  and  passing  it  for  that  of  his  mas- 
ter, procured  him  the  means  of  escape. 

The  son  of  Hosidius  Geta  saved  his  father  by 
giving  out  that  he  was  already  killed,  and  by  ac- 
tually performing  a  funeral  in  his  name.  The 
son  of  Gluintus  Cicero,  though,  in  the  former 
part  of  his  life,  often  on  bad  terms  with  his  father 
and  with  his  uncle,  and  often  undutiful  to  both, 
ended  his  days  in  an  act  of  magnanimity  and  filial 
affection ;  persevering  in  the  concealment  of  his 
father,  notwithstanding  that  the  torture  was  ap- 
plied to  force  a  discovery,  until  the  father,  who 
was  within  hearing  of  what  was  in  agitation, 
burst  from  his  concealment,  and  was  slain,  toge- 
ther with  his  son.1 

Gluintus  Cicero,  who  perished  in  this  manner, 
was  for  some  time  in  concealment  with  his  bro- 
ther Marcus,  having  been  in  the  country,  or 
having  escaped  from  the  city  on  the  first  alarm 
of  these  murders.  The  brothers  are  mentioned 
as  being  at  Tusculum  together,  and  as  setting 
out  from  thence  for  Astura,  another  of  Cicero's 
villas  on  the  coast,  intending  to  embark  for  Greece; 
but  as  Gluintus  was  entirely  unprovided  for  the 
voyage,  and  his  brother  unable  to  supply  him, 
they  parted  on  the  road  in  agonies  of  grief.  In 
a  few  days  after  this  parting,  Gluintus  having  put 
himself  under  the  protection  of  his  own  son,  re- 
ceived, though  in  vain,  that  striking  proof  of  his 
filial  affection  and  fidelity,  which  has  just  been 
mentioned. 

Marcus  Cicero  having  got  safe  to  Astura,  em- 
barked, and  with  a  fair  wind  arrived  at  Circeii. 
When  the  vessel  was  again  about  to  set  sail,  his 
mind  wavered,  he  flattered  himself  that  matters 
might  yet  take  a  more  favourable  turn  ;  he  landed, 
and  travelled  about  twelve  miles  on  his  way  to 
Rome  :2  but  his  resolution  again  failed  him,  and 
he  once  more  returned  towards  the  sea.  Being 
arrived  on  the  coast,  he  still  hesitated,  remained 
on  shore,  and  passed  the  night  in  agonies  of  sor- 
row, which  were  interrupted  only  by  momentary 
starts  of  indignation  and  rage.  Under  these 
emotions,  he  sometimes  solaced  himself  with  a 
prospect  of  returning  to  Rome  in  disguise,  of  kill- 
ing himself  in  the  presence  of  Octavius,  and  of 
staining  the  person  of  that  young  traitor  with  the 
blood  of  a  man,  whom  he  had  so  ungratefully 
and  so  vilely  betrayed.  Even  this  appeared  to 
his  frantic  imagination  some  degree  of  revenge ; 
but  the  fear  of  being  discovered  before  he  could 
execute  his  purpose,  the  prospect  of  the  tortures 
and  indignities  he  was  likely  to  suffer,  deterred 
him  from  this  design ;  and,  being  unable  to  take 
any  resolution  whatever,  he  committed  himself 
to  his  attendants,  was  carried  on  board  of  a  ves- 
sel, and  steered  for  Capua.3  Near  to  this  place, 
having  another  villa  on  the  shore,  he  was  again 
landed,  and  being  fatigued  with  the  motion  of  the 
sea,  went  to  rest ;  but  his  servants,  according  to 
the  superstition  of  the  times,  being  disturbed  with 
prodigies  and  unfavourable  presages,  or  rather 
being  sensible  of  their  master's  danger,  after  a 
little  repose  awaked  him  from  his  sleep,  forced 
him  into  his  litter,  and  hastened  again  to  embark. 
Soon  after  they  were  gone,  Popilius  Laenas,  a 
tribune  of  the  legions,  and  Herennius,  a  centu- 
rion, with  a  party  who  had  been  for  some  days 

1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ  lib.  iv. 

2  Plut.  iu  Cicerone.  3  Ibid. 


in  search  of  this  prey,  arrived  at  the  villa.  Pe- 
pilius  had  received  particular  obligations  from 
Cicero,  having  been  defended  by  him  when  tried 
upon  a  criminal  accusation  ;  but  these  were  times, 
in  which  bad  men  could  make  a  merit  of  ingrati- 
tude to  their  former  benefactors,  when  it  served 
to  ingratiate  them  with  those  in  power.  This 
officer,  with  his  party,  finding  the  gates  of  the 
court  and  the  passages  of  the  villa  shut,  burst 
them  open ;  but  missing  the  person  they  sought 
for,  and  suspecting  that  he  must  have  taken  his 
flight  again  to  the  sea,  they  pursued  through  an 
avenue  that  led  to  the  shore,  and  came  in  sight 
of  Cicero's  litter,  before  he  had  left  the  walks  of 
his  own  garden. 

On  the  appearance  of  a  military  party,  Cice- 
ro perceived  the  end  of  his  labours,  ordered  the 
bearers  of  his  litter  to  halt ;  and  having  been  hi- 
therto, while  there  were  any  hopes  of  escape, 
distressed  chiefly  by  the  perplexity  and  indecision 
of  his  own  mind,  he  became,  as  soon  as  his  fate 
appeared  to  be  certain,  determined  and  calm.  In 
this  situation,  he  was  observed  to  stroke  his  chin 
with  his  left  hand,  a  gesture  for  which  he  was 
remarkable  in  his  moments  of  thoughtfulness, 
and  when  least  disturbed.  Upon  the  approach 
of  the  party,  he  put  forth  his  head  from  the  litter, 
and  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  tribune  with  great 
composure.  The  countenance  of  a  man  so  well 
known  to  every  Roman,  now  worn  out  with  fa 
tigue  and  dejection,  and  disfigured  by  neglect  of 
the  usual  attention  to  his  person,  made  a  moving 
spectacle  even  to  those  who  came  to  assist  in  his 
murder.  They  turned  away,  while  the  assassin 
performed  his  office,  and  severed  the  head  from 
his  body. 

Thus  perished  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  in  the 
sixty-fourth  year  of  his  age.  Although  his  cha- 
racter may  be  known  from  the  part  which  he 
bore  in  several  transactions,  of  which  the  accounts 
are  scattered  in  different  parts  of  this  history,  yet 
it  is  difficult  to  close  the  scene  of  his  life,  without 
some  recollection  of  the  circumstances  which 
were  peculiar  to  so  distinguished  a  personage. 
He  appears  to  have  been  the  last  of  the  Romans, 
who  rose  to  the  highest  offices  of  state  by  the 
force  of  his  personal  character,  and  by  the  fair 
arts  of  a  republican  candidate  for  public  honours. 
None  of  his  ancestors  having  enjoyed  any  con- 
siderable preferments,  he  was  upon  this  account 
considered  as  a  new  man,  and  with  reluctance 
admitted  by  the  nobility  to  a  participation  of  ho- 
nours. It  was  however  impossible  to  prevent  his 
advancement,  so  long  as  preferments  were  distri- 
buted according  to  the  civil  and  political  forms  of 
the  republic,  which  gave  so  large  a  scope  to  the 
industry,  abilities,  and  genius  of  such  men.  Un- 
der those  forms,  all  the  virtues  of  a  citizen  were 
allowed  to  have  some  effect,  and  all  the  variety  ot 
useful  qualifications  were  supposed  to  be  united  in 
forming  a  title  to  the  confidence  of  the  public  ;  the 
qualifications  of  a  warrior  were  united  with  those 
of  a  statesman,  and  even  the  talents  of  a  lawyei 
and  barrister,  with  those  of  a  senator  and  coun- 
sellor of  state.  The  law  required,4  that  the  same 
person  should  be  a  warrior  and  statesman,  and  it 
was  at  least  expedient  or  customary,  that  he 
should  be  also  a  barrister,  in  order  to  secure  the 


4  Ten  or  fifteen  years  military  service  was  required 
as  a  qualification  for  the  higher  offices  of  state.  Vid 
Polyb.  ubi  supra. 


CflAP.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


355 


public  favour,  and  to  support  his  consideration 
with  the  people. 

Cicero  was  by  no  means  the  first  person  at 
Rome,  who  with  peculiar  attention  cultivated  the 
talents  of  a  pleader,  and  applied  himself  with  ar- 
dour to  literary  studies.  He  is  nevertheless  uni- 
versally acknowledged,  by  his  proficiency  in  these 
studies,  to  have  greatly  excelled  all  those  who 
went  before  him,  so  much  as  to  have  attained  the 
highest  preferments  in  the  commonwealth,  with- 
out having  quitted  the  gown,  and  to  have  made 
his  first  campaign  in  the  capacity  of  Roman  pro- 
consul, and  above  ten  years  after  he  had  already 
exercised  the  supreme  executive  power  in  the 
state. 

To  the  novelty  of  this  circumstance,  as  well  as 
to  the  novelty  of  his  family-name  in  the  list  of 
officers  of  state,  was  owing  some  part  of  that  ob- 
loquy which  his  enemies  employed  against  him  ; 
and  it  may  be  admitted,  that  for  a  Roman  he  was 
too  much  a  mere  man  of  the  robe,  and  that  he 
possibly  may  have  been  less  a  statesman  and  a 
warrior,  for  having  been  so  much  a  man  of  letters, 
and  so  accomplished  a  pleader. 

Cicero,  whether  we  suppose  him  to  have  been 
governed  by  original  vanity,  or  by  a  habit  of  con- 
sidering the  world  as  a  theatre  for  the  display  of 
his  talents,  and  the  acquisition  of  fame,  more  than 
as  a  scene  of  real  affairs,  in  which  objects  of  se- 
rious consequence  to  mankind  were  to  be  treated, 
was  certainly  too  fond  of  applause,  courted  it  as 
a  principal  object  even  in  the  fairest  transactions 
of  his  life,  and  was  too  much  dependant  on  the 
opinion  of  other  men  to  possess  himself  sufficient- 
ly amidst  the  difficulties  which  occur  in  the  very 
arduous  situation  which  fell  to  his  lot.  Though 
disposed,  in  the  midst  of  a  very  corrupt  age,  to 
merit  commendation  by  honest  means,  and  by 
the  support  of  good  government,  he  could  not 
endure  reproach  or  censure,  even  from  those 
whose  disapprobation  was  a  presumption  of  inno- 
cence and  of  merit ;  and  he  felt  the  unpopularity 
of  his  actions,  even  where  he  thought  his  conduct 
the  most  meritorious,  with  a  degree  of  mortifica- 
tion which  greatly  distracted  his  mind,  and  shook 
his  resolution.  Being,  towards  the  end  of  his 
life,  by  the  almost  total  extirpation  of  the  more 
respectable  citizens  and  members  of  the  senate, 
who  had  laboured  with  him  for  the  preservation 
of  the  commonwealth,  left  in  a  situation  which 
required  the  abilities  of  a  great  warrior,  as  well  as 
those  of  the  ablest  statesmen,  and  in  which,  even 
such  abilities  could  not  have  stemmed  the  tor- 
rent which  burst  forth  to  overwhelm  the  republic, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  he  failed  in  the  attempt. 

Antony,  at  the  same  time  that  he  gave  orders 
for  the  death  of  Cicero,  gave  directions  that  not 
only  his  head,  but  his  right  hand  likewise,  with 
which  he  had  written  so  many  severe  invectives 
against  himself,  should  be  cut  off,5  and  brought  to 
him  as  an  evidence  of  the  execution. 

In  the  course  of  these  murders,  the  heads  of 
the  slain  were  usually  presented  to  the  triumvirs, 
and  by  their  orders  set  up  in  conspicuous  places, 
while  the  bodies  were  cast  into  the  river,  or  suf- 
fered to  be  exposed  in  the  streets.  Antony 
having  more  resentments  to  gratify  than  either 
of  his  colleagues,  had  the  heads  of  his  enemies 
brought  to  him  in  great  numbers,  even  as  he  lay 


5  PJut.  in  Cicerone. 


on  his  couch  at  his  meals.  That  of  Cicero  wa« 
received  by  him  with  the  joy  of  victory  ;  he  gazed 
upon  it  with  singular  pleasure,  and  ordeied  it, 
together  with  the  hand,  to  be  exposed  on  the  ros- 
trum from  which  this  respectable  citizen  had  so 
often  declaimed,  and  where  these  mangled  parts 
of  his  body  were  now  exposed  to  the  view  of  a 
multitude,  that  used  to  crowd  to  his  audience* 
Fulvia  too  had  her  enemies  on  this  occasion,  and 
received  the  bloody  tokens  of  their  execution 
with  a  savage  avidity  and  pleasure,  which  to 
those  who  judge  of  propriety  from  modern  cus- 
toms, or  who  form  their  opinions  of  the  sex  from 
the  manners  of  modern  times,  will  scarcely  ap- 
pear to  be  credible.  When  the  head  of  Cicero, 
in  particular,  was  brought  to  her  toilet,  with  a 
peculiar  and  spiteful  allusion  to  the  eloquence,  by 
which  she  herself,  as  well  as  her  present  and  for- 
mer husbands,  had  been  galled,  she  is  said  tc 
have  forced  open  the  jaw,  and  to  have  pricked 
and  tore  the  tongue  with  the  point  of  a  bodkin, 
which  she  took  from  her  hair. 

In  this  horrid  scene  of  revenge  and  cruelty, 
rapacity  too  had  its  share,  many  persons  were 
proscribed,  merely  that  their  estates  might  be 
brought  into  the  coffers  of  the  triumvirs;  and 
many  persons  were  threatened,  to  induce  them 
to  ransom7  their  lives  with  money.  The  list  re- 
ceived frequent  additions,  and  underwent  many 
alterations,  some  names  being  scratched  out,  and 
others  inserted,  a  circumstance,  by  which  persons 
of  any  considerable  property,  as  well  as  those 
who  were  obnoxious  to  any  of  the  persons  in 
power,  were  kept  in  the  most  anxious  state  of 
suspense  and  uncertainty.  Many  who  were 
spared  by  the  public  usurpers  of  government,  fell 
a  sacrifice  to  the  resentment  of  their  private  ene- 
mies, or  to  the  avarice  of  those  who  wished  to 
possess  themselves  of  their  property  ;•  and  the 
names  of  many  persons  who  had  been  thus  slain, 
without  any  public  authority,  were  afterwards 
inserted  in  the  list  of  the  proscribed,  in  order  to 
justify  the  murder. 

The  troops  were  sensible  of  their  own  import- 
ance on  this  occasion,  and  set  no  bounds  to  their 
pretensions.  They  solicited  grants  of  the  houses 
of  persons  reputed  to  be  of  the  opposite  party  ;  or, 
being  the  only  buyers  at  the  frequent  sales  which 
were  made  of  forfeited  estates,  obtained  the  pos- 
session of  them  by  a  kind  of  fictitious  purchase. 
Not  satisfied  with  the  price  which  was  paid  them 
for  the  blood  of  the  proscribed,  or  with  the  extra- 
vagant gratuities  which  they  frequently  received, 
they  were,  under  various  pretences,  hastening  to 
seize  every  subject  that  tempted  their  avarice. 
They  intruded  themselves  into  every  family,  and 
laid  claim  to  every  inheritance ;  they  plundered 
at  discretion  the  houses  of  the  rich,  or  murdered 
indiscriminately  those  who  offended  them,  or  who 
stood  in  their  way  to  the  possession  of  wealth ; 
they  encouraged,  by  their  example,  fugitive 
slaves,  and  disorderly  persons  of  every  description, 
who,  forming  themselves  into  bands  in  the  dis- 
guise of  soldiers,  engaged  in  the  same  practices, 
and  perpetrated  the  same  crimes. 

The  triumvirs,  whose  principal  object  it  was 
to  secure  the  government,  though  noways  inter- 
ested in  these  extreme  disorders,  which  far  ex- 


6  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv. 
I     7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii. 
|     8  Ibid.  c.  J2.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


ceeded  what  they  originally  projected,  not  daring 
to  restrain  the  military  violence,  lest  it  should 
recoil  on  themselves,  left  for  some  time  the  lives, 
as  well  as  the  properties  of  the  people,  entirely  at 
the  mercy  of  the  troops;  and  citizens,  who  were 
reputed  to  have  any  effects  in  reserve,  were  fain 
to  adopt  some  soldier  as  a  son,  in  order  to  obtain 
his  protection. 

Such  are  the  particulars  which  are  recorded  of 
this  famous  transaction,  which,  however  mon- 
strous in  those  who  gave  rise  to  it,  far  exceeded 
the  bounds  of  their  original  design.  When  the 
evil  had  in  some  measure  spent  its  force,  its  au- 
thors were  willing  to  divert  the  attention  of  the 
public,  or  to  efface  the  melancholy  impressions 
which  remained.  For  this  purpose,  Lepidus  and 
Plancus  being  about  to  enter  on  the  office  of 
consul  for  the  following  year,  on  some  slight  pre- 
tence of  a  victory  gained  by  the  army  in  Gaul, 
entered  the  city  in  procession;  but  suspecting 
that  the  people  were  more  inclinable  to  dejection 
than  triumph,  they  directed  the  public,  by  a  pro- 
clamation, to  give  on  that  day  the  demonstrations 
of  joy  which  generally  made  part  in  the  recep- 
tion that  was  given  to  victorious  generals.1 

The  soldiers  indeed  were  not  wanting,  as  usual, 
in  the  petulant  sarcasms  and  familiar  abuse,  in 
which  they  availed  themselves  of  their  present 
consequence :  they  sung,  in  their  procession, 
scurrilous  ballads,  alluding  to  examples  of  parri- 
cide as  well  as  murder  committed  by  their  chiefs 
in  the  late  proscription  ;  by  Lepidus  and  Plancus, 
that  of  their  own  brothers ;  by  Anjtony  and  Octa- 
vius,  that  of  their  nearest  relations  and  friends.9 
But  at  the  disposal  of  such  masters  as  these,  every 
citizen  who  was  likely  to  frown  on  their  crimes, 
every  person  whose  countenance  gave  signs  of 
dejection,  or  sorrow,  every  possessor  of  land, 
and  every  father  of  a  family,  had  reason  to  trem- 
ble for  their  persons,  their  possessions,  and  the 
safety  of  their  children. 

Such  was  the  aspect  of  affairs  in  Italy ;  but 
there  were  still  some  rays  of  hope,  which  shone 
from  a  distance.  Not  only  Brutus  and  Cassius, 
in  their  provinces  of  Macedonia  and  Syria ;  but 
Cornificius  in  Africa,  and  Sextus  Pompeius  in 
Sicily,  still  held  up  the  standard  of  the  republic, 
and  offered  places  of  refuge  to  its  friends.  Sex- 
tus Pompeius  stationed  ships  on  the  coast  to  re- 
ceive them,  and  published  rewards  for  the  rescue 
or  protection  of  his  father's  party,  and  of  those 
unfortunate  remains  of  the  commonwealth.3  Pau- 
lus,  the  brother  of  Lepidus,  though  abandoned 
to  destruction,  was  suffered  to  escape  by  the  sol- 
diers of  the  army,  from  a  respect -to  himself  or  to 
their  general.  Lucius  Caasar  was  protected  by 
his  sister,  the  mother  of  Antony.  Messala  es- 
caped to  Brutus.  Many  others,  whose  names 
only  are  known,  took  refuge  with  one  or  other  of 
the  leaders,  who  were  in  condition  to  contend  for 
the  republic,  or  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  empire. 

Lepidus  and  Plancus  being  en- 
CJ.  C.  711.  tered  on  the  office  of  consul,  had  in 
L  M.  Plan-  cnarge  from  tne  triumvirs,  as  the  first 
cms,  M.  JE.  object  of  their  magistracy,  the  raising 
Lepidus.  of  money  to  supply  the  farther  exi- 
gencies of  the  war.  Great  sums  had 
been  expected  to  arise  from  the  sale  of  the  estates 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv. 

2  De  Germanis  non  de  Gallis  triumphant  Consules. 

3  Appian  ut  supra.   Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlvii.  c.  12. 


of  the  proscribed;  but  the  purchase  of  such 
estates  was  justly  reckoned  invidious  among  e 
certain  class  of  the  people,  who  declined  being 
partakers  in  the  spoils  of  innocent  and  respectable 
citizens ;  and  it  was  dangerous  for  an  ordinary 
citizen  to  appear  to  be  rich,  or  in  condition  to 
buy :  insomuch,  that  they  who  murdered  the 
owner,  were  almost  the  only  buyers  of  estates- 
that  were  exposed  to  public  sale ;  and  the  money 
which  arose  from  these  sales,  fell  greatly  short  of' 
the  expectations  which  had  been  entertained  from 
them. 

It  was  computed,  that  two  hundred  millions, 
Roman  money,  were  yet  wanting  to  supply  the 
expense  of  the  war.4  In  order  to  make  up  this 
deficiency,  the  male  sex  chiefly  having  hitherto 
suffered  by  the  public  exactions,  a  contribution 
was  levied  from  such  women  related  to  the  oppo- 
site party  as  were  supposed  to  be  rich.  At  the 
same  time  persons  of  every  description  whose 
estates  exceeded  one  hundred  thousand5  Roman 
money,  were  commanded  to  give  an  account  of 
their  effects,  that  they  might  pay  a  tax  equal  to 
a  fiftieth  of  their  stock,  and  one  year's  income  of 
their  ordinary  revenue. 6 

To  enforce  these  exactions,  hitherto  unusual  in 
Italy,  much  violence  was  necessary.  The  renta 
of  houses  in  the  city,  and  the  produce  of  lands  in 
the  country  were  sequestrated,  leaving  only  one 
half  for  the  subsistence  of  the  owners.  In  this 
manner,  great  sums  of  money  were  levied  from 
the  peaceable  part  of  the  commonwealth  ;  but  as 
the  triumvirs  had  incurred  a  very  heavy  debt  in 
their  military  operations,  and  in  bounties  to  se- 
cure the  troops  in  their  interest,  and  had  in  pros- 
pect an  arduous  and  expensive  war  against  Bru- 
tus and  Cassius,  armed  with  the  forces,  and 
supported  by  the  treasures  of  the  east,  the  first 
sums  which  came  in  were  far  from  being  suffi- 
cient for  their  purpose.  Additional  exactions 
were  made,  under  the  denomination  of  fines  or 
forfeitures,  from  those  who  were  alleged  to  have 
given  in  a  false  state  of  their  effects. 

In  imitation  of  the  late  sanguinary  proscrip- 
tions, the  consuls  published  lists  of  all  who  had 
incurred  this  penalty,  and  ordered  their  effects 
accordingly  to  be  seized.  The  inhabitants  of 
the  towns  were  obliged  to  find  subsistence  for  the 
troops  that  were  quartered  on  then),  and  the 
country  was  pillaged,  under  pretence  of  a  search 
that  was  made  for  the  effects  of  rebels.  The  pay 
of  the  soldiers  accumulating  in  the  hands  of  their 
leaders,  was  considered,  together  with  the  advan- 
tages which  they  expected  at  the  end  of  the  war, 
as  a  pledge  of  their  attachment  and  perseverance 
in  the  cause.7 

Although  few  men  were  now  left  in  Italy,  who 
could  forget  their  own  fears  so  far  as  to  think  of 
the  commonwealth,  or  who  could  be  suspected  of 
any  design  to  restore  the  ancient  government, 
yejt  this  was  made  the  ordinary  ground  of  suspi- 
cion against  those  whom  the  triumvirs  wished  to 
oppress ;  and  the  desire  to  remove  it,  led  all  or- 
ders of  men  to  affect  a  veneration  for  the  memory 
of  Caesar,  and  to  vie  in  their  zeal  to  avenge  his 
death.  The  anniversary  of  this  event  was  made 
a  day  of  mourning.    A  shrine  was  erected  on  the 


4  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv. 

5  About  eight  thousand  pounds. 

6  Appian.  ut  supra. 

7  Dio.  Ca;s.  lib.  xlvii.  c  14  15 


Our.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


5CI 


place  of  his  funeral.  anJ  was  declared  to  be  a 
public  sanctuary,  and  place  of  refuge  even  to 
criminals.  The  divine  or  monarchical  honours 
which  were  thus  paid  to  the  memory  of  the  dead, 
preserved  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  disposi- 
tion to  endure  a  master  which  was  thought  fa- 
vourable to  the  living  usurpers,  and  which  the 
division  of  power  between  them  might  have  other- 
wise diminished.8 

Agreeably  to  the  model  of  Julius  Cesar's  ar- 
rangement*, preparatory  to  his  intended  expedi- 
tion into  Asia,  the  triumvirs,  before  the  departure 
of  Octavius  and  Antony  on  the  service  to  which 
they  were  destined,  fixed  the  succession  to  all  the 
offices  of  state  for  some  years.  They  had  under 
their  command  an  army  of  forty  legions,  which 
they  now  separated  into  two  divisions.9  The  one, 
under  the  direction  of  Antony,  was  assembled  on 
the  eastern  coast  to  be  in  readiness  to  cover  Italy 
on  that  side,  or  to  pass  into  Macedonia,  and  to 
carry  the  war  against  Brutus  and  Cassius  into 
that  province.  The  other  was  destined  to  re- 
main in  Italy,  in  order  to  secure  the  head  of  the 
empire,  an  !  oppose  any  attempts  of  the  opposite 
party  by  sea  from  Sicily  or  Africa,  which  were 
still  in  their  possession. 

Sextus  Pompeius,  the  last  of  the  family  of  the 
great  Pompey,  in  consequence  of  the  resolutions 
passed  in  his  favour  soon  after  Caesar's  death,  had 
set  out  from  Spain  as  admiral  of  the  Roman  navy, 
and  fixing  his  station  in  Sicily,  had  a  numerous 
fleet,  and  mustered  considerable  land  forces." 
"With  these,  in  the  war  which  immediately  fol- 
lowed, he  wished  to  co-operate  with  the  com- 
bined armies  of  the  two  consuls,  Hirtius  and 
Pansa;  but  was  prevented  by  a  doulrt  which 
arose,  whether  the  veterans  of  Caesar,  who  com- 
posed great  part  of  that  army,  would  act  in  con- 
cert with  a  son  of  Pompey  ?11  Upon  the  coalition 
of  Octavius  with  Lepidus  and  Antony,  he  again 
became  an  exile,  but  continued  in  possession  of 
Sicily,  a  province,  which,  by  the  present  division 
of  the  empire,  was  comprehended  in  the  lot  of 
Octavius. 

Cornifieius,  by  commission  from  the  Roman 
senate,  still  held  the  province  of  Africa,  and  re- 
fused to  surrender  it  to  Sextus,  an  officer  who 
had  been  sent  by  Octavius,  in  consequence  of 
the  same  distribution,  to  take  possession  of  it  in 
his  name.  The  dispute  being  likely  to  end  in  a 
war,  the  opposite  parties  applied  to  the  neigh- 
bouring princes  for  aid;  but  the  lieutenant  of 
Octavius  having  his  commission  from  the  su- 
preme authority  then  established  at  Rome,  or 
being  known  to  represent  the  triumphant  party, 
w  is  acknowledged  by  most  of  the  African  powers 
in  alliance  with  the  Romans.  Being  joined  by 
their  forces,  he  came  to  an  action  with  his  anta- 
gonist near  Utica,  and  obtained  a  victory,  in 
which  Cornifieius  was  killed.  Ladius  and  Ros- 
cius.  two  officers  of  rank  in  the  vanquished  army, 
perished  by  their  own  hands.12  As  many  as 
could  find  shipping,  escaped  to  Pompey  in  the 
island  of  Sicily. 

Soon  after  this  event,  Octavius,  being  desirous 
to  dislodge  the  remains  of  the  republican  party 


8  Dio.  Cass  lib.  xliv.  c.  18  et  19. 

9  Appian.  ut  infra.  10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  17. 
Jl  Cice>r.  Philip,  xiii. 

12  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv.  p.  622,  &c.  Dio. 
Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  21- 

2  Z 


from  an  island  of  so  much  consequence,  sent 
Salvidienus  with  a  fleet  towards  the  straits  of 
Messina,  while  he  himself  marched  by  land  to 
Rhecrimn.  A  sea  dght  soon  after  ensued,  fr<rn 
which  the  fleets  retired  with  equal  less.  Salvi- 
dienus put  into  the  harbour  of  Balanus  to  refit; 
and  Octavius,  being  arrived  at  Rhcgium,  was 
meditating  a  descent  upon  Sicily,  when  he  re- 
ceived pressing  instances  from  Antony  to  join 
him  at  Brundusium,  that  they  might  endeavcur 
to  repel  the  storm  which  was  jratherino  firm  the 
east,  and  which  seemed  to  threaten  tl.eir  esta- 
blishments in  Italy  with  the  greatest  hazard.13 

Marcus  Brutus,  after  fortune  seen  ed  to  have 
declared  for  the  republican  party  at  Mntina, 
thinking  himself  at  liberty  to  attend  to  the  affairs 
of  the  east,  and  to  support  Cassius  in  his  struggle 
for  the  possession  of  Syria,  had  passed  with  his 
army  into  Asia,  in  order  to  cut  oft'  all  supplies 
from  Dolabella,  and  to  avail  himself  of  the  re- 
sources, for  the  pay  and  subsistence  of  the  arm\'p 
which  were  still  to  be  found  in  that  opulent  pro- 
vince. While  he  was  employed  in  the  exec  ution 
of  this  design,  the  important  events  already  men- 
tioned took  place  in  that  quarter.  Caseins  had 
prevailed  in  Syria,  got  entire  possession  of  the 
province,  was  acknowledged  as  general  by  all  the 
armies  which  had  been  assembled  by  either  party 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  Cilicia  ;  and  he  was 
meditating  an  expedition  into  Egypt,  to  punish 
Cleopatra  for  the  part  she  had  taken  against  him 
in  his  contest  with  Dolabella,  and  to  raise  a  con- 
tribution in  her  country  for  the  farther  support 
of  the  war. 

The  victory  obtained  at  Mutina,  though  by  an 
army  which  till  then  was  reputed  on  the  side  of 
the  commonwealth,  made  a  {.Teat  change  to  its 
prejudice,  giving  an  opportunity  to  its  enemies  to 
declare  themselves,  and  to  unite  their  forces;  in- 
somuch, that  by  the  coalition  of  (  ctavius  and 
Lepidus  with  Antony,  all  the  remaining  armies 
of  the  west  were  joined,  not  only  to  sul due  the 
capital,  but  to  carry  the  war  into  Macedonia  and 
Asia,  the  la.st  retreat  of  the  republican  interest. 

Brutus  being  informed  of  these  circumstances, 
and  of  the  late  proscriptions,  sent  a  message  to 
Cassius,  with  pressing  instances  to  divert  him 
from  his  project  against  Egypt,  and  to  turn  Lis 
forces  to  the  rescue  of  the  commonwealth  from  the 
hands  of  t\  rants,  and  to  avenge  the  innocent  blood 
which  had  been  so  copiously  shed  in  ltalv. 

Upon  these  representations,  Cassius,  having  left 
a  legion  to  secure  the  possession  of  Syria,  marched 
to  the  westward,  and  in  his  way  raised  large 
contributions  for  the  support  of  the  war.  Among 
the  other  measures  which  be  took  for  this  purpose, 
he  surprised  Ariobarzanos  in  his  palace,  and 
obliged  him  to  deliver  up  the  money  then  in  his 
treasury.  He  pillaged  the  city  of  Tarsus ;  and, 
U|)on  account  of  the  support  which  the  inha- 
bitants of  that  place  had  given  to  Dolabella,  sub- 
jected them  for  the  future  to  a  heavy  tribute.14 

About  the  middle  of  winter,  Brutus  and  Cas- 
sius, with  their  armies,  joined  at  Smyrna.  1  heso 
restorers  of  the  republic  had  parted  some  months 
before  at  Fireus,  one  bound  for  Syria,  the  other 
for  Macedonia;  but  more  like  exiles  than  Roman 
officers  of  state,  without  any  men,  shipping,  or 
money,  and  under  great  uncertainty  of  their  suc- 
cess, in  obtaining  possession  of  the  provinces  on 

I     13  Appian.  ut  aapra.  14  Ibid. 


362 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


which  they  had  their  several  pretensions.  Their 
affairs  now  bore  a  different  aspect ;  they  had  a 
numerous  fleet,  and  a  mighty  land  force,  large 
sums  of  money  already  amassed,  with  the  re- 
sources of  a  territory  the  most  wealthy  of  any 
part  in  the  Roman  empire.1  Brutus  proposed 
that  they  should,  without  delay,  transport  their 
forces  into  Europe,  and  prevent  the  triumvirs 
from  getting  any  footing  in  Macedonia  or  Greece ; 
but  Cassius  contended,  that  they  had  yet  enemies 
or  allies  of  doubtful  fidelity  in  Asia,  and  that  it 
would  be  imprudent  to  leave  any  such  behind 
them,  or  to  forego  the  treasure  which  they  might 
yet  command  in  that  country,  and  which  would 
enable  them  to  reward  and  to  encourage  their 
armies. 

Brutus  determined  by  these  considerations, 
accordingly  marched  into  Lycia,  while  Cassius 
proceeded  to  execute  a  project  he  had  formed  for 
the  reduction  of  Rhodes.  His  fleet  being  on 
their  way  to  turn  the  Capes  of  Asia,  in  order  to 
support  him  in  this  design,  the  Rhodians,  trust- 
ing to  their  superior  skill  and  reputation  as  mari- 
ners, assembled  all  the  ships  they  could  muster, 
and,  near  to  the  harbour  of  Lindus,  ventured  to 
engage  those  of  Cassius  j  but  being  inferior  in 
number  and  weight  of  ships,  they  were  defeated 
with  considerable  loss.  Cassius  beheld  the  en- 
gagement from  a  high  land  on  the  continent, 
and  as  soon  as  the  ships  could  be  again  refitted,2 
ordered  the  fleet  to  Lory  ma,  a  fortified  har- 
bour in  the  continent,  over  against  the  island  of 
Rhodes ;  from  thence  he  embarked  his  army. 
He  himself,  with  eighty  galleys,  escorted  the 
transports  in  their  passage,  landed  on  the  island, 
and  besieged  the  capital  both  by  sea  and  by  land. 

The  Rhodians  having  trusted  entirely  to  the 
defence  of  their  shipping,  were  unprovided  of  all 
things  necessary  to  withstand  a  siege.  Cassius, 
by  surprise,  or  by  the  treachery  of  a  party  within 
the  walls,  soon  became  master  of  the  place,  laid 
it  under  a  severe  contribution ;  and  having  left 
an  officer  of  the  name  of  Varus  to  command  in 
the  island,  he  returned  to  the  continent  with  a 
great  accession  of  reputation  and  wealth. 

Brutus  at  the  same  time  had  forced  the  passes 
of  the  mountains,  leading  into  Lycia,  and  ad- 
vancing to  Xanthus,  summoned  the  town  to  sur- 
render. This  place  had  acquired  much  fame  by 
the  obstinate  resistance  of  its  inhabitants,  or  by 
the  desperation  they  had  shown,  when  forced,  on 
former  occasions,  by  Harpalus,  the  general  of 
Cyrus,  and  by  Alexander  in  his  way  to  the  con- 
quest of  Persia.3  Upon  the  approach  of  Brutus, 
they  razed  their  suburbs,  and  removed  every 
building  which  might  cover  the  advances  of  an 
enemy.  The  walls  were  surrounded  by  a  ditch 
fifty  feet  deep ;  and  this  being  the  first  impedi- 
ment which  Brutus  had  to  encounter,  he  began 
the  attack  with  a  continual  labour  to  fill  it  up, 
and  to  effect  a  passage  for  his  engines  to  the  foot 
of  the  rampart.  Having  accomplished  this  ob- 
ject, he  proceeded  to  cover  his  workmen  with 
galleries,  and  to  erect  the  engines  usually  em- 
ployed in  making  a  breach.  He  was  opposed  by 
the  besieged  in  repeated  sallies,  in  the  last  of 
which  his  works  were  set  on  fire,  and  reduced  to 
ashes. 

In  the  mean  time,  two  thousand  men  of  the 


1  Plut.  in  Bruto.  2  Appian.  ut  supra. 

3  Ibid.  lib.  iv. 


Roman  army,  pursuing  the  party  who  had  made 
this  sally,  entered  the  city  along  with  them,  and 
not  being  properly  supported,  suffered  the  gates 
to  be  shut,  and  themselves  to  be  cut  off  from  all 
relief.  Being  instantly  surrounded  by  the  inha- 
bitants, numbers  of  them  were  killed,  and  the 
remainder  forced  into  a  temple,  where  they  en- 
deavoured to  defend  themselves. 

This  circumstance  produced  the  most  vigorous 
efforts  on  the  part  of  the  besiegers,  to  force  the 
walls,  that  they  might  rescue  their  friends,  or 
make  a  diversion  in  their  favour.  They  applied 
scaling-ladders  to  the  battlements,  and  forcing 
engines  to  the  gates;  and  having  at  last  made 
their  way  into  the  town,  that  they  might  at  once 
terrify  the  inhabitants,  and  give  notice  of  ap- 
proaching relief  to  their  own  party,  they  raised  a 
mighty  shout  as  they  entered  the  streets,  and 
continued  to  urge  their  fury,,  in  every  direction, 
with  fire  and  sword.  The  inhabitants, unable  to 
resist  this  storm,  retired  to  their  houses,  and 
there,  determined  to  maintain  their  ancient  fame, 
chose  rather  to  perish  by  their  own  hands,  than 
submit  to  the  enemy.  The  father  of  every  fa- 
mily, beginning  with  the  slaughter  of  his  wife 
and  children,  proceeded  to  kill  himself. 

While  the  people  of  Xanthus  were  employed 
in  the  execution  of  this  purpose,  Brutus  hearing 
the  cries  of  desperation  and  of  murder,  supposed 
that  his  troops  had  refused  to  give  quarter,  and 
were  killing  the  wretched  inhabitants  of  the  place, 
without  distinction  of  sex  or  age.  In  order  to 
put  the  speediest  stop  to  so  horrid  a  scene,  his 
first  thought  was  to  bring  off  the  troops,  by 
sounding  a  general  retreat ;  but  being  informed 
that  the  people  were  perishing,  not  by  the  cruelty 
of  his  army,  but  by  their  own  desperation,  he  or- 
dered to  be  proclaimed  a  general  freedom  and 
protection  to  all  the  inhabitants  ;  but  so  long  as 
any  considerable  number  of  the  citizens  remained, 
the  officers  who  came  near  them,  even  with  an 
offer  of  quarter,  were  answered  with  threats,  or 
with  showers  of  darts  and  of  arrows,  obliged  to 
keep  at  a  distance.  The  temples  and  public 
buildings  were,  with  great  difficulty,  saved  from 
fire ;  but  none  of  the  inhabitants  could  be  rescued, 
besides  a  few  women  and  slaves. 

Brutus,  greatly  afflicted  with  this  piteous  ca- 
tastrophe, marched  with  reluctance  towards  Pa- 
tara,  where  the  inhabitants  were  supposed  to  be 
infected  with  the  same  desperate  spirit ;  and,  to 
prevent  the  necessity  of  such  fatal  extremities, 
sent  a  message  to  prevail  on  the  people  to  surren- 
der, and  to  accept  of  his  protection.  The  ex- 
ample of  Xanthus  appeared  much  too  atrocious 
to  be  followed ;  and  they  submitted  to  pay  the 
contributions  which  were  exacted  from  them. 

Lentulus,  at  the  same  time,  who  commanded 
the  fleet  which  had  been  employed  in  transport- 
ing the  army  of  Cassius  into  the  island  of  Rhodes, 
forced  his  way  into  the  harbour  of  Andriaca,  the 
port  of  Myra,  by  breaking  the  chain  which  was 
stretched  across  the  entrance ;  and  this  place 
being  reduced,  the  inhabitants  of  Lycia  sent  offers 
of  submission  and  of  their  services  in  the  war, 
agreed  to  pay  a  certain  tribute,  and  to  join  the 
fleet  with  their  galleys.  Lentulus,  being  ac- 
cordingly reinforced  with  a  great  accession  of 
ships,  set  sail  for  Abydus,  the  shortest  passage 
into  Europe,  where  he  was  ordered  to  wait  the 
arrival  of  the  land  forces. 

At  the  same  time,  Murcus,  commanding  an- 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


303 


other  squadron  belonging  to  Brutus  and  Cassius, 
upon  a  report  that  Cleopatra,  with  a  numerous 
fleet,  was  at  sea,  to  effect  a  junction  with  Octa- 
vius  and  Antony,  had  been  stationed  at  the  Cape 
of  Tenarus  to  intercept  her  ;  but  being  informed 
that  the  Egyptian  fleet  was  dispersed,  or  had  suf- 
fered much  in  a  storm,  he  weighed  from  Tenarus, 
and  steered  for  Brundusium,  took  possession  of 
an  island  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbour,  and  from 
thence  intended  to  prevent  the  transportation  of 
any  troops  from  Raly  to  Macedonia  or  Greece. 
He  had  however  arrived  too  late  to  effect  the 
whole  of  this  purpose.  Great  part  of  Antony's 
army  was  already  transported,  and  he  himself, 
with  the  remainder,  waited  for  favourable  winds 
to  run  or  pass  unnoticed  in  the  night. 

In  this  state  of  the  war,  Brutus  and  Cassius, 
having  accomplished  the  services  in  which  they 
had  been  severally  engaged,  again  assembled  their 
forces  on  the  right  of  the  Meander.  It  is  said, 
that  they  began  their  conference  on  bad  terms, 
the  effect  of  a  jealousy  which  had  been  indus- 
triously raised  between  them ;  but  there  did  not 
appear  any  consequences  of  a  misunderstanding ; 
and  their  joint  forces,  without  delay,  began  to 
move  towards  Europe,  in  order  to  check  the  ad- 
vances which  the  enemy  were  already  making  in 
Macedonia.  Having  passed  the  Hellespont,  they 
marched,  by  the  isthmus  of  Cardia,  to  the  coast 
of  the  bay  of  Melanus  ;  here  they  made  a  halt,  for 
some  days,  to  muster  and  to  review  their  forces. 
The  army  of  Cassius  consisted  of  nine  legions, 
-that  of  Brutus  of  eight,  amounting  to  about 
eighty  thousand  men,  formed  in  the  manner  of 
theR  oman  infantry.  Brutus  had  four  thousand 
Gaulish  and  Lusitanian  horse ;  two  thousand 
cavalry,  made  up  of  Thracians,  Illyrians,  Par- 
tisans, and  Thessalians.  Cassius  had  two  thou- 
sand Gauls  and  Spaniards,  and  four  thousand 
Parthian  archers  mounted  on  horseback.  They 
were  followed  likewise  by  some  princes  of  Ga- 
latia,  at  the  head  of  their  respective  forces.  The 
whole,  by  this  account,  amounted  to  near  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men.  Many  of  the  legions  had 
been  formed  under  Caesar,  and  could  not  be  re- 
tained in  their  present  service,  without  frequent 
liberalities,  and  without  a  prospect,  at  the  end  of 
the  war,  of  settlements,  not  inferior  to  those  which 
were  enjoyed  or  expected  by  the  troops  of  the  op- 
posite side.  The  wealth  of  Afeia,  however,  having 
put  their  leaders  in  condition  to  perform  what 
was  at  present  expected  from  them ;  all  former 
engagements  were  now  fulfilled,  as  t  he  best  earnest 
that  could  be  given  of  future  grat  uities. 

At  the  close  of  this  muster,  Cassius  and  Bru- 
tus, with  all  the  officers  of  senatorial!  rank,  who 
were  then  present,  being  assembled  on  a  plat- 
form, raised  as  usual  to  some  height  from  the 
ground,  were  surrounded  by  the  army,  who 
crowded  to  hear  the  speech  of  their  leaders ;  and 
it  was  supposed,  that  what  they  were  to  deliver 
should  have  the  effect  of  a  manifesto  or  procla- 
mation, respecting  the  cause  in  which  they  were 
•engaged.  Cassius  spoke  for  himself,  for  his  col- 
league, and  the  body  of  senators  who  attended 
them ;  addressing  this  motley  assemblage  of  na- 
tive Romans  and  aliens,  of  citizens  and  soldiers 
of  fortune,  collected  from  different  parties,  as  an 
assembly  of  the  Roman  people  deliberating  on 
their  public  rights.  He  mentioned  the  mutual 
confidence  that  was  natural  between  officers  and 
men  engaged,  as  they  were,  in  a  common  cause; 


enumerated  their  resources  with  the  other  advan- 
tages they  possessed,  and  took  notice  of  the  punc 
tual  discharge  of  all  former  engagements,  as  the 
best  security  which  could  be  given  of  a  fixed  in- 
tention to  make  a  suitable  provision  for  every  sol- 
dier who  should  contribute  to  bring  the  war  to  a 
favourable  issue.  "  The  unjust  reproaches  of 
our  enemies,"  he  said,  "  we  could  easily  disprove, 
if  we  were  not,  by  our  numbers,  and  by  the 
swords  which  we  hold  in  our  hands,  in  condition 
to  despise  them.  While  Caesar  led  the  armies  of 
the  republic  against  the  enemies  of  Rome,  we 
took  part  in  the  same  service  with  him,  we  obey- 
ed him,  we  were  happy  to  serve  under  his  com- 
mand. But  when  he  declared  war  on  the  com- 
monwealth, we  became  his  enemies ;  and  when 
he  became  an  usurper  and  a  tyrant,  we  resented, 
as  an  injury,  even  the  favours  which  he  presumed 
to  bestow  upon  ourselves.  Had  he  been  to  fall  a 
sacrifice  to  private  resentment,  we  should  not 
have  been  the  proper  actors  in  the  execution  of 
the  sentence  against  him.  He  was  willing  to 
have  indulged  us  with  preferments  and  honours; 
but  we  were  not  willing  to  accept,  as  the  gift  of  a 
master,  what  we  were  entitled  to  claim  as  free 
citizens.  We  conceived,  that,  in  presuming  to 
confer  the  honours  of  the  Roman  republic,  he  en- 
croached on  the  prerogatives  of  the  Roman  people, 
and  insulted  the  authority  of  the  Roman  senate. 

"Caesar cancelled  the  laws,  and  overturned  the 
constitution  of  his  country ;  he  usurped  all  the 
powers  of  the  commonwealth,  set  up  a  monarchy, 
and  himself  affected  to  be  a  king.  This  our  an- 
cestors, at  the  expulsion  of  Tarquin,  bound  them- 
selves and  their  posterity,  by  the  most  solemn 
oaths,  and  by  the  most  direful  imprecations,  ne- 
ver to  endure.  The  same  obligation  has  been 
entailed  upon  us  as  a  debt  by  our  fathers  ;  and  we, 
having  faithfully  paid  and  discharged  it,  have 
performed  the  oath,  and  averted  the  consequences 
of  failure  from  ourselves,  and  from  our  posterity. 

"  In  tlie  station  of  soldiers,  we  might  have 
committed  ourselves  without  reflection  to  the 
command  of  an  officer,  whose  abilities  and  whose 
valour  we  admired  ;  but,  in  the  character  of  Ro- 
man citizens,  we  have  a  far  different  part  to  sus- 
tain. I  must  suppose,  that  I  now  speak  to  the 
Roman  people,  and  to  citizens  of  a  free  republic  ; 
to  men  who  have  never  learned  to  depend  upon 
others  for  gratifications  and  favours,  who  are  not 
accustomed  to  own  a  superior,  but  who  are  them- 
selves tlie  masters,  the  dispensers  of  fortune  and 
of  honour,  anil  the  givers  of  all  those  dignities 
and  jiowers  by  which  Cffisar  himself  was  exalted, 
and  of  which  he  assumed  the  entire  disposal. 
Recollect  from  whom  the  Scipios,  the  Pompeys, 
even  Cajsar  himself  derived  his  honours :  from 
your  ancestors,  whom  you  now  represent,  and 
from  yourselves,  to  whom,  according  to  the  laws 
of  the  republic,  we,  who  are  now  your  leaders  in 
the  field,  address  ourselves  as  your  fellow-citizens 
in  the  commonwealth,  and  as  persons  depending 
on  your  pleasure  for  the  just  reward  and  retribu- 
tion of  our  services.  Happy  in  being  able  to 
restore  to  you  what  Ca-sar  had  the  presumption 
to  appropriate  to  himself,  the  power  and  the  dig- 
nity of  your  fathers,  with  the  supreme  disposal 
of.  all  the  offices  of  trust  that  were  established  for 
your  safety,  and  for  the  preservation  of  your 
freedom ;  happy  in  being  able  to  restore  to  the 
tribunes  of  the  Roman  people  the  power  of  pro- 
tecting you,  and  of  procuring  to  every  Romau 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


citizen  that  justice  which,  under  the  late  usurpa- 
tion of  Caesar,  was  withheld,  even  from  the  sa- 
cred persons  of  those  magistrates  themselves. 

"  An  usurper  is  the  common  enemy  of  all  good 
citizens ;  but  the  task  of  removing  him  could  be 
the  business  only  of  a  few.  The  senate  and  the 
Roman  people,  as  soon  as  it  was  proper  for  them 
to  declare  their  judgment,  pronounced  their  ap- 
probation of  those  who  were  concerned  in  the 
death  of  Caesir,  by  the  rewards  and  the  honours 
which  they  bestowed  upon  them ;  and  they  are 
now  become  a  prey  to  assassins  and  murderers; 
they  bleed  in  the  streets,  in  the  temples,  in  the 
mast  secret  retreats,  and  in  the  arms  of  their  fa- 
milies; or  they  are  dispersed,  and  fly  wherever 
they  hope  to  escape  the  fury  of  their  enemies. — 
M  my  are  now  present  before  you,  happy  in  your 
protection — happy  in  witnessing  the  zeal  which 
you  entertain  for  the  commonwealth,  for  the 
rights  of  your  fellow-citizens,  and  for  your  own. 
These  respectable  citizens,  we  trust,  will  soon,  by 
your  means,  be  restored  to  a  condition  in  which 
they  can  enjoy,  together  with  you,  all  the  honours 
of  a  free  people,  concur  with  you  in  bestowing, 
and  partake  with  you  in  receiving,  the  rewards 
which  are  due  to  such  eminent  services,  as  you 
are  now  engaged  to  perform."1 

Such  is  the  substance  of  what  we  receive  as 
the  speech  of  Cassius  on  this  memorable  occasion, 
and,  although  we  may  not  consider  these  com- 
positions as  the  genuine  record  of  what  was 
spoken,  yet  as  they  contain  the  ideas  and  rea- 
sonings of  times  so  much  nearer  than  ours  to  the 
dite  of  the  transactions  to  which  they  refer,  it  is 
undoubtedly  lit,  and  often  instructive,  to  retain 
the  argument  on  which  they  are  founded.  At 
the  close  of  this  speech,  it  is  said  that  Cassius 
resumed  the  comparison  of  the  forces  and  re- 
sources of  the  opposite  parties,  stated  to  his  army 
their  own  equality  by  land,  and  their  superiority 
by  sea ;  the  facility  with  which  they  were  to  be 
supolied  with  all  necessaries;  and  that  he  con- 
cluded, with  a  promise  to  pay  an  additional  gratu- 
ity of  fifteen  hundred  sesterces  to  each  man.2 

After  this  solemnity,  the  army  again  began  to 
advance;  and  while  they  marched  in  small  divi- 
sions by  the  route  of  iEnos  and  Doriscus,  Cim- 
ber,  with  a  squadron  of  galleys,  having  a  legion 
and  a  considerable  detachment  of  archers  on 
board,  sailed  towards  the  coast  of  Macedonia, 
with  orders  to  search  for  a  proper  station  within 
the  mountains  of  Pangeus,  a  ridge  which,  stretch- 
ing from  Thrace  southward,  terminited  in  the 
bay  of  Strymon,  opposite  to  the  island  of  Thasus. 
The  generals,  upon  their  arrival  on  the  river 
Nessus,  found  that  the  usual  passage  of  the 
mountains  at  Symbolus  was  already  seized  by 
Sax i  and  Norbmus,  who,  with  the  first  division 
of  Antony's  forges  from  Italy,  hid  traversed  Ma- 
cedonia, an  I  'listened  to  possess  themselves  of 
this  pas.*,  in  order  to  stop  the  farther  progress  of 
their  enemies  in  Europe. 

Here  the  eastern  armies  were  accordingly  stop- 
ped, an  t  were  likely  to  end  their  career  in  Thrace, 
while  their  antagonists  continued  in  possession 
of  Miced  mia,  and  preserved  the  most  convenient 
retreat  for  their  shipping  in  the  bay  of  Strymon. 
They  were  relieved,  however,  from  this  appre- 
hension by  Ruscopolis,  a  Thracian  prince,  who 
attended  them,  and  who  pointed  out  a  different 


1  Apmnn  da  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  iv.  2  About  12/. 


route  from  that  which  the  enemy  had  occupied. 
Under  this  guide  they  marched  three  days  among 
the  mountains,  and  having  crossed  the  summit, 
descended  in  the  track  of  a  river  towards  Philip- 
pi,  situated  on  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  plains 
of  Amphipolis.  This  march  carried  them  into 
the  rear  of  the  enemy's  station,  and  would  have 
enabled  them  to  cut  off  their  retreat,  if  intelli- 
gence had  not  been  carried  to  Saxa  and  Norba- 
nus  time  enough  to  enable  them  to  withdraw. 
These  officers  accordingly  abandoned  their  post, 
fell  back  forty  or  fifty  miles'  to  Aniphi[;olis ;  and 
having  put  this  place  in  the  best  posture  they 
could  for  defence,  determined  to  await  the  arrival 
of  Oetavius  and  Antony. 

Brutus  and  Cassius  took  post  at  Philippi,  on 
the  declivity  of  the  mountains,  near  to  the  pass 
which  Saxa  and  Norbanus  had  lately  abandoned. 
They  encamped  about  two  miles4  from  the  town 
on  two  separate  eminences,  about  a  mile6  asun- 
der. On  their  right  was  Philippi,  covered  by 
the  mountains:  on  the  left  an  impassable  marsh, 
which  reached  about  nine  miles  from  their  camp 
to  the  sea.6  In  their  front  the  country  from  Phi- 
lippi, westward  to  Amphipolis,  extending  about 
forty  or  fifty  miles,  was  flat  and  subject  to  floods 
and  inundations  of  the  rivers.  The  fleet  was  in 
harbour  at  Neapolis,  near  where  the  marsh,  which 
covered  the  left  of  Cassius's  camp,  terminated  in 
the  sea j  and  Cimber  had  fixed  on  that  place  as 
the  port  to  which  all  their  convoys  should  repair, 
and  by  which  they  expected  to  be  plentifully  sup- 
plied with  necessaries  from  Asia,  and  the  coasts 
of  the  Egean  sea.  They  for med,  at  the  same  time, 
a  magazine  in  the  island  of  Thasus,  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  enemy,  at  which  to  lodge  in  safety 
the  surplus  of  their  provisions  and  stores. 

Antony  and  Oetavius  had  been  employed,  du- 
ring the  winter,  in  transporting  their  forces  into 
Macedonia;  and  having  effected  their  passage, 
notwithstanding  the  vigilance  of  the  enemy's 
Meet,  their  army  advanced  by  rapid  marches  to 
the  river  Strymon,  in  order  to  preserve  Amphi- 
polis, and  to  carry  the  scene  of  the  war  as  far  aa 
they  could  from  Italy.  Oetavius  had  been  taken 
ill,  and  remained  behind  at  Dyrrachium.  An- 
tony, upon  his  arrival  at  Amphipolis,  having 
found  the  town  in  a  posture  of  defence,  fixed 
upon  it  as  a  place  of  arms,  for  the  security  of  his 
heavy  baggage  and  stores.  From  thence  he  ad- 
vanced upon  the  flat  country,  through  a  march 
of  some  days,  and  pitched  in  sight  of  Philippi, 
within  a  mile  of  the  enemy's  stations. 

It  was  the  object  of  the  triumvirs  to  bring  the 
war  to  a  speedy  issue,  as  they  foresaw  the  diffi- 
culty of  being  long  able,  without  any  supply  of 
provisions  from  the  sea,  to  maintain  so  numerous 
an  army  by  the  sole  resources  of  the  neighbour- 
ing country.  Brutus  and  Cassius,  on  the  con- 
trary, perceived  their  own  advantage,  and  were 
determined  to  protract  the  war.  'They  fortified 
their  camps  with  great  care,  and  joined  them  to 
each  other;  and  to  the  town  of  Philippi  on  the 
one  side,  and  to  the  morass  on  the  other,  with 
such  works  as  formed  a  continued  chain  to  cover 
their  communication,  for  about  twelve  miles  from 
the  town  of  Philippi.,  to  the  port  of  Neapolis. 

Antony's  eainp  being  on  the  plain,  and  in  a 
low  situation,  was  overlooked  by  the  enemy,  and 


3  350  stadia.  4  Eighteen  stadia. 

5  Eight  stadia.  6  Seventy,  stadia. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


SC3 


lubject  to  be  overflowed  by  the  torrents  which 
fell  from  the  hills.  He  made  every  possible  ef- 
fort to  bring  his  antagonists  to  action,  and  by  his 
forwardness  in  pressing  them  to  a  battle,  Taised 
the  courage  of  his  own  troops,  and  assumed,  as 
is  common  with  those  who  act  offensively,  the 
appearance  of  superiority.  While  he  yet  conti- 
nued in  this  posture,  Octavius,  though  not  en- 
tirely recovered  from  his  illness,  joined  him  from  1 
Dyrrachium.  T hey  took  two  separate  stations 
opposite  to  those  of  the  enemy;  Octavius  oppo- 
site to  Brutus,  and  Antonv  to  Cass.  1s.  The 
number  of  legions,  on  both  sides,  weree^  al;  but 
those  of  Antony  and  Octavius  were  not  cc  «f>lete. 
In  cavalry  they  were  unequal ;  that  of  L  'utus 
anrl  Cassius  amounting  to  twenty  thousand, 
while  that  of  Octavius  and  Antony  was  no  more 
than  thirteen  thousand. 

Antony  and  Octavius,  in  order  to  force  their 
antagonists  to  a  battle,  or  to  cut  off  their  com- 
munication with  the  sea,  formed  a  design  to 
pierce  the  morass,  and  to  seize  upon  the  heights 
beyond  it  on  the  left  of  Cassius's  camp.  In  the 
work  which  they  carried  on  for  this  purpose,  thev 
were  covered  by  the  reeds,  which  grew  to  a  great 
height  in  the  marsh;  and  in  ten  days,  without 
being  observed,  by  means  of  timbers,  hurdles, 
and  earth,  vrhich  they  sunk  as  they  advanced,  ac- 
complished a  passage,  and  sent  in  the  night  a 
party  of  the  r  army  to  occupy  the  opposite  heights, 
to  make  lo:l  rments,  and  to  intercept  the  commu- 
nication of  their  antagonists  with  Neapolis,  from 
which  they  received  their  daily  supplies. 

As  soon  as  Brutus  and  Cassius  perceived  this 
advantage  gained  by  the  enemy,  thev  took  mea- 
sures to  recover  it,  and  to  open  their  own  access 
again  to  the  sea.  For  this  purpose  thev,  in  their 
turn,  traversed  the  morass  in  a  line  which  crossed 
the  passage  which  the  enemy  had  made,  and 
pierced  their  highway  with  a  deep  and  impass- 
able ditch.  Having  in  this  manner  cut  off  the 
enemy's  parties  that  had  passed  the  morass  from 
any  succours  or  supplies  from  their  main  body, 
thev  were  about  to  force  them,  when  Octavius 
and  Antony  endeavoured  to  recover  their  passage; 
and  to  divert  the  attention  of  the  enemv  from 
what  they  were  doing  in  the  marsh,  drew  forth 
their  armies  on  the  plain. 

While  Octavius  was  still  confined  by  sickness, 
his  lieutenant,  or  next  in  command,  took  his 
place  in  this  movement,  and  advanced  toward  the 
intrenchment  of  Brutus.  The  light  troops  began 
to  skirmish  on  the  ascent  of  the  hill.  And,  not- 
withstanding it  was  the  resolution  of  both  leaders 
in  the  republican  army  not  to  hazard  a  battle, 
except  in  defence  of  their  own  intrenchmcnts,  the 
legions  of  Brutus  observing,  from  their  parapet, 
what  passed  between  the  advanced  parties  in 
front,  were  so  animated  or  incensed,  as  not  to  be 
restrained.  They  accordingly  quitted  their  lines, 
attacked  the  wing  on  which  Octavius  was  sup- 
posed to  command,  drove  them  back  to  their 
ground,  and  continuing  their  pursuit,  even  forced 
them  in  their  camp.  Octavius  himself,  having 
been  carried  from  his  bed  to  a  litter,  narrowly 
escaped  falling  into  the  enemy's  hands. 

On  the  other  wing  Antony  likewise  had  ad- 
vanced towards  the  camp  of  Cassius;  but  as  he 
was  observed,  at  the  same  time,  beginning  to 
work  in  the  morass,  this  movement  of  his  army 
was  considered  as  no  more  than  a  feint  to  favour 
the  other  design.    Cassius,  to  divert  him  from  his 


operation  in  the  marsh,  drew  forth  his  army  like- 
wise; and  having  greatlv  the  advantage  of  the 
ground,  did  not  suppose  that  the  enemy,  in  such 
circumstances,  would  venture  upon  a  genera!  ac- 
tion. In  this  however  he  was  disappointed.  An- 
tony, seeing  Cassiusexpose  his  front,  discontinued 
his  work  in  the  morass,  mounted  the  height  in 
his  presence,  forced  him  to  retire,  even  toek  and 
pillaged  his  camp;  and  thus  showed,  in  his  turn, 
what  are  the  effects  of  an  impetuous  attack  uuon 
an  enemy  who  are  disposed  to  think  themselves 
secure. 

These  separate  actions,  or  the  preparations 
which  were  made  for  them,  had  fdled  up  the 
greater  part  of  the  dav.  It  was  already  dusk, 
and  the  field,  for  the  most  part,  was  covered  with 
clouds  of  dust;  so  that  no  one  could  see  to  a  dis- 
tance. Those  who  commanded  on  the  right  in 
both  armies,  having  put  those  who  were  opposed 
to  them  to  flight,  thought  that  the  event  was  de- 
cisive in  their  own  favour.  But  Brutus  and  An- 
tony being  informed  of  what  had  passed  on  the 
other  win^s  of  their  respective  armies,  neither 
attempted  to  keep  the  advantage  he  had  gained. 
Disqualified  by  fatigue  or  surprise  from  renewing 
the  contest,  they  passed  each  other  on  the  plain, 
and  hastened  back  to  their  former  stations. 

Cassius,  after  the  rout  of  his  division,  with  a 
few  who  adhered  to  him,  had  halted  on  an  emi- 
nence, and  sent  Titinius  to  the  right,  with  orders 
to  learn  the  particulars  of  the  day  on  that  side. 
This  officer,  while  yet  in  sight,  was  met  by  a 
party  of  horse  emerging  from  the  clouds  of  dust 
on  the  plain.  This  party  had  been  sent  by  Bru- 
tus to  learn  the  situation  of  his  friends  on  the 
left;  but  Cassius,  supposing  them  to  be  enemies, 
and  believing  that  Titinius,  whom  he  saw  sur- 
rounded bv  them,  was  taken,  he  instantly,  with 
the  precipitant  despair,  which,  on  other  occasions, 
had  proved  so  fatal  to  the  cause  of  the  republic, 
presented  his  breast  to  a  slave  to  whom  he  had 
allotted,  in  case  of  any  urgent  extremitv,  the  of- 
fice of  putting  an  end  to  his  life.  Titinius.  upon 
his  return,  imputing  this  fatal  calamity  to  his 
own  neglect  in  not  trying  sooner  to  undeceive 
his  general  by  proper  signals,  killed  himself, 
and  fell  upon  the  body  of  his  friend.7  Brutus 
soon  after  arrived  at  the  same  place,  and  seeing 
the  dead  body  of  Cassius,  shed  tears  of  vexation 
and  sorrow  over  the  effects  of  an  action  so  rash 
and  precipitant,  and  which  deprived  the  republic 
and  himself,  in  this  extremity,  of  so  necessary 
and  so  able  a  support  This,  lie  said,  is  the  last 
of  the  Romans. 

The  surviving  leader  of  the  republican  party, 
in  order  to  prevent  the  impression  which  the 
sight  of  a  funeral  so  interesting  was  likely  to 
make  on  the  army,  ordered  the  IwhIv  of  Cassius 
to  be  carried  to  the  island  of  Thasus,  and  there 
privately  interred.  He  himself  spent  the  night 
in  re-assembling  the  troops  who  had  been  dis- 
persed, formed  Inith  armies  into  one  body,  and 
drew  the  whole  into  one  camp.  He  still  kept  his 
ground  at  Philippi,  and  endeavoured  to  support 
the  courage  of  the  troops,  and  to  replace  the  ac- 
tivity and  military  skill  of  his  unfortunate  col- 
league. In  his  addresses  to  the  army,  he  set  forth 
the  advantages  they  had  gained  as  more  than  suf- 
ficient to  compensate  their  losses.  He  represented 
the  distressed  condition  of  the  enemy,  who,  hav- 


7  Dio  Cass  lib.  xlvii  c  34.    Appian.  lib.  iw. 


2GG  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


ing  already  exhausted  the  province  of  Macedonia 
in  their  rear,  were  obliged  to  bring  their  provi- 
sions from  Thessaly,  which  was  at  a  greater 
distance,  and  not  likely  to  supply  them  so  long. 
"The  sea-ports,"  he  observed,  "being  every  where 
blocked  up,  and  their  convoys  intercepted  by  a 
fleet  of  above  two  hundred  and  sixty  sail,  the 
prospect  of  what  they  must  speedily  suffer  will 
make  them  impatient  for  action.  They  will 
provoke,"  he  said,  "they  will  attempt  to  insult 
you ;  but  this  appearance  of  courage  is  a  mere 
effect  of  despair.  Only  wait  the  result  of  these 
circumstances,  and  perseverance  will  render  your 
victory  easy."  He  supported  these  exhortations 
with  giving  the  army  full  satisfaction  in  all  their 
claims  and  pretensions,  and  with  an  additional 
gratuity  of  a  thousand  sesterces  to  each  man.' 

The  leaders  of  the  other  side,  at  the  same  time, 
were  equally  employed  in  what  was  necessary  to 
palliate  the  sufferings,  or  to  raise  the  hopes  of 
their  own  army.  Though  not  equally  in  condi- 
tion to  make  present  donations,  they  amply  sup- 
plied this  defect  with  expectations  and  promises. 
They  declared  their  intention  of  giving  an  addi- 
tional gratuity  of  five  thousand  sesterces  to  each 
private  man,2  five  times  as  much  to  the  centurion, 
and  the  double  of  this  sum  to  the  tribune.  "Judge 
ye,"  said  Antony,  in  his  address  to  the  army, 
"who  has  suffered  most  by  the  mutual  pillage  of 
yesterday  7  You,  who  have  left  all  your  effects 
behind  you  in  Italy,  or  the  enemy,  who  came  to 
their  ground  loaded  with  the  spoils  of  Asia? 
Their  own  general,  by  killing  himself,  has  pro- 
claimed your  victory.  We  declare  you  victo- 
rious, by  bestowing  upon  you  the  rewards  of 
valour  to  which  you  are  entitled.  If  the  enemy 
choose  to  dispute  your  claim  to  these  rewards,  let 
them  meet  us  again  in  the  field.  They  shall 
have  an  opportunity  to-morrow,  and  for  some 
days  to  come;  if  they  shrink  and  remain  behind 
their  entrenchments,  I  shall  leave  you  to  deter- 
mine who  is  vanquished  in  the  trial  of  force 
which  we  have  had." 

Antony  and  Octavius  accordingly  drew  forth 
their  army  for  many  days  successively,  and  were 
greatly  embarrassed  with  the  resolution  which 
appeared  to  be  taken  by  the  enemy,  not  to  hazard 
a  battle.  They  began  to  suffer  greatly  for  want 
of  provisions,  and  felt  the  approach  of  winter, 
which,  in  a  marshy  situation,  threatened  them 
with  growing  inconveniences.  Brutus,  to  hasten 
the  effects  of  the  season,  had  turned  the  course 
of  a  river  from  the  hills,  and  laid  under  water 
part  of  the  plain  on  which  they  encamped.3  At 
the  same  time  a  recent  calamity,  which  befel 
them  at  sea,  increased  these  distresses,  and  di- 
minished their  hopes  of  relief. 

On  the  same  day  on  which  the  late  battle  was 
fought  at  Philippi,  Domitius  Calvisius  had  sailed 
from  Brundusium,  having  on  board  of  transports 
two  legions,  of  which  the  Martia  was  one,  with 
two  thousand  men  of  the  praetorian  bands,  and  a 
body  of  horse,  convoyed  by  some  galleys,  or  ships 
of  force.  Being  met  at  sea  by  the  fleet  of  Brutus, 
consisting  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  sail,  under 
Murcus  and  Ahenobarbus,  a  few  of  the  headmost 
and  best  sailing  ships  escaped  ;  but  the  remainder 
being  surrounded  had  no  resource  but  in  the  va- 
lour of  the  troops,  who  endeavoured  to  defend 


1  About  6/.  2  About  40/. 

3  Zonarun,  c.  19.  p.  385. 


[Book  V 

themselves  with  their  swords,  grappling  anc. 
lashing  their  transports  to  the  ships  of  the  ene- 
my ;  but  in  this  attempt,  being  galled  with  mis- 
siles from  the  armed  galleys,  particularly  with 
burning  darts,  by  which  some  of  the  transports 
were  set  on  lire,  the  others,  to  avoid  the  fames, 
were  obliged  to  keep  at  a  distance ;  and  the 
2reater  part  of  them  suffering  extremely  without 
being  able  to  annoy  the  enemy,  were  sunk  or 
destroyed.  Calvisius  himself,  having  been  rive 
days  at  sea,  with  difficulty  escaped  to  Brundu- 
sium. 

These  tidings  had  their  effect  in  both  armies. 
In  that  of  Brutus  they  inspired  an  unseasonable 
ardour,  and  a  disposition  to  commit  the  cause  of 
the  party  to  the  hazard  of  a  battle ;  in  that  of 
Antony  and  Octavius,  they  impressed  the  neces- 
sity of  a  speedy  decision.  These  leaders,  to 
amuse  their  own  troops,  and  to  provoke  the  ene- 
my, had  seized,  in  the  night,  a  post  on  the  decli- 
vity below  the  ground  which  was  lately  occupied 
by  Cassius.  They  were  suffered  to  make  a 
lodgment  upon  it  by  Brutus,  who  had  not  any 
apprehension  that  he  could  be  annoyed  from  a 
situation  that  was  so  much  lower  than  his  own. 
On  the  following  day  it  appeared,  that  their  in 
tention  in  seizing  this  post  was  to  cover  a  move- 
ment, which  they  proposed  to  make  to  the  right 
on  the  edge  of  the  morass;  which  they  accord- 
ingly executed,  and  pitched  again  in  two  separate 
encampments.  In  this  new  position  they  were 
observed  to  sound  the  morass,  and  either  intend- 
ed a  feint,  or  had  a  real  design,  by  effecting  a 
communication  with  the  opposite  side,  again  to 
cut  off  every  intercourse  of  Brutus  with  his  ships. 
But  finding  that  all  the  heights  on  the  opposite 
side  were  now  secured  against  them  by  intrench- 
ments,  they  dropped  that  intention,  and  endea- 
voured, by  frequent  alarms,  and  by  exposing 
their  own  parties  on  the  plain,  to  engage  their 
antagonist  in  a  general  action. 

Brutus,  in  the  mean  time,  having  secured  his 
own  communication  with  Neapolis,  by  a  proper 
disposition  of  posts  from  his  present  encamp- 
ment to  the  sea ;  and  trusting  that  his  enemies 
must,  upon  the  approach  of  winter,  be  obliged  to 
evacuate  Macedonia,  or  to  separate  their  army  for 
the  convenience  of  finding  subsistence,  persisted 
in  his  resolution  to  protract  the  war.  In  this 
conjuncture  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Pomponius 
Atticus  in  the  following  terms :  "  My  object  is 
secure;  for  either  I  shall,  by  my  victory,  rescue 
the  Romans  from  the  servitude  into  which  they 
are  fallen,  or  perish  in  the  attempt,  and  by  dying 
myself  escape  from  slavery.  I  have  done  my 
part,  and  wait  for  the  issue  in  which  public  free- 
dom or  death  is  to  follow.  As  for  Antony,  who 
has  chosen  to  become  the  retainer  of  Octavius, 
rather  than  a  sharer  with  us  in  the  equal  rights 
of  a  citizen,  he  has  a  different  alternative,  either 
now  to  perish  with  this  young  man,  or,  being  the 
dupe  of  his  artifices,  to  become  hereafter  the  sub- 
ject of  his  government."4 

The  troops  of  Brutus,  however,  could  not  be 
reconciled  to  this  dilatory  plan ;  they  began  to 
complain  that  a  victorious  army  should  be  cooped 
up  behind  intrenchments,  and  should  be  insulted 
like  women ;  even  the  officers,  pretending  to  rea- 
son on  the  state  of  the  war,  censured  their  general 
for  losing  the  opportunity,  which  so  great  an 


4  Plutarch,  in  Bruto. 


Chap.  IV.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


3C7 


ardour  in  the  army  gave  him  of  deciding  the  con- 
test at  a  blow.  They  alleged,  that  even  if  the. 
attempt  should  prove  unsuccessful,  he  might  still 
return  to  the  execution  of  his  defensive  and  dila- 
tory operations. 

Brutus  was  aware  that  the  army,  now  under 
his  command,  having  been  trained  up  as  mere 
soldiers  of  fortune,  had  no  principle  of  attach- 
ment to  either  side;  that  it  was  necessary  to 
consult  their  inclinations,  as  well  as  to  flatter 
their  hopes.  He  remembered  that  Cassius  had 
been  obliged,  in  many  things,  to  abate  the  usual 
rigour  of  his  discipline;  and  being  himself  of  a 
mild  and  indulgent,  nature,  he  yielded  to  those 
who  were  under  his  command  ;  or  not  being  able 
to  stem  the  torrent  which  daily  increased,  he  suf- 
fered the  impatience  of  his  own  men  to  hurry  him 
into  a  risk  of  all  his  fortunes.  In  about  twenty 
days  after  the  former  action,5  overcome  by  mere 
importunities,  he  drew  forth  his  army  on  the  de- 
clivity before  his  camp;  the  enemy,  at  the  same 
time,  according  to  their  usual  practice,  were 
forming  upon  the  plain  ;  and  both  sides  foresaw 
the  approach  of  a  general  engagement. 

Historians  introduce  their  accounts  of  the  last 
action  at  Philippi,  with  a  detail  of  forms  and  so- 
lemnities, which,  on  other  occasions,  they  have 
either  omitted  to  mention,  or  which  were  not 
equally  observed.  As  soon  as  the  parole  or  word 
for  the  day  was  given  over  the  different  divisions 
of  the  respective  armies,  a  single  trumpet  sound- 
ed the  signal  of  battle;  and  was  followed  by  a 
numerous  band,  which  played  an  air,  while  the 
legions  were  dressing  their  ranks,  and  while  the 
men  were  trying  and  handling  their  arms. 

Brutus,  being  on  horseback,  passed  along  the 
lines  of  his  own  army,  and  exhorted  his  men  not 
to  quit  the  advantage  of  the  ground  on  which  they 
stood,  by  advancing  too  far  to  meet  the  enemy. 
"You  have  promised  me  a  victory,"  he  said,  "you 
have  forced  me  to  snatch  it  now,  rather  than  to 
wait  for  a  more  secure  possession  of  it  hereafter. 
It  is  your  business  to  fulfil  your  own  expectations 
and  mine." 

On  the  other  side,  Antony  and  Octavius  were 
happy  in  having  their  fortunes,  hitherto  desperate, 
brought  to  the  chance  of  a  battle.  They  put  their 
army  in  mind,  that  this  was  what  all  of  them 
wished  :  "  You  are  poor  and  distressed,"  they 
said,  "  but  in  the  enemy's  camp  you  will  find  an 
end  to  your  sufferings,  and  the  beginning  of 
riches  and  plenty.  From  us,  who  are  yourlead- 
ers,  you  may  expect  the  rewards  which  are  due 
to  valour,  and  every  effect  of  a  disposition  in  us 
which  is  sufficiently  liberal,  but  which  victory 
alone  will  give  us  the  power  to  indulge  in  the 
manner  that  we  wish." 

In  these  preparations  the  day  being  far  spent, 
and  noon  about  three  hours  already  past,  the 
trumpets  on  both  sides  having  sounded  a  general 
charge,  made  a  sudden  pause,  and  sounded  again, 
while  both  armies  being  in  motion,  struck  upon 
their  bucklers,  advanced  with  a  mighty  shout, 
and,  under  a  shower  of  missile  weapons  of  every 
sort,  closed  with  their  swords.  They  continued 
long  with  all  the  fury  that  kindles  in  the  use  of 
short  weapons,  to  struggle  on  the  same  spot. 
The  places  of  those  that  fell  in  the  first  rank 
were  continually  supplied  from  the  ranks  behind 
them  ;  and  the  place  of  action  began  to  be  choked 


up  with  heaps  of  the  slain.  No  stratagem  is  said 
to  have  been  practised,  or  any  accident  to  have 
happened,  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  day  on 
either  side ;  but,  after  a  severe  contest,  the  army 
of  Brutus  began  to  give  way,  at  first  slowly,  and 
almost  insensibly ;  but  being  pressed  with  grow- 
ing violence,  they  were  thrown  into  some  confu- 
sion, and  gave  up  the  day  without  hopes  of  re- 
covery. In  the  disorder  that  followed,  numbers, 
who  fled  to  the  camp,  finding  the  entrances  ob- 
structed by  the  crowds  that  struggled  for  admis- 
sion, despaired  of  safety  there,  and  passed  on  to 
the  heights  in  its  rear.  Octavius  advanced  to 
the  enemy's  camp  to  secure,  or  to  keep  in  awe 
those  who  had  taken  refuge  within  it.  Antony 
pursued  those  who  were  dispersed  on  the  heights, 
and,  at  the  approach  of  night,  made  the  necessa- 
ry dispositions  to  hinder  those  who  were  within 
the  intrenchment,  or  those  who  were  in  the  field, 
from  rallying  or  assembling  again  ;  and  employed 
parties  of  horse  all  night  to  scour  all  the  avenue3 
in  search  of  prisoners. 

Brutus  himself  being  cut  off  from  the  camp 
and  closely  followed,  Lucilius,  one  of  his  com- 
pany, to  give  him  time  to  escape,  affecting  to 
personate  his  general,  and  falling  behind,  was 
taken.  This  captive,  supposed  to  be  Brutus,  the 
leader  of  the  republican  army,  being  conducted  to 
Antony,  to  whom  he  was  known,  met  with  a  re- 
ception not  unworthy  of  his  generous  artifice. 
"You  intended,1'  said  Antony,  to  those  who 
brought  the  prisoner,  with  a  politeness  which 
seemed  to  refute  some  of  the  imputations  on  his 
character,  "to  bring  me  an  enemy,  but  you  have 
brought  me  a  friend.'*6 

Brutus,  in  the  mean  time,  having  in  the  dark 
passed  a  brook  that  ran  between  steep  and  rocky 
banks  covered  with  wood,  made  a  halt,  with  a 
few  friends,  on  the  opposite  side,  as  in  a  place  of 
safety.  Being  yet  uncertain  of  the  extent  of  his 
loss,  he  sent  an  officer  to  observe  the  field,  and 
with  orders,  if  any  considerable  body  of  the  army 
were  yet  together,  to  light  a  blaze  as  a  signal  or 
token  of  its  safety.  This  officer  accordingly 
made  his  way  to  the  camp  and  finding  it  still  in 
the  possession  of  his  friends,  made  the  signal ;  but 
lest  it  should  not.  be  observed,  he  attempted  tore- 
turn  to  his  general,  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands, 
and  was  slain. 

As,  from  the  signal  now  made,  it  appeared  to 
Brutus  and  the  small  company  who  attended  him, 
that  the  camp  was  still  in  possession  of  their 
own  people,  they  thought  of  making  their  way 
thither ;  but  recollecting  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  army  were  dispersed,  they  doubted  whether 
the  lines  could  be  defended  until  they  could 
reach  them,  or  even  if  they  should  be  maintained 
so  long,  whether  they  could  furnish  any  safe  re- 
treat. While  they  reasoned  in  this  manner,  one 
of  their  number,  who  went  to  the  brook  for  water, 
returned  with  an  alarm  that  the  enemy  were 
upon  the  opposite  bank ;  and  saying,  with  some 
agitation,  "  We  must  fly."  "  Yes,"  replied  Bru- 
tus, "but  with  our  hands,  not  with  our  feet." 
He  was  then  said  to  have  repeated,  from  some 
poet,  a  tragic  exclamation  in  the  character  of 
Hercules  :  "  O  Virtue !  I  thought  thee  a  sub- 
stance, but  find  thee  no  more  than  an  empty 
name,  or  the  slave  of  Fortune."  The  vulgar,  in 
their  traditions,  willingly  lend  their  own  thoughts 


<  Plutarch,  in  Bruto.  |  6  Plutarch  in  Bruto. 


SOS 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V, 


to  eminent  men  in  distress  ;  those  of  Brutus  are 
expressed  in  his  letter  to  Atticus  already  quoted  : 
"  I  have  done  my  part,  and  wait  for  the  issue,  in 
which  death  or  freedom  is  to  follow."  If  he 
had  ever  thought  that  a  mere  honourable  inten- 
tion was  to  ensure  him  success,  it  is  surprising 
he  was  not  sooner  undeceived.  Being  now  to 
end  his  life,  and  taking  his  leave  of  the  company 
then  present,  one  by  one,  he  said  aloud,  "  That 
he  was  happy  in"  never  having  been  l>etrayed  by 
any  one  he  had  trusted  as  a  friend."  Some  of 
them,  to  whom  he  afterwards  whispered  apart, 
were  observed  to  burst  into  tears ;  and  it  appear- 
ed that  he  requested  their  assistance  in  killing 
himself;  for  he  soon  afterwards  executed  this 
purpose,  in  companv  with  one  Strato  and  some 
others,  whom  he  had  taken  aside. 

This  catastrophe,  as  usual,  set  the  imaginations 
of  men  to  work  ;  and  many  prodigies  and  pre- 
sages were  believed  to  have  preceded  it.  A  spectre, 
it  was  said,  had  presented  itself  in  the  night  to 
Brutus,  when  he  was  about  to  pass  the  Helles- 
pont, told  him  it  was  his  evil  genius,  and  was  to 
meet  him  again  at  Philippi ;  that  here  it  accord- 
ingly again  appeared  on  the  eve  of  the  late  action. 

Brutus  was  then  about  thirty-seven  or  forty 
years  of  age.i  Next  to  Cato,  he,  of  all  the  Ro- 
mans, was  supposed  to  have  acted  from  the  purest 
motives  of  public  virtue.  Cassius  had  too  much 
elevation  of  mind  to  endure  a  master  ;  but  Bru- 
tus was  likewise  too  just  to  have  usurped  on  the 
rights  of  his  fellow-citizens,  even  if  they  had  been 
in  his  power.  His  character,  however,  in  some 
respects,  is  questionable ;  and  we  may  not, 
through  the  disguise  of  manners  so  different  from 
our  own,  be  able  to  ascertain  the  truth.  Cicero, 
who  is  at  once  the  principal  author  of  his  fame 
and  of  the  exceptions  which  are  taken  against  it, 
charges  him  with  an  uncommon  degree  of  arro- 
gance, and  complains  of  the  tone  which,  while 
yet  a  young  man,  he  took  even  with  himself.2 
He  likewise  relates  some  particulars  of  a  loan 
which  one  Scaptius  had  transacted  for  Brutus  in 
the  island  of  Cyprus,  and  of  which  the  payment 
was  exacted  under  the  proconsulate  of  Cicero, 
with  circumstances  of  uncommon  avarice  and 
cruelty  ;  and  that  in  this  he  even  [(resumed  to 
demand  that  the  Roman  proconsul  should  sup- 
port him  with  all  his  authority.  The  loan  was 
usurious,  and,  in  exacting  the  payment  of  it,  the 
senate  of  Salamis,  in  the  island  of  Cyprus,  had 
been  surrounded  by  a  party  of  cavalry,  and  shut 
up  from  the  use  of  food.  Cicero  writes  of  this 
proceeding  to  Atticus,  with  every  expression  of 
blame  and  indignation ;  and  yet  Brutus,  then  a 
young  man,  continued  to  be  held  in  the  highest 
veneration  and  esteem  by  persons  who  were  ac- 
quainted with  t  hese  particulars.  "  If  you  should 
have  no  other  advantage,"  says  Atticus,  in  writing 
to  Cicero,  "  from  your  present  government,  but 
the  opportunity  of  gaining  the  friendship  of  Bru- 
tus, this  alone  will  be  enough."  And  Cicero 
himself  frequently  mentions  Brutus,  after  this 
transaction,  with  peculiar  expressions  of  admira- 
tion and  love.3    So  that  we  must  either  suppose 


1  Liv.  Epitom°,  lib.  cxliv    Vel.  Paterculus,  c  72. 

2  \d  Attic  lib.  v.  ep.  21,  et  lib.  vi.  ep  1.  Ad  me 
autem  etiam  cum  rosat  aliq  aid,  contumaciter,  arro- 
ganter,  xxjivu^tio,-,  solet  scnb:re. 

3  Viri.  lib  de  Claris  Oratnribus,  cap.  3  &c.  &c. 
This  book  is  expressly  dated  after  the  return  of  Cicero 
from  Cilicia 


Brutus  to  have  been  innocent  of  this  extortion 
and  cruelty  committed  by  his  agent  in  Cyprus, 
or  that  such  proceedings,  though  contrary  to  law, 
were  so  much  authorized  by  the  practice  of  the 
times,  as  to  stain  the  manners  of  the  age  much 
more  than  the  characters  of  individuals.  Of 
these  conjectures,  perhaps,  both  are  in  part  to  be 
admitted  :  the  law  of  the  republic  forbidding  the 
interest  of  money  under  the  denomination  of 
usury,  inflamed,  rather  than  prevented,  the  evil. 
Under  this  prohibition,  the  necessitous  borrower 
was  made  to  pay  for  the  risk  and  obloquy  which 
the  lender  incurred  by  transgressing  the  law,  as 
well  as  for  the  use  of  his  money.  It  was  impos- 
sible to  prevent  what  is  necessary  in  the  common 
course  of  things ;  persons  having  occasion  for 
money  must  borrow  ;  and  persons  having  money 
will  lend,  in  order  to  reap  the  benefit  of  it.  It 
appears  to  have  been  customary  with  towns  in 
the  provinces,  with  corporations,  and  with  de- 
pendent princes,  to  borrow  money  at  exorbitant 
interest  from  the  rich  at  Rome  ;  and  probably  to 
employ  that  money  in  making  presents  to  gain 
the  powerful.4  Pompey  had  great  sums  owing 
to  him  in  Asia,  and  likewise  received  great  pre- 
sents from  thence.  These  we  must  admit  to  have 
been  great  abuses  ;  but  individuals  are  not  always 
accountable  for  the  abuses  of  their  age,  even 
where  they  have  not  corrected  them  in  their  own 
practice. 

Brutus  and  Cassius,  the  last  unsuccessful 
leaders  of  the  republican  party,  even  after  it  be- 
came a  crime  to  mention  their  names  with  re- 
spect, were  revered  in  secret  by  every  person  who 
had  any  memory  or  conception  of  the  ancient  re- 
public, and  will,  in  every  age,  he  held  in  estima- 
tion by  those  who  conceive  merit  as  independent 
of  fortune.  Even  Antony,  it  is  said,  when  the 
death  of  Brutus  was  reported  to  him,  expressed 
the  highest  respect  for  his  memory,  covered  his 
remains  with  the  imperial  robe  which  he  himself 
wore  in  the  field,  and  ordered  his  obsequies  to  be 
performed  with  the  highest  marks  of  distinction 
and  honour  ;5  in  this  instance,  probably  acting 
from  policv,  or,  under  all  the  vices  of  dissipation 
and  profligacy  with  which  he  was  charged,  know- 
ing how  to  seize  the  occasion  of  gaining  the 
public  esteem,  by  splendid  pretensions  to  gene- 
rosity and  candour. 

Octavius,  who  far  excelled  his  colleague  in  the 
ordinary  arts  of  discretion  and  policy,  is  repre- 
sented as  greatly  inferior  to  him  in  his  behaviour 
on  the  present  occasion.  It  is  said  that  he  or- 
dered the  head  of  Brutus  to  be  carried  into 
Italv,  and  exposed  on  Caesar's  tomb;  and,  among 
other  proofs  of  insolence  and  cruelty  which  he 
gave  in  the  present  prosperous  tide  of  his  fortunes, 
that  having  among  his  prisoners  a  father  and  son 
of  the  name  of  Florus,  he  ordered  that  one  of 
them  should  be  put  to  death,  and  that  they  should 
cast  lots,  or  fight,  to  determine  which  should  be 
spared.  Under  this  cruel  sentence,  the  father  in- 
treated  that  he  himself  might  die.  Octavius  at* 
tended  to  see  the  execution  ;  and,  after  the  death 
of  the  father,  likewise  witnessed  that  of  the  son, 
who  killed  himself.6 

That  part  of  the  vanquished  army  which  fled 


4  Cicer.  ad  Attic,  lib  v.  ep.  21. 

5  Plut.  in  Antonio  et  Bruto. 

6  Sneton.  in  Octav.  c.  14.  Dio.  Cass,  dates  this  par- 
ticular after  the  battle  of  Actium. 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC.  309 


Chap.  V.) 

to  the  heights,  being  about  fourteen  thousand 
men,  hearing  of  the  death  of  the  last  of  their 
leaders,  surrendered  themselves,  and  were  equally 
divided  between  Octavius  and  Antony.  Those 
who  remained  in  the  camp,  or  at  any  of  the  out- 
posts of  the  army,  likewise  laid  down  their  arms. 
Of  the  persons  of  rank  who  partook  in  the  wreck 
of  their  party  at  Philippi,  some  escaped  by  sea, 
and  joined  Sextus  Pompeius  in  Sicily,  now  the 
sole  refuge  of  those  who  adhered  to  the  common- 
wealth. Others  killed  themselves,  or  in  the  late 
action  had  refused  quarter,  and  fought  till  they 
were  slain.  Among  the  first  were  Livius  Drusus, 
the  father  of  Livia,  afterwards  the  wile  of  Octa- 
vius. Among  the  second  were  two  young  men 
of  distinguished  names;  Cato,  the  son  of  him 
who  died  at  Utica,  and  Lucius  Cassius,  nephew 
of  the  late  general.  Labeo,  with  great  delibera- 
tion, prepared  a  grave  for  himself  in  his  tent, 


wrote  to  his  family  at  Rome,  gave  directions 
about  his  affairs,  and  then  submitted  himself  to  a 
person  whom  he  had  retained  to  put  an  end  to 
his  life. 

It  appears  to  have  been  a  point  of  honour 
among  the  Romans  of  this  age,  to  perish  by  their 
own  hands  rather  than  by  that  of  their  antago- 
nists, otherwise  they  could  have  easily,  when  for- 
tune appeared  to  have  declared  against  them, 
forced  the  enemy  to  bestow  that  death  which 
they  afterwards  obtained  with  great  reluctance 
from  their  friends ;  and  perhaps,  in  forcing  mat- 
ters to  this  extremity,  they  might  have  turned  the 
fortune  of  battle.  Caesar  seems  to  have  owed  his 
victory,  on  some  occasions,  to  efforts  of  this 
sort,  and  his  party  in  general  prevailed  by  their 
perseverance  under  checks  and  difficulties,  as 
much  as  by  the  advantage  they  took  of  their  vic- 
tories.7 


CHAPTER  V. 

Immediate  Consequences  of  the  Event  at  Philippi— New  Partition  of  the  Empire  made  by  Octa- 
vius and  Antony — Their  Separation — Progress  of  Octavius  at  Rome — His  Friends  Ma:cenas 
and  Agrippa — Alarm  and  Distress  in  Italy  on  the  Dispossession  of  the  Inhabitants  to  make 
way  for  the  Troops — Jealousy  of  Fulvia  and  Lucius  Anlonius — Blockade  and  reduction  of 
Perusia — Progress  of  Antony  in  Asia — His  Stay  at  Alexandria — Return  to  Italy — Accommo- 
dation with  Sextus  Pompeius — Return  of  Octavius  and  Antony  to  Rome — Their  Policy. 


AMONG  the  immediate  consequences  of  the 
late  event  at  Philippi,  is  mentioned  the  death  of 
Porcia,  the  wife  of  Brutus,  and  the  daughter  of 
Cato.  Being  suspected  of  an  intention  to  kill 
herself,  watched  by  her  servants,  and  anxiously 
precluded  from  the  ordinary  means  of  effecting 
that  purpose,  she  swallowed  burning  coals,  and 
expired.  This  was  said  to  have  happened  on 
hearing  of  her  husband's  death ;  but  Plutarch 
cites  a  letter  of  Brutus,  extant  in  his  own  time, 
from  which  it  appeared  that  this  catastrophe  pre- 
ceded the  death  of  Brutus,  and  was  imputed  to 
the  negligence  of  her  servants,  who  attended  her 
in  the  delirium  of  a  fever.8 

By  the  battles  which  had  been  fought  in  diffe- 
rent parts  of  the  empire,  by  the  late  massacre  in 
Italy,  and  by  the  event  of  the  war  at  Philippi, 
the  last  pillars  of  the  commonwealth  seemed  to 
be  removed,  or  but  a  few  of  its  members  were  left 
who  had  any  zeal  for  its  preservation.  Octavius 
and  Antony,  upon  the  total  and  decisive  victory 
they  had  gained,  without  paying  any  regard  to 
the  pretensions  of  Lepidus,  made  a  new  partition 
of  the  empire.  Octavius,  to  his  former  lot,  had 
an  addition  of  Spain  and  Numidia;  Antony  that 
of  the  farther  Gaul  and  the  province  of  Africa. 9 
It  was  agreed  between  them,  that  Antony  should 
prosecute  the  remains  of  the  war  in  the  east,  and 
raise  the  necessary  contributions  to  enable  them 
to  fulfil  their  engagements  to  the  army  :  that  Oc- 
tavius should  return  into  Italy,  conduct  the  war 
against  Sextus  Pompeius,  repress  the  designs  of 
Lepidus,  in  case  he  should  be  dissatisfied  with 
the  present  arrangement,  and  in  proper  time  set- 
tle the  veterans  on  the  lands  which  had  been  al- 


7  See  the  History  of  the  Campaigns  on  the  Segra  at 
Dyrrachium,  and  in  Africa. 

8  Plat,  in  Bruto.         9  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  1. 

3  A 


lotted  to  them. — These  articles  were  committed 
to  writing-,  and  the  ratifications  exchanged.  An- 
tony having  received  from  Octavius  a  reinforce- 
ment of  two  legions,  departed  for  Asia,  and 
Octavius  set  out  on  his  return  to  Rome. 

When  accounts  of  the  final  action  at  Philippi 
were  received  in  the  city,  a  thanksgiving  was 
ordered;  and,  instead  of  being  limited  to  fifty  or 
sixty  days,  as  in  the  late  decrees  which  had 
passed  in  honour  of  Julius  Caesar,  this  restival 
was  now  to  be  continued  for  an  entire  year.  In 
proportion  to  the  approaches  which  the  repub- 
lican party  made  to  its  entire  extinction,  the  few 
who  remained  of  it  carried  an  alfectation  of  joy 
that  kept  pace  with  their  real  sorrow.  Their 
fears  broke  forth  in  profuse  expressions  of  pre- 
tended attachment  and  zeal  for  the  honour  of 
those  whom  they  dreaded. 

Under  such  an  aspect  of  gladness,  covering 
extreme  anxiety  or  terror,  the  pacific  inhabitants 
of  Italy  looked  for  the  arrival  of  an  army  which 
was  to  be  gratified  with  their  richest  possessions. 
They  remembered  what  had  passed  at  former 
military  entries  into  Rome,  and  they  anticipated 
the  sufferings  which  were  to  be  expected  from  a 
young  man  who  had,  during  some  time,  and  from 
mere  policy,  assumed  an  air  of  moderation,  and 
employed  every  artifice  to  forward  his  purpose; 
but  in  proportion  as  he  became  secure  of  his  end, 
he  threw  off  his  original  mask,  and  concurred  in 
usurpations  the  most  bloody  of  any  that  had 
been  known  in  the  history  of  mankind. — Octa- 
vius being  detained  by  sickness  on  his  way  to  the 
city,  these  gloomy  apprehensions  gained  force 
from  delay.  It  was  supposed  that  he  deferred 
his  arrival  only  while  he  adjusted  his  plan  or  took 
measures  to  render  its  effects  more  certain.  Every 
one  exaggerated  the  evil,  but  no  one  thought  of  a 
remedy.    Such  was  the  present  state  of  a  help- 


370 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


less  nobility  and  people,  the  remains  of  a  common- 
wealth, long  accustomed  to  dominion,  retaining 
their  haughtiness  while  they  lost  their  vigour, 
long  desirous  of  power,  but  unable  to  sustain  the 
weight  of  a  free  constitution. 

Octavius  gave  notice  to  the  senate,  that  his 
coming  was  delayed  by  sickness,  accepted  the 
decree  of  a  continued  thanksgiving  for  the  late 
victory  obtained  at  Philippi,  but  desired  it  might 
be  understood,  that  this  honour  was  conferred  on 
account  of  the  exemplary  justice  he  had  done  on 
the  assassins  of  his  father.  The  cunning  with 
which  he  occasionally  dropt  this  pretence,  or  with 
which  he  resumed  it,  as  the  motive  of  all  his  pur- 
suits, forms  a  striking  part  in  his  character.  He 
at  one  time  co-operated  with  the  conspirators,  and 
declared  it  to  be  his  intention,  in  conjunction  with 
them,  to  restore  the  republic.  He  accordingly 
promoted  the  resolutions  which  were  taken  at 
Rome  in  favour  of  Decimus,  as  well  as  Marcus 
Brutus  and  Cassius,  he  promoted  the  election  of 
Casca  into  the  office  of  tribune  ;  he  raised  an  ar- 
my to  support  them  against  Antony,  and  took 
into  his  councils  the  most  vehement  partizans  of 
the  senate.  "  Even  Servius  Galba,  holding  the 
very  dagger  wilk  which  he  murdered  Ccssar," 
said  Antony  to  him,  in  his  letter  during  the  siege 
of  Mutina,  "  is  now  employed  in  your  camp."i 
As  he  often,  however,  on  former  occasions, 
courted  the  army,  by  affecting  a  pious  intention 
to  avenge  his  father's  death,  so  he  now  recurred 
to  the  same  pretence,  as  the  most  likely  to  coun- 
terbalance the  favour  that  was  paid  to  the  memo- 
ry of  Brutus  and  Cassius,  and  the  general  regret 
which  attended  the  catastrophe  of  the  last  scene 
that  was  acted  in  behalf  of  the  commonwealth. 

About  this  time,  Octavius  was 
U.  C.  712.  known  to  have  in  his  service  two 
L.  Antonius,  officers  of  distinguished  merit,  Mar- 
P.  Servilius,  cus  Vipsanius  Agrippa,  and  Cams 
Vattca  Isau-  c[Mm  Maecenas;  both  well  qualified 
in  their  respective  parts  to  support 
him  in  the  pretensions  he  had  formed  on  the 
empire.  The  first,  by  his  courage  and  military 
abilities,  was  qualified  to  supply  or  to  conceal  his 
defects  as  a  soldier;  the  second,  by  his  industry, 
his  temper,  his  choice  of  friends,  and  his  fitness 
to  soften  the  manners  of  the  times,  by  diverting 
the  minds  of  men  from  objects  of  public  distress 
to  the  elegant  and  amusing  occupations  of  literary 
genius,  well  qualified  to  smooth  all  the  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  his  civil  administration.  Al- 
though it  had  not  yet  appeared  in  what  degree 
Octavius  was  to  commit  his  affairs  to  such  able 
hands,  his  discernment  in  choosing  them  might 
be  considered  as  the  presage  of  a  fortune  not  de- 
pending on  accidents,  but  founded  on  a  real 
ascendant  of  understanding  and  judgment. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  the  young  Caesar  at  Rome, 
he  gave  assurance  to  the  senate  of  his  intention 
to  avoid  all  unnecessary  acts  of  severity.2  But 
the  first  object  of  his  administration  being  to  set- 
tle the  veterans  on  the  possessions  which  they 
had  been  made  to  expect  at  the  end  of  the  war, 
he  was  very  soon  led  into  a  scene  of  extreme 
violence,  and  involved  in  great  difficulties. 

At  the  formation  of  the  triumvirate  the  army 
had  been  flattered  with  the  hopes  of  being  settled 
on  the  most  fertile  lands,  or  in  the  wealthiest  ci- 


1  Cicer.  Philip.   Antony  to  Octavius  and  Hirtius. 

2  Dio  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  3. 


ties  of  Italy,  In  order  to  fulfil  these  expectations, 
it  was  necessary  to  dispossess  the  ancient  inhabi- 
tants ;  and  as  this  was  to  be  done  without  any 
pretence  of  forfeiture,  or  delinquency  of  any  sort, 
the  unhappy  sufferers  pleaded,  that  the  lands  in^ 
tended  for  the  army  should  be  taken  by  lot,  or  in 
equal  proportions,  and  in  every  part  of  the  env 
pire.  But  the  soldiers  were  absolute,  and  not  to 
be  satisfied  but  by  immediate  possession  of  the 
lots  which  had  been  actually  assigned  as  the  re- 
ward of  their  services.  A  general  order  was  ac- 
cordingly signed  for  the  present  occupiers  of  those 
lands  to  remove.  The  victims  of  this  severity 
repaired  to  Rome  in  entire  families;  persons  of 
every  sex,  age,  and  condition  crowded  the  streets, 
took  shelter  in  the  temples  and  other  places  of 
public  resort,  and  filled  the  city  with  complaints 
and  lamentations.3  "The  ancient  inhabitants 
of  Italy,  citizens  of  Romer"  tnev  said,  "were 
stripped  of  their  possessions,  and  turned  out  to 
perish  with  their  children,  to  make  way  for  ad- 
venturers who  had  subverted  the  laws  of  their 
country,  and  who  were  to  perpetuate  the  military 
usurpation  they  had  established.  The  same  vio- 
lent hands  which  had  stripped  the  Roman  peo- 
ple of  their  sovereignty,  were  now  to  be  let  loose 
on  their  property.  The  innocent,  who  had  taken 
no  part  in  the  late  troubles,  were  to  be  sacrificed, 
merely  because  their  possessions  suited  the  con- 
veniency  of  those  who  had  already  brought  so 
many  evils  on  the  commonwealth.  They  had 
been  promised  protection  from  this  party ;,  but 
were  now  to  suffer,  from  their  pretended  protect- 
ors and  friends,,  greater  evils  than  any  conquered 
province  had  ever  endured  from  the  worst  of  its 
enemies." 

To  these  complaints  both  the  army  and  its 
leaders  were  equally  insensible,  and'  proceeded, 
in  particular  instances,  to  acts  of  violence,,  which 
the  execution  of  their  general  purpose  did  not  re- 
quire. They  kept  the  minds  of  the  people  in 
suspense  by  their  indecision  in  choosing  their 
lots;  by  quitting  those  which  were  at  first  as- 
signed, in  order  to  exchange  them  for  others;  and, 
by  leaving  particular  persons  without  any  regu- 
lar grant  or  assignment,  to  make  free  with  such 
lands  as  suited  their  conveniency.  The  leaders 
were  obliged  to  connive  at  what  they  could  not 
restrain,  and  gave  way  to  a  violence  to  which 
they  owed  the  possession  of  their  power.4 

The  army  now  considering  the  lands  of  Italy 
as  their  property,  looked  upon  every  person  in- 
clined to  protect  the  ancient  inhabitants  as  their 
enemy,  resented  every  delay  that  was  made  in 
gratifying  their  desires;  and  were  equally  insolent 
to  their  own  officers  as  they  were  to  the  people. 
A  party  being  assembled  in  the  Campus  Martius 
to  receive  their  dismission  and  their  assignments 
of  land  ;  and  having  some  time  waited;  for  Octa- 
vius, from  whom  they  expected  satisfaction  in 


3  Publius  Virgilius  Maro  is  said  to  have  been  of  this 
injured  train.  Having  had  a  small  property  in  land 
near  Mantua,  he  was  stripped  of  it  to  make  way  for  an 
officer  of  the  legions;  a  wrong  to  which  he  so  tenderly 
alludes  in  his  eclogue  (Nos  patriae  fines  et  dulcia  lin- 
quimns  arva,  nos  patriam  fugimus.)  But  being  re- 
commended to  Maecenas  by  Asinius  Pollio,  who  com- 
manded in  that  part  of  Italy,  he  obtained,  from  the  re- 
spect that  was  due  to  his  fine  genius,  a  protection  which 
humanity  and  justice  owe  equally  to  every  other  per- 
son that  was  involved  in  this  calamity. — Appian.  de 
Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v. 

4  Appian.  lib.  v. 


Chap.  V.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


871 


these  particulars,  became  Impatient  and  clamor- 
ous, laid  violent  hands  on  Nonius,  a  centurion, 
who  endeavoured  to  pacify  them,  and  even  threw 
him  into  the  river,  where  he  perished.  They 
afterwards  dragged  the  dead  body  on  shore,  and 
placed  it  on  the  way  by  which  their  general  was 
to  pass,  as  a  warning,  that  he  himself  should  not 
slight  their  displeasure.  Octavius  being  informed, 
before  he  came  abroad,  of  this  menacing  insult 
which  had  been  offered  to  his  authority,  saw  the 
necessity  of  not  appearing  to  be  moved.  He 
passed  the  dead  body  without  seeming  to  observe 
tt,  made  the  intended  distribution  of  land  to  the 
troops-,  and  affecting  to  consider  the  murder  of 
Nonius  as  the  effect  of  a  private  quarrel,  in 
which  he  was  to  take  no  part,  left  this  dangerous 
meeting  with  an  exhortation,  that  they  should  not 
weaken  their  own  cause  by  quarrelling  among 
themselves. 

The  cohorts  which  Octavius  retained  for  the 
ordinary  guard  of  his  own  person,  treated  him, 
on  occasion,  with  equal  disrespect.  As  an  in- 
stance of  this  sort,  it  is  mentioned,  that  one  of 
their  body  having,  at  the  public  theatre,  sr  tod 
himself  on  the  Equestrian  bench,  and  the  audi- 
ence being  scandalized  at  this  act  of  presumption, 
the  soldier  was  removed  by  order  of  his  general; 
but  his  companions  being  made  to  believe  that 
he  was  carried  away  to  be  put  to  death,  placed 
themselves  in  the  way  of  Octavius,  as  he  passed 
from 'the  theatre,  and,  with  clamours  and  threats 
.of  instant  revenge,  demanded  their  fellow-soldier 
■to  be  restored.  Having  prevailed  in  this  particu- 
lar, they  called  upon  him  to  declare  what  usage 
he  had  received;  and  when  they  were  told  by 
himself  that  no  violence  had  been  offered  to  him, 
they  alleged  that  he  was  hired  to  conceal  the 
truth,  and  to  betray  the  honour  of  the  army,  and 
were  scarcely  to  be  appeased  by  his  repeated  as- 
severations to  the  contrary. 

In  these  dangerous  times,  enormities  which 
were  committed  by  disorderly  persons  of  any  de- 
scription being  imputed  to  the  soldiers,  were  suf- 
fered to  pass  with  impunity.  Robbery  and  mur- 
ders became  frequent,  and  the  city  of  Rome 
itself,  as  well  as  the  provincial  towns,  was  infest- 
ed by  persons  who,  either  from  necessity,  or  from 
the  license  of  the  times,  subsisted  by  rapine.  No 
property  was  safe,  and  the  condition  of  persons 
of  all  parties  equally  insecure.  At  Rome  the 
rent  of  houses  fell  to  a  fourth,  and  whole  streets 
appeared  to  be  deserted.5 

In  this  distracted  scene,  nevertheless,  there 
were  persons  who  envied  Octavius  the  hateful 
pre-eminence  which  he  seemed  to  enjoy.  Among 
these  Manius,  the  person  entrusted  with  the 
affairs  of  Mark  Antony,  Lueius  his  brother, 
now  in  the  office  of  consul,  and  Fulvia  his  wife, 
aspiring  to  a  share  of  the  government,  became 
impatient  of  an  administration  from  which  they 
thought  themselves  unfairly  excluded.  Not  only 
L.  Antonius,  in  the  capaeity  of  consul,  but  the 
others  also,  in  right  of  the  absent  triumvir, 
thought  themselves  entitled  to  more  consideration 
than  they  now  enjoyed. 

The  power  of  distributing  the  lands  and  other 
rewards  to  the  army,  it  was  observed,  gave  Octa- 
vius a  signal  advantage  over  his  colleague,  and 
fixed  the  expectations  of  all  men  upon  him  alone. 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  9 


By  these  means  he  filled  Italy  with  his  own  re- 
tainers and  friends ;  and  Fulvia  complained  that 
Mark  Antony  should  be  thus  deprived  <of  the 
fruits  of  a  victory,  which  had  been  obtained 
chiefly  by  his  conduct  and  valour.  She  appealed 
to  the  legions,  presented  herself  at  their  quar- 
ters, and,  with  her  children  in  her  arms,  implored, 
what  she  was  pleased  to  call,  a  matter  of  right 
in  behalf  of  her  husband. 

In  this  manner,  persons  representing  the  ab- 
sent triumvir  endeavoured  to  divide  the  party, 
and  to  add  to  the  scene  of  political  confusion 
already  subsisting,  a  breach  and  opposition  of 
interest  among  those  who  commanded  the  army. 
The  country,  at  the  same  time,  suffered  from  the 
interruption  that  was  given  by  the  fleets  of  Do- 
mitius  Ahenobarbus  and  Sextus  Pompeius,  from 
the  opposite  ports  of  Illvricum  and  Sicily,  to  tho 
importation  of  corn  and  other  necessaries;  and 
this  circumstance,  joined  to  the  uncertainty  of 
property,  and  the  other  causes  which  interrupted 
industry,  completed  the  distresses  of  Italy. 

The  people,  although  they  were  willing  to  sub- 
mit to  any  government,  were  not  likely  to  be  long 
able  to  endure  their  present  sufferings.  The 
friends  of  Antony  endeavoured  to  load  Octavius 
with  the  blame  of  these  evils,  and  thought  this  a 
favourable  opportunity  to  wrest  the  government 
out  of  his  hands.  They  found  fault  with  the  pro- 
vision he  had  made  for  the  army  as  too  scanty ; 
and  they  joined  in  the  complaints  that  were 
made  by  the  sufferers,  who  were  dispossessed  of 
their  property  to  make  way  for  the  soldiers.  They 
affected  a  design  to  restore  the  republic;  and 
Lucius  Antonius,  in  the  character  of  Roman 
consul,  called  uj>on  the  remaining  friends  of  the 
commonwealth  to  appear  in  support  of  their  legal 
magistrate.  He  professed  his  intention  to  make 
war  even  on  his  own  brother,  as  well  as  on  Oc- 
tavius, if  he  should  persist  in  his  present  usurpa- 
tions, or  should  attempt  to  obstruct  the  restoration 
of  the  laws.  But,  notwithstanding  his  profes- 
sions to  this  purpose,  he  himself,  affecting  to  be- 
lieve that  his  person  was  in  danger,  put  his 
attendants  under  arms,  and  paraded  the  streets 
at  the  head  of  a  military  force ;  a  measure  that 
was  ever  considered  at  Rome  as  the  intimation 
of  a  design  to  usurp  the  government. 

Octavius,  greatly  provoked  by  these  attacks 
which  were  made  upon  him  by  the  representa- 
tives of  Antony,  repudiated  the  daughter  of  Ful- 
via, whom,  at  the  formation  of  the  triumvirate, 
he  had  betrothed  merely  to  serve  a  political  pur- 
pose, and  whom  he  now  returned  to  her  family, 
with  express  declarations  of  his  never  having 
had  any  commerce  with  her  as  his  wife.  Fulvia, 
affocting  to  consider  this  insult  as  a  prelude  to 
greater  injuries,  appealed  to  Lepidus  in  behalf  of 
his  absent  colleague,  and  withdrew  to  Prffineste, 
whither  great  numbers  of  all  ranks  and  condi- 
tions, both  civil  and  military,  flocked  to  her 
standard.  Here  she  put  herself  at  the  head  of 
an  army,  held  regular  councils,  and,  with  a 
sword  by  her  side,  gave  the  parole,  and  frequently 
harangued  the  troops. 

In  these  hasty  advances  to  a  rupture,  repre- 
sentations to  Antony,  and  preparations  for  war, 
were  equally  made  on  both  sides.  It  was  yet 
uncertain  how  the  army  might  divide  between 
the  parties.  Octavius  was  likely,  by  hir>  presence, 
to  command  the  superior  number;  but  great 
part  of  the  forces  now  in  Italy  had  been  levied  in 


372 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V 


the  name  of  Antony,  and  still,  according  to  the 
custom  of  those  armies,  bore  his  name  on  their 
shields.  The  two  legions  which  were  to  have 
been  transferred  to  Octavius,  to  replace  those 
which  he  had  given  to  Antony  in  Macedonia, 
were  still  retained  by  Lucius  Antonius  for  his 
brother.  The  provinces  of  Gaul,  with  consider- 
able armies,  ready  to  march  into  Italy,  were 
under  the  government  of  Ventidius,  of  Plancus, 
anJ  of  Asinius  Pollio,  who  were  the  adherents 
of  Antony,  and  likely  to  espouse  his  cause.  An- 
tony himself,  by  the  superiority  of  his  military 
character,  had,  in  the  course  of  his  joint  opera- 
tions with  Octavius,  greatly  surpassed  him,  and 
had  acquired  a  high  degree  of  reputation  with 
the  troops.  It  was,  therefore,  necessary  for  his 
rival  to  proceed  with  great  caution,  and  not 
rashly  to  draw  upon  himself,  in  this  quarrel,  the 
weight  of  his  colleague's  authority,  nor  to  disgust 
the  army,  by  appearing  to  be  the  aggressor  in  a 
war  between  their  leaders. 

Such  disputes  were  certainly  in  general  disa- 
greeable to  the  army,  who,  having  subdued  the 
republic,  hoped,  now  at  their  ease,  to  divide  its 
spoils.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  for  Octavius, 
if  a  war  should  ensue,  to  make  it  appear  to  be 
the  work  of  his  enemies.  For  this  purpose  he 
formed  at  Rome  a  council  of  the  principal  offi- 
cers; proposed  that  they  should  make  inquiry 
into  the  grounds  of  the  present  dissension,  and 
oblige  those  who  were  in  fault  to  submit  to  their 
decrees. 

Fulvia  and  her  partizans  called  this  military 
convention  by  a  ludicrous  name,  which  we  may 
translate  the  ammunition  senate,1  and  refused  to 
submit  their  cause  to  so  new  a  tribunal. 

The  army  in  general  was  alarmed  at  the  pros- 
pect of  seeing  the  civil  war  renewed.  Two 
legions  that  had  first  served  under  Csesar,  and 
afterwards  under  Antony,  being  now  quartered 
at  Ancona,  sent  a  deputation  to  Rome,  with  in- 
treaties  that  the  parties  would  avoid  a  rupture. 
They  were  referred  by  Octavius  to  L.  Anto- 
nius, who,  he  said,  was  the  aggressor ;  and  pro- 
ceeding, attended  by  a  great  concourse  of  people 
to  Prsneste,  where  the  heads  of  the  opposite 
party  were  assembled,  beseeched  them  to  spare 
the  republic,  already  too  much  afflicted  with 
civil  dissensions.  They  were  told  for  answer, 
that  "Octavius  was  the  aggressor;  that  while 
his  colleague  was  raising  money  for  the  benefit  of 
the  army,  he  was  artfully  changing  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Italy,  and  occupying  all  the  important 
stations  of  the  empire  with  his  own  retainers  and 
creatures;  that  the  money,  which,  under  pre- 
tence of  supporting  the  war  against  Sextus  Pom- 
peius,  had  been  taken  from  the  treasury,  was  by 
Octavius  diverted  from  its  use,  and  employed  in 
carrupiiag  the  troops  of  his  friend ;  that  the  es- 
tates of  the  proscribed,  under  the  pretence  of 
sales,  at  which,  besides  the  creatures  of  Octavius, 
there  was  no  man  to  purchase,  had  been  actually 
employed  by  him  for  the  same  purpose ;  that,  if 
he  really  meant  to  avoid  a  rupture,  he  ought  to 
do  nothing  without  consulting  the  friends  of  his 
colleague,  who  were  equally  entitled  with  him- 
self to  share  in  the  fruits  of  their  common  victory 
obtained  at  Philippi.  But  I  know,"  said  Lucius 
Antonius,  "the  falsehood  of  Octavius ;  while  he 
amuses  you  with  the  hopes  of  a  negotiation  and 


1  Senatus  Caligatus. 


treaty,  and  with  professions  of  having  nothing  at 
heart  besides  your  interest,  he  is  arming  himself 
with  the  utmost  diligence,  and  has  reinforced  the 
garrison  of  Brundusium,  with  an  evident  purpose 
to  obstruct  the  return  of  his  colleague,  and  your 
principal  friend,  into  Italy." 

Octavius  being  in  possession  of  the  capital,  in 
order  that  he  might  appear  to  have,  not  only  the 
authority  of  government,  but  the  countenance 
likewise  of  all  the  more  respectable  citizens  of 
Rome  on  his  side,  called  an  assembly  of  the 
senate,  at  which  he  invited  the  Equestrian  order 
to  attend.  He  represented  to  this  assembly  the 
calamities  that  were  now  impending  over  Italy 
from  the  jealousy  and  restless  ambition  of  a  few 
persons,  who  called  themselves  the  friends  of 
Mark  Antony,  and  he  exhorted  them  with  one 
accord  to  join  him  in  averting  these  evils.  He 
accordingly  obtained  a  deputation  to  be  sent  to 
Prameste,  where  the  heads  of  the  opposite  party 
were  still  assembled,  to  remonstrate  against  their 
procedure.  This  measure  however  had  no  other 
effect  besides  that  which  Octavius  proposed  by 
it,  that  of  transferring  to  his  enemies  the  blame 
of  all  the  evils  which  were  expected  to  follow. 

An  expedient  was  proposed,  more  likely  to 
prevent  these  evils,  by  a  conference  to  be  held  by 
the  military  officers  of  the  opposite  sides,  who, 
perceiving  themselves  about  to  be  involved  in  a 
quarrel,  were  extremely  averse  to  risk  all  the  ad- 
vantages they  had  already  obtained,  without  any 
prospect  of  gain.  This  expedient  of  a  military 
congress  was  suggested  by  the  officers  themselves, 
and  was  readily  embraced  by  their  leaders.  Gabii 
being  half  way  from  Prameste  to  Rome,  was 
fixed  upon  as  the  place  at  which  they  should 
meet;  but  on  the  day  on  which  they  were  to 
open  their  conference,  parties  of  horse  having 
been,  from  some  remains  of  distrust,  without  any 
concert,  sent  forward  on  both  sides  to  escort  their 
deputies,  and  mutually  to  observe  each  other, 
they,  met  unexpectedly  on  the  highway,  and 
coming  to  blows,  numbers  were  killed  or  wound- 
ed, and  the  intended  convention  was  dropped. 

Each  of  the  parties,  in  consequence  of  this 
accident,  published  a  manifesto,  and  began  to 
assemble  in  a  hostile  manner.  Lucius  Antonius 
had  ordered  new  levies,  and  with  these,  joined  to 
the  troops  already  on  foot,  under  the  authority 
of  his  brother,  and  who  were  now  stationed  in 
the  nearer  province  of  Gaul,  under  Calenus,  he 
proposed  to  assemble  an  army  of  eleven  legions. 

Octavius  ordered  six  legions  under  Salvidienus, 
from  Spain;  and  having  already  four  in  Italy, 
with  a  considerable  body  of  troops,  which,  under 
the  designation  of  Praetorian  bands,  made  the 
ordinary  guard  of  his  person,  he  took  the  field  to 
prevent  the  designs  of  his  enemies. 

The  nobility  and  citizens  of  rank  were  divided  ; 
but  the  greater  part,  who  had  yet  any  hopes  of 
seeing  the  civil  government  restored,  thought 
themselves  safer  in  the  party  of  the  consul  Lu- 
cius Antonius,  than  in.  that  of  Csesar ;  and  ac- 
cordingly repaired  to  his  camp. 

Sextus  Pompeius,  on  the  eve  of  a  contest  thus 
likely  to  divide  his  enemies,  might  have  made 
himself  of  considerable  consequence,  or  might 
have  obtained  advantageous  terms  from  either 
party.  His  forces  had  been  seen  greatly  aug- 
mented by  the  accession  of  two  legions,  the  re- 
mains of  the  wreck  at  Philippi,  that  had  escaped 
with  Murcus.    He  might  have  got  a  footing  in 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


373 


Italy,  and,  by  the  favourable  disposition  of  many 
who  felt  the  oppression  of  the  present  govern- 
ment, or  dreaded  the  future  effects  of  its  tyranny, 
might  have  held  the  balance  between  the  con- 
tending parties.  He,  nevertheless,  either  under 
the  notion  of  leaving  his  enemies  to  waste  their 
strength  against  each  other,  or  not  having  a 
sufficient  genius  for  such  arduous  enterprises, 
suffered  the  opportunity  to  escape,  and  contented 
himself  with  endeavouring  to  secure  his  posses- 
sion of  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  which  he  hoped  to 
retain  as  a  patrimony  independent  of  Rome. 

Ahenobarbus,  the  other  remaining  leader  or  re- 
presentative of  the  republican  party,  who  was 
still  hovering  on  the  opposite  coast  of  Italy  with 
the  remains  of  the  fleet,  which  he  had  command- 
ed under  Brutus  and  Cassius,  made  frequent 
descents,  and  plundered  the  recent  settlements  of 
the  veterans.  He  even  forced  his  way  into  the 
harbour  of  Brundusium,  took  some  galleys  be- 
longing to  Octavius,  and  laid  waste  the  adjacent 
country;  but,  while  he  was  acting  in  a  manner 
equally  hostile  to  both  parties,  the  forces  of  the 
triumvirs,  indifferent  to  every  external  enemy, 
began  to  assemble  against  each  other.  Lepidus 
declared  for  Octavius,  and  these  two  having  left 
the  city  together,  Lucius  Antonius  presented 
himself  at  the  gates,  and  was  admitted.  Having 
assembled  the  people,  he  declared  that  his  inten- 
tion was  to  restore  the  republic.  His  brother,  he 
said,  for  the  future  desired  no  illegal  powers,  and 
was  ready  to  join  in  calling  Octavius  and  Lepi- 
dus to  account  for  the  tyranny  they  had  lately 
exercised  against  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Italy. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  event  of  this  contest 
appeared  to  depend  on  the  movements  that  were 
making  on  the  side  of  Spain  and  Gaul.  Salvi- 
dienus  being  on  his  march  to  join  Octavius,  Asi- 
nius  and  Ventidius  hung  on  his  rear.  Agrippa, 
on  the  part  of  Caesar,  passed  the  Po  in  order  to 
join  Salvidienus ;  and  having  succeeded  in  this 
design,  they  obliged  Asinius  and  Ventidius  to 
remain  on  the  defensive,  expecting  the  arrival  of 
Lucius  Antonius,  who  was  on  his  march  to  sup- 
port them. 

When  Antonius  came  to  a  pass  of  the  Apen- 
nines, on  the  Flaminian  way,  he  found  the  gorges 
of  these  mountains  already  occupied  by  Agrippa 
and  Salvidienus;  not  attempting  to  force  them, 
he  fell  back  to  Perusia,  and  sent  orders  to  Venti- 
dius to  join  him  by  some  other  route ;  but  Oc- 
tavius having  got  possession  of  Sentinum  and 
Nursia,  two  posts  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the 
mountains,  effectually  prevented  the  junction  of 
his  enemies,  assembled  all  his  forces  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Perusia,  and  invested  Antonius  in 
that  place.  He  drew  a  line  of  circumvallation, 
extending  about  fifty  stadia,  or  six  miles,  and 
placed  his  army  between  two  parallels,  equally 
strong,  against  any  attempts  that  were  likely  to  be 
made  from  the  garrison,  or  from  the  field. 

Lucius  Antonius  being  thus  shut  up  in  Peru- 
sia during  the  autumn,  and  part  of  winter,  and 
all  the  efforts  of  Fulvia,  Asinius,  Ventidius,  and 
Plancus,  to  succour  him  being  ineffectual,  he  was 
reduced,  from  want  of  provisions,  to  the  greatest 
extremities,  and  offered  to  capitulate. 

Octavius,  in  accepting  this  offer,  with  his  usual 
address,  took  measures  to  divide  his  enemies,  or 
to  sow  the  seeds  of  future  jealousy  among  them. 
He  affected  to  distinguish  the  regular  troops, 
which  had  been  formed  to  serve  under  his  col- 


league Mark  Antony,  from  the  Roman  citizens, 
or  rather  supposed  disorderly  persons,  who  had 
taken  a  part  in  this  insurrection.  The  first, 
from  pretended  respect  to  their  leader,  he  allowed 
to  withdraw  with  honour;  the  others  he  required 
to  surrender  at  discretion.  In  complying  with 
this  requisition,  L.  Antonius  himself  set  the  ex- 
ample, went  forth  in  person  to  receive  the  victor's 
commands,  and  being  courteously  treated,  alleged 
his  duty  as  a  civil  magistrate,  and  his  desire  to 
restore  the  commonwealth,  as  an  apology  for  his 
conduct,  and  implored  mercy  for  those  who  had 
embarked  with  him  in  the  same  design.  Octa- 
vius replied,  "  That  as  his  enemies  had  surren- 
dered themselves  at  discretion,  he  should  make 
no  remarks  on  the  truth  of  their  plea,  nor  talk  of 
conditions,  where  he  was  not  to  be  bound  by  a 
treaty ;  that  he  must  now  consider  not  only  what 
his  enemies  had  merited,  but  what  was  due  to 
himself."  Having  found  among  his  prisoners 
some  of  the  veterans  who  had  served  under  Cae- 
sar, he  was  disposed  to  have  ordered  them  all  to 
be  executed;  but  observing  that  this  measure 
was  extremely  offensive  to  his  own  army,  he 
confined  his  severities  to  the  Roman  citizens, 
who,  he  pretended,  had  on  this  occasion  acted 
with  equal  animosity  to  the  army,  and  to  him- 
self. To  avenge  the  supposed  injury  that  was 
done  to  the  army,  all  persons  of  the  civil  descrip- 
tion, found  under  arms,  were  put  to  death.  Of 
these,  Cannutius,  C.  Flavius,  Clodius,  Bythini- 
cus,  and  others,  are  mentioned  by  Appian.3  This 
Cannutius  is  said  by  Dion  Cassius  to  have  been 
the  tribune,  who  presenting  Octavius  to  his  first 
audience  from  the  people,  contributed  so  much 
to  the  rise  of  his  fortunes. 

The  greater  part  of  the  executions  were  per- 
formed in  the  presence  of  Octavius,  and  in  the 
manner  of  sacrifices  to  the  manes,  or  to  the  divi- 
nity, of  Julius  Cajsar.  In  this  form,  however 
detestable,  they  were  supposed,  in  that  age,  to 
carry  an  aspect  of  piety,  which  sanctified  the 
cruelty  with  which  they  were  ordered,  and  with 
which  Octavius  himself  witnessed  the  scene. 
Four  hundred  of  the  senatorian  and  equestrian 
order  are  said,  by  Dion  Cassius  and  Suetonius, 
to  have  perished  in  this  manner.3  The  magis- 
trates and  council  of  Perusia,  being  separately 
ordered  to  execution,  implored  for  mercy,  but  had 
one  general  answer,  Yuu  must  die*  The  place 
itselff  whether  by  the  desperation  of  its  inhabi- 
tants, or  by  the  outrage  of  those  who  were  now 
become  masters  of  it,  was  set  on  fire,  and  burnt 
to  the  ground.  The  country  around  being  de- 
serted, or  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword,  and 
cleared  of  its  former  possessors,  became  a  prey  to 
such  followers  of  the  army  as  chose  to  occupy  it.5 

At  the  date  of  this  odious  transaction,  Octavius 
was  no  more  than  twenty-three  years  of  age  ; 
and  though,  in  former  examples  of  cruelty,  nis 
youth  may  have  been  overruled  or  misled  by  the 
party-rage  of  his  colleagues,  yet,  in  this  instance, 
he  himself  betrayed  a  merciless  nature,  in  the 
effects  of  which  he  had  no  man  to  share,  or  to 
divide  the  blame  ;6  and  the  world  began  to  dread 
more  from  the  separate  power  which  he  was 
about  to  establish,  than  they  did  from  the  joint 


<2  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v. 

3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.c.  14. 

4  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  15. 

5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  14  et  15. 

6  Livii  Epitome,  lib.  cixvi. 


374 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


•usurpation,  in  which  he  bore  a  part,  with  per- 
sons, of  whom  the  one  was  contemned  for  want 
of  capacity,  and  the  other  detested  for  his  profli- 
gate manners. 

Before  the  breaking  out  of  this 
U.  C.  713.  war  in  Italy,  Domitius  Calvinus 
and  Asinius  Pollio  had  been  des- 
vhM°mjsin  u  tme(l  consu's5  ana*  tne  year  fol- 
VpoUio.  smtus  lowing  that,  in  which  these  trans- 
actions passed,  is  accordingly  dated 
or  inscribed  with  their  names.  They  were 
prevented,  however,  by  this  breach  between  the 
adherents  of  Antony  and  of  Caesar,  from  taking 
the  formal  possession  of  their  office. 

PolHo,  holding  his  commission  from  Mark 
Antony,  although  he  had  no  opportunity  to  act, 
was  understood  to  join  with  the  brother  in  the 
late  division  of  their  parties.  While  the  war- 
continued,  heing  stationed  in  his  province  in  the 
district  of  Venetia,  he  carried  on  a  correspond- 
ence with  Ahenobarbus,  and  representing  Lucius 
Antonius,  with  his  title  of  Roman  consul,  as 
legal  head  of  the  republic,  endeavoured  to  engage 
that  officer  on  his  side;  but,  in  the  event  of  the 
war,  this  correspondence  was  broke  off,  and  the 
military  adherents  of  Antony  being  dispersed  or 
cut  off,  his  relations  and  retainers  fled  in  different 
directions. 

Fulvia,  escorted  by  three  thousand  horse,  took 
the  road  to  Brundusium,  and  from  thence,  with 
Plancus  and  some  other  attendants,  under  the 
convoy  of  five  galleys,  sailed  to  Greece.1  Julia, 
the  aged  mother  of  Antony,  took  refuge  with 
Sextus  Pompeius  in  Sicily.  Thither  likewise 
fled  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero,  with  his  wife  Li- 
via  Drusilla,  and  her  infant  son,  persons  often  to 
be  mentioned  in  the  sequel  of  this  history,  as 
principal  sharers  in  that  power  which  now 
seemed  to  be  raised  on  the  ruin  of  their  fortunes. 
Others  had  recourse  to  the  protection  of  Aheno- 
barbus on  the  coast  of  Apulia. 

While  the  relations  of  Antony  in  Italy  were 
engaged  in  this  unfortunate  contest,  he  himself 
had  passed  from  Greece  through  Asia  into 
Egypt,  where,  believing  all  his  difficulties  were 
at  an  end,  he  indulged  his  natural  disposition  to 
pleasure  and  dissipation.  At  Ephesus  he  had 
assembled  the  principal  inhabitants  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Asia,  proposed  a  contribution,  and  re- 
presented the  occasion  which  obliged  his  col- 
leagues and  himself  to  make  a  demand  for  money. 
"They  were  about  to  disband  the  army,"  he 
said,  "  consisting  of  no  less  than  twenty-eight 
legions,  to  whom  were  due  great  arrears  of  pay, 
together  with  deserved  rewards  and  gratuities  for 
past  services.  One  of  my  colleagues,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  is  gone  into  Italy  to  provide  settlements 
for  this  numerous  army,  or  rather  to  remove  all 
the  inhabitants  of  that  country,  in  order  to  make 
way  for  them.  The  task  of  finding  supplies  of 
money  lies  upon  me,  and  I  am  persuaded  you 
will  own  we  are  very  moderate,  when  we  demand 
no  more  than  you  gave  to  our  enemies.  Neces- 
sity, however,  obliges  us  to  exact,  in  one  year, 
what  Brutus  and  Cassius  levied  in  two."  "You 
will  please  then  to  order,"  said  one  of  the  audi- 
ence, "two  summers  and  two  harvests  in  this 
wonderful  year ;  for  you,  who  can  command  us  to 
pay  the  tax  of  two  years  in  one,  can  likewise  order 
the  fruits  of  both  years  to  be  gathered  in  one."2 


1  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v.  2  Ibid. 


Antony,  who  paid  more  regard  to  wit  than  to 
the  considerations  either  of  humanity  or  justice, 
was  pleased  with  this  answer,  and  agreed  that 
the  proposed  subsidy  should  be  levied  in  two 
years,  instead  of  one.3  From  Ephesus,  he  travel- 
led by  the  coast  towards  Syria,  laid  heavy  con- 
tributions, disposed  of  lands  and  country  seats, 
of  which  he  made  gifts  to  his  retainers  and  fol- 
lowers. He  received  frequent  applications  for 
such  favours  from  those  who  attended  him,  under 
pretence  that  the  estates,  which  they  coveted, 
were  either  deserted  or  occupied  by  an  enemy. 
To  his  cook,  in  particular,  he  is  said  to  have  given 
the  grant  of  a  large  possession,  for  having  pleased 
him  in  the  dressing  of  a  supper.  In  his  own  be- 
haviour, he  exhibited  that  dissipation  and  extra- 
vagance, to  which  he  ever  returned  in  the  mo- 
ments of  triumph  and  relaxation,  and  showed,  in 
the  gayety  and  festivity  of  his  court,  a  perfect 
contrast  to  the  melancholy  with  which  the  inha- 
bitants of  every  province  were  seized  on  his 
approach.4  He  had  probably  seen  Cleopatra  in 
Italy,  during  her  intimacy  with  Julius  Caesar; 
and  now,  supposing  himself  come  in  place  of  that 
successful  adventurer,  as  head  of  the  empire,  he 
thought  of  this  prize  as  the  reward  of  his  labours, 
and  possibly  considered  her  as  the  principal  ob- 
ject, of  his  journey  to  the  east.  In  order  to 
heighten  the  scene  of  their  meeting,  with  a  farce 
to  consist  of  a  supposed  quarrel  and  reconcilia- 
tion, he  affected  to  believe  a  report  of  her  having 
ordered  her  fleet  from  Cyprus  to  join  that  of  Cas- 
sius in  the  late  war,  and  he  sent  her  a  formal 
summons  to  meet  him  in  Cilicia,  and  to  give  in 
her  answers  to  this  heavy  charge. 

Cleopatra  accordingly  appeared  on  the  Cydnus 
on  board  a  galley,  with  a  splendid  retinue,  and 
dazzled  the  Roman  triumvir  with  the  profusion 
of  her  ornaments,  the  elegance  of  her  equipage, 
and  the  charms  of  her  person.  She  was  now 
about  nine  and  twenty  years  of  age,  and  being 
acquainted  with  the  languages  and  manners  of 
different  nations,  particularly  instructed  in  the 
literature  of  the  Greeks,  and  being  in  the  matu- 
rity of  wit  and  beauty,  she  joined  the  arts  of  a 
coquet,  with  all  the  accomplishments  which  be- 
came the  birth  and  the  high  condition  of  a  queen. 
Being  invited  to  sup  with  Antony,  she  pleaded 
that  he  should  begin  with  accepting  her  invita- 
tion. At  their  first" entertainment,  observing  that 
his  raillery  savoured  of  the  camp,  she  humoured 
him  in  this  manner,  and  even  surpassed  him  in 
the  freedom  of  her  conversation. 

From  thenceforward  Antony  laid  aside  all 
business,  followed  the  queen  of  Egypt  to  her 
kingdom,  leaving  his  own  provinces  exposed  to 
an  enemy,  by  whom  they  were  soon  after  as- 
sailed and  overrun;  and  while  this  storm  was 
raging  in  the  east,  and  his  brother,  with  his 
other  adherents  in  Italy,  were  struggling  for  his 
share  in  the  government  of  the  empire,  and 
obliged  to  fly  or  submit  to  his  rival,  he  passed  the 
winter  at  Alexandria  in  frolic  and  dissipation.* 
To  gratify  the  jealousy  of  Cleopatra,  he  ordered 
Arsinoe,  her  sister  and  competitor  for  the  throne, 
who  had  hitherto  been  confined  at  Miletus,  to  be 
put  to  death.  In  every  other  particular,  he  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  governed  by  her  caprice,  and 
with  the  ensigns  and  attendance  of  a  Roman  con- 
sul, and  first  officer  of  the  state  in  the  empire, 


3  Pint,  in  Antonio.  4  Ibid.  5  Ibid. 


Chap.  V.} 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


375 


lived  like  a  boy  under  the  influence  of  his  first 
amour.  The  course  of  his  pleasures,  however, 
was  in  a  little  time  effectually  interrupted,  by  a 
report  of  the  state  of  his  affairs  in  Syria  and  the 
Lesser  Asia. 

Pacorus,  the  son  of  the  king  of  Parthia,  had 
passed  the  Euphrates  with  a  great  army,  had 
overrun  Syria,  and  was  making  hasty  advances 
in  Cilicia.  He  was  conducted  in  this  expedition 
by  Labrenus,  a  Roman  officer,6  who,  on  the  part 
of  Brutus  and  Cassius,  had  resided  at  the  court 
of  Parthia  while  the  fate  of  the  empire  yet  re- 
mained in  suspense  at  Philippi,  and  who  now 
persuaded  the  Parthians  to  attempt  the  conquest 
of  opulent  provinces  in  their  neighbourhood, 
which,  together  with  the  Roman  republic  itself, 
were  become  the  possession  of  mere  adventurers, 
unacknowledged  and  unsupported  by  the  laws  of 
the  commonwealth. 

Upon  this  alarm,  Antony  had  assembled  the 
naval  forces  of  Asia  and  of  Egypt,  and  had  set 
sail  with  two  hundred  galleys  for  the  coast  of 
Phoenicia;  when  the  misconduct  and  distress  of 
his  relations  in  Italy  were  reported  to  him,  and 
showed  him  the  necessity  of  directing  thither  the 
armament  which  he  had  fitted  out  against  the 
Parthians,  in  order  to  re-establish  his  interest, 
and  to  save  the  remains  of  his  power.7  Having 
committed  the  command  of  his  forces  in  Asia 
therefore  to  Vcntidius,  he  steered  for  Greece. 
Upon  his  arrival  at  Athens,  he  was  received  by 
Fulvia,  whose  salutations  were  probably  less 
flattering  than  those  to  which  he  had  been  lately 
accustomed  in  Egypt.  The  husband  and  the 
wife,  on  this  occasion,  were  mutually  disposed  to 
blame  and  to  recriminate.  He  complained  of 
the  flame  which  had  been  so  unseasonably  raised 
m  his  affairs  in  Italy,  and  she  of  his  notorious 
infidelities  to  her  bed,  and  of  his  remissness  in 
the  care  of  his  interest.  She  was  supposed,  in 
fomenting  the  late  quarrel  with  Octavius,  to 
have  acted  so  much  from  jealousy  of  Cleopatra, 
as  to  have  industriously  created  troubles  in  Italy, 
in  order  to  hasten  the  return  of  her  husband  from 

Egypt. 

At  Athens,  Antony  was  likewise  met  by  Scri- 
bonius  Libo,  the  father-in-law  of  Sextus  Pom- 
peius,  who,  under  pretence  of  conducting  his 
mother  Julia  in  safety  to  her  son,  brought  over- 
tures of  an  alliance,  and  proposals  to  form  some 
concert  for  the  conduct  of  their  operations  on  the 
opposite  coasts  of  Italy  against  Octavius.  To 
this  proposal,  however,  Antony  made  no  decisive 
reply.  In  the  late  partition  of  the  empire,  Italy 
was  not  made  a  part  in  the  separate  lot  of  any 
of  the  triumvirs  ;  but  being  equally  open  to  all  of 
them,  Antony  professed  being  on  his  way  thither, 
not  as  an  enemy  of  Octavius,  but  as  his  colleague 
in  the  government,  equally  interested  with  him- 
self to  preserve  the  capital  of  the  empire  undis- 
turbed. In  answer  to  Libo,  therefore,  he  ac- 
knowledged his  obligation  to  Sextus  Pompeius, 
for  the  honourable  manner  in  which  he  had 
treated  his  relation,  assured  him,  that  if  an  op- 
portunity offered,  he  should  be  happy  to  return 
the  favour ;  and  that  if  he  were  obliged  to  make 
war  on  Octavius,  he  should  be  glad  of  Pompey's 


6  Supposed  to  be  the  son  of  him  who  served  under 
Julius  Cassar,  in  the  reduction  of  Gaul,  and  afterwards 
Rgainst  him  in  the  civil  war. 

7  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v.    Hut  in  Antonio. 


assistance ;  or,  in  case  matters  were  accommoda- 
ted otherwise,  should  not  neglect  his  interest  in 
adjusting  the  treaty. 

Octavius  being  informed  of  this  interview, 
seized  the  opportunity  which  it  gave  him  of 
raising  suspicions  against  Antony  in  the  minds 
of  the  veterans.  He  published  the  intelligence 
he  had  received  of  his  correspondence  witn  the 
head  of  the  Pompeian  faction,  and  represented  it 
as  a  prelude  to  some  scheme  for  restoring  the  ene- 
mies of  the  late  Caesar,  for  re-establishing  the 
ancient  possessors  of  land  in  Italy,  and,  conse- 
quently, for  dispossessing  the  veterans  of  the  set- 
tlements recently  made  in  their  favour.  By 
spreading  these  reports  in  the  army,  he  took 
measures  to  strengthen  himself,  in  case  he  should 
find  it  necessary  to  refuse  his  colleague  a  free  ad- 
mission into  any  of  the  ports  of  Italy. 

Soon  after  the  reduction  of  Perusia,  Calenus, 
who  commanded  a  considerable  body  of  Antony's 
forces  at  the  foot  of  the  Alps,  dying,  Octavius 
repaired  lo  the  quarters  of  those  troops,  gained 
them  over  to  his  own  interest,  and,  in  order  t& 
secure  their  fidelity,  made  the  necessary  change 
of  their  officers.  By  these  means,  after  he  had 
supplanted  the  party  of  his  rival  in  all  the  towns 
which  they  held  in  Italy,  he  now  dispossessed 
them  of  the  Cisalpine  Gaul,  for  which  their  leader 
had  so  long  contended  against  the  senate. 

At  the  arrival  of  Antony  in  Greece,  Octavius 
could  muster  a  land  force  greatly  superior  to  any 
that  could  be  formed  against  him,  even  by  the 
junction  of  his  rival  with  Ahcnobarbus  and  Sex- 
tus Pompeius ;  but  he  was  so  much  inferior  in 
shipping,  that  if  their  fleets  should  unite,  they 
must  be  masters  of  the  coast,  and  prevent  all  the 
importations  by  which  Italy  was  supplied  from 
abroad.  To  sow  the  seeds  of  some  jealousy  be- 
tween them,  or  to  counteract  the  intrigues  of 
Antony  with  Scribonius  Libo  and  with  Sextus 
Pompeius,  he  made  offers  of  marriage  to  Scribo- 
nia,  the  sister  of  Libo,  and  aunt  of  Pompey's 
wife;  and  this  proposal  being  favourably  received 
by  the  brother,  he  sent  Mucia,  the  mother  of 
Sextus  Pompeius,  with  an  honourable  retinue,  to 
engage  her  son  likewise  to  promote  the  intended 
alliance.  By  these  means,  he  hoped  to  amuse, 
or  to  soften,  the  animosity  of  that  family  against 
himself;  or  at  least,  by  these  appearances  of  a 
friendly  correspondence  with  Sextus  Pompeius, 
in  his  turn,  to  alarm  Antony,  and  thus  to  discon- 
cert any  plan  which  his  rival,  in  the  prospect  of 
a  breach  with  himself,  might  have  formed  for  a 
coalition  with  the  remains  of  the  republican  party. 
This  marriage  with  Scribonia,  was  the  second 
project  of  the  same  kind  which  Octavius  had 
formed  before  the  age  of  twenty-four,  merely  to 
lull  the  vigilance,  or  to  blunt  the  animosity  of  his 
antagonists,  while  he  himself  continued  to  pursue 
his  principal  object  with  unremitting  attention 
and  ardour. 

Antony,  in  every  comparison  with  Octavius, 
not  only  had  the  advantage  of  years,  but  was 
reckoned  the  better  soldier;  and  having  had  the 
principal  share,  if  not  the  whole  honour  of  the 
victory  at  Philippi,  had  great  authority  in  the 
army,  and  was  likely,  wherever  he  appeared,  to 
be  favourably  received  by  all  the  troops  who  had 
any  where  served  under  his  command.  These, 
however,  upon  his  approach  to  Italy,  under  vari- 
ous pretences,  were  sent  by  his  crafty  rival  into 
the  distant  provinces.    Lepidus  too,  although  h« 


376 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  V 


had  hitherto  acquiesced  m  the  late  partition  of 
the  empire,  by  which  he  had  been  stripped  of  his 
equal  share  in  the  power  of  a  triumvir ;  yet,  as 
he  was  suffered  to  retain  the  title,  and  might 
throw  his  weight  into  the  scale  of  either  of  the 
other  parties,  or  furnish  a  pretence  for  some  part 
of  the  army  to  follow  him,  it  was  thought  proper, 
on  the  present  occasion,  to  remove  him  to  a  dis- 
tance. For  this  purpose,  the  government  of 
Africa  was  assigned  to  him,  and  he  himself,  with 
six  legions  of  doubtful  inclinations,  was  dismissed 
to  take  possession  of  that  province. 

While  Octavius  was  thus  strengthening  him- 
self in  Italy,  or  removing  every  object  of  distrust 
from  that  country.  Antony,  with  a  less  pacific  ap- 
pearance than  he  had  hitherto  preserved,  set  out 
from  Athens,  and  leaving  Fulvia  ill  at  Sicyon, 
joined  at  Corcyra  his  fleet,  which  had  come  round 
the  Peloponnesus,  and  from  thence  sailed  with 
two  hundred  galleys  for  the  coast  of  Italy.  He 
was  joined  by  Ahenobarbus  in  his  passage,  and 
steered  directly  for  Brundusium.  As  there 
was  no  declared  quarrel  betwixt  himself  and 
Octavius,  he  expected  to  be  admitted  into  this 

Eort ;  but  being  disappointed  in  this  expectation, 
e  landed  at  some  distance  from  the  harbour,  and 
invested  or  blocked  up  the  town  by  sea  and  by 
land.  Having  thus  committed  hostilities,  he  no 
longer  hesitated  in  accepting  the  alliance  of  Sex- 
tus  Pompeius  against  Octavius,  and  proposed  to 
him  to  make  a  descent  some  where  on  the  oppo- 
site coast  of  Italy,  to  distract  the  forces  of  their 
common  enemy,  while  he  himself  continued  the 
siege  of  Brundusium. 

Sextus  Pompeius  accordingly,  notwithstanding 
that  the  marriage  of  his  relation  Scribonia  with 
Octavius  had  taken  place,  not  suffering  himself 
to  be  imposed  upon  by  this  artifice,  landed  at 
Thurio,  in  the  bay  of  Tarentum,  made  himself 
master  of  that  place,  and  of  the  country  from 
thence  to  Consentia.  He,  at  the  same  time, 
sent  Mannas,  one  of  his  admirals,  into  Sardinia, 
who  got  possession  of  that  island,  and  gained  to 
his  party  two  legions  that  were  stationed  there. 

Octavius  sent  Agrippa  to  oppose  Pompey, 
while  he  himself  advanced  for  the  relief  of 
Brundusium,  but  in  a  manner  which  confirmed 
the  former  suspicions  of  his  personal  courage. 
Being  taken  ill  on  the  march,  he  stopped  short 
at  Canusium,  and  suffered  Brundusium  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  his  rival.  Agrippa  acted  with 
more  vigour ;  pressed  upon  the  enemy  who  had 
landed  near  Tarentum,  obliged  them  to  abandon 
their  conquests,  and  to  take  refuge  in  their  ships. 

After  Antony  had  got  possession  of  Brundu- 
sium, it  soon  appeared  that  this  unprofitable 
quarrel  was  equally  disagreeable  to  the  armies 
on  both  sides,  and  each  of  the  leaders,  in  order 
to  exculpate  himself  to  the  troops,  endeavoured 
to  load  his  antagonist  with  the  blame.  Antony 
complained  that,  without  any  offence  on  his  part, 
the  ports  of  Italy  had  been  shut  up  against  him. 
Octavius  recriminated,  by  alleging  the  corre- 
spondence of  Antony  with  the  Pompeian  party, 
and  excused  his  own  conduct,  in  the  order  he 
had  given  to  shut  the  port  of  Brundusium,  al- 
leging, that  this  precaution  was  taken,  not 
against  Antony  or  the  troops  in  his  service,  but 
against  Ahenobarbus,  one  of  the  assassins  of 
Caesar,  whom  Antony  had  engaged  to  make  war 
upon  Italy. 

In  whatever  manner  these  representations 


were  received,  as  the  troops  had  frequent  inter 
course,  their  mutual  inclinations  to  peace  be- 
came known  to  each  other;  and  officers,  who 
had  access  to  both  their  leaders,  made  formal 
proposals  to  effect  a  reconciliation  between  them. 
Antony,  to  evince  his  willingness  to  spare  the 
blood  of  the  legions,  dismissed  Ahenobarbus,  un- 
der pretence  of  employing  him  to  execute  a  com- 
mission in  Bithynia,  and  at  the  same  time  sent 
instructions  to  Sextus  Pompeius  to  withdraw 
from  the  coast. 

In  this  disposition  of  the  parties,  accounts  were 
received  of  the  death  of  Fulvia,  an  event  which 
greatly  facilitated  the  negotiation  for  peace,  as  it 
gave  hopes  of  cementing  the  alliance  of  parties 
by  a  family  connexion.  It  was  accordingly  pro- 
posed, that  the  sister  of  Octavius,  and  the  widow 
of  Marcellus,  should  be  married  to  Antony  :  and, 
upon  this  basis,  a  treaty  was  framed,  including  a 
new  partition  of  the  empire,  by  which  all  the 
east,  from  the  Euphrates  to  Codropolis  on  the 
coast  of  Illyricum,  was  assigned  to  Antony. 
The  west,  from  thence  to  the  ocean  and  the 
British  channel,  was  assigned  to  Octavius.  Italy, 
as  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  principal  nur- 
sery of  soldiers  for  the  support  of  their  armies, 
was  to  be  equally  open  to  both.  Lepidus  was 
suffered  to  remain  in  the  possession  of  Africa. 
Ahenobarbus  was  included  in  this  treaty,  and 
declared  at  peace  with  the  heads  of  the  empire ; 
but  Sextus  Pompeius,  notwithstanding  his  late 
confederacy  with  Antony,  and  his  newly  con- 
tracted relation  with  Octavius,'  was  still  to  be 
treated  as  an  enemy.  He  was  to  be  opposed  by 
Octavius,  while  the  war  with  the  Parthians  was 
supposed  sufficient  to  occupy  the  forces  of  An- 
tony. 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  this  treaty,  the  leaders 
gave  mutual  entertainments,  and  the  troops,  re- 
leased from  the  unprofitable  task  of  making  war 
on  each  other,  returned  to  the  more  agreeable 
occupation  of  receiving  the  rewards  of  their  ser- 
vices. They  understood,  that  Antony  had  gone 
into  Asia  to  raise  the  money,  which  was  wanted 
to  payoff  their  arrears,  and  to  satisfy  their  claims: 
they  had  manifold  scores,  in  which  they  stated 
the  rewards  and  gratuities  which  they  had  been 
made  to  expect  on  different  occasions,  and  they 
now  became  clamorous,  in  particular,  for  the 
sums  which  had  been  so  liberally  promised  them 
before  the  battle  of  Philippi.  The  same  violence 
which  they  had  been  taught  to  employ  against 
the  civil  government  of  their  country,  they  were 
ready  at  times  to  turn  against  their  own  leaders. 
They  addressed  their  demands,  on  the  present 
occasion,  chiefly  to  Antony.  From  him  they 
required  an  account  of  the  money  he  had  col- 
lected in  Asia ;  and  surrounding  him  in  a  mu- 
tinous manner,  would  not  have  abstained  from 
violence  to  his  person,  if  they  had  not  been 
pacified  by  Octavius,  who,  having  been  the  in- 
strument of  former  liberalities,  had  credit  enough 
with  the  army  to  make  them  acquiesce  in  the 
apology  which  was  made  for  the  delay  of  their 
payment,  and  in  the  fresh  assurances,  which 
were  now  given,  that  all  the  promises  which  had 
been  formerly  made  to  them  should  be  faithfully 
performed. 

All  discontents  for  the  present  being  suspend- 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  28.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ 
lib.  v. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


877 


^d,  the  legions  submitted  to  be  sent  into  different 
quarters,  and  the  leaders,  with  every  appearance 
of  a  perfect  reconciliation,  set  out  for  Rome. 
They  made  their  entry  into  the  city  together,  on 
horseback,  and  dressed  in  triumphal  robes;  they 
were  received  by  the  people,  of  every  rank  and 
condition,  with  demonstrations  of  joy,  which,  un- 
der the  sense  of  a  deliverance  from  the  prospect 
of  a  civil  warj  that  had  so  recently  threatened  the 
inhabitants  of  Italy,  was  very  general  and  very 
sincere. 

The  pacific  appearances,  with  which  the  joint 
sovereigns  of  the  empire  made  their  entry  at 
Home,  were  confirmed  by  the  actual  marriage 
of  Antony  with  Octavia ;  and  it  was  expected, 
that  the  late  rivals,  now  become  brothers,  by  this 
marriage,  were  to  govern  for  the  future  with  much 
cordiality  and  mutual  confidence.  Antony,  to 
evince  the  sincerity  of  this  intention  on  his  own 
part,  put  Manius,  the  confident  of  his  brother 
and  of  Fulvia,  to  death,  as  being  the  supposed 
author  of  the  late  tumults  in  Italy  ;  and  probably, 
the  more  fully  to  show  how  far  he  was  willing  to 
sacrifice  every  consideration  to  his  present  con- 
nexion, he  betrayed  a  secret  correspondence, 
which  Salvidienus,  an  officer  serving  under  Oc- 
tavius,  had  maintained  with  himself  during  the 
siege  of  Bruidusium.  This  officer,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  detection,  being  condemned  for 
treachery,  killed  himself.3 

Upon  the  faith  of  these  public  renunciations 
of  all  partial  attachments.  Octavius  and  Antony, 
in  tlie  character  of  collegiate  sovereigns,  passed 
the  remainder  of  the  present  year,  and  the  whole 
of  the  following,  at  Rome,  with  great  appearance 
of  concord.  This  circumstance  was  in  some 
measure  ascribed  to  the  discretion  of  Octavia, 
who,  during  the  same  period,  was  delivered  of  a 
child  to  Antony,  and  by  the  birth  of  this  new 
relation,  gave  an  additional  pledge  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  their  union;  but,  notwithstanding 
these  flattering  appearances,  Italy  still  suffered 
under  the  distresses  of  a  war,  subsisting  with 
those  who  were  in  possession  of  Sicily  and  Sar- 
dinia. 

Sextus  Pompeius,  exasperated  by  the  treatment 
he  had  received  from  both  parties  in  the  late 
quarrel  and  reconciliation,  and  now  possessed  of 
a  considerable  naval  force,  blocked  up  the  ports 
of  Italy,  and  prevented  the  usual  importation  of 
corn.  The  inhabitants  of  the  towns  were  re- 
duced to  great  distress.  Those  of  the  metro- 
polis, in  particular,  became  outrageous,  and,  in 
contempt  of  the  military  force  by  which  they 
were  governed,  rose  in  tumults,  pulled  down  the 
houses  of  persons  to  whom  they  imputed  their 
sufferings,  and  even  attacked  the  triumvirs  with 
reproaches  and  violence.  Having  furnished 
themselves  with  arms,  they  resisted  the  troops 
that  were  employed  to  quell  them,  and,  in  their 
frequent  conflicts,  covered  the  streets  with  the 
slain. 

The  triumvirs  were  inclined  to  end  these  trou- 
bles, by  urging  with  vigour  the  war  against  Pom- 
pey,  in  order  to  oblige  him  to  open  the  seas;  but 
lor  this  purpose,  a  great  reinforcement  of  shipping 
was  necessary,  and  a  tax  was  imposed,  in  order 
to  defray  the  expense  of  a  fleet.  A  public  bur- 
den coming  so  unseasonably,  greatly  increased 
the  general  discontent.     The  inhabitants  of 


9  Lirii  Epitome,  lib.  exxvii. 
3  B 


Rome,  although  they  had  suffered  themselves  to 
be  stript  of  their  political  consequence  as  Roman 
citizens,  still  felt  the  wants  of  nature,  and  were 
provoked  by  exactions  that  affected  their  property: 
they  took  courage  from  the  disorders  of  the  times, 
and  ventured  to  censure  a  usurpation,  which 
they  had  not  dared  to  resist.  "  Italy,  the  head 
of  the  empire,"  they  said,  "  long  used  to  exemp- 
tion from  all  taxation,  was  not  only  torn  by  do- 
mestic wars,  but  impoverished  by  an  extortion 
that  was  practised  to  support  quarrels,  not  with 
foreign  enemies,  but  with  Romans,  and  to  gratify 
the  vanity  or  emulation  of  fellow-citizens,  who 
exhausted  all  the  strength  of  the  commonwealth, 
merely  to  appropriate  the  government  of  it  to 
themselves  ;  for  this,  so  many  respectable  citizens 
had  been  proscribed  •  for  this,  sword  and  famine 
were  still  permitted  to  rage,  and  the  children  of 
the  first  families  in  Rome,  in  order  to  revenge 
their  personal  wrongs,  and  even  to  procure  their 
subsistence,  were  forced  to  act  the  part  of  ban- 
ditti and  of  pirates." 

The  populace  of  Rome,  instigated  by  these  re- 
presentations, tore  down  the  proclamation,  in 
which  the  new  tax  was  imposed  ;  and  seeming  to 
recover  their  former  consequence,  though  now 
under  the  government  of  military  force,  they  be- 
came more  riotous  and  dangerous  than  they  had 
been  in  the  utmost  abuse  of  their  civil  liberty,  and 
in  the  height  of  their  democratical  power. 

It  became  necessary,  on  account  of  the  riots, 
and  the  growing  scarcity  of  bread,  to  open  a  ne- 
gotiation with  Sextus  Pompeius,  as  the  speediest 
means  of  relief  from  the  present  distress.  Octa- 
vius once  more  availed  himself  of  the  relation  he 
had  acquired  to  t  he  family  of  Pompey,  by  his  mar- 
riage with  Scrihonia,  invited  Libo  to  a  visit  in 
Italy,  and  by  his  means  proposed  an  interview 
between  the  parties,  to  be  held  at  Puteoli  in  the 
bay  of  BaiaB. 

Sextus  Pompeius  having  agreed  to  this  pro- 
posal, came  with  his  fleet  upon  the  coast.  An- 
tony and  Octavius  went  to  Puttoli  by  land, 
attended  by  many  of  the  principal  citizens,  and  a 
numerous  military  escort.  In  order  that  the 
parties  might  meet  in  safety,  it  was  proposed, 
that  each  should  have  a  separate  platform,  erected 
on  piles  to  be  driven  in  the  sea,  reaching,  on  the 
one  side,  from  the  shore,  on  the  other,  from  Pom- 
pey's  ship,  so  as  to  bring  the  parties  sufficiently 
near  to  hold  their  conference,  though  still  with 
such  a  space  or  interval  between  them,  as  might 
mutually  secure  them  from  any  insult  or  violence. 

These  preparations  being  made,  the  fleet  of 
Sextus  Pompeius  ranged  itself  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  land  army  of  the  triumvirs  on  the  other. 
As  the  interests  of  all  men  were  involved  in  the 
issue,  their  expectations  were  greatly  raised.  The 
shores,  the  cliff's,  the  high  lands  were  covered 
with  spectators,  who  gazed  on  the  scene,  and 
anxiously  waited  for  the  event.  At  the  first  con- 
ference, the  triumvirs  offered  Pompey  a  safe  re- 
turn to  Rome,  with  an  equivalent  for  his  father's 
estate.  He  demanded  admission  into  the  trium- 
virate, instead  of  Lepidus,  who  appeared  in  effect 
to  be  already  excluded.  As  they  parted  without 
any  agreement,  a  general  dissatisfaction  appeared 
among  their  adherents  and  followers  on  both  sides. 
Pompey  feared  the  defection  of  many  who  had 
hitherto  followed  him ;  and  as  he  had  lately  put 
Murcus,  a  principal  officer  of  his  party,  to  death, 
from  a  jealousy  of  this  sort,  he  was  inclined  to 


378 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


believe  that  many  of  his  party  were  disposed  to 
accept  of  any  terms,  and  to  treat  for  themselves. 

The  distresses  of  Italy,  on  the  other  hand, 
strongly  urged  the  triumvirs  to  make  the  neces- 
sary concessions ;  and  both  parties  came  to  a  se- 
cond interview,  with  better  inclinations  to  adjust 
their  differences.  It  was  accordingly  agreed, 
that  Pompey  should  remain  in  possession  of  Si- 
cily, Sardinia,  and  Corsica  ;  that  the  Peloponne- 
sus should  likewise  be  ceded  to  him,  and  a  sum 
of  money  be  paid  in  compensation  for  the  losses 
of  his  family  that  all  the  exiles  now  under  his 
protection,  except  such  as  were  concerned  in  the 
death  of  Csesar,  should  be  restored  to  their  coun- 
try, and  to  a  fourth  part  of  their  former  estates ; 
that  the  navigation  of  the  seas  of  Italy  should  be 
free,  and  vessels  immediately  suffered  to  pass 
from  Sicily,  and  all  the  neighbouring  countries, 
which  were  accustomed  to  supply  the  Italians 
with  corn. 

This  treaty  being  ratified,  was  transmitted  to 
Rome,  and  committed  to  the  keeping  of  vestal 
virgins.  Every  cause  of  hostility  or  distrust  be- 
tween the  parties  being  thus  done  away,  their 
platforms  were  joined  by  a  bridge  of  planks,  and 
they  embraced  each  other.  Those,  who  were 
near  enough  to  see  this  signal  of  peace,  raised  a 
shout,  which  was  returned  from  the  multitudes 
which  crowded  the  ships  and  the  neighbouring 
shores.  Every  one  took  a  part  in  the  joy  that 
was  occasioned  by  the  present  event,  as  having 
suffered  under  the  distresses  and  hardships  which 
were  now  brought  to  an  end. 

Historians,  seeming  to  feel  for  those  who  were 
concerned  in  this  transaction,  have  exerted  their 
genius  in  describing  it ;  and  among  other  particu- 
lars, have  recorded,  that  friends  and  relations,  who 
had  been  long  separated,  being  to  meet  in  peace, 
crowded  with  great  ardour  to  the  strand;  that 
persons  who  had  no  such  particular  motive,  being 
seized  with  the  general  contagion,  pressed  to  have 
a  nearer  view  of  the  scene ;  that  numbers  were 
suffocated  in  the  crowd  ;  that  many  from  the  boats 
and  ships  leapt  into  the  sea,  and  waded  or  swam 
to  land,  and  were  met  from  the  shore  by  others 
who  expected  to  recover  their  relations  and 
friends ;  that  shouts  of  joy,  or  cries  of  despair, 
were  raised,  according  as  they  were  severally 
successful  or  disappointed  in  this  expectation  : 
that  parents  and  children,  disappointed  in  the 
hopes  of  meeting  each  other,  tore  their  hair,  and 
fell  into  agonies  of  grief;  the  whole  exhibiting, 
though  in  a  supposed  termination  of  public  cala- 
mities, a  lively  expression  of  the  distress  which 
the  late  troubles  had  occasioned,  and  striking 
marks  of  the  wounds  which  were  recently  open, 
and  bleeding  in  the  vitals  of  the  commonwealth, 
and  in  the  bosom  of  every  private  house.2 

At  the  close  of  this  scene,  the  leaders  mutually 
invited  each  other  to  a  feast.  Pompey,  by  lot, 
gave  the  first  entertainment  on  board  his  ship ; 
he  made  an  apology  for  the  want  of  accommoda- 
tion, and  playing  on  the  word  carina,  which  sig- 
nified a  ship,  and  likewise  was  the  name  of  his 


1  15,500,000  drach.  or  denarii,  about  500,000Z.  Zo- 
noras,  lib.  x.  p.  283.  c.  21. 

-  2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xjviii.  c.  37.  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ. 
lib.  v. 


late  father's  villa  and  garden  in  the  suburbs  of 
Rome,  which  were  occupied  by  Antony,  "  This,,; 
he  said,  "is  now  my  cannce."  While  the  com- 
pany were  yet  on  board,  Menas,  once  the  slave 
of  the  great  Pompey,  but  now  emancipated,  and 
the  first  sea  officer  in  the  fleet  of  his  son,  whis- 
pered him,  that  then  was  the  time  to  revenge  the 
death  of  his  father  and  of  his  brother,  and  to  re- 
cover the  rank  of  his  family,  by  despatching  these 
authors  of  all  their  calamities.  "  Let  me  cut  the 
cable,"  he  said,  "  and  put  to  sea ;  I  promise  you 
that  none  of  them  shall  escape."  "  This  might 
have  been  done  by  Menas,  without  consulting 
me,"  said  Sextus;  "but  my  faith  is  sacred,  and 
must  not  be  broken." 

The  guests  accordingly  were  suffered  to  de- 
part, without  having,  in  any  way,  been  made 
sensible  of  the  danger  they  ran,  and  they  gave 
entertainments  in  their  turns.  At  these  feasts 
additional  articles  were  thought  of  to  confirm  the 
treaty,  and  to  regulate  the  measures  of  the  future 
administration.  To  strengthen  the  coalition  of 
parties,  the  daughter  of  Sextus  Pompeius  was 
betrothed  to  Marcellus,  the  nephew  of  Octavius, 
and  now  the  step-son  of  Antony.  The  succes- 
sion to  the  consulate  was  fixed  for  four  years. 
Antony  and  Libo  were  named  consuls  for  the 
first  year,  Caesar  and  Pompey  were  to  follow, 
next  Ahenobarbus  and  Sosius,  and  last  of  all  An- 
tony and  Caesar.  Under  the  administration  of 
these  last,  it  was  supposed  that  the  public  order 
and  public  tranquillity  might  be  so  well  restored, 
for  this  was  the  language  which  the  triumvirs 
still  affected  to  hold,  that  the  republic  would  no 
longer  need-  the  interposition  of  extraordinary 
powers,  and  might  be  left  to  run  its  usual  course^ 

Sextus  Pompeius  set  sail  for  Sicily ;  the  colle- 
giate sovereigns  of  the  empire  set  out  on  their 
return  to  Rome ;  and,  in  their  entry  to  the  city, 
passed  through  multitudes,  who,  on  the  present 
occasion,  gave  very  sincere  demonstrations  of  joy. 
The  people  flattered  themselves,  that  they  were 
now  to  experience  no  more  of  their  late  distresses 
— no  more  civil  dissensions — no  more  tearing  of 
the  father  from  his  family,  to  serve  in  the  wars — 
no  more  oppression  and  cruelty  from  the  licen- 
tiousness of  armies— no  more  desertion  of  slaves 
— no  more  devastation  of  their  lands — no  more 
interruption  of  agriculture — no  more  famine. 
In  the  return  of  exiles,  who  lately  fled  from  the 
swords  of  their  fellow -citizens,  but  who  were  now 
restored  to  the  enjoyment  of  peace  and  security, 
they  might  perceive,  it  was  said,  the  surest  evi- 
dence of  a  general  act  of  oblivion  for  all  offences, 
and  a  termination  of  all  party  animosities  and 
disputes. 

Octavius  and  Antony,  during  the  remainder 
of  their  continuance  together  at  Rome,  passed 
their  time  in  literary  amusements,  and  in  the 
fashionable  pastimes  of  the  age,  cock-fighting  and 
quail- fighting.3  They  conducted  affairs  of  state 
with  so  much  concord  and  silence,  that  no  pub- 
lic transaction  is  mentioned,  besides  the  complet- 
ing of  the  aqueducts  projected  by  Julius  Csesar, 
and  the  celebration  of  the  festivals,  which  had 
been  vowed  for  the  destruction  of  those  who  had 
conspired  against  his  life.4 


3  Plutarch,  in  Antonio. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  32,  33, 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


379 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Alarm  of  the  Parthian  Invasion  of  Syria — Arrangements  of  Octavius  and  Antony — Departure 
of  the  latter,  and  Residence  at  Athens — State  of  the  Commonwealth — Marriage  of  Octavius 
with  Livia — War  with  Sextus  Pompeius — Actions  near  the  Straits  of  Messina— Agrippa  suc- 
ceeds to  the  Command  of  Octavius'  Meet — His  Victory  at  Sea — Flight  of  Sextus  Pompeius — 
Breach  between  Octavius  and  Lepidus. 


SUCH  was  the  state  of  affairs  at  Rome,  when 
the  accounts  which  had  been  successively  re- 
ceived from  Syria,  made  the  presence  of  Antony 
appear  to  be  necessary  in  that  part  of  the  empire 
which  had  been  specially  committed  to  his  care. 
His  lieutenant  Desidius  Saxa,  in  opposing  the 
Parthians  under  Pacorus  and  Labienus,  had  re- 
ceived a  defeat,  and  being  unable  to  brook  his 
misfortune,  had  killed  himself.  In  consequence 
of  this  catastrophe,  the  province  of  Syria  was 
over-run  by  the  enemy.  Tyre,  and  all  the  prin- 
cipal towns  on  the  coast  were  already  in  their 
hands,  and  the  province  of  Cilicia  lay  open  to 
their  inroads. 

Upon  this  report,  Antony  sent  forward  Ven- 
tidius,  to  collect  such  forces  as  yet  remained  in 
the  province  of  Asia,  and  to  give  some  present 
check  to  the  immediate  progress  of  the  Parthians, 
while  he  himself  proposed  to  follow,  and  to  con- 
duct the  war  in  person.  Before  his  departure, 
he  obtained  from  the  senate  and  people  the  form 
of  an  act  to  confirm  all  the  arrangements  which 
the  triumvirs  had  made  respecting  the  revenue, 
or  any  other  department  of  the  state.  In  con- 
cert with  his  colleague  he  made  up  the  roll  of 
the  senate,  and  marked  out  the  succession  of  con- 
suls and  other  titular  magistrates  for  eight  years. 
In  their  choice  of  persons  for  these  several  ho- 
nours, each  was  careful  to  balance  the  nomina- 
tion of  his  rival  with  an  equal  number  of  his  own 
dependants,  clients,  and  persons  over  whom  he 
had  entire  influence ;  and  in  this  competition  for 
power,  they  named  for  the  offices  of  state  mere 
aliens,  soldiers  of  fortune,  persons  who  had  re- 
cently obtained  their  freedom,  or  confidential 
slaves  manumitted  for  this  purpose.5 

These  arrangements  being  made,  Antony,  at- 
tended by  his  wife  Octavia,  set  out  for  Athens. 
Here  he  learned  that  the  war  in  Syria  was  in  a 
great  measure  at  an  end ;  that  Pacorus,  the  son 
of  the  king  of  Parthia,  with  Labienus,  having 
attacked  Ventidius  in  Ids  camp,  were  repulsed ; 
that  their  forces  had  been  afterwards  routed  in 
different  encounters,  and  dispersed  ;  that  Pacorus 
himself  was  killed  ;6  that  Labienus  had  fled,  in 
disguise,  into  Cyprus,  was  discovered,  taken,  and 
put  to  death;  that  the  Parthians  had  abandoned 
all  their  conquests  in  Syria  and  in  Palestine,  and 
were  hastening  to  repass  the  Euphrates. 

Antony,  upon  the  termination  of  a  war,  which 
so  much  alarmed  his  division  of  the  empire,  pro- 
bably would  have  been  inclined  to  return  into 
Egypt  ;  but  as  the  presence  of  Octavia  rendered 
a  visit  to  Cleopatra  improper,  he  determined  to 
take  his  residence  at  Athens.    From  thence  he 


5  One  Maximus  being  in  the  nomination  for  the 
office  of  qu  ;  stor,  was  claimed  and  adjudged  to  be  a 
slave  ;  another  person  of  the  satnn  condition  was  dis 
covered  in  a  high  station,  and,  as  a  punishment  due 
for  his  presumption,  was  thrown  from  the  Tarpeian 
rock.    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  34. 

6  Plut.  iu  Ant  >nio, 


distributed  to  his  officers  their  several  stations 
and  provinces,  and  disposed  of  kingdoms  on  the 
frontier  to  princes  who  solicited  his  protection : 
that  of  Pontus  he  bestowed  on  Darius  the  son 
of  Pharnaces,  and  grandson  of  Mithridates;  that 
of  the  Jews  and  Samaritans,  on  Herod ;  that  of 
Pysidia,  on  Amyntas;  and  that  of  Cilicia,  on  Pole- 
mon.  During  the  winter  he  had  dropped  all  the 
retinue  of  a  Roman  officer  of  state,  resigned  him- 
self to  ease,  domestic  pleasures,  and  the  conversa- 
tion of  the  learned.7 

In  the  intervals  of  relaxation,  some  species  of 
extravagance  and  dissipation  ever  make  a  part 
in  the  history  of  Antony's  life.  The  reports, 
however,  which  remain  of  his  behaviour  at 
Athens,  may,  in  a  great  measure,  be  considered 
as  a  part  of  the  reproach,  which  his  enemies,  to 
justify  their  own  cause,  have  thrown  upon  his 
memory ;  and  which  they  have  been  able,  by  be- 
coming the  victorious  party,  to  fix  upon  his  name 
for  ever.  He  is  said,  at  some  of  his  entertain- 
ments, to  have  personated  Bacchus  the  young 
and  irresistible  conqueror  of  the  world,  and  to 
have  carried  this  extravagance  so  far,  that  the 
Athenians  were  encouraged  to  pay  their  court, 
by  proposing  a  marriage  between  himself  and 
their  goddess  Minerva.  But  to  show  that  he 
carried  some  reason  in  his  madness,  he  accepted 
the  match,  under  condition  that  the  bride  should 
be  accompanied  with  a  suitable  portion;  and  in 
this  jest  turned  the  servility  of  his  flatterers  to 
profit,  by  exacting  ten  millions  of  drachmas.8 

But  in  whatever  manner  Antony  passed  his 
supposed  leisure  at  Athens,  Octavius,  whose 
conduct,  on  most  occasions,  is  a  manifest  contrast 
to  that  of  his  colleague,  did  not  fail  to  avail  him- 
self of  the  advantages  of  his  situation  in  Italy, 
the  supposed  head  of  the  empire,  and  of  the  bent 
6Y  the  times  to  monarchy,  by  uniting,  as  much  a* 
possible,  all  the  channels  of  influence  in  his  own 
person. 

The  concerts  of  the  first  Caesar  with  Pompcy 
and  Crassus,  though  named  a  triumvirate,  were 
the  mere  effects  of  a  private  combination  to  over 
rule  the  public  councils,  and  to  dispose  of  every 
preferment,  or  place  of  emolument  or  trust.  But 
the  powers  now  exercised  by  Octavius,  Anton\, 
and  Lepidus,  though  extorted  by  force,  hail  at 
least  the  nominal  sanction  of  a  legal  appointment, 
and  were  of  the  nature  of  those  extraordinary 
commissions  which  had  been  frequently  given  in 
every  age  of  the  republic,  and  which  were  not 
improperly  calculated  for  any  uncommon  emei- 
gencc,  or  arduous  state  of  affairs.  A  commission 
of  triumvirate,  in  so  great  an  exigency  of  the 
state,  professedly  given  to  restore  its  tranquillity, 
and  re-establkh  public  order,  if  it  had  been  freely 
granted,  was  well  enough  suited  to  former  pre 
cedents,  and  preserved  the  analogy  of  Romai. 


7  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  p.  714. 

8  Alnv.it  300,00(1.'.     Dio  Cass  lib  tlviii  c.  3ft 


380 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


{Book  V. 


forms,  insomuch,  that  if  the  people  had  been  less 
corrupted,  the  government  of  the  republic  might 
have  been  easily  restored. 

The  titles  of  senate  and  people,  of  consul, 
praetor,  and  other  magistrates  or  officers'  of  state, 
were  still  retained,  and  preserved  the  appearance 
of  ancient  formalities,  whether  in  the  legislature, 
or  in  the  exercise  of  executive  power.  The  same 
members  which  formed  the  ancient  political  body 
were  supposed  to  exist,  though  much  debilitated, 
and  sunk  in  disease.  The  senate  consisted  of 
persons  willing  to  submit  to,  or  known  to  favour, 
the  present  usurpation ;  such  persons  only  were 
now  to  be  found.  Those  of  a  different  descrip- 
tion had  fallen  in  the  civil  wars,  or  perished  in 
the  late  executions  and  massacres ;  and  if  they 
had  still  remained,  would  not  have  been  suffered 
to  take  a  part  in  the  government  of  the  state  by 
those  who,  under  the  title  of  triumvirs,  had  en- 
grossed all  its  functions.  Even  the  pretended 
comitia  were  no  longer  those  overbearing  con- 
ventions, in  which  multitudes  assembled  in  a 
tumultuary  manner,  assumed  the  prerogatives 
of  the  Roman  people,  disposed  of  elections,  or 
carried  their  own  mandates  into  execution  with 
irresistible  force.  This  part  of  the  republican 
constitution  was  become  a  mere  name,  employed 
to  ratify  the  acts  of  the  triumvirs,  and  to  confirm 
their  nomination  of  persons  to  office.  The  forms 
of  their  meeting,  however,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
senate,  were  retained  to  give  a  sanction  to  deeds 
which  might  not  be  supposed  of  permanent  au- 
thority, without  the  well-known  initials  of  the 
senate  and  people  of  Rome.1 

As  the  supreme  power,  and  the  exercise  of 
every  public  function,  both  at  Rome  and  in  the 
provinces,  were  now  vested  in  this  pretended 
commission,  the  ordinary  offices  of  state  were 
filled  up  merely  for  the  sake  of  form,  or  rather 
that  there  might  be  an  opportunity  to  oblige  par- 
ticular persons  in  their  advancement  to  public 
honours.  The  titles  of  praetorian  and  consular 
rank,  retained  by  those  who  had  filled  those  of- 
fices in  the  commonwealth,  were  come  to  resemble 
the  titles  of  honour  by  which  the  nobles  are  dis- 
tinguished in  monarchies ;  and  men  had,  for  some 
time,  begun  to  covet  the  office,  not  on  account 
of  the  power  it  conferred,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
title  it  was  to  leave  behind,  with  the  persons  Dy 
whom  it  had  once  been  possessed. 

For  this  reason  the  ancient  denominations  of 
office  were  not  likely  to  be  discontinued  at  Rome, 
even  upan  the  establishment  of  monarchy.  The 
regular  term  of  a  year  indeed  was  already  no 
longer  annexed  to  the  idea  of  magistracy.  The 
honour  of  having  been  consul  or  praetor  for  a  few 
months,  for  a  few  days,  or  even  for  a  few  hours, 
gave  the  precedency  that  was  wished  for ;  and 
many,  as  soon  as  they  had  taken  possession  of 
the  office,  were  remaved  to  make  way  for  others 
to  whom  the  same  favour  was  intended. 

In  this  manner,  during  the  joint-residence  of 
Octavius  and  Antony  at  Rome,  Asinius  Pollio, 
and  Domitius,  holding  the  consulate,  were  made 
to  resign  it,  in  order  that  two  others  might  be 
admitted  for  a  few  days,  of  whom  one  was  L. 
Cornelius  Balbus,  a  n.itive  of  Gades  in  Spain, 
and  the  first  of  his  family  that  ever  had  a  place 
on  the  rolls  of  the  people  as  a  citizen  of  Rome. 
But  this  new  citizen  had  followed  Julius  Caesar, 


and  amassed  a  considerable  fortune  in  his  ser- 
vice. To  others,  the  dignity  of  praetor  and  of 
edile,  vacated  on  purpose,  was  transferred  for  a 
few  hours.  These  preferments  gave  no  claim, 
as  in  the  former  times  of  the  fepublic,  to  the 
government  of  provinces ;  they  gave  no  influence, 
and  scarcely  prescribed  any  function  in  the  city. 

In  this  general  abuse  of  the  civil  institutions, 
now  reduced  to  mere  titles  and  forms,  the  tri- 
bunes of  the  people,  by  means  of  the  supersti- 
tious regard  that  was  paid  to  their  persons,  still 
retained  a  part  of  their  consequence ;  and  Octa- 
vius, instead  of  attempting  to  reduce  it,  affected 
to  revere  this  sacred  repository  of  the  people's 
rights,  in  defence  of  which  Julius  Caesar  made 
war  on  the  senate ;  and  instead  of  attempting  to 
remove  the  defences  with  which  these  officers 
were  provided  against  violence,  he  procured  his 
own  name  to  be  inscribed  in  their  list,  and  took 
part  in  a  sacred  character  which  he  could  not 
destroy  ;  in  this,  as  in  many  other  particulars, 
discovering  an  admirable  discernment  of  the 
means  that  were  necessary  to  palliate  a  recent 
usurpation ;  and  seeming  to  profit  by  the  experi- 
ence  of  his  late  uncle,  who,  after  he  had  overcome 
every  serious  resistance,  fell  a  sacrifice  to  trifles, 
and  to  the  security  and  ostentation  with  which 
he  assumed  the  state  of  a  monarch. 

About  this  time  is  dated  a  considerable  alter- 
ation made  in  the  Roman  law,  by  the  addition 
of  a  rule  respecting  the  effect  of  last  wills.  This 
rule  is  ascribed  to  Falcidius.2  one  of  the  col- 
leagues of  Oetavius  in  the  college  of  tribunes. 
Hitherto  Roman  citizens  were  free  to  bequeath 
their  fortunes  at  pleasure,  and  to  divide  them  in 
any  proportion  among  their  friends  or  acquaint- 
ance, whether  relations  or  strangers;  and  pro- 
perty held  a  course  in  its  passage,  by  succession, 
from  one  generation  to  another,  which  excluded 
no  person  whatever  from  the  hopes  of  inheritance, 
provided  he  could  obtain  the  regard  of  his  fellow- 
citizens.  As  it  was  the  practice  of  every  testator, 
even  when  he  had  no  motive  for  disinheriting  his 
nearest  relations,  to  give  some  testimony  in  his 
will  to  the  merit  of  ever}^  friend  who  survived 
him,  it  was  reckoned  an  honour  to  be  mentioned 
in  many  wills,  and  persons  who  had  not  the  ordi- 
nary opportunities  to  amass  fortunes,  either  in 
the  government  of  provinces,  or  in  the  farm  oftho 
revenues,  might  nevertheless  become  rich  by  an 
extensive  and  well-supported  course  of  good  of- 
fices in  the  city.  This  practice  is  possibly  less 
suited  to  monarchy,  than  it  is  to  republics,  and 
least  of  all  to  despotical  governments,  where  the 
master  wishes  to  leave  no  will  independent  of  his 
own.  He  can  awe  the  living,  but  the  dying 
escape  from  his  influence.  This  feeling  perhaps 
already  began  to  take  place  in  the  minds  of  the 
rulers  at  Rome,  and  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
courted  their  favour;  and  it  may  have  suggested 
the  law  of  Falcidius,  by  which  testators  were 
suffered  to  dispose,  by  will,  of  no  more  than 
three  fourths  of  their  effects ;  the  other  fourth 
was  assigned  to  the  heir  at  law. 

While  Antony  yet  resided  at  Athens,  Octa- 
vius passed  into  Gaul  on  a  progress  to  review  his 
armies,  and  to  make  the  proper  disposition  of  his 
force  in  the  provinces;  and  it  began  to  appear, 
that  the  late  treaty,  which  had  been  concluded 
with  Sextus  Pompeius,  was  no  more  than  a 


i  s.  p.  a.  r. 


2  Lex  Falcidia. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


381 


temporary  expedient,  to  procure  relief  to  the  in- 
habitants of  Italy  from  the  distresses  with  which 
they  had  been  lately  afflicted.  The  articles  were 
never  fully  performed  by  either  party.  The 
family  alliance,  which  Octavius  contracted  with 
Sextus  Pompeius  in  his  marriage  with  Scribonia, 

by  whom  he  had  issue,  a  daughter 
U.  C.  715.      afterwards  so  famous  by  the  name 

of  Julia,  was  likewise,  about  this 

PulrTeTand  time'  br°ke  °ff  l°  make  Way  f°r 
CUJ\rorbanus  his  marriage  with  Livia,  a  name 
Flaccus.  already  mentioned,  and  to  be  often 

repeated  in  the  subsequent  parts 

of  this  history. 

Marriage  had  hitherto  appeared  to  Octavius 
merely  as  the  means  of  obtaining  some  political 
end;  and  he  had  already,  in  difficult  transac- 
tions, twice  availed  himself  of  this  expedient, 
although  it  is  remarked  by  historians,  as  an  evi- 
dence of  his  youth,  that,  until  his  marriage  with 
Livia,  his  beard  was  not  sufficiently  grown  to 
need  the  use  of  the  razor.  In  this  alliance,  how- 
ever, he  seems  to  have  had  a  different  object ;  and 
was  so  far  from  being  led  by  utility  alone,  that  he 
not  only  overlooked  the  want  of  it,  but  likewise 
cot  over  many  other  difficulties  which  stood  in 
nis  way. 

Livia  Drusilla  was  the  daughter  of  Livius 
Drusus,  a  citizen  who  had  been  in  open  enmity 
with  Octavius  and  his  party;  and  who,  in  de- 
spair, after  the  battle  of  Philippi,  with  other 
adherents  of  the  republic,  had  fallen  by  his  own 
hands.  The  daughter  had  been  married  to  Ti- 
berius Claudius  Nero,  who  also  was  a  declared 
enemy  of  the  Cesarean  faction ;  and  who,  in 
the  late  contest  of  parties  in  Italy,  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  ejected  land-holders  of  Campania, 
joined  Lucius  Antonius,  and,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned on  the  reduction  of  Perusia,  fled  with  his 
family  into  Sicily,  where  he  took  refuge  with 
Sextus  Pompeius.  Being  included  in  the  treaty 
of  reconciliation  which  was  framed  at  Baiae,  he 
returned  to  Rome.  His  wife  had  already  born 
him  a  son,  afterwards  well  known  by  the  name 
of  Tiberius,  and  was  again  with  child,  and  six 
months  gone  in  her  pregnancy,  when  it  was  pro- 
posed, that  she  should  part  from  her  present  hus- 
band, and  bring  forth  the  child,  of  whom  she  was 
then  pregnant,  in  the  embraces  of  Caesar.  The 
priests  being  consulted  on  the  legality  of  this 
marriage,  desired  to  know,  whether  the  preg- 
nancy of  Livia  was  well  ascertained  ;  and  being 
informed  that  it  was  certain,  made  answer,  That 
as  there  could  arise  no  doubt  concerning  the  pa- 
rentage of  her  offspring,  her  separation  from 
Tiberius  Claudius,  and  her  marriage  with  Octa- 
vius, were  lawful. 

The  change  which  now  took  place  in  the  fa- 
mily of  Octavius,  by  his  repudiating  Scribonia, 
was  considered  as  the  prelude  to  a  war  with  Sex- 
tus Pompeius.  Many  articles  of  the  late  treaty 
had  never  been  carried  into  execution.  The  Pe- 
loponnesus, under  pretence  of  the  time  which 
was  necessary  to  recover  some  arrears  that  were 
6aid  to  be  due  to  Antony  in  that  province,  had 
not,  according  to  agreement,  been  delivered  to 
Pompey.  In  justification  of  other  infractions  of 
the  treaty,  it  was  urged  against  him,  that,  con- 
trary to  the  faith  he  had  given,  he  continued  to 
augment  his  fleet,  and  suffered  his  cruizers  to 
commit  depredations  on  the  traders  of  Italy. 
Some  pirates  being  taken,  and  threatened  with 


the  torture,  alleged,  in  their  own  vindication,  that 
they  acted  under  his  orders.  The  confessions  of 
these  men  being  published,  with  complaints  and 
remonstrances,  an  altercation  ensued  that  was 
likely  to  end  in  hostilities  and  open  war. 

After  these  complaints  had  become  mutual  be- 
tween Octavius  and  Sextus  Pompeius,  the  rup- 
ture was  hastened  by  the  defection  of  Menas, 
one  of  Pompey's  officers,  the  same  person  who 
proposed  to  carry  off  Antony  and  Octavius,  by 
cutting  the  cable  while  they  were  at  dinner  on 
board  his  master's  ship.  This  officer,  being  in- 
trusted with  the  command  of  a  fleet  in  the  ports 
of  Sardinia,  upon  some  disgust  to  his  master,  en- 
tered into  a  correspondence  with  Octavius,  made 
offer  of  his  service,  and  proposed  to  surrender  the 
island.  This  act  of  perfidy  became  known  only 
by  the  acceptance  and  execution  of  the  offer. 
Octavius  obtained  the  possession  of  Sardinia,  and 
received  Menas  with  sixty  galleys  into  his  ser- 
vice, rewarded  his  treachery  by  employing  him  in 
the  same  rank  which  he  possessed  under  Sextus 
Pompeius,  and  by  conferring  upon  him  the  gold 
ring,  the  well  known  badge  of  nobility  at  Rome.3 

As  this  transaction  took  place  while  the  treaty 
was  yet  supposed  to  be  in  force,  Pompey  de- 
manded that  the  traitor  should  be  delivered  up  to 
him,  and  the  island  of  Sardinia  restored  ;  but 
was  answered  that  he  himself  had  been  the  ag- 
gressor, in  giving  refuge  to  deserters  and  fugitive 
slaves. 

Pompey,  on  receiving  this  answer,  proceeded 
to  immediate  hostilities.4  He  sent  Menecrates, 
who  succeeded  Menas  in  the  chief  command  of 
his  fleet,  to  the  coast  of  Campania,  with  orders  to 
make  reprisals,  and  to  plunder  Vulturnus,  and 
some  other  p'aces  of  that  neighbourhood. 

Octavius,  on  his  part,  had  been  some  time  en- 
deavouring to  supply  his  want  of  shipping,  had 
built  some  vessels  in  the  ports  of  Italy,  which, 
with  the  addition  of  those  he  received  by  the  de- 
sertion of  Menas,  put  him  in  condition  to  enter 
on  the  war  with  advantage.  He  had  ordered  his 
equipments  at  two  separate  stations  ;  the  one  at 
Tarentum,  the  other  on  the  coast  of  Etruria  ; 
and  being  now  to  make  war  on  Sicily,  he  pro- 
posed to  bring  his  naval  forces  together  at  Rhe- 
gium,  in  the  straits  of  Messina.  Thither  he 
likewise  directed  a  powerful  land  army  to  march, 
in  order  to  invade  the  island,  and  to  begin  the 
war,  by  expelling  Pompey  from  the  principal  seat 
of  his  power.  He  himself  came  round  to  Rhe- 
gium  with  that  division  of  his  fleet  w  hich  had  been 
fitted  out  at  Tarentum.  Calvisius  commanded 
the  other  division,  and  made  sail  from  the  coast 
of  Etruria  to  the  same  place. 

Sextius  Pompeius,  having  notice  of  this  dispo- 
sition that  was  made  to  attack  him,  likewise  di- 
vided his  forces.  He  himself  took  post  at  Messina 
to  observe  Octavius,  and  sent  Menecrates  to  in- 
tercept Calvisius,  and  to  prevent  the  junction  of 
their  fleets. 

Menecrates  accordingly  came  in  sight  of  hi9 
enemy  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  lay  that 
night  under  the  island  iEnaria,  while  Calvisius 
came  to  anchor  near  Cuma?.  Next  morning,  at 
break  of  day,  both  fleets  got  under  sail ;  but  Cal- 
visius, having  orders  to  bring  his  division  safe  to 
the  general  rendezvous  at  Rhegium,  was  uesirou9 


3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  45.    Orosiue.  Appian,  id. 

4  Zonaros,  lib.  x.  c.  23. 


382 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


to  avoid  an  engagement,  and  kept  under  the 
land.  Menecrates,  steering  the  same  course, 
kept  abreast  of  the  enemy,  till  perceiving  their  de- 
sign to  avoid  him,  by  lying  close  to  the  shore,  he 
too  stood  in  with  the  land  to  attack  them. 

Calvisius,  finding  an  action  unavoidable,  and 
thinking  himself  inferior  in  the  skill  of  his  mari- 
ners, determined  to  bring  his  ships  to  anchor 
under  the  land,  where  they  could  not  be  sur- 
rounded, and  where  his  men,  if  attacked,  having 
smooth  water,  might  use  their  swords  as  on  solid 
ground ;  and  he  accordingly  formed  a  line  close 
to  the  shore,  turning  the  prow  and  the  beak  of 
his  ships  to  the  sea. 

In  this  position  the  squadron  of  Octavius  re- 
ceived the  shock  of  the  enemy,  and  on  the  right, 
where  Calvisius  himself  commanded,  made  a 
good  defence,  but  in  the  centre,  many  of  the 
ships  were  forced  from  their  anchors,  and  strand- 
ed or  burnt.  Menecrates.  in  coming  to  engage, 
distinguished  the  galley  of  Menas,  his  ancient 
rival,  and  the  traitor  to  their  common  master, 
bore  down  upon  him,  and,  in  the  shock  broke 
away  the  beak  of  his  galley  ;  but,  in  passing 
along  his  side,  as  the  vessel  brushed,  lost  all  the 
oars  of  his  own  ship.  They  afterwards  grappled, 
and  fought  till  both  the  commanders  were  wound- 
ed ;  and  Menecrates,  finding  himself  disabled, 
and  in  danger  of  being  taken,  went  headlong  into 
the  sea.  His  galley  instantly  struck,  and  was 
towed  off  by  the  enemy.  This  event,  although 
the  advantage  was  otherwise  greatly  on  the  side 
of  Pompey,  dispirited  the  whole  squadron ;  and 
Demochares,  who  succeeded  Menecrates  in  the 
command  of  Pompey's  fleet,  neglecting  the  ad- 
vantage he  might  have  reaped  from  the  situation 
and  loss  of  the  enemy,  withdrew  to  the  island 
j(Enaria,  and  from  thence,  on  the  following  day, 
set  sail  for  Sicily.  Calvisius,  having  endeavoured 
to  repair  his  damage,  continued  his  voyage,  under 
the  land,  towards  Rhegium. 

Octavius,  at  the  same  time,  not  knowing  of 
this  action,  but  being  impatient  to  effect  the 
junction  of  his  fleets,  made  sail  from  Rhegium, 
and  stood  to  the  northward  through  the  straits. 
When  the  greater  part  of  the  fleet  had  passed 
the  port  of  Messina,  he  was  observed  by  Sextus 
Pompeius,  who  put  to  sea,  and  attacked  his  rear. 
He  nevertheless  continued  on  his  way  through 
the  gut,  and  would  have  declined  an  action,  if°it 
could  have  been  avoided ;  but  finding  himself  in 
danger  of  suffering  an  absolute  defeat  from  the 
enemy,  who,  taking  advantage  of  his  course, 
pressed  on  his  rear  as  in  actual  flight,  he  made 
a  signal  to  halt;  and  from  the  same  motives 
which  determined  Calvisius  to  form  under  the 
land,  making  a  like  disposition,  he  hoped,  that, 
by  being  at  anchor,  his  men  might  engage  on 
equal  terms  with  an  enemy  who  were  greatly  su- 
perior in  the  management  of  their  ships.  In  the 
event,  however,  he  was  much  more  unfortunate 
than  Calvisius,  and  had  great  part  of  his  fleet 
either  stranded  or  burnt.  He  himself,  while  his 
ships  were  still  engaged,  left  Cornificius  to  con- 
tinue the  fight,  got  on  shore,  and  with  a  number 
of  men,  who  had  escaped  from  the  wrecks,  took 
refuge  on  the  neighbouring  hills. 

At  the  approach  of  night,  the  lieutenant  of 
Octavius,  while  the  enemy  still  pressed  upon  him, 
.seeing  the  danger  of  having  all  his  ships  forced 
on  shore  before  morning,  made  a  signal  for  the 
*emaitt3  of  the  squadron  to  cut  their  cables,  and 


stand  out  to  sea.  In  making  this  movement,  his 
own  galley  grappled  with  that  of  Demochares, 
and  having  disabled  her,  obliged  the  commander 
to  move  into  another  ship.  At  this  instant  the 
other  division  of  Octavius's  fleet,  commanded  by 
Calvisius,  appeared  to  the  northward  ;  being  seen 
first  from  the  enemy's  fleet,  occasioned  a  sudden 
pause  in  the  action. 

Pompey,  believing  this  to  be  a  fresh  enemy, 
whom,  after  so  much  loss  and  fatigue,  he  was  not 
in  condition  to  engage,  took  his  resolution,  to  the 
great  surprise  of  the  squadron  he  had  vanquished, 
to  relinquish  his  prey,  and  retire  to  Messina. 

Cornificius  again  came  to  anchor  in  the  place 
of  action,  and  being  joined  by  Calvisius,  passed 
the  night  in  taking  an  account  of  his  damage,  in 
saving  such  ships  as  could  be  got  off,  or  in  re- 
moving the  baggage  and  stores  from  such  as  were 
ashore.  Octavius,  at  the  same  time,  made  fires 
on  the  hills  to  assemble  the  stragglers  who  had 
escaped  from  the  wrecks,  of  whom  many  were 
found  without  arms  or  necessaries  of  any  sort. 

Towards  morning,  a  gale  of  wind  arose  from  the 
south,  and  rolled  a  great  sea  through  the  straits. 
It  continued  to  blow  all  day  and  the  following 
night ;  during  which  time,  Menas,  being  an  ex- 
perienced mariner,  had  not  only  originally  come 
to  an  anchor  with  his  division,  as  far  as  he  could 
from  land,  but  continued  all  night  to  ease  his 
anchors,  by  plying  against  the  wind  with  his 
oars.  Of  the  rest  of  the  fleet,  such  ships  as  were 
near  the  land  having  drove  in  the  night,  many 
perished  on  the  rocks.  At  break  of  day  the  wind 
abated  ;  but,  from  the  effects  of  the  storm  which 
had  blown  in  the  night,  the  strand  was  covered 
with  dead  bodies,  and  with  the  fragments  of  ships. 
The  vessels  that  were  still  afloat,  being  about  one 
half  of  the  fleet,  having  stopped  for  a  little  time 
to  save  as  many  as  they  could  from  the  wrecks, 
set  sail  in  a  very  shattered  condition  for  Vibo. 
Here  they  arrived  without  any  molestation  from 
the  enemy,  who  were  contented  to  have  remained 
in  safety  at  Messina.  Octavius  himself  having 
beheld  the  wreck  of  so  many  of  his  ships,  took  the 
route  of  Campania  by  land,  and  made  the  neces- 
sary dispositions  to  frustrate  any  attempts  which 
Pompey  might  make  on  the  coast. 

This  summer  having  been  spent  in  these  un- 
decisive operations,  both  parties  prepared  for  a 
vigorous  renewal  of  the  contest  in  the  following 
spring.  Pompey  himself  continued  to  alarm  the 
coast  of  Italy  during  the  winter,  and  sent  Apol- 
lophanes,  one  of  his  officers,  to  make  a  descent 

upon  Africa.  Octavius  gave  orders 
U.  C.  716.  to  repair  the  loss  of  his  snips,  and  to 

recruit  his  land-forces.  He  had  re- 
"l  Camivius  course  to  tne  assistance  of  Antony, 
Gallus  T.  wno  na(^  hitherto  expressed  a  dislike 
Statilius.      to  the  war,  and  was  probably  jealous 

of  the  accessions  of  power  which  Oc- 
tavius was  likely  to  gain  by  the  destruction  of 
Sextus  Pompeius. 

Antony,  however,  upon  this  requisition  from 
his  colleague,  set  sail  from  Greece,  and  appeared 
at  Tarentum  with  a  fleet  of  three  hundred  ships, 
though  still  undetermined,  it  is  supposed,  which 
side  he  should  take  in  the  present  contest.  But 
Octavia,  who  had  accompanied  her  husband  to 
Tarentum,  had  the  address  to  turn  the  scale  in 
favour  of  her  brother.  She  undertook  to  be  the 
mediator  of  their  differences,  went  on  shore,  and 
procured  an  amicable  interview  between  them. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


383 


At  this  meeting  they  made  an  exchange  of  sea 
and  land  forces.  Antony  gave  to  Octavius  a 
hundred  and  twenty  ships,  and  had  in  return 
twenty  thousand  legionary  soldiers.  To  confirm 
the  removal  of  all  their  suspicions,  Julia,  the  in- 
fant daughter  of  Octavius  by  Scrihonia,  was,  on 
this  occasion,  betrothed  to  Antyllis,  one  of  the 
sons  of  Antony  by  Fulvia;  and  the  daughter 
of  Antony  was  betrothed  to  Domitius.  These 
schemes  of  alliance,  projected  in  the  infancy  of 
the  parties,  never  took  effect,  but  were  among  the 
artifices  with  which  the  parents  endeavoured  to 
amuse  each  other. 

Octavius  and  Antony  now  agreed,  with  very 
little  hesitation,  that  Pompey  had  forfeited  the 
consulate,  the  priesthood,  and  all  the  other  ad- 
vantages which  had  been  yielded  in  his  favour  by 
the  late  treaty;  and  they  made  new  arrange- 
ments respecting  the  succession  to  office,  in 
behalf  of  themselves  and  their  friends.  The 
principal  object  in  these  arrangements  was  the 
gratifying  their  adherents  with  titles  of  rank.  In 
the  preceding  year,  no  less  thai:  sixty-seven  per- 
sons had  passed  through  the  office  of  praetor. 
This  dignity,  as  well  as  that  of  consul,  was  fre- 
quently, for  the  sake  of  the  title,  taken  up  and 
resigned  in  the  same  day.  The  office  of  ^Edile, 
which  used  to  be  of  so  much  consequence  under 
the  republic,  as  it  gave  an  opportunity  to  court 
the  favour  of  the  people  with  entertainments  and 
shows,  being  now  of  no  value  on  this  account, 
and  being  the  lowest  in  rank,  though  still  expen- 
sive, was  generally  declined.1 

The  period  for  which  the  pretended  commis- 
sion of  the  triumvirs  had  been  granted  by  the 
Roman  senate  and  people  being  now  about  to  ex- 
pire, Octavius  and  Antony,  without  having  re- 
course to  the  same  form,  resumed  the  exercise  of 
their  power  for  five  years  longer.  And  having, 
in  appearance,  amicably  settled  the  several  points 
in  dispute  between  themselves,  they  separated  in 
pursuit  of  their  respective  objects  ;  Octavius  be- 
ing intent  on  the  war  with  Sextus  Pompeius, 
and  Antony  on  that  with  the  Parthians.  But,  to 
the  great  danger  of  their  future  agreement,  the 
last  was  no  longer  attended  by  Octavia,  who  had 
hitherto  served  as  a  bond  of  union  between  them, 
and  had  checked  the  jealousies  and  extravagances 
of  her  husband.  She  had  borne  him  a  child,  and 
was  again  pregnant,  and  being  unable  to  attend 
him  in  the  dangers  to  which  he  was  likely  to  be 
exposed  in  the  Parthian  war,  chose  to  remain  in 
Italy,  and  to  fix  her  residence  at  Rome.2 

In  the  respect  of  the  approaching  campaign, 
Agrippa  was  recalled  from  Gaul,  where  he  had 
been  employed  by  Octavius  in  the  preceding 
summer,  and  during  the  miscarriages  on  the 
coast  of  Italy.  This  officer,  although  of  mean 
extraction,  rose  to  the  highest  honours  which 
could,  in  this  state  of  his  country,  be  attained  by 
a  citizen.  As  he  was  not  born  to  the  dignity  and 
pretensions  of  a  Roman  senator,  he  cannot  be  ac- 
cused, with  others,  of  having  betrayed  that  cha- 
racter ;  but  coming  forward  amidst  the  ruins  of 
the  republic,  and  after  the  extinction  of  those 
virtues  which  were  necessary  to  its  preservation, 
he  was  the  first  person  who  understood  and 
possessed  the  habits  and  accomplishments  which 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  43—53. 

2  Appian.  cle  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii 
c.  46,  &.c. 


are  required  in  support  of  a  monarchy  ;  submis- 
sion without  servility  or  baseness,  application, 
fidelity,  and  courage  ;  estimating  honours  by  his 
nearness  to  his  prince,  and  merit  by  the  degree 
in  which  he  could  promote  his  service.3  He  had 
in  the  preceding  summer  obtained  some  victories 
on  the  Rhine,  and  was  the  first  Roman,  after 
Julius  Caesar,  who  had  passed  that  barrier  of  the 
German  nations.  Upon  his  arrival  at  Rome  he 
might  have  had  a  triumph  on  account  of  these 
services;  but  preferring  the  respect  that  was  due 
to  his  master,  to  the  sense  of  his  own  personal 
consequence,  ho  said,  that  it  did  not  become  him 
to  triumph  while  the  affairs  of  Caesar  were  not  in 
prosperity. 

Agrippa  was  by  his  genius  qualified  for  the 
execution  of  magnificent  works,  as  well  as  for  the 
steady  and  able  conduct  of  military  operations. 
Observing,  that  the  disasters  of  the  preceding 
year  were  to  be  imputed,  in  some  measure,  to  the 
want  of  harbours  and  proper  retreats  for  shipping 
on  the  western  coast  of  Italy,  he  made  it  his  first 
object  to  supply  this  defect,  by  opening  a  commu- 
nication from  the  sea  to  the  lakes  of  Cumae, 
which  were  spacious  basins,  and  when  thus  ren- 
dered accessible  by  navigable  entries,  mi^ht  fur- 
nish every  conveniency  for  the  reception  and 
construction  of  fleets.  In  describing  the  masonry 
I  which  was  necessary  in  the  formation  of  these 
communications,  mention  is  made  of  the  peculiar 
advantage  derived  from  the  use  of  burnt  earth 
taken  from  the  neighbouring  mountains;  and 
which  being  used  for  sand  in  the  composition  of 
mortar,  made  an  excellent  cement  for  buildings 
that  were  to  remain  under  water.4 

While  the  summer  passed  in  the  execution  of 
these  works,  and  in  the  equipment  of  a  proper 
fleet  to  encounter  that  of  Pompey,  Menas,  re- 
penting of  his  late  desertion,  entered  into  a  cor- 
respondence with  his  former  master ;  and  being 
assured  of  pardon,  withdrew  with  seven  ships 
from  the  fleet  of  Octavius,  then  under  the  com- 
mand of  Calvisius,  and  returned  to  his  former 
service.  Octavius  took  this  occasion  to  supersede 
Calvisius,  upon  an  imputation  of  neglect,  and 
appointed  Agrippa  to  succeed  him  in  the  conduct 
of  the  war. 

About  a  year  was  spent  in  the 
U.  C.  717.  equipment  of  ships,  and  in  training 
L.  Oellius  the  mariners,  which,  for  the  conve- 
Poplirola,  nicnce  0f  harbours  and  docks,  was 
PtoS?  executed  as  before,  at  two  separate 
M  Cocccius  stations;  one  at  Tarentum,  under 
Mrva,  P.  Statilius  Taurus,  where  the  ships 
Suipicius  which  had  been  furnished  by  Antony 
Quertnus.    ^  remamet] .  the  other  jn  the  new 

harbour  at  Puteoli,  under  Agrippa. 

Lepidus,  to  second  the  operations  of  Octavius, 
had  assembled  his  forces  on  the  coast  of  Africa, 
and  it  was  concerted  that  Sicily  should  be  in- 
vaded in  three  places  at  once ;  at  Lilybaeum,  the 
nearest  part  to  Africa,  by  Lepidus;  at  Mylae,  on 
the  northern  side  of  the  island,  by  Agrippa ;  and 
at  Taurominium,  on  the  eastern  coast,  by  Stati- 
lius Taurus.  It  was  projected,  that  the  arma- 
ments equipped  for  these  different  services,  should, 
be  at  their  places  of  destination  as  nearly  as  po»- 
ible  about  the  first  of  July. 


3  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  79. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  48—52- 


384 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


While  these  preparations  were  making,  Octa-  ] 
vius,  residing  chiefly  at  Tarentum  or  at  Cumae, 
left  the  administration  of  civil  affairs  at  Rome  in 
the  hands  of  Maecenas,  who,  though  not  vested 
with  any  office  of  magistracy,  or  any  other  pub- 
lic character  besides  that  of  a  person  in  the  confi- 
dence of  his  master,  possessed  a  supreme  authority. 
Octavius  himself,  when  the  plan  of  the  war  was 
ripe  for  execution,  joined  that  division  of  his 
forces  which  was  led  by  Agrippa,  and  sailed  from 
Puteoli  at  the  appointed  time ;  but  after  he  had 
crossed  the  bay  of  Baiae,  to  the  promontory  of 
Minerva,  he  met  with  a  storm,  by  which  many 
of  his  ships  were  damaged,  and  forced  to  put 
back  into  the  port  he  had  left. 

This  accident  was  likely  to  disconcert  the  ope- 
rations of  the  campaign,  or  to  delay  the  invasion 
of  Sicily  for  another  season.  But  the  complaints 
of  the  people  of  Italy,  suffering  under  the  ob- 
struction that  was  given  by  Pompey  to  the  im- 
portation of  corn,  required  an  immediate  relief. 
Some  of  the  projected  operations  of  the  campaign 
were  already  begun,  and  required  to  be  supported. 
Lepidus  had  sailed  with  the  first  division  of  his 
army,  and  had  landed  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Lilybaeum,  and  Statilius  Taurus  had  advanced 
from  Tarentum  to  Leucopetrae,  opposite  to  Tau- 
rominium, the  place  at  which  he  was  ordered  to 
make  his  descent.  Urged  by  these  considera- 
tions, Octavius,  with  such  repairs  as  he  could 
accomplish,  in  about  thirty  days  after  he  had  been 
put  back  into  port,  again  put  out  to  sea.  At 
Stroug/le  he  learnt  that  Pompey,  with  the 
greater  part  of  his  fleet,  lay  off"  Mylae  to  guard 
that  access  to  the  island.  Thinking  this,  there- 
fore, a  favourable  opportunity  to  push  his  other 
attack  from  Leucopetrae  to  Taurominium,  he 
himself  returned  to  the  coast  of  Italy,  landed  at 
Vibo,  went  from  thence  by  land  to  Leucopetrae, 
and  put  the  squadron  from  that  place  in  motion 
for  their  intended  descent  on  Sicily. 

While  Octavius  was  thus  employed  at  the 
other  extremity  of  the  Straits,  Agrippa  had  come 
to  an  action  with  Pompey's  fleet  oft' the  harbour 
of  Mylae,  and  obliged  them  to  put  back  into  port 
with  the  loss  of  thirty  ships.1  This  circumstance 
still  farther  confirmed  Octavius  in  his  intention 
to  pass  with  his  army  into  Sicily ;  and  he  accor- 
dingly, without  meeting  with  any  obstruction,  ar- 
rived at  Taurominium,  and  landed  his  forces. 

Sextus  Pompeius,  in  the  mean  time,  having 
had  intimation  of  this  design,  soon  after  the  ac- 
tion at  My  he,  had  withdrawn  in  the  night  to 
Messina ;  and  having  put  fresh  men  on  board  his 
ships,  steered  for  Taurominium,  and  came  in 
sight  of  the  harbour  soon  after  the  enemy  had 
disembarked.  By  the  unexpected  appearance  of 
a  fleet  much  superior  to  his  own,  Octavius  was 
greatly  alarmed ;  and  leaving  the  command  of 
the  forces  he  had  just  landed,  to  Cornificius,  he 
ordered  his  ships  to  slip  their  cables,  and  make 
what  sail  they  could  to  recover  the  harbour  of 
Leucopetrae.  He  himself  went  on  board  a  small 
pinnace,  in  order  the  better  to  escape  the  pursuit 
of  the  enemy,  and  with  a  very  few  attendants 
landed  in  a  creek  on  the  coast  of  Italy.  His  ships 
were  dispersed,  part  taken,  and  many  stranded 
on  the  opposite  shores  ;  but  he  himself  made  his 
way  in  the  night  to  Leucopetrae,  where  a  division 
of  the  army,  under  Messala,  waited  for  the  return 


1  OrosiuB,  lib.  vi.  p.  966. 


of  the  ships  in  which  they  were  to  follow  the  for 

mer  embarkation. 

Octavius,  without  being  disconcerted  by  this 
disaster,  or  by  a  consciousness  of  the  part  which 
he  himself  had  acted,  and  which  served  to  con- 
firm all  the  former  imputations  of  cowardice, 
without  loss  of  time  sent  immediate  despatches 
to  all  the  stations  of  his  troops,  to  intimate  his 
safe  arrival  in  the  camp  of  Messala.  Before  he 
shifted  his  wet  clothes,  or  took  any  food,  he  made 
all  the  necessary  arrangements ;  sent  a  pinnace  to 
Cornificius,  whom  he  had  left  in  the  command 
of  the  army  in  Sicily,  With  orders  to  defend  him 
self  to  the  last  extremity  \  and  another  to  Agrip- 
pa, with  instructions  to  move  as  soon  as  he  could, 
by  sea  or  by  land,  to  his  relief.  And  he  ordered 
Carinas,  who  with  three  legions  lay  embarked  at 
Vibo,  to  sail  without  loss  of  time,  and  to  join 
Agrippa  at  Lipare. 

While  Pompey  passed  with  his  fleet  along  the 
coast  from  Messina  to  Taurominium,  he  had  or- 
dered a  great  body  of  horse  on  the  shore  to  keep 
pace,  as  nearly  as  possible,  with  the  motion  of 
his  ships  \  and  as  they  approached  to  Tauromi- 
nium, while  he  himself  should  block  up  the  har- 
bour, to  lay  waste  the  country,  or  to  restrain  the 
foraging  parties  of  the  enemy. 

Cornificius,  whom  Octavius  had  left  in  the 
command  of  his  forces  at  this  place,  finding  him- 
self in  danger  of  being  surrounded,  took  his  re- 
solution to  depart  from  the  coast,  and,  if  possible, 
to  join  Agrippa,  who,  he  had  reason  to  believe, 
might  by  this  time  have  effected  his  landing  at 
Mylae,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  island.  He 
accordingly  endeavoured  to  convey  intelligence 
of  his  design,  and  requested  Agrippa  to  come  for- 
ward to  meet  him  with  a  proper  force,  and  with 
the  necessary  supplies,  to  give  relief  to  his  army, 
and  to  favour  his  junction. 

The  route  by  which  Cornificius  was  most 
likely  to  avoid  Pompey's  stations,  led  by  the 
skirts  of  Mount  iEtna,  and  over  barren  "tracts 
that  were  still  covered,  instead  of  soil,  with  pumice 
and  lava,  which  had  been  discharged  from  the 
mountain,  and  which  were  not  any  where  sup- 
plied with  vegetation  or  water.  His  way  over 
this  species  of  soil  lay  through  difficult  passes, 
occupied  by  the  natives,  who  either  harassed  his 
rear,  or  disputed  his  passage  in  front.  But  after 
having  undergone  great  labour  and  distress,  and 
having  lost  a  considerable  part  of  his  army  by  fa- 
tigue and  famine,  he  was  met  by  Laronius,  with 
a  reinforcement  of  troops  and  supply  of  provisions 
from  Agrippa;  and,  upon  the  appearance  of  this 
relief,  was  suffered  hy  the  enemy  to  continue  the 
remainder  of  his  march  undisturbed. 

Thus  the  two  separate  divisions  of  the  army 
of  Octavius,  with  which  he  intended  at  once  to 
have  attacked  the  opposite  sides  of  the  island, 
were  assembled  together  on  the  northern  coast. 
Hither  he  himself  soon  after  repaired,  and  began 
his  operations  by  land  at  the  head  of  twenty-one 
legions,  twenty  thousand  horse,  and  above  five 
thousand  light  or  irregular  infantry. 

Pompey  was  yet  strong  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Messina,  or  in  that  angle  of  the  island  which 
pointed  towards  Italy.  The  ground  being  rug- 
ged and  mountainous  in  the  interior  parts,  form- 
ing a  ridge  from  Mount  iEtna  to  the  head  of 
Pelorus,  his  quarters  were  accessible  only,  or 
chiefly,  by  the  roads  on  the  coast,  leading  from 
Mylae  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  Taurominium 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


385 


on  the  other,  to  Messina.  Of  these  communica- 
tions he  was  still  master,  hy  means  of  the  for- 
tresses which  he  possessed  at  Mylte,  and  at  Tau- 
romjnium.  As  he  supposed  that  Lepidus,  from 
the  side  of  Africa,  would  attempt  to  co-operate 
with  the  forces  of  Octavius  from  Italy,  he  had 
stationed  at  Lilybseum  a  part  of  his  fleet,  and  a 
considerable  body  of  troops,  commanded  by  Plen- 
nius,  to  oppose  the  descent  and  advances  of  the 
enemy  on  that  quarter.  The  officer  who  had 
charge  of  his  fleet  on  this  station,  had  suffered  the 
first  embarkation  of  Lepidus  to  escape  and  to 
effect  their  landing  ;  but  being  so  fortunate  as  to 
intercept  the  second,  he  in  a  great  measure  dis- 
concerted the  intended  operation  on  that  side. 

Lepidus,  with  that  part  of  the  army  he  had 
landed  in  Sicily,  remained  inactive  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Lilybfeum,  until  having  accounts 
that  Octavius  was  arrived  in  the  island,  had 
united  the  different  divisions  of  his  army  at  My- 
lae,  and  had  obliged  Sextus  Pompeius  to  collect 
all  his  force  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Messina,  he 
supposed  that  the  country  from  thence  might  be 
open  to  hi.n;  and  he  accordingly,  notwithstand- 
ing that  Plennius,  with  a  considerable  body  of 
Pompey's  forces,  remained  behind  him  at  Lilly- 
bseurn,  marched  from  one  end  of  the  island  to 
the  other;  and  having  effected  his  junction  with 
Octavius,  they  determined  to  press  upon  Pompey 
at  once  with  their  united  forces  both  by  sea  and 
by  land. 

In  execution  of  this  plan,  Agrippa  made  a 
feint  to  land  at  the  head  of  Pelorus;  and  having 
drawn  the  attention  of  the  enemy  to  that  quarter, 
favoured  the  design  of  Octavius,  who,  in  the 
mean  time,  surprised  and  took  the  fortress  of 
Mylse.  The  combined  army  having  gained  this 
important  advantage,  continued  to  press  upon 
Pom|>ey,  made  movements  which  threatened  to 
invest  Messina,  and  to  cut  off  the  communications 
of  his  fleet  and  army  with  the  country  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  that  city.  In  order  to  avoid 
these  inconveniences,  Pompey  found  himself 
under  a  necessity  to  hazard  a  battle  either  by  sea 
or  by  land,  or  wherever  his  antagonists  presented 
an  opportunity  the  most  likely  to  procure  him 
relief.  He  himself  relied  chiefly  on  his  naval 
force ;  and  accordingly,  without  seeking  for  any 
advantage  of  situation  or  surprise,  presented  him- 
self to  the  enemy  near  to  Naulochus,  between 
the  promontories  of  Myla?  and  Pelorus,  and  was 
there  met  by  Agrippa. 

The  fleets  which  were  now  to  engage,  con- 
sisted of  about  three  hundred  ships  on  each  side. 
When  formed  in  order  of  battle,  their  lines  were 
nearly  of  equal  extent.  The  construction  of  ships 
was  the  same,  and  they  advanced  deliberately  on 
smooth  water,  without  any  circumstance  that 
appeared  to  prognosticate  the  victory  on  either 
side.  The  armies,  at  the  same  time,  were  drawn 
upon  the  shore,  and  in  sight  of  the  scene  which 
was  to  be  acted  before  them.  After  an  obstinate 
fight,  in  which  the  fleet  of  Pompey  already  suf- 
fered considerably,  seventeen  of  his  ships  at  once 
withdrew  from  the  action,  and  stood  away  for 
the  straits  of  Messina.  Those  that  were  nearest 
the  land  ran  upon  the  shore,  and  were  wrecked 
or  taken  ;  the  remainder  being  further  at  sea,  and 
cut  off  from  their  own  harbours,  struck,  and  de- 
livered themselves  up  to  the  enemy. 

The  progress  of  the  action  at  sea  was  accom- 
panied from  the  land  with  shouts  and  acclama- 
3  C 


tions  on  the  one  side,  and  with  silent  affliction, 
or  with  cries  of  despair,  on  the  other.  Twenty- 
eight  ships  of  Pompey's  fleet  were  sunk ;  above 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  being  the  whole  that  re- 
mained besides  the  seventeen  that  fled  to  Messina, 
were  stranded,  taken,  or  burnt.2  Octavius  lost 
only  three  ships. 

Pompey  perceiving  the  extent  of  his  calamity, 
was  seized  with  despair;  and,  without  having 
given  any  orders  in  camp,  made  haste  to  Messina. 
The  army  he  had  left  in  the  field,  seeing  them- 
selves deserted  by  their  leader,  went  over  to  the 
enemy.  He  himself,  at  Messina,  made  a  feint 
of  mustering  his  forces  as  for  an  obstinate  defence. 
He  called  in  all  the  ships  that  any  where  re- 
mained on  the  coast,  and  all  the  forces  that  could 
be  found  on  the  island.3  But,  in  the  midst  of 
these  pretended  arrangements  for  a  vigorous  re- 
sistance, he  had  taken  a  resolution  to  depart  from 
Sicily ;  and  having  a  vessel  prepared  for  his  re- 
ception, accordingly  embarked,  with  his  daughter, 
and  a  few  persons  whom  he  had  chosen  to  attend 
him  in  his  flight. 

As  soon  as  the  vessel,  on  board  of  which  it  was 
known  Pompey  had  embarked,  appeared  under 
sail,  all  the  ships  which  were  then  in  the  harbour 
put  to  sea,  with  intention  to  follow  the  same 
course;  but  without  any  orders  or  intimation  of 
a  place  at  which  to  re-assemble,  in  case  of  se- 
paration. The  unfortunate  leader  observing, 
among  the  ships  that  followed  him,  some  that 
were  commanded  by  officers  in  whom,  in  the 
present  state  of  his  fortunes,  he  could  not  con- 
fide, wished  to  separate  from  them,  and  gave  out 
that  he  meant  to  avoid  the  coasts  ;  and,  in  order 
to  deceive  them  in  the  night,  extinguishing  his 
lights,  rowed  close  to  the  shore  of  Italy,  and 
turning  round  the  head-lands  till  he  was  oppo- 
site to  Corcyra,  he  stood  over  for  that  island, 
from  thence  to  Cephalonia,  and  last  of  all  to 
Lesbos,  where  he  landed  at  Mytilenc,  a  place  at 
which  he  had  resided  with  his  mother  Cornelia, 
during  the  campaign  between  his  father  and  the 
first  Ca;sar  in  Thessaly,  and  from  whence  he 
had  been  carried  about  twelve  years  before  this 
date,  to  witness  the  catastrophe  of  his  fathers 
fortunes  on  the  coast  of  Egypt.  At  Mytilenc, 
notwithstanding  the  memory  of  these  discourag- 
ing circumstances,  and  the  low  state  of  his  own 
affairs,  he  met  with  a  hospitable  reception,  and 
passed  the  winter  in  humble  expectation  of  pro- 
tection from  Antony,  to  whose  generosity  he  in- 
fended  to  commit  himself. 

Octavius,  in  the  mean  time,  suspecting  that 
Pompey  must  have  taken  refuge  in  some  part  of 
the  provinces  which  were  in  the  jurisdiction  of 
his  colleague,  was  cautious  not  to  awaken  Ins 
jealousy  by  presuming  to  violate  his  sanctuary, 
or  by  pretending  to  anticipate  the  resolutions  he 
might  be  inclined  to  take  on  the  subject  of  this 
suppliant.4 

After  the  head  of  the  Pompcian  party  had 
made  so  wretched  an  exit  from  Sicily,  Plen- 
nius, who,  soon  after  the  departure  of  Lepidus 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  Lilybceum,  had  set 
out  with  six  legions  to  join  his  commander,  and 
who  had  come  too  late  to  be  comprehended  in 
the  surrender  of  the  army  at  Naulochus,  threw 


2  Orosius,  lib.  vi-  c.  18. 

3  Appian.  de  Bell  Civ.  lib.  v. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.  c.  18. 


3S6 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


himself  into  Messina,  more  with  an  intention  to 
obtain  favourable  terms  for  the  troops  under  his 
command,  than  with  any  hopes  to  retrieve  the 
affairs  of  his  master. 

At  this  time  Lepidus  being  near  to  Messina, 
while  Octavius  still  remained  at  Naulochus,  in- 
vested the  place,  and,  without  consulting  his  col- 
league, granted  the  terms  which  were  asked  by 
Plennius,  took  possession  of  the  town,  and  incor- 
porated the  troops  that  had  served  under  that 
officer  with  his  own  army.  In  concluding  this 
treaty,  and  in  taking  the  advantage  of  it  to 
strengthen  himself,  without  the  concurrence  or 
participation  of  Caesar,  he  had  earnest  remon- 
strances made  to  him  by  Agrippa,  who  had  come 
with  his  victorious  fleet  to  Messina ;  but  it  soon 
after  appeared  that  Lepidus  not  only  thought 
himself  entitled  to  decide  hv  that  instance,  but, 
upon  the  accession  of  strength  which  he  now 
gained,  began  to  form  much  higher  pretensions. 
He  now  reckoned  under  his  own  standard 
twenty-two  legions,  with  a  numerous  body  of 
horse,  and  proposed  not  only  to  keep  possession 
of  Messina,  but  to  claim  the  whole  island  of 
Sicily,  as  an  appendage  of  his  province  in  Africa. 
He  accordingly  sent  detachments  to  secure  the 
principal  towns. 

Octavius,  already  provoked  at  the  precipitation' 
with  which  Lepidus  had  granted  a  capitulation 
to  the  troops  at  Messina,  without  his  concurrence, 
loudly  complained  of  the  measures  which  he  took 
to  appropriate  the  island  of  Sicily  to  himself, 
without  the  consent  of  his  associates  in  the  em- 
pire ;  alleged  that  he  had  been  called  thither  as  a 
mere  auxiliary,  and  had  borne  no  part  of  the  ex- 
pense incurred  in  the  war.  Lepidus,  on  his  part, 
complained  of  the  injustice  which  had  already 
been  done  to  him  in  withholding  Spain,  his 
original  lot  in  the  partition  of  the  provinces ;  and 
said,  if  it  were  supposed  that  Africa  and  Sicily 
were  more  than  equivalent  for  Spain,  he  was 
willing  to  surrender  them  both  in  exchange  for 
that  province. 

This  dispute  being  likely  to  end  in  a  serious 
quarrel,  the  ordinary  intercourse  between  the 
two  camps  was  discontinued,  and  precautions 
were  taken  by  their  respective  officers,  as  in  the 
presence  of  an  enemy.  Both  armies  saw  with 
dislike  the  symptoms  of  an  open  rupture  and  of 
a  fresh  war,  in  which  soldiers,  without  any  pros- 
pect of  advantage,  even  to  the  victors,  were  mutu- 
ally to  imbrue  their  hands  in  blood,  to  decide  a 
question  of  mere  jealousy  or  emulation  between 
their  leaders. 

In  comparing  the  character  arid  prospects  of 
the  chiefs  to  be  engaged  in  this  quarrel,  the  pre- 
ference, in  the  esteem  of  both  armies,  was  certain- 
ly due  to  Octavius.  To  his  possession  of  Spain 
and  the  two  Gauls,  he  joined  that  of  Italy,  with 
the  metropolis,  or  seat  of  the  empire.  He  bore 
the  name  of  Caesar,  and  was  at  the  head  of  that 
formidable  military  power,  which  had  broken  the 
force  of  the  republic,  and  extinguished  the  au- 
thority of  the  senate.  By  his  means  the  retain- 
ers of  Caesar  had  obtained  the  preferable  lots  in 
the  late  distribution  of  settlements  and  military 
rewards. 

Lepidus,  on  the  contrary,  without  any  party 
attached  to  his  person,  and  without  any  high  re- 
putation, had  been  placed  in  the  command  of 
armies  by  the  appointment  or  sufferance  of  others. 
The  origin  of  his  merit  with  Julius  Caesar,  which 


consisted  in  prostituting  the  dignity  of  praetor 
to  his  first  usurpations  in  the  city,  was  an  act  of 
baseness.  His  place  from  thenceforward,  in  the 
military  arrangements  which  ensued,  was  matter 
of  course,  or  due  merely  to  his  rank,  without  any 
regard  to  his  abilities  or  merit.  His  being  ad- 
mitted as  a  third  in  the  present  division  of  the 
sovereignty,  proceeded  solely  from  the  mutual 
jealousies  of  the  other  two,  who  wished  for  a 
person  to  witness  their  transactions,,  and  to  hold 
some  species  of  balance  between  them.  In  the 
choice  which  they  made  of  Lepidus,  his  want  of 
any  pretensions,  that  could  interfere  with  either 
in  the  design  which  they  severally  entertained 
of  possessing  the  empire,  was  a  principal  recon*- 
mendation. 

In  this  comparison,  Octavius  was  conscious  of 
a  superiority,  in  the  opinion  even  of  the  troops 
who  were  enlisted  to  serve  under  the  command 
of  his  rival.  He  accordingly  thought  this  a  fa- 
vourable opportunity,  while  Antony  was  at  a 
distance,  and  no  enemy  existing,  either  in  Sicily 
or  Italy,  to  avail  himself  of  the  weakness  and 
incapacity  of  Lepidus,  to  strip  him  of  his  share 
in  the  empire,  and  to  seize  upon  the  province  or 
Africa,  and  the  army  now  in  Sicily,  as  an  acces- 
sion to  his  own  strength.  For  this  purpose  he 
employed  proper  agents  in  the  camp  of  Lepidus,. 
gained  many  of  his  principal  officers  by  presents,, 
and  by  the  expectation  of  greater  rewards.  Hav- 
ing much  contempt,  for  the  character  of  their 
leader,  and  thinking  the  way  sufficiently  pre- 
pared for  an  open  declaration,  he  presented  him- 
self with  a  party  of  horse  in  the  front  of  the 
camp,  entered  with  a  few  attendants,  as  into  the 
midst  of  his  own  army ;  and  mounting  an  emi- 
nence, from  which  he  might  be  heard  by  the 
crowds  that  assembled  around  him,  he  complain- 
ed of  the  steps  which  had  been  taken  by  their 
general  toward  a  rupture  between  the  two  armies, 
and  expressed  his  sincere  desire  that  all  differ- 
ences might  be  removed,  without  engaging  in 
new  scenes  of  blood  so  many  valiant  men  who 
had  deserved  so  well  of  their  leaders. 

It  appears  that  numbers  of  officers  and  soldiers 
in  the  camp  of  Lepidus  were  prepared  for  the 
part  they  were  to  act  on  this  occasion  ;  they  ap- 
plauded the  concern  which  Octavius  expressed 
for  the  armies,  and  declared  themselves  willing 
to  obey  his  commands.  Others,  though  not  in 
the  concert,  followed  this  example,  ran  to  their 
arms,  and  hastened  to  present  Octavius  with 
their  colours,  in  token  that  they  received  him  as 
their  general. 

Lepidus,  to  whom  this  visit  and  its  conse 
quences  were  altogether  unexpected,  being  roused 
by  such  an  alarm,  ran  forth  to  the  streets  of  the 
camp,  sounded  to  arms ;  and,  as  many  of  the 
troops  from  mere  habit  obeyed  his  command, 
without  considering  who  was  their  enemy,  at- 
tacked Octavius,  obliged  him  to  repass  through 
the  gate  at  which  he  had  entered,  and  to  place 
himself  under  cover  of  the  cavalry,  who  were 
waiting  to  receive  him,  and  whose  protection 
was  now  necessary  to  conduct  him  in  safety  to 
his  own  camp. 

In  this  manner  the  design  of  Octavius,  on  the 
point  of  being  executed,  appeared  to  be  defeated. 
But  his  declaration  had  made  too  deep  an  im- 
pression to  be  so  slightly  removed.  The  doubts, 
which  it  raised,  and  the  choice  now  to  be  made 
I  of  a  leader,  was  generally  decided  in  favour  of 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


387 


Caesar.  The  effect  of  this  decision  accordingly 
appeared  in  a  great  desertion  from  the  camp  of 
Lepidus,  either  then,  or  during  the  subsequent 
night.  The  legions,  lately  come  over  from  the 
service  of  Sextus  Pompeius,  beginning  to  leave 
him  in  a  body,  he  threw  himself,  with  the  usual 
guards  of  his  person,  in  the  way  to  stop  them. 
But  finding  that  the  very  body  with  which  he 
expected  to  prevent  this  desertion  joined  those 
who  were  going  over  to  the  enemy,  he  mixed  en- 
treaties and  threats,  laid  hold  of  an  ensign-staff, 
and  attempted  by  force  to  stop  the  officer  that 
was  carrying  it  to  his  rival  "  Dead  or  alive," 
said  the  bearer,  "  you  shall  quit  your  hold." 
The  cavalry  at  the  same  -time  mounted  their 
horses,  and  without  leaving  their  ground,  sent  a 
message  to  Octavius,  desiring  to  know,  whether 
he  chose  that  Lepidus  should  be  secured  or  put 
to  death  ?  Having  for  answer,  that  Octavius  had 
no  design  upon  the  life  of  their  general,  they 
moved  away  without  any  farther  notice  of  him. 

Lepidus,  seeing  the  desertion  of  his  army 
complete,  and  having  no  longer  any  friends  or 


retinue  to  attend  his  person,  laid  aside  his  impe 
rial  robes,  and,  in  the  ordinary  dress  of  a  citizen, 
walked  towards  the  camp  and  the  tent  of  his 
rival.  Multitudes  followed  him,  to  gratify  their 
curiosity,  in  seeing  what  was  to  pass  in  so  new 
a  scene.  A  person  who,  the  moment  before,  had 
been  at  the  head  of  a  great  army,  and  reputed 
a  third  in  the  sovereignty  of  the  empire,  was  now, 
by  the  sudden  desertion  of  his  own  troops,  re- 
duced to  the  condition  of  a  private  man,  and  was 
to  appear  as  a  suppliant  before  an  antagonist 
whom  he  had  recently  set  at  defiance.  To  com- 
plete the  scene  of  his  humiliation,  in  entering  the 
presence  of  Octavius,  he  would  have  thrown 
himself  on  the  ground,  but  was  prevented  by 
the  courtesy  of  his  rival,  who,  content  to  strip 
him  of  his  command,  and  of  his  personal  conse- 
quence, would  not  accept  this  mark  of  abase- 
ment, and  gave  him  leave  to  return  into  Italy, 
where  he  lived  afterwards  equally  unobserved  by 
those  against  whom  he  had  been  made  the  in- 
strument of  injustice,  and  by  those  who  had 
made  him  their  tool. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

forces  of  Octavius  after  the  Acquisition  of  Sicily,  and  the  Junction  of  the  Armies  of  Sextus  Pom- 
peius and  Lepidus — Mutiny  and  Separation  of  these  Forces — Arrival  of  Octavius  at  Rome — 
His  Reform  of  the  Army — Expedition  of  Antony  against  the  Parthians — His  Retreat —  The 
Death  of  Sext  us  Pompeius — Open  Breach  between  Octavius  and  Antony — Progress  of  Antony 
and  Cleopatra  towards  Greece — Operations  of  Antony  and  Octavius  on  the  Gulph  of  Ambracia 
— Battle  of  Actium — Plight  of  Antony — Immediate  Arrangements  of  Octavius  after  his  Vic- 
tory— Death  of  Antony — And  of  Cleopatra. 


IN  consequence  of  the  events  which  had  taken 
place  in  Sicily,  Octavius  found  himself  at  once 
at  the  conclusion  of  a  hazardous  war,  and  master 
of  all  the  forces  which  had  been  employed  in  it, 
whether  as  friends  or  as  enemies.  Flis  Meet  now 
consisted  of  near  six  hundred  galleys  with  store- 
ships  and  transports ;  his  lan«I  army  of  forty-five 
legions,  which,  though  supposed  to  he  incomplete, 
may  have  amounted  to  above  two  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  To  these  he  joined  above  fifteen 
thousand  horse  and  twenty  thousand  irregular 
infantry.  They  had  been  levied  lor  different 
masters  and  in  different  parts  ofthe  empire,  were 
persons  of  different  descriptions ;  originally  slaves, 
as  well  as  freemen;  natives  of  Spain,  Sardinia, 
Sicily,  and  Africa,  mixed  with  Italians  and  Ro- 
man citizens ;  adherents  of  Caesar  and  of  Pom- 
pev,  of  Antony,  of  Octavius,  or  Lepidus.  It  was 
very  difficult  to  dispose  of  an  assemblage  consist- 
ing of  such  various  and  discordant  parts.  The 
troops  that  came  over  from  Sextus  Pompeius  or 
Lepidus  were  to  be  retained  by  indulgence  and 
favours,  and  those  who  had  been  the  original 
support  of  Caesar's  fortunes  had  peculiar  merits; 
all  were  sensible  of  their  own  consequence,  and 
even  of  a  power  to  dispose  of  the  empire. 

Octavius  saw  the  necessity  of  separating  such 
an  army  into  different  quarters  before  any  cabals 
should  be  formed,  and  before  any  mutinous  spi- 
rits had  leisure  to  work  on  their  minds,  or  to  fill 
them  with  dangerous  hopes  or  pretensions.  That 
they  might  part  in  good  humour,  he  made  a  dis- 
tribution of  some  money,  in  token  of  his  gratitude 


for  recent  services;  and  promised  a  great  deal 
more.  But  what  he  now  gave  appeared  to  be 
contemptible,  when  compared  with  the  reward 
which  had  been  formerly  given  at  Mutina  and  at 
Philippi,  and  still  more,  when  compared  with  the 
settlements  lately  made  for  the  veterans  of  Caesar 
in  Italy.  These  were  minutely  recorded,  as  the 
standard  by  which  every  legion  had  formed  its 
expectations;  and  a  general  dissatisfaction  was 
apparent  in  every  rank  and  description  of  men. 
Octavius  for  some  time  affected  to  be  ignorant  of 
their  discontent,  and  would  have  proceeded  to 
make  the  arrangements  he  had  planned  for  sepa- 
rating them,  and  for  placing  the  legions  in  quar- 
ters remote  from  each  other;  but  he  had  reason 
to  doubt  that  his  orders  would  not  be  obeyed,  ami 
still  remained  in  suspense.  When  his  knowledge 
ofthe  mutinous  spirit  that  frrevailed  in  the  army 
could  no  longer  be  dissembled,  he  endeavoured  to 
soothe  the  most  clamorous  by  additional  marks 
of  his  favour,  consisting  chiefly  of  public  honours, 
badges  of  military  service  to  the  men,  and  the  title 
of  senators  bestowed  on  many  ofthe  officers.  In 
distributing  these  favours,  he  assembled  the  army, 
and  made  a  speech,  setting  forth  the  nature  of 
the  honours  which  he  now  conferred,  and  his 
farther  intentions  respecting  the  rewards  which 
he  meant  to  bestow.  "  These  are  baubles,"  said 
a  tribune  named  Offilius,  interrupting  him  ;  "  chil- 
dren only  are  amused  in  this  manner;1  but  men 


1  Appian.  de  Rell.  Civ.  lib.  v.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xliy 
c.  13.  14. 


3S3 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


who  have  exposed  themselves  in  the  services  of 
their  general,  expect  to  be  rewarded  with  lands 
and  settlements."  This  tribune  was  seconded 
by  the  clamours  of  the  whole  army.  Octavius 
retired  from  the  audience  in  some  disorder ;  and, 
sensible  of  the  danger  to  which  he  had  exposed 
himself,  from  this  time  forward  never  ventured  to 
meet  these  troops  in  a  body,  but  employed  secret 
arts  in  removing  the  heads  of  the  mutiny. 

The  tribune  Offilius,  who  had  dared  to  inter- 
rupt his  general  in  such  mutinous  terms,  whether 
won  by  favour,  or  taken  off  by  violence,  was  se- 
cretly disposed  of.  The  legions  who  had  served 
at  Mutina  and  Philippi,  amounting  to  twenty 
thousand  men,1  were  separately  appeased  by  do- 
nations and  promises ;  were  prevailed  upon  to 
accept  of  their  discharge  from  the  service,  and, 
without  any  farther  disturbance,  to  depart  from 
the  island. 

When  this  party  of  the  army  was  removed, 
Octavius  affected  to  consider  those  who  were 
gone  as  the  sole  cause  of  the  late  discontents,  and 
the  guilty,  he  said,  being  thus  separated  from  the 
innocent  and  from  the  deserving,  he  made  an  ad- 
ditional present  in  money  to  those  who  remained, 
and  held  out  the  hopes  of  convenient  settlements, 
and  of  plentiful  fortunes,  at  the  final  expiration 
of  their  time  in  the  service.  By  these  artifices, 
and  prudent  measures,  he  effected  the  proposed 
separation,  and  extricated  himself  from  a  danger 
which  frequently  arises  in  the  sequel  of  civil  wars, 
and  threatens  the  victor  with  an  overthrow,  from 
that  very  engine  which  he  had  employed  to  raise 
his  fortunes. 

Octavius,  before  his  departure  from  Sicily,  or- 
dered a  contribution  to  be  levied  of  sixteen  hun- 
dred talents  ;2  and  being  no  way  disposed  to  follow 
out  the  plan  of  Lepidus,  in  the  annexation  of 
Sicily  to  the  province  of  Africa,  he  appointed 
separate  governors  to  each.  Having  dismissed 
the  ships  which  Antony  had  furnished  in  the 
war,  with  instructions  to  wait  at  Tarentum  for 
the  orders  of  their  own  superior,  he  himself  passed 
into  Italy. 

The  messengers  who  had  been  sent  with  ac- 
counts of  the  victories  obtained  by  Octavius  in 
Sicily  being  arrived  before  him  at  Rome,  all  ranks 
of  men  vied  with  each  other  in  the  applause 
which  they  bestowed  on  his  conduct,  and  in  cele- 
brating the  occasion  with  demonstrations  of  joy. 
In  the  name  of  the  senate  and  people,  who  had 
no  longer  any  real  political  concessions  to  make, 
a  variety  of  flattering  proclamations  were  issued, 
ordering,  in  honour  of  the  victor,  statues,  trium- 
phal arches,  processions,  wreaths  of  laurel,  anni- 
versary rejoicings,  and  immediate  thanksgivings 
to  be  prolonged  beyond  any  former  time  assigned 
to  such  festivals.  When  he  approached  to  the 
city,  multitudes  of  every  rank,  adorned  with  chap- 
lets,  went  forth  to  receive  him,  and  conducted 
him  in  solemn  procession  to  the  temple,  in  which 
he  was  to  perform  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving 
for  his  safe  return. 

Octavius,  on  the  day  after  his  arrival,  pro- 
claimed the  peace  which  was  obtained  by  the  re- 
duction of  Sicily ;  and  in  two  separate  harangues, 
of  which  he  gave  copies  in  writing,  one  addressed 
to  the  senate,  the  other  to  the  people,  he  gave  an 
account  of  his  whole  conduct,  from  the  time  that 
he  first  assumed  the  administration  of  the  govern- 


ment, to  the  present  time.  And,  agreeably  to 
the  dictates  of  that  masterly  judgment  with  which 
he  now,  at  least,  began  to  conduct  the  interests 
of  his  ambition,  he  chose  this  time  of  victory  and 
prosperity  in  which  to  exhibit  the  effects  of  his 
clemency,  of  his  moderation,  and  of  his  disposi- 
tion to  spare  those  who,  being  supposed  disaf- 
fected to  him,  were  now  in  his  power.  He 
remitted  all  the  arrears  of  taxes  that  were  any 
where  due  within  his  jurisdiction,  either  by 
farmers  of  the  revenue  or  by  private  persons.  Of 
the  honours  that  were  decreed  to  himself  he  made 
choice  of  a  few,  and  declined  such  as  were  in  any 
degree  invidious  and  burdensome  to  the  people. 

The  inhabitants  of  Italy,  and  Roman  citizens 
in  general,  having,  among  other  evils,  suffered 
greatly  during  the  civil  war,  by  the  desertion  of 
their  slaves,  who  were  readily  received,  and  taken 
into  the  levies  that  were  continually  forming  by 
different  parties ;  Octavius  took  this  opportunity, 
as  far  as  it  was  in  his  power,  at  once  to  repaii 
the  loss  which  had  been  sustained  by  the  master 
in  the  desertion  of  his  slave,  and  to  purge  the  ar- 
my of  a  dangerous  class  of  men,  by  whom  it  was 
overcharged  and  contaminated.  In  order  to  re- 
move them  in  a  manner  that  should  prevent  any 
disturbance  on  their  part,  he  sent  to  every  legion 
a  sealed  order,  to  be  opened  on  a  certain  day, 
bearing,  that  all  who  had  been  in  the  condition 
of  slaves  should  be  secured ;  that  as  many  as 
were  claimed  should  be  restored  to  their  masters; 
and  that  the  remainder  should  be  put  to  death. 
According  to  this  order,  it  was  reported  that 
thirty  thousand  were  remitted  to  servitude,  and 
six  thousand  killed.3 

The  author  of  this  severe,  but  well  concerted 
reform,  now  in  the  twenty -eighth  year  of  his  age, 
had,  by  accommodating  himself,  on  every  occa- 
sion, to  his  circumstances,  and  by  successively 
availing  himself  of  the  support  of  different  parties, 
more  especially  by  courting  the  military  retainers 
of  his  late  uncle,  set  himself  above  the  civil  con- 
stitution of  bis  country ;  and  now,  by  affecting  a 
regard  to  property,  to  civil  rank,  and  to  the  peace 
of  his  fellow-citizens,  he  was  about  to  make  the 
army  i  tself  dependent  on  his  wil  1 .  From  the  real 
impression  which  he  made  by  this  policy,  as  well 
as  from  adulation  and  fear,  the  people  were  still 
farther  incited  to  load  him  with  public  honours, 
and  had  his  effigy  carried  at  Rome,  and  in  every 
country-town  of  Italy,  among  the  idols  of  the 
tutelar  gods. 

The  advantage  now  gained  by  Octavius,  in 
the  acquisition  of  armies  and  provinces  lately  be- 
longing to  Lepidus,  were  sufficient  to  have 
alarmed  the  jealousy  of  his  remaining  colleague 
and  rival  in  the  empire,  if  he  had  not  been  en- 
gaged, at  this  time,  in  a  very  hazardous  enter- 
prise beyond  the  frontier  of  his  own  province. 

Antony  during  his  stay  in  Italy  or  Greece, 
while  he  was  chiefly  attentive  to  the  event  of  af- 
fairs in  the  western  provinces,  had  entrusted  the 
Parthian  war  to  his  lieutenant  Ventidius.  This 
officer  acquitted  himself  with  great  honour  in 
the  discharge  of  his  trust,  recovered  the  province 
of  Syria,  which  had  been  overrun  by  the  Par- 
thians,  and  drove  them  back  beyond  the  Euphra- 
tes. Upon  this  account,  he  was  judged  worthy 
of  a  triumph,  and  came  into  Italy  to  receive  this 
honour. 


1  Orosius,  lib.  vi. 


2  About  175,000/. 


3  Orosius,  lib.  vi.  c.  18. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


389 


In  the  mean  time,  Antony  was  eager  to  gather 
the  laurels  wnich  yet  remained  in  this  field,  or 
was  supposed  to  be  jealous  of  the  victories  gained 
by  his  lieutenant  over  an  enemy,  who,  till  then, 
scarcely  had  yielded  any  advantage  to  the  Roman 
arms.  After  his  last  visit  to  Italy,  he  had  in  the 
winter  passed  to  Corcyra,  and  so  far  was  attended 
by  Octavia,  but  parted  with  her  there,  in  the 
prospect  of  this  arduous  service ;  early  in  the 
spring  he  continued  his  voyage.  Upon  his  arri- 
val in  Asia,  notwithstanding  the  respect  that  was 
due  to  his  alliance  with  Octavia  and  her  brother, 
it  soon  appeared  that  he  was  still  under  the  do- 
minion of  former  passions.  He  already  had  two 
children  by  the  queen  of  Egypt,  who  were  named 
Alexander  and  Cleopatra,  but  whom  the  mother 
likewise  distinguished,  by  the  pompous  appella- 
tions of  the  Sun  and  the  Moon.  Being  prevented 
by  the  urgency  of  the  service,  at  this  season,  from 
making  a  visit  at  Alexandria,  he  sent  an  officer 
of  rank,  Fonteius  Capito,  thither,  to  conduct 
Cleopatra  from  her  own  kingdom  into  Syria;  and 
having  received  her  in  that  province,  in  his  way 
to  the  Euphrates,  among  other  marks  of  his  libe- 
rality, and  of  his  passion,  instead  of  trinkets  and 
tokens  of  love,  he  made  her  a  present  of  Phoeni- 
cia, Coelesyria,  Cyprus,  and  some  part  of  Cilicia 
to  be  annexed  to  her  kingdom.  It  was  concerted 
between  them,  that  at  the  end  of  the  campaign 
he  should  pass  the  winter  in  Egypt ;  and  they 
parted  with  mutual  expressions  of  impatience  for 
the  return  of  this  happy  season. 

The  army,  now  mustered  by  Antony,  con- 
sisted of  sixty  thousand  Roman  infantry,  ten 
thousand  Spanish  and  Gaulish  cavalry,  thirty 
thousand  irregulars,  being  an  assemblage  of  horse 
and  foot,  and  of  different  nations.  While  he  ad- 
vanced with  this  force  towards  the  Euphrates,  he 
made  his  demand,  that  the  Parthians  should  re- 
store the  captives  and  military  ensigns  taken  with 
Crassus.4  This  was  become  a  point  of  national 
honour  among  the  Romans,  and,  joined  to  the 
late  provocation,  was  made  the  ground  of  the 
present  quarrel. 

The  Roman  general  had  undertaken  this  in- 
vasion of  the  Parthians,  in  concert  with  the  king 
of  Armenia ;  and  finding,  at  his  arrival  on  the 
Euphrates,  all  the  passages  of  the  river,  contrary 
to  his  expectation,  strongly  guarded,  he  continued 
his  march,  having  the  Euphrates  on  his  right. 
When  he  arrived  in  the  Lesser  Armenia,  the 
reason  was  too  far  advanced  to  effect  the  service 
he  had  planned  against  the  Parthians ;  but  hav- 
ing intelligence  that  the  Medes,  or  people  of  the 
Greater  Armenia,  had  joined  the  enemy  against 
him  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  war,  he  formed 
a  design  on  Praaspa  or  Phraata,5  the  capital  of 
their  country  ;  in  expectation  of  taking  this  place 
by  surprise,  he  passed  the  Euphrates,  leaving  his 
heavy  baggage  and  engines,  with  a  guard  of  two 
legions,  under  the  command  of  Statianus.  With 
the  remainder  of  the  army  he  penetrated  into  the 
kingdom  of  the  Greater  Armenia,  and  presented 
himself  at  the  gates  of  the  capital. 

This  was  a  place  of  great  strength,  and  every 
necessary  precaution  had  been  taken  for  its  safety. 
Antony  found  that  it  could  not  be  taken  by 
assault,  and  the  Parthians,  although  they  hasten- 
ed to  its  relief  knowing  that  the  Roman  army 


4  Pint,  in  Antonio. 

5  Ibid.    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.  c.  2o,  '27,  28. 


had  come  altogether  unprepared  for  a  siege,  suf- 
fered them  at  first  to  remain  before  it  undisturbed. 
They  directed  their  whole  force  against  Sta 
tianus,  whom,  with  the  two  legions  he  com 
manded,  they  surprised  and  cut  oflj  and  by  this 
means  made  themselves  masters  of  all  the  equi- 
page and  baggage  of  the  Roman  army. 

Antony,  upon  the  first  alarm  of  the  enemy's 
intention  to  attack  Statianus,  having  left  the 
greater  part  of  his  forces  before  Praaspa,  marched 
with  a  strong  detachment  to  support  him ;  but 
coming  too  late,  found  the  field  covered  with  the 
slain  of  the  Roman  legions,  without  either  friend 
or  enemy  in  sight.  He  understood  that  Arta- 
vasdes,  the  king  of  Armenia,  to  whose  alliance 
he  trusted  in  the  present  war,  had  remained  an 
unconcerned  spectator  of  this  disaster,  and  he 
made  no  doubt  that  he  was  betrayed  by  this 
prince  ;  but  thought  proper  for  the  present  to  dis- 
guise his  resentment.  The  loss  he  had  sustained 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  think  of  extricating 
his  army  from  its  present  situation.  Being  alarmed 
for  the  safety  of  that  part  of  it  which  he  had  left 
before  Praaspa,  he,  with  hasty  marches,  returned 
to  its  relief ;  but,  at  his  arrival,  finding  no  enemy 
near,  and  still  flattering  himself  that  the  town 
might  be  obliged  to  surrender,  and  that  it  might, 
by  its  spoils,  make  up  for  the  loss  of  his  baggage, 
he  lay  before  it,  until  he  had  exhausted  all  the 
provisions  and  forage  that  was  to  be  found  in  the 
neighbouring  country  ;  and,  in  proportion  as  the 
other  difficulties  of  his  situation  increased,  began 
to  feel  himself  harassed  with  the  sallies  of  a  pow- 
erful garrison,  and  the  frequent  attacks  of  nume- 
rous parties  of  Parthians  in  the  field,  who  began 
to  act  against  him  from  every  quarter,  and  made 
it  equally  difficult  for  him  to  decamp,  or  to  sub- 
sist on  his  present  ground. 

Under  these  difficulties,  the  Roman  general 
was  frequently  obliged  to  divide  his  forces  ;  and 
leaving  part  to  awe  the  town,  marched  with  the 
remainder  to  cover  his  foragers,  and  the  providers 
of  his  camp.  As  the  enemy  pressed  upon  him, 
in  order  to  diminish  the  range  from  which  he  re- 
ceived his  provisions,  he  saw  the  necessity  of 
hazarding  a  battle;  and  for  this  purpose,  marched 
from  his  camp  with  ten  legions,  three  praetorian 
cohorts,  and  all  his  cavalry.  The  Parthians  af 
feeted  to  abide  his  attack,  but  gave  way  at  the 
first  onset,  and  fled  with  every  appearance  of 
rout  and  confusion  ;  they  were  pursued  by  the 
Roman  infantry  for  fifty  stadia,  or  about  six 
miles,  and  by  the  cavalry  over  a  hundred  and 
fifty  stadia,  or  about  eighteen  miles. 

In  this  action,  Antony  flattered  himself  that 
he  had  put  an  end  to  his  troubles  from  the  Par- 
thians ;  but,  on  numbering  the  prisoners  and  the 
slain,  lie  found  that  only  eighty  of  the  enemy 
were  killed,  and  thirty  taken;  and,  on  returning 
to  his  camp  before  the  town  of  Praaspa,  he  found, 
that  without  being  at  all  disconcerted  by  what 
had  happened  to  them,  they  were  returned  to 
their  former  stations,  and  took  measures,  as  be- 
fore, to  harass  his  camp,  and  to  circumscribe  his 
foraging  parties.  From  this  specimen  of  a  vic- 
tory over  the  Parthians,  he  learned  to  despair  of 
being  able  to  gain  any  advantage  over  an  enemy, 
whose  defeats  were  more  pernicious  to  their  an- 
tagonists khan  they  were  to  themselves.6  To 


6  Among  the  Romans  who  were  seized  with  tJw 
passion  of  making  offensive  war  mi  the  J'arthiana, 


390 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


{Book  V. 


complete  his  mortifications,  he  found  that  the 

garrison  of  Praaspa  had  made  a  powerful  sally  in 
is  absence,  driven  his  guards  from  their  ap- 
proaches, and  destroyed  all  the  works  he  had 
constructed  against  the  town.1  Judging  it  vain 
to  renew  his  attack,  or  to  remain  any  longer  in 
his  present  situation,  he  sent  a  deputation  to 
Phraates,  probably  rather  to  conceal  his  intended 
purpose  of  flight,  than  with  hopes  to  obtain  any 
reasonable  terms  of  peace. 

The  king  of  Parthia  received  the  message  of 
Antony,  seated  on  a  golden  throne,  and  holding 
in  his  hand  a  bended  bow,  the  emblem  of  war. 
In  order  to  sound  the  intentions  of  the  Roman 
general,  he  proposed,  as  a  preliminary  to  peace, 
that  he  should  raise  the  siege  of  Praaspa.  An- 
tony was  prepared  to  decamp,  as  soon  as  his  mes- 
sengers should  be  out  of  the  hands  of  the  enemy, 
hut  affected  reluctance  in  agreeing  to  this  condi- 
tion, hoping  that  by  these  means  he  might  con- 
ceal his  intention,  gain  a  few  marches  a-head, 
and  reach  the  frontier  of  the  Lesser  Armenia, 
before  the  Parthians  could  take  any  advantage  of 
his  flight ;  but  the  king  being  equally  refined  in 
his  artifices,  perceived,  in  the  affected  reluctance 
of  Antony  to  agree  to  what  he  knew  to  be  neces- 
sary, an  intention  to  fly,  without  waiting  the  re- 
sult of  a  treaty,  and,  in  this  apprehension,  he  had 
his  cavalry  already  prepared  to  pursue  him,  dis- 
uted  every  pass,  hung  upon  his  rear  and  upon 
is  flanks,  occupied  the  springs  of  water,  and 
laid  waste  the  country  before  him. 

Many  of  the  Roman  army,  overcome  by  fa- 
mine and  fatigue,  expired  on  the  march ;  others 
had  laid  down  their  arms,  and  submitted  to  the 
enemy.  But  those  who  had  surrendered  them- 
selves, being  cruelly  treated,  served,  by  their 
example,  to  check  the  inclination  of  others  to  sue 
for  quarter,  and  taught  the  soldier  to  look  for 
safety  only  in  perseverance,  and  in  the  use  of  his 
•arms.  Antony  himself,  in  every  encounter,  was 
prepared  for  the  last  extremity,  and  had  a  person 
retained,  with  orders,  in  case  of  his  being  likely 
to  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands,  to  end  his  life ;  or, 
in  case  he  were  killed  in  battle,  to  disfigure  his 
body,  that  it  might  not  be  known.    But  he  pass- 


Julius  Caesar  is  mentioned.  And  it  is  a  problem, 
which  never  can  be  solved,  in  what  manner  this  able 
statesman  and  warrior  would  have  acquitted  himself  in 
so  arduous  a  task.  The  Parthians  had  their  haunts 
beyond  the  Tigris;  and  besides  leaving  no  means  on 
the  frontier,  by  which  an  enemy  could  subsist  in  ap- 
proaching them,  probably  presented  no  hold  by  which 
They  could  be  seized,  even  in  their  own  country.  As 
they  had  no  ground  which  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
for  them  to  defend,  so  there  was  no  ground  on  which 
an  invader  could  be  secure  from  their  attacks.  They 
gave  way  while  an  enemy  advanced,  and  reckoned  it 
an  advantage  to  draw  him  far  from  his  resources  and 
supports.  They  waited  with  patience,  till  time,  hard- 
ships, disease,  or  want  of  provisions  had  rendered  him 
an  easy  prey,  or  ripe  for  destruction;  and  they  then 
pressed  upon  him  with  a  ferocity  and  ardour,  which 
abundantly  corrected  any  belief  of  their  cowardice 
that  might  have  been  taken  from  their  manner  of  re- 
ceiving his  first  attacks. 

If  Caesar  had  not  already  conceived  some  new  or  un- 
common means  of  reducing  them,  it  is  probable,  that 
his  first  observations  would  have  satisfied  him,  that 
he  could  not  conquer  such  a  people,  although  he  might, 
in  time,  have  settled  a  new  nation  on  the  Tigris  to 
supplant  them  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have 
availed  himself  of  some  of  their  ordinary  flights,  to  lay 
claim  to  a  victory,  and  thus,  with  more  ability  than 
others  of  his  countrymen,  finish  the  war  with  a  tri- 
umph at  Rome. 

1  Plat.  In  Antonio. 


ed  through  all  these  difficulties,  as  usual,  with 
uncommon  constancy  and  valour,  making,  in 
twenty-one  days,  a  march  of  three  hundred  miles,3 
under  a  continual  attack  of  the  enemy,  in  which 
it  is  reckoned  that  his  army  was  eighteen  times 
engaged  in  battle.3  At  the  end  of  this  march,  in 
reviewing  the  legions,  with  which  he  began  to 
retreat,  it  was  found,  he  had  lost  about  a  fourth 
of  their  number  ;4  or,  as  Plutarch  states  his  loss, 
twenty  thousand  foot,  and  four  thousand  horse. 

It  appears  that  Antony,  upon  his  arrival  in 
the  Lesser  Armenia,  left  a  considerable  body  be- 
hind him  in  that  country,  to  check  the  farther 
pursuit  of  the  enemy,5  and  with  the  remainder  of 
the  army,  proceeding  from  thence  with  great  pre- 
cipitation, and  under  great  hardships  from  the 
season,  by  which  he  added  eight  thousand  men 
more  to  his  former  losses,  he  arrived  at  Comi,  a 
small  sea-port,  between  Berytus  and  Sidon,  on 

the  coast  of  Syria.  At  this  place, 
U.  C.  718.    he  was  received  by  Cleopatra  on 

board  her  fleet,  and  with  her  effected 

fextZnpom.S'his  PassaSe  hy  sea  t0  Alexandria, 
peius.  where  he  endeavoured  to  conceal 

his  losses,  and  to  efface  the  memory 
of  his  sufferings  in  the  midst  of  dissipation  and 
pleasure. 

During  the  dependence  of  these  events,  the 
state  of  the  war  in  Asia  had  been  variously  re- 
ported in  the  western  parts  of  the  empire.  It 
was  believed  for  seme  time,  that  the  Roman 
army  in  Armenia,  with  its  leader,  had  perished. 
On  this  supposition,  Sextus  Pompeius,  who  still 
remained  in  the  island  of  Lesbos,  began  to  re- 
sume his  pretensions.  He  was  not  without  hopes, 
that  on  the  demise  of  Antony,  the  armies  of  Asia 
might  declare  for  himself,  and  during  some  time, 
affected  to  receive  every  person  who  repaired  to 
him,  as  the  head  of  a  party  that  was  still  of  some 
consideration  in  the  empire.  He  even  proceeded 
to  solicit  the  alliance  of  all  the  princes  of  the  east, 
from  Thrace  to  Pontus,  and  the  banks  of  the 
Euphrates.6  But  upon  the  report  of  Antony's 
return  into  Syria,  he  laid  aside  his  ambitious 
thoughts,  and  sent  a  message  to  sue  for  protec- 
tion. Among  other  particulars,  he  set  forth,  that 
he  had  committed  himself  to  the  justice  and  cle- 
mency of  Antony,  not  from  despair,  or  from  any 
sudden  impulse  whatever,  but  from  previous 
thought  and  mature  deliberation.  He  might 
have  had  a  safe  retreat,  and  a  powerful  support, 
he  said,  in  Spain,  where  the  friends  of  his  father 
were  yet  numerous,  and  full  of  zeal ;  but  from  a 
thorough  conviction,  that  the  interests  of  Antony 
were  the  same  with  his  own,  he  had  preferred 
his  alliance  to  any  other.  "Octavius,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  w  ill  soon  have  the  same  quarrel  with 
you,  that  he  has  lately  had  with  me,  and  after- 
wards with  Lepidus.  He  considers  the  empire 
as  his  property,  and  cannot  endure  a  partner. 
His  open  force  is  not  so  dangerous,  as  the  insi- 
dious professions,  and  the  artful  disguises  with 
which  he  hides  his  designs.  I  make  you  an  offer 
of  a  friendship  that  is  sincere,  and  of  a  faith  that 
is  yet  unbroken.  I  made  you  the  same  offer  while 
I  was  master  of  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  and  in  the 
height  of  my  fortune.    By  accepting  of  it,  you 


2  Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  cxxix,  &c. 

3  Plut.  in  Antonio.  4  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  82. 
5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.  c.  30. 

(i  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


3yt 


will  save  the  remains  of  a  family,  yet  respected 
by  the  Roman  people,  and,  by  joining  with  me, 
you  will  gain  the  accession  of  a  party,  whom 
even  adversity  has  not  made  to  abandon  their 
leader." 

While  Sextus  Pompeius  addressed  himself  to 
Antony  in  these  terms,  he  endeavoured  to  pre- 
serve the  appearance  of  an  armed  force,  and  ho- 
vered about  with  some  ships  on  the  coast  of  Ionia. 
Being  pursued  by  Titius,  who  had  orders  from 
Antony  to  observe  his  motions,  he  sailed  up  the 
Propontis,  and  put  into  the  harbour  of  Nicome- 
dia.  Here  he  again  offered  to  negotiate  ;7  but 
being  told  that  he  must  surrender  at  discretion, 
he  set  fire  to  his  ships,  and  attempted  to  escape 
by  land.  Having  got  into  Phrygia,  he  was  taken 
in  his  flight,  and  soon  after,  by  order  of  Antony, 
was  put  to  death. 

This  event  being  known  at  Rome,  Octavius 
ordered  public  rejoicings.  Among  these  was  a 
solemn  procession,  led  by  two  carriages  or  chariots 
of  state;  in  one  of  them  Octavius  himself  appear- 
ed ;  by  the  other,  he  marked  the  place  that  was 
due  to  Antony.  Still  farther,  to  soothe  the 
jealousy  of  his  colleague  in  the  empire,  he  gave 
orders  that  a  statue  should  be  erected  to  him  in 
the  temple  of  Concord,  and  that  he  should  have  a 
share  in  the  honours  which  had  been  recently 
decreed  to  himself.  This  indecent  triumph  over 
the  last  of  a  family,  which  had  been  so  long  in 
high  estimation  at  Rome,  was  far  from  being  ac- 
ceptable to  the  people.  The  misfortunes  of  the 
young  man  himself,  who  from  his  earliest  years 
had  been  an  exile,  and  stript  of  his  inheritance, 
the  memory  of  his  father  and  of  the  republic, 
filled  the  minds  of  men  with  secret  indignation, 
and  with  a  tender  melancholy  which  they  could 
not  disguise ;  and  though  Octavius  himself  es- 
caped on  this  occasion  without  any  public  insult, 
yet  Titius  some  time  afterwards  exhibiting  public 
shows  in  the  theatre  of  the  great  Pompey,  was, 
on  account  of  the  part  which  ne  had  taken  in  the 
murder  of  the  son,  driven  from  thence  by  the 
execrations  of  the  people.8 

The  forces  of  the  empire  were  now  parcelled 
in  two  separate  lots,  under  the  direction  of  mas- 
ters, who  were  soon  to  entertain  the  views  and 
the  jealousies  of  separate  monarchs.  Octavius 
was  become  the  sovereign  of  Rome,  and  occupied 
chiefly  in  removing  obstructions  to  his  govern- 
ment, and  in  consolidating  the  arrangements  he 
had  made  in  the  state.  He  had  taken  measures 
to  repress  many  disorders,  the  dregs  of  the  civil 
wars,  which  still  afflicted  the  city  and  the  con- 
tiguous provinces.  He  had  brought  his  armies 
under  tolerable  discipline,  and  even  in  a  great 
measure  reconciled  the  people  to  the  loss  of  their 
political  consequence,  and  of  their  liberties.  He 
took  care  to  destroy,  with  much  ostentation,  all 
papers  and  records  from  which  those,  who  had 
acted  against  himself,  might  fear  being  drawn 
into  trouble.  He  retained  the  usual  names,  and 
the  forms  of  office  ;  and  wherever  he  himself  was 
to  exercise  any  uncommon  power,  he  talked  of 
it  as  a  mere  temporary  expedient  to  obviate  the 
disorders  of  the  times,  and  spoke  of  his  inten- 
tion, in  concert  with  Antony,  to  discontinue 
every  irregular  mode  of  administration,  as  soon 
as  the  war  with  the  Parthians  should  be  brought 


7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlviii.  c.  18. 

8  Veil.  Pater,  lib  ii.  c.  79. 


to  a  period.  He  even  sent  Bibulus  into  the  east, 
with  open  and  public  instructions  to  concert  with 
his  colleague,  the  manner  and  time  of  their  resig- 
nation.9 

But  Antony,  acting  as  sovereign  of  the  eastern 
empire,  appeared  on  his  part  to  be  altogether  in- 
tent on  the  entertainments  of  the  court  at  Alex- 
andria, on  the  renewal  of  the  war  which  he 
affected  to  meditate  against  the  Parthians,  or  on 
his  project  against  Artavasdes,  the  king  of  the 
Lesser  Armenia,  who  he  thought  had  betrayed 
him  in  his  late  expedition.  He  was  encouraged 
in  his  designs  on  that  quarter,  by  the  offers  of  a 
league,  which  were  made  to  him  from  the  king 
of  Medea,  who  thinking  his  services,  during  the 
late  invasion,  ill  requited  by  the  Parthians,  was 
now  disposed  to  take  arms  against  them. 

Antony  having  accepted  of  this  alliance,  formed 
the  project  of  a  new  invasion  of  Armenia,  chiefly 
intent  on  his  design  to  get  the  person  of  Arta- 
vasdes into  his  power ;  but  he  was,  for  one  sea- 
son, diverted  from  the  execution  of  his  purpose, 
by  an  incident,  which  brought  into  the  scale  of 
public  councils  the  weight  of  passions  and  of  mo- 
tives at  all  times  powerful ;  and  at  a  time  when 
the  world  was  to  be  governed  by  the  humours 
of  a  few  persons,  scarcely  to  be  balanced  by  any 
other  consideration  whatever. 

Octavia  was  become  impatient  of  the  neglect 
with  which  she  was  treated  by  her  husband,  and 
jealous  of  the  preference  which  he  gave  to  Cleo- 
patra. Hearing  that  he  was  to  leave  Alexandria 
on  a  new  Parthian  expedition,  she  determined  to 
place  herself  in  his  way  as  he  passed  through 
Syria.  To  enhance  the  pleasure  of  their  meet- 
ing, she  was  furnished  with  a  variety  of  presents, 
and,  among  the  rest,  attended  by  a  body  of  two 
thousand  chosen  men,  clothed  and  accoutred  in 
the  manner  of  the  praetorian  bands,  which  had 
been  formed  by  her  brother  for  the  guard  of  his 
own  person,  and  which  he  now  sent  as  a  token 
of  friendship  to  Antony.  She  was  arrived  in 
Greece  with  this  attendance  when  her  intention 
became  known  in  Egypt.10 

On  hearing  of  this  journey  of  Octavia,  Cleo- 
patra being  greatly  alarmed,  had  the  address  to 
appear  sunk  under  a  weight  of  affliction,  which 
she  affected  to  bear  with  fortitude;  but  was 
sometimes  surprised  in  tears,  which  she  endea- 
voured to  dry  up,  and  either  increased  the  an- 
guish of  real  passion,  or  gave  more  appearance 
of  sincerity  to  her  dissimulation,  by  her  affecta- 
tion of  a  desire  to  conceal  what  she  felt.  Her 
health,  in  appearance,  declined,  and  it  was  whis- 
pered, that  her  life  was  in  danger.  She  herself 
continued  obstinate  in  her  silence;  but  her  con- 
fidents insinuated  that  the  fear  of  losing  A  ntony 
was  the  cause  of  her  distress,  and  that  the  day  he 
left  Alexandria,  would  probal)Iy  be  the  last  of  her 
life.  Thus,  with  a  mixture  probably  of  artifice 
and  real  passion,  not  uncommon  in  cases  of  this 
sort,  the  Glucen  of  Egypt  had  the  address  to  re- 
tain Antony  at  Alexandria,  and  prevailed  on 
him  to  send  a  peremptory  order  to  Octavia,  not 
to  advance  in  her  intended  progress  to  the  east. 
He  excused  himself  at  the  same  time,  from  even 
excepting  the  presents  which  she  brought  from 
her  brother.11 


9  Appian.  de  Bell.  Civ.  lib.  v. 

10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxiii.   Plut.  in  Antonio. 

11  Ibid. 


399 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


Upon  the  rt  turn  of  Octavia  to  Rome,  under 
all  the  circumstances  of  this  affront,  her  brother 
proposed  that  she  should  renounce  her  connec- 
tion with  Antony,  and  remove  from  his  house ; 
but  if  in  this  he  wished  her  to  act  from  resent- 
ment, her  own  conduct,  though  proceeding  from 
a  different  motive,  was  better  calculated  to  unite 
the  people  in  avenging  her  quarrel.  Being  will- 
ing to  await  the  return  of  her  husband's  inclina- 
tions, she  remained  at  the  head  of  his  family, 
continued  to  manage  his  affairs,  and  acted  in 
every  particular  as  the  mother  of  his  children, 
even  of  those  by  a  former  marriage,  and  under- 
took the  protection  of  such  adherents  and  friends 
as  came  to  solicit  their  affairs  in  the  capitol.1 

The  unworthy  treatment  which  Octavia  re- 
ceived in  return  for  so  much  duty,  as  it  interested 
the  public  in  her  favour,  so  it  gave  an  immediate 
prospect  of  a  breach  between  the  leaders,  who 
now  divided  the  empire.  Antony  and  Octavius 
had  been  rivals  for  the  succession  of  Caesar's 
power,  had  frequent  quarrels,  which  were  sus- 
pended from  time  to  time  by  apparent  and  am- 
biguous reconciliations.  Even  the  marriage  of 
Octavia  was  no  more  than  a  mere  expedient  to 
put  off  to  a  more  convenient  time  a  final  breach, 
which,  between  parties  of  such  opposite  preten- 
sions, must  in  the  end  be  deemed  unavoidable. 

It  is  probable  that  Octavius,  in  all  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  his  connection  with  Antony,  or  with  any 
other  party,  had  never  lost  sight  of  the  expecta- 
tions he  had  formed  from  his  earliest  youth,  not 
only  as  the  heir  of  Julius  Caesar,  but  as  the  suc- 
cessor likewise  to  his  power  in  the  common- 
wealth. He  united  or  broke  with  different  par- 
ties, according  to  the  state  of  his  affairs,  and 
procured  these  breaches  or  coalitions  in  the  pre- 
cise conjunctures  that  were  most  favourable  to 
himself.  He  at  one  time  joined  with  the  senate, 
and  the  assassins  of  his  uncle,  to  pull  down  the 
power  of  Antony;  he  afterwards  joined  with 
Antony  to  reduce  the  senate,  and  to  destroy  the 
republic.  He  courted  Antony  occasionally,  to 
prevent  his  forming  any  dangerous  combination 
with  Sextus  Pompeius  or  with  Lepidus,  and,  in 
general,  kept  terms  with  him,  while  either  of 
these  leaders  continued  to  be  formidable,  or  could 
cast  the  balance  by  uniting  against  him. 

This  refined  politician,  upon  becoming  sole 
master  of  Italy,  and  of  the  western  provinces, 
was  now  better  enabled,  than  formerly,  to  brave 
the  power  of  his  remaining  competitor  in  the  em- 
pire; and  he  prepared  for  the  contest,  which 
could  not  be  long  avoided.  He  had  greatly  re- 
duced his  military  establishment,  by  purging  his 
armies  of  improper  subjects,  not  only  the  armies 
which  had  come  over  to  him  from  his  antago- 
nists, Sextus  Pompeius  and  Lepidus,  but  those 
likewise  which  had  been  levied  in  common  be- 
tween Antony  and  himself.  But  even,  after  he 
had  thus  dismissed  such  as  were  of  doubtful 
faith,  and  reduced  his  establishment  to  that  mea- 
sure which  he  wished  to  maintain,  he  had  still 
remaining  a  greater  number  than  his  present  oc- 
casions seemed  to  require,  and  he  sought  for  pre- 
tences, under  which,  in  the  present  state  of  tran- 
quillity to  which  his  division  of  the  empire  was 
reduced,  he  might  avoid  giving  any  alarm  to  his 
rival,  and  justify  his  maintaining  so  great  a  mili- 
tary force.    For  this  purpose  probably  it  was, 


that  he  formed  the  project  of  a  war  first  in 
Africa,  in  the  execution  of  which,  he  actually 
passed  into  Sicily;  and  being  there  some  time 
detained  by  contrary  winds,  he  changed  his  ob- 
ject, and  sent  the  army  destined  for  Africa  to  the 
opposite  side  of  Italy,  beyond  the  Hadriatic,  to 
make  war  on  the  Japydes,  Savi,  Pannonii,  and 
other  nations  on  the  side  of  Illyricum,  who  were 
more  likely  than  the  Africans  to  furnish  his 
troops  with  the  experience  of  real  service,  as  well 
as  himself  with  a  plausible  pretence  for  keeping 
them  on  foot.  They  accordingly  penetrated,  t 
his  orders,  beyond  the  frontier  of  the  empire  a 
that  side,  and  were  employed  to  gather  laurels 
at  the  expense  of  the  barbarians,  by  whom,  he 
alleged,  that  his  provinces  had  been  often  infested. 

In  the  mean  while,  according  to 
U.  C.  710.  the  arrangements  that  were  made 
L  Scribonius  re^atm§  to  succession  of  consuls, 
Libo,M™nto-  Antony  was  elected  into  this  office, 
niusabsens.  and  though  not  present  in  person  on 
L.  Sempro-  the  first  of  January,  had  his  name 
nius  Mrati-  entered  on  the  record.  In  accepting 
£x S Kal.Julii.  °f  th*s  nomination,  he  meant  no 
Paul.  JEmi-  more  than  to  ascertain  his  right  to 
Hus,  C.  Me-  dispose  of  the  consulate,  and  had 
ft'T '  giyen  a  commission,  by  which,  on 

M  Heren™  tne  very  ^ay  °^  ms  admission,  he 
nius.  vacated  the  office  in  favour  of  an- 

other, and  brought  forward  a  number 
of  his  friends  in  the  course  of  the  year.  He 
wished  by  these  means  to  make  known,  that 
although  Octavius  was  pleased  to  occupy  the 
seats  of  government ;  yet  he  was  not  to  engross 
for  his  friends  and  retainers  the  ordinary  honours 
that  were  enjoyed  in  the  state. 

Octavius,  probably,  treading  as  nearly  as  he 
could  in  the  steps  of  his  late  uncle,  still  sought 
for  occasions  to  keep  his  armies  in  service ;  and 
although  he  was  not  inclined  to  make  war  abroad, 
or  make  new  acquisitions  of  territory  to  the  em- 
pire, yet  he  affected  to  have  many  designs  which 
required  the  possession  of  a  military  force. 
Among  these,  he  projected  an  enterprise  for  the 
reduction  of  Britain,  made  the  necessary  prepa- 
rations, and  proceeded  himself  to  the  northern 
parts  of  Gaul.  Here,  however,  his  attention  was 
again  diverted  to  a  different  quarter.  Having 
an  army  employed  on  the  side  of  Illyricum,  in 
separate  divisions,  under  Agrippa  and  other  offi- 
cers, Messala  and  Geminus,  whose  names  only 
are  known :  it  was  reported,  that  the  division, 
under  Geminus,  acting  in  Pannonia,  had  received 
a  check,  and  been  obliged  to  retire  from  some 
parts  of  the  country  they  had  formerly  occupied. 
Upon  this  alarm,  Octavius  himself  thought  pro- 
per to  lay  aside  his  design  upon  Britain  ;  but 
finding,  upon  his  arrival  in  Illyricum,  that  the 
supposed  loss  was  already  repaired,  the  enemy  in 
different  encounters  defeated,  and  the  former 
ground  of  his  army  recovered,  he  himself  joined 
Agrippa,  who  was  employed  against  the  Dal- 
matians, and  continued  for  some  months  to 
take  a  part  in  the  campaign  with  this  favourite 
officer.2 

Antony,  at  the  same  time,  as  if  equally  dis- 
posed to  have  an  army  inured  to  service,  sought 
likewise  for  occasions  of  war ;  and  having  quieted 
the  jealousies  of  Cleopatra,  by  a  seemingly  irre- 
concilable breach  with  her  rival,  was  permitted 


1  Plut.  in  Antonio 


2  Dio.  Caes.  lib.  xi3.  c.  39. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


593 


to  form  projects  of  enterprise  beyond  the  limits 
of  Egypt.  He  renewed  his  designs  against  the 
kinss  of  Armenia  and  Parthia.  In  the  spring, 
he  advanced  to  Nicopolis,  a  place  so  named,  from 
the  victory  of  Pompey  over  Mithridates ;  and 
supposing  that  the  treachery  of  Artavasdes,  in 
betraying  Statianus,  would  justify  any  measures 
he  could°take  against  him,  he  sent  repeated  mes- 
sages, under  pretence  of  friendship,  desiring  a 
conference  ;  but  with  a  real  intention  of  seizing 
his  person.  The  more  effectually  to  remove  all 
suspicions  of  any  such  design,  he  proposed  a 
marriage  between  Alexander,  one  of  his  own 
sons  by  Cleopatra,  and  the  daughter  of  that 
prince;  but  not  succeeding  in  this  artifice,  he 
advanced  into  the  heart  of  Armenia,  and  threat- 
ened to  lay  the  kingdom  waste  with  fire  and 
sword.  The  king  being  unprepared  for  defence, 
took  his  resolution  at  last  to  try  the  sincerity  of 
Antony's  professions,  and  was  actually  taken. 

The  first  advantage  which  the  Roman  general 
proposed  to  make  of  this  capture,  was  exacting  a 
ransom ;  and  for  this  purpose,  the  king,  being 
carried  round  the  fortresses  of  his  kingdom  in 
which  the  royal  treasure  had  been  deposited,  was 
made  to  demand  great  sums  of  money  under  this 
pretence ;  but  the  officers,  to  whom  this  demand 
was  addressed,  knowing  that  their  sovereign  was 
a  prisoner,  shut  their  gates  against  him,  and  re- 
fused to  comply.  The  army  of  Armenia  at  the 
same  time  assembled,  and  considering  the  throne 
as  vacant,  placed  upon  it  Artaxcs,  the  eldest  son 
of  their  captive  king.  Being  led  by  this  young 
prince  into  immediate  action  with  the  Romans, 
they  were  defeated,  and  he  himself  was  obliged 
to  take  refuge  with  the  Parthia ns. 

Antony  contented  with  this  victory,  which 
gave  him  possession  of  the  country,  put  his  army 
into  winter  quarters  in  the  Lesser  Armenia,  and 
entered  into  a  defensive  treaty  with  the  king  of 
Media,  whose  daughter,  upon  that  occasion,  was 
betrothed  to  the  same  son  of  Cleopatra,  whose 
proposed  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  Arta- 
vasdes had  been  employed  as  a  snare  to  betray 
that  prince. 

At  the  conclusion  of  these  transactions,  An- 
tony set  out  on  his  return  to  Egypt,  and  meditating 
a  triumphal  procession  into  the  city  of  Alexan- 
dria, destined  his  captive  for  a  part  in  the  scene, 
gave  orders  that  he  should  be  conducted  thither 
in  chains;  and  accordingly,  upon  the  arrival  of 
the  troops  and  the  equipage  which  were  to  form 
his  retinue,  he  made  his  entry  with  all  the  parade 
of  a  Roman  triumph,  repeated  all  the  forms 
which  were  usual  on  such  occasions  at  Rome, 
made  a  speech  to  the  people,  and  ordered  a  pub- 
lic feast.  In  these  several  particulars,  seeming  to 
place  the  inhabitants  of  Alexandria  upon  afoot 
of  equality  with  the  Roman  people,  and  prosti- 
tuting a  solemn  institution  of  the  Romans  to  the 
vanity  of  a  barbarous  court,  he  gave  much  scan- 
dal and  oll'cnce  at  Rome.  Every  circumstance 
being  exaggerated  by  his  enemies,  his  own  extra- 
vagance gained  a  ready  belief  to  every  report  that 
was  circulated  against  him. 

It  has  been  observed,  on  different  occasions, 
that  Antony,  although  he  stemmed  the  current 
of  adversity  with  vigour  and  ability,  was  generally 
carried  by  prosperity  into  every  excess  of  sensual- 
ity, extravagance,  and  dissipation.  In  this  time 
of  festivity,  he  assumed,  in  the  midst  of  his  de- 
bauch, not  only  the  eastern  dress,  and  all  the 
3D 


badges  of  royalty,  but  likewise3  the  attire  and  de- 
signation of  a  god ;  wore  the  buskins,  the  golden 
crown,  and  the  chaplet  of  ivy  belonging  to  Bac- 
chus, held  the  Thyrsus  in  his  hand,  and  was 
drawn  through  the  streets  of  Alexandria  on  a  car 
like  those  which  were  employed  in  the  processions 
of  the  gods.''  It  was  said,  that  Cleopatra  at  the 
same  time  assumed  the  dress  of  Isis ;  that  being 
seated  together  on  thrones  of  gold,  elevated  on  a 
lofty  platform,  Antony  presented  Cleopatra  to 
the  people,  as  queen  not  only  of  Egypt  and  Cy- 
prus, but  likewise  of  Africa  and  Calesyria,  and 
that  he  associated  with  her  in  these  titles  Cassa- 
rion,  her  supposed  son  by  Julius  Carsar.  To  his 
own  son  Alexander,  in  these  drunken  assigna- 
tions of  empire,  it  was  reported  that  he  allotted 
Armenia,  Media,  and  Parthia,  which,  though  not 
in  his  possession,  he  considered  as  a  certain  con- 
quest :  to  Ptolomy,  another  of  his  sons,  Phoenicia, 
Syria,  and  Cilicia,*  and  presented  each  of  them 
to  the  people  in  the  dress,  and  with  the  ensigns 
and  the  retinue  suited  to  the  several  destinations; 
Alexander,  with  the  Persian  tiara ;  and  Ptolomy, 
with  the  dress  and  diadem  worn  by  the  princes 
of  Macedonia. 

This  mock  distribution  of  the  eastern  king- 
doms was  executed  in  formal  deeds  or  writings, 
of  which  copies  were  ordered  to  Rome  to  be  de- 
posited in  the  records  of  the  temple  of  Vesta,  and 
in  the  keeping  of  the  virgins.  And  as  Octavius 
looked  forward  to  an  immediate  quarrel  with  An- 
tony, the  whole  circumstances  with  which  these 
acts  had  been  solemnized  at  Alexandria,  were  in- 
dustriously published  at  Rome  to  his  prejudice. 
The  writings,  however,  not  being  actually  brought 
to  the  city  before  the  subsequent  year,  in  which 
Domitius  and  Sosius  were  consuls,  part  of  the 
scandal  was  for  some  time  secreted  by  the  influ- 
ence of  these  magistrates,  who  were  inclined  to 
favour  Antony  against  Octavius  in  the  impend- 
ing contest  for  empire. 

While  Antony  indulged  him- 
U.  C.  720.  self  in  these  extravagancies  at 
Imper.  Qesar  Alexandria,  Octavius,  with  L. 
L^r'olcatius  Volcatius  Tullus,  assumed  the 
Tullus  **l'e  °f  consu's  at  Rome  ;  but  the 

first,  at  his  admission,  thought 
P.  Jiutronius  proper  to  follow  the  example  that 
p<EtJts:  „,  ..  was  lately  set  to  him  by  Antony  ; 
L.  Fluvfus1.1'  on  ™  of  January,  vacated 
the  office,  and  substituted  another 
Ex  Kal.  Jul.  in  his  place.  By  like  successive 
C.  Fontius.  substitutions,  he  communicated 
this  dignity  in  the  course  of  the  year  to  six  dif- 
ferent persons. 

M  Jicilius.  The  office  of  affile,  which  had 

jivMa  been  generally  declined  on  ac- 

Ex.  Kal.  Sept.  count  of  the  expenses  which  at- 
L.  Finucius.        trn(]od  the  discharge  of  it>  and 

Ex.  Kal.  Oct.  which  had  been  for  some  time 
L.  Lavonius.  discontinued,  was  now  revived  in 
the  person  of  Agrippa,  who, 
though  he  had  been  already  of  a  higher  rank, 
and  in  the  station  of  consul,  voluntarily  under- 
took the  duties  of  sedile  ;  and,  at  his  own  expense, 
applied  himself  to  the  more  serious  objects  of  the 
trust,  by  constructing  highways,  erecting  public 
works,  and  cleansing  the  common  sewers,  works 
of  great  antiquity,  that  seemed  to  exceed  the 


3  Florus,  lib.  iv.  c.  11.    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  1.  c.  5. 

4  Vel.  Pat.  lib.  ii.  c.  83.      5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.C.41. 


S94 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  Vv 


force  of  the  times  to  which  they  were  referred.1 
He  at  the  same  time  repaired  the  circus,  made 
new  regulations  for  conducting  the  entertainments 
of  that  place,  and  himself  exhibited  magnificent 
shows. 

Under  this  magistracy  of  Agrippa,  the  people 
were  gratified  with  presents,  as  well  as  with 
pastimes';  Articles  of  finery,  trinkets,  and  even 
sums  of  money  were  distributed'  by  a  species  of 
lottery.  Counters  or  billets,  entitling  the  bearer 
to  certain  prizes,  which  were  marked7  upon  each, 
were  thrown  out  by  handfuls  to  be  scrambled  for 
in  the  crowd.  Public  baths,  furnished  with  all 
the  usual  apparatus,  were  provided,  and  attended 
with  keepers  and  dressers  at  the  public  expense^ 
acts  of  munificence  and  popularity,  in  which  it 
was  thought  proper  to  cultivate  the  public  favour. 

Octavius  at  the  same  time,  on  so  near  a  pros- 
pect of  a  quarrel  with  Antony,  who  was  to  em- 
ploy half  the  forces  of  the  empire  against  him, 
had  the  good  fortune  to  disengage  himself  from 
foreign  wars.  Those  which  he  carried  on  in 
Dalmatia,  terminated  in  the  submission  of  that 

Eeople,  in  their  giving  hostages  for  their  good  be- 
aviour,  and  in  their  restoring  the  eolours  which 
had  been  taken  from  a  Roman  army  they  had  de- 
feated under  the  conduct  of  Vatinius.  These  he 
hung  up  in  a  portico,  which  bore  his  own  name ; 
but  a  triumph  being  decreed  to  him,  he  declined 
or  deferred  accepting  of  it ;  on  this,  as  on  many 
other  occasions,  discovering  a  mind,  though  fond 
of  dominion,  indifferent  to  pomp,  and  the  exterior 
appearances  of  power. 

Antony  passed  the  summer  at  the  head  of  his 
army  in  Syria,  without  having  made  any  attempt 
against  the  Parthians.  He  renewed  his  defen- 
sive alliance  with  the  king  of  Media  %  and  the 
parties  in  this  treaty,  being  to  name  the  powers 
against  whom  they  respectively  wished,  in  the 
event  of  a  war,  to  secure  an  alliance,  the  king  of 
Media  made  particular  mention  of  the  Parthians, 
and  Antony  named  Octavius.  Ac  the  end  of  this 
negotiation,  they  mutually  made  an  exchange  of 
some  troops.3 

Thus  Antony  made  no  secret  of  the  distrust 
which  he  conceived  of  his  colleague  in  the  em- 
pire, or  of  a  breach,  which,  from  their  mutual 
jealousies  and  provocations,  was  gradually  widen- 
ing. He  affected  to  treat  Csesarion,  the  reputed 
son  of  Julius  Csesar  by  Cleopatra,  as  the  legiti- 
mate heir  of  the  Julian  family.  He  likewise  re- 
torted on  Octavius,  the  artifice  which  had  been 
practised  against  himself,  by  professing  an  inten- 
tion to  resign  the  power  of  triumvir.    He  com- 

Elained  of  the  violence  which  had  been  done  to 
jepidus;  but  asked,  if  Lepidus  were  justly  de- 
posed, why  he  himself  was  not  admitted  to  his 
share  in  the  provinces'?  He  complained  of  his 
being  excluded  from  a  share  in  the  spoils  of  Sex- 
tus  Pompeiu?,  as  well  as  of  Lepidus;  and  of  his 
being  excluded  from  Italy,  which  was  the  com- 
mon seat  of  government  to  the  whole  empire, 
and  which  Octavius  had  not  any  right  to  appro- 
priate to  himself. 

To  these  complaints  Octavius  replied,  That 
Antony,  without  making  any  compensation  to 
his  colleagues  in  the  western  provinces,  had  seized 
on  the  kingdom  of  Egypt;  that  he  had  unwar- 
rantably put  Sextus  Pompeius  to  death ;  that  he 


had  dishonoured  the  Roman  name  by  his  breach 
of  faith  with  the  king  of  Armenia,  and  had  given 
no  account  at  Rome  of  the  spoils  of  that  kingdom ; 
that  he  had  presumed  to  dismember  the  Roman 
empire  in  behalf  of  Cleopatra,  and  of  her  children ; 
and  that  he  supported  her  in  an  attempt  to  in- 
trude into  the  family  of  Caesar  one  of  her  spurious 
progeny* 

These  mutual  complaints  were  publicly  made, 
and  supported  at  Rome.  Neither  of  the  parties 
professed  any  intention  of  going  to  war;-  butr 
under  various-  pretences,  collected  money,,  and 
augmented  their  forces.  They  held  a  continual 
correspondence  by  agents  and  messengers,,  merely 
to  have  an  opportunity  of  observing  each  other's' 
motions;  and  soon  involved  in  their  disputes  and 
jealousies,  not  only  their  own  immediate  retainers 
and  friends,  but  such  as  now  composed  the  senate 
and  assemblies  of  the  people,  who  could  not  re- 
main unconcerned  spectators  in  a  difference  be- 
tween persons  who  were  likely  again  to  involve 
the  empire  itself  in  a  civil  war. 

Cneius  Domitius  Ahenobar- 
U.  C.  721.  bus,  and  Caius  Sosius,  having  in 
Cn.  Domitius  consequence  of  preceding  engage- 
Jihenobarbus,      ments  succeeded  to  the  consulate. 

Cams  Sosius.  i    v   •  i_  j  .  a 

Ex.  Kal.  Jul.  anG-  being  attached  to  Antony, 
L.  Cornelius.  openly  espoused  his  cause..  So- 
Kx.  Kal.  Nov.  sius,  on  the  first  of  January,  in 
U.  Valerius.  entering  upon  his  office,  ventured 
to  arraign  the  conduct  of  Octa- 
vius, enumerated  the  injuries  which  he  had 
offered  to  Antony,  and  moved  the  senate  for  re- 
dress. 

Octavius,  having  previous  intimation  of  what 
was  to  be  moved  by  the  consul,  and  wishing  to 
know  the  full  extent  of  the  charge  before  he 
should  be  obliged  to  reply,  on  that  day,  absented 
himself  from  the  senate ;  but  took  care  to  have 
Nonius,  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people,  pre- 
pared to  watch  over  his  interest,  and  to  put  a 
negative  on  any  proceeding  that  might  be  at- 
tempted to  his  prejudice.  At  the  next  assembly 
of  the  senate,  he  appeared  with  a  numerous  body 
of  armed  men,  seated  himself  between  the  con- 
suls, and  from  that  place  made  his  answer  to  the 
accusations,  which  in  the  former  meeting  had 
been  stated  against  him,  and  retorted  much  blame 
on  his  enemies.  He  called  upon  Antony,  in 
particular,  to  return  into  Italy,  and  to  resign  the 
triumvirate,,  the  period  for  which  that  temporary 
power  was  created  being  now  expired.5 

To  this  defiance,  on  the  part  of  Octavius,  no 
reply  being  made  by  the  friends  of  Antony,  the 
assembly  was  adjourned  for  some  days,  during 
which  time  both  the  consuls  thought  proper  to 
withdraw  from  the  city  ;  and  not  supposing  them- 
selves safe  within  the  jurisdiction  of  a  person 
against  whom  they  had  taken  so  hostile  a  part, 
continued  their  retreat  into  Asia,  where  Antony, 
whose  cause  they  had  espoused,  had  the  means 
to  protect  them. 

Octavius,  pleased  to  find  himself,  by  the  flight 
of  the  ordinary  magistrates,  left  master  of  the 
city,  and  freed  from  the  necessity  of  employing 
immediate  force  against  the  forms  of  common 
wealth,  gave  them  no  interruption,  nor  attempt- 
ed to  prevent  their  escape.  He  even  gave  out, 
that  these  officers  had  withdrawn  by  his  permis- 


J  Plinius,  lib.  xxxvi.  c.  15. 
2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.  c.  43. 


3  Ibid.  e.  44. 


4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  1.  c.  1. 

5  Li  v.  Epitome,  lib,  exxxii' 


CHAP.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC, 


395 


sion,  and  that  every  one  else  who  was  disposed  to 
join  his  antagonist,  might  follow  their  example.6 

Antony,  when  he  received  an  account  of  what 
was  thus  passing  at  Rome,  being  arrived  in  the 
Lesser  Armenia,  on  his  last  expedition  into  that 
country,  assembled  all  the  senators  of  his  party 
who  were  then  with  his  army,  laid  before  them 
his  grounds  of  complaint  against  Octavius,  re- 
nounced in  form  his  marriage  with  Octavia,  and 
declared  war  on  her  brother.7  At  the  same  time, 
he  took  a  solemn  oath,  in  which  he  "bound  him- 
self, at  the  end  of  six  months,  after  he  should 
have  relieved  Italy  from  the  tyranny  of  Octavius, 
to  restore  the  government  entire  to  the  senate 
and  people,  agreeably  to  the  ancient  constitution. 
Having  taken  this  method  to  gain  all  those  who 
wished  for  the  restoration  of  the  commonwealth, 
and  having  remitted  great  sums  of  money  into 
Italy,  to  be  dealt  out  in  presents  and  gratuities  to 
the  army  of  his  rival,8  instead  of  pursuing  the 
pretended  object  of  the  war  in  Armenia,  he  put 
his  army  in  motion  westward.  Having  Canidius 
advanced  with  sixteen  legions,  he  himself  con- 
ducting the  queen  of  Egypt,  who  was  to  have 
her  share  in  the  enterprise,  took  the  route  of 
Ephesus,  where  all  his  ships  were  ordered  to  as- 
semble. Of  these  he  had  eight  hundred  sail,  of 
which  Cleopatra  furnished  two  hundred  complete- 
ly equipped,  together  with  twenty  thousand  ta- 
lents in  money.9 

The  consuls  Domitius  and  Sosius  having  join- 
ed Antony  at  Ephesus,  and  finding  all  his  coun- 
cils governed  by  the  caprice  of  Cleopatra,  and  all 
his  measures  made  subservient  to  her  vanity  or 
interest,  warmly  recommended  that  the  queen  of 
Egypt  should  return  into  her  own  kingdom,  and 
there  remain  until  the  war  should  be  at  an  end  ; 
"but  she,  dreading  the  loss  of  her  influence,  the 
restoration  of  Octavia,  and  a  reconciliation  of 
parties,  to  which  her  pretensions,  interests,  and 
passions  must  be  the  first  sacrifice,  employed  all 
her  artifice  to  defeat  their  counsel,  and  to  main- 
tain her  ascendant  over  Antony.  For  this  pur- 
pose, with  more  care  and  assiduity  than  she 
mustered  the  forces  of  her  allies,  or  collected  the 
resources  of  her  kingdom  for  the  support  of  the 
war,  she  assembled  from  every  quarter  the  means 
of  dissipation  and  the  instruments  of  pleasure. 

Many  Roman  oificers,  who  had  hitherto  em- 
barked their  fortunes  with  Antony,  disgusted  by 
the  appearances  of  levity  and  dissipaliou  which 
attended  him  on  this  occasion,  withdrew  from  his 
cause,  and  threw  themselves  into  the  anus  of  his 
enemy.  Plancus,  in  particular,  with  Titius, 
long  dissatisfied  with  the  influence  and  conduct 
of  Cleopatra,  deserted  him.  They  brought  with 
them  into  Italy  particular  accounts  of  Antony's 
levity,  and  of  Cleopatra's  insolent  speeclics,  in- 
sinuating that  she  flattered  herself  with  the  hopes 
of  becoming  mistress  of  the  Roman  empire. 
They  produced  copies  of  Antony's  will,  already 
mentioned  as  having  been  sent  to  the  records  of 
the  Vestals,  and  which,  by  its  extravagance, 
procured  credit  to  every  other  report  which  was 
raised  to  his  prejudice,  so  much  as  to  make  it  be- 
lieved, that  if  he  should  prevail  in  the  contest 
with  Octavius,  he  meant  to  declare  Cleopatra 
queen  of  the  Romans,  and  to  transfer  the  seat  of 
the  empire  to  Alexandria. 


These  reports,  tending  to  render  Antony  an  ob- 
ject of  ridicule,  or  of  scorn,  were  propagated  with 
great  effect  among  the  people.  They  were  even 
introduced  in  the  senate,  and  employed  as  the 
pretence  for  a  motion  that  was  made  to  divest 
him  of  his  present  command  in  the  east,  and  of 
that  share  Of  the  sovereignty  which  he  held  in 
the  capacity  of  triumvir,  and  to  declare  him  in- 
capable of  holding  the  office  of  consul,  to  which 
he  was  destined  for  the  ensuing  yeaT. 

Plancus,  in  support  of  the  motion  that  was 
made  to  this  purpose,  urging,  together  with  the 
reports  now  mentioned,  the  manifold  disorders 
which  were  imputed  to  Antony,  and  the  many 
offences  he  had  committed  against  the  common- 
wealth, was  answered  with  great  courage  and 
asperitv,  hy  persons  who  still  ventured  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  the  absent  triumvir.  "  While  you 
were  of  his  councils,"  said  Coponius  to  Plancus 
on  this  occasion,  "I  doubt  not  but  the  conduct 
of  Antony  was  sufficiently  blameable."10 

Octavius,  however,  being  master  at  Rome,  tho 
motion  was  carried,  and  a  decree  was  obtained, 
in  consequence  of  it,  to  suspend  Mark  Antony 
in  the  exercise  of  all  his  powers.  War  at  the 
same  time  was  formally  declared  against  the 
queen  of  Egypt,  while  Octavius,  with  his  usual 
discretion,  to  avoid  making  enemies  unnecessarily 
of  those  who  must  have  been  involved  with  An- 
tony in  any  personal  attainder,  did  not  include 
him  in  this  declaration.  A  proclamation,  how- 
ever, was  published,  "requiring  all  citizens  to 
withdraw  themselves  from  Antony,  as  being 
abandoned  to  the  caprices  of  a  stranger,  and  a 
woman,  who,  by  a  kind  of  fascination,  led  him  in 
her  train,  and  prevailed  upon  him  to  countenance, 
against  his  own  country,  a  war  which  was  to  be 
conducted  by  the  eunuchs  Mardio  and  Pothinus, 
keepers  of  the  palace  of  Alexandria;  and  by  Ira 
and  Charmion,  the  waiting  women  of  Cleopatra, 
who  hoped  soon  to  reign  in  the  capital  of  thu 
Roman  empire,  as  absolutely  as  they  had  for  some 
time  governed  in  the  provinces  of  the  East."11 

In  the  sequel  of  these  declarations,  some  taxes 
for  the  expense  of  the  war  were  laid  on  the  in- 
habitantsof  Italy  ;  an  uncommon  stretch  of  power, 
which,  on  the  approach  of  an  enemy  who  was 
likely  to  divide  the  people,  appeared  to  be  impoli- 
tic and  dangerous.  All  freed  slaves,  having  two 
hundred  sestertia  or  upwards,  were  required  to 
pay  an  eighth  of  their  effects,  free  citizens  weru 
required  to  pay  a  fourth  of  their  yearly  revenue; 
and  these  exactions  being  violently  enforced,  gav(< 
rise  in  many  places  to  insurrection  and  blood- 
shed ;12  and  the  minds  of  men  being  greatly  agi- 
tated, reports  of  presages  and  prodigies  were  cir- 
culated as  usual,  in  times  of  great  alarm,  and  on 
the  eve  of  important  events. 

Antony,  in  the  mean  time,  advanced  with  hi* 
fleet  and  army  from  Ephesus  to  Samos,  and  from 
thence  to  Athens,  where,  together  with  the  queen 
of  Egypt,  he  was  received  with  a  flattering  pa- 
geantry, and  with  many  complimentary  addresses, 
in  composing  which,  this  people  now  exercised 
that  ingenuity  for  which  they  were  formerly  cele- 
brated in  conducting  matters  of  state  and  of  war. 
Cleopatra  was  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  the  city 
of  Athens.  Antony,  being  already  a  citizen,  led 
the  procession,  in  which  the  republic  came  to  con- 


6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  1.  c.  2.  7  Ibid.  c.  3.  8  Ibid.  c.  7. 
«J  Plut.  in  Antonio,  near  three  millions  sterling. 


10  Veil.  Pater,  lib-  ii.  c.  83.  11  Plut.  in  Antonje. 
12  Dio.  Cass  lib.  1.  c.  10 


396 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


fer  this  honour  on  the  queen ;  and  made  her  a 
speech  in  name  of  his  fellow-citizens,  the  Athe- 
nian people. 

From  thence  Antony  proceeded  to  the  island 
of  Corcyra,  where  all  his  forces  assembled,  and 
seemed  to  threaten  Italy  with  an  immediate  inva- 
sion. He  had  undoubtedly  got  the  start  of  his 
antagonist,  might  have  surprised  him,  and  di- 
vided the  inhabitants  of  Italy,  and  other  parts  of 
the  western  empire.  Of  these,  numbers  were 
discontented  on  account  of  recent  exactions,  many 
were  disposed  to  favour  the  absent  party,  or  from 
animosity  to  a  government,  under  which  they 
had  experienced  oppression,  were  desirous  of  any 
change. 

With  all  these  advantages  in  his  favour,  Anto- 
ny either  never  had  the  intention  to  invade  Italy 
in  the  present  season,  or  laid  it  aside,  and  deter- 
mined to  pass  the  winter  in  Greece.  He  sent 
his  fleet,  into  the  gulph  of  Ambracia,  and  quar- 
tered his  army  in  the  Peloponnesus,  or  round  the 
gulph  of  Corinth,  where,  besides  the  ordinary 
resources  of  the  country,  they  had  continual 
supplies  of  every  necessary  by  sea,  from  Asia 
and  Egypt. 

By  the  last  arrangement,  which  had  been  con- 
certed between  Octavius  and  An- 
U.  C.  7*22.  tony,  for  the  succession  of  consuls 
during  eight  years,  of  which  this 
Mar^Vtrt?'  was  tne  'ast>  tney  themselves  were 
Mes  'sala  Cor-  now  to  have  entered  on  the  office ; 
sinus.  Ez  but  Antony  being  set  aside  by  a 
Kal  Mart.  M  pUblic  act  of  the  senate  and  people, 
Ka"lOcL Cn.  Octavius  assumed  for  his  colleague, 
Pompeius.  Messala,  already  mentioned  as  the 
particular  friend  of  Marcus  Bru- 
tus. This  almost  only  remaining  partizan  of  the 
republic  had  been  among  the  proscribed,  but  was 
afterwards  taken  into  favour,  and  reconciled  to 
the  successor  of  Caesar.1 

Octavius  now  holding  the  office  of  Roman 
consul,  endeavoured  to  sink,  under  this  designa- 
tion of  a  legal  magistrate,  his  pretensions  as  a 
military  adventurer,  and  qualified  the  troops, 
which  he  employed  against  Antony,  as  the  forces 
of  the  commonwealth,  assembled  to  repel  the  at- 
tack of  a  foreign  enemy.  He  drew  them  together 
on  the  coast  of  Apulia,  and  while  he  stationed 
the  greater  part  of  his  fleet  in  two  divisions  at 
Brundusium  and  Tarentum,  sent  Agrippa  with 
a  squadron  to  ply  off  the  harbours  of  Greece,  and 
to  interrupt  the  naval  communications  of  the 
enemy. 

By  the  vigilance  and  activity  of  Agrippa,  many 
captures  were  made  in  the  winter,  and  the  con- 
veyance of  corn,  arms,  and  military  stores  from 
Asia,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  intended  for  the  use  of 
Antony's  fleet  and  army,2  was  rendered  difficult 
and  extremely  precarious.  To  supply  their  ne- 
cessities, both  his  sea  and  land  forces  were  obliged 
to  plunder  the  country  around  them ;  and,  in  the 
want  of  horses  and  carriages,  drove  the  inhabit- 
ants like  beasts  of  burden,  laden  with  corn  and 
other  provisions,  to  the  sea  coast.  Antony,  when 
he  joined  his  fleet  at  Actium,  being  told  that  half 
his  rowers  had  perished  from  scarcity  and  disease : 
"  The  oars,"  he  said,  "  I  hope  are  safe."3 

In  the  mean  time,  Octavius  brought  his  land 
forces  to  Brundusium  and  Tarentum  ;  and  either 


1  Dio.  Cass  lib.  1.  c.  10. 
3  Ibid. 


2  Oros.  lib.  vi.  c.  19. 


to  show  the  strength  of  his  party,  or  to  secure  the 
persons  of  those  of  whose  fidelity  he  entertained 
any  doubt,  summoned  all  the  Roman  citizens  of 
note  to  attend  him  on  the  coast.  From  thence, 
in  order  to  profit  by  Antony's  delay,  and  to  fix 
the  theatre  of  the  war  in  Greece,  he  embarked 
with  his  army,  and  stood  for  the  opposite  coast  of 
Epirus.  He  landed  under  the  promontory  of 
Acroceraunus,  the  same  place  at  which  Julius 
debarked  in  pursuit  of  the  war  with  Pompey ; 
and  from  this  place,  ordering  the  fleet  to  coast 
round  the  head  lands,  and  the  island  of  Corcyra, 
he  marched  with  the  army  along  shore  towards 
the  gulph  of  Ambracia. 

This  gulph  opens  into  the  channel  that  sepa- 
rates the  islands  of  Corcyra,  Leucada,  and  Ce- 
phalonia.  It  is  narrow  at  its  entrance; 4  but  is 
wider  within,5  and  stretches  eastward6  about 
twenty  or  thirty  miles.  At  its  opening,  on  the 
southern  shore,  stood  Actium,  and  opposite  tc> 
this  place  stood  Toryne,  afterwards  called  Nica- 
polis.  Antony  had  taken  possession  of  Actium, 
and  having  a  proper  harbour  in  the  gut,  com' 
manded  the  whole  navigation  of  the  gulph. 

Octavius  advancing  with  his  fleet  and  army  from 
the  northward,  and  having  no  opposition  made  to 
him  by  the  enemy,  took  posseasioii  of  Toryne, 
entrenched  himself  in  a  strong  post  on  shore, 
and  stationed  his  fleet  behind  him  in  a  creek, 
which  furnished  a  harbour  sufficiently  safe. 7 

Antony,  already  posted  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  gulph,  either  did  not  think  himself  in  condi- 
tion to  prevent  the  enemy  from  making  this 
lodgment  in  his  presence,  or  determined  by  some 
other  motive,  chose  to  act  on  the  defensive ;  and 
thus  the  armies  were  stationed,  Octavius  in 
Epirus,  and  Antony  in  Acarnania,  on  the  op- 
posite sides  of  the  entrance  to  the  gulph  of  Am- 
bracia. 

The  state  of* the  forces  on  each  side  is  variously 
reported.  Plutarch  says,  that  in  entering  on  the 
war,  Antony  had  five  hundred  galleys,  of  which 
there  were  many  mounting  eight  and  ten  tire  of 
oars ;  that  the  land  army,  which  had  been  trans- 
ported by  his  fleet,  consisted  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand infantry,  and  twelve  thousand  horse;  that 
Octavius  had  two  hundred  and  fifty  galleys, 
eight  thousand  foot,  and  twelve  thousand  horse. 
Others  place  the  superiority  of  numbers  on  the 
side  of  Octavius,  but  state  them  as  more  nearly 
equal.8 

As  the  Egyptian  fleet  still  commanded  the  pas- 
sage of  the  gulph,  Antony,  after  it  was  too  late 
to  disturb  the  enemy  in  making  their  lodgment, 
seized  a  post,  with  a  considerable  part  of  his 
army,  on  the  side  of  Toryne,  to  restrain  their  ex- 
cursions, and  to  cut  off  their  forage.  Octavius, 
on  his  part,  detached  Agrippa,  with  a  powerful 
squadron,  to  make  descents  on  the  coasts,  to 
ravage  the  towns  that  were  in  the  possession  of 
Antony,  and  to  cut  oft*  the  supplies  that  were 
brought  him  by  sea. 

According  to  these  instructions,  Agrippa  took 
possession  of  Methone,  on  the  coast  of  Messenia 
and  of  Patrce,  near  the  mouth  of  the  gulph  of 
Corinth,  entered  that  gulph,  and  made  a  descent 
near  the  city  of  Corinth,  afterwards  took  posses- 

4  About  half  a  mile,  or  five  stadia. 

5  One  hundred  stadia. 

6  Stretches  in  land  three  hundred  stadia,  Polyb 
lib.  iv.  c.  63.       7  Plut.  in  Antonio.  8  Ibid 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


397 


sion  of  the  promontory  of  Leucada,  which  lay  in 
the  course  of  Antony's  convoys,9  and  obliged 
him,  after  a  check  he  had  received  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Toryne,  by  the  defeat  of  the  cavalry 
he  employed  on  that  side,  to  abandon  his  ground 
in  Epirus,  and  to  repass  the  straits  to  Actiurn. 

In  these  operations  passed  the  greater  part  of 
summer ;  but  as  nothing  was  decided,  Domitius, 
who,  in  the  preceding  year,  notwithstanding  he 
was  consul,  had  left  his  station  in  the  city  to  join 
Antony,  now  disgusted  with  his  conduct,  went 
over  to  Octavius.  A  general  distrust  ensued  in 
the  party, 10  and  Antony,  being  distressed  for  want 
of  provisions,  saw  the  necessity  of  making  his 
retreat,  or  of  risking  a  general  action.  His  fleet 
having  suffered  greatly  in  winter  from  scarcity 
and  from  disease,  he  deliberated  whether  he 
should  not  abandon  his  ships,  and  rest  his  cause 
on  the  event  of  a  battle  on  shore;11  but  Cleopatra, 
who  governed  all  his  councils,  and  who  dreaded 
being  deprived  of  a  retreat  by  sea,  urged  him 
without  delay  to  set  sail  for  Alexandria.  She 
proposed,  that,  to  check  the  progress  of  the  ene- 
my, proper  detachments  should  be  left  to  keep 
possession  of  all  the  strong-holds  in  Asia  and 
Greece;  that  these  detachments  should  be  sup- 
ported from  Egypt;  and  that  Antony,  in  the 
mean  time,  should  prepare  the  whole  forces  of 
that  kingdom  to  contend  for  the  empire  of  the 
world. 

The  partizans  of  Cleopatra,  in  the  council  of 
Antony,  contending  for  this  plan  of  retreat  which 
she  proposed,  among  other  arguments  against 
risking  a  battle,  urged  many  fatal  presages  and 
signs  of  impending  calamity,  sufficient  to  strike  a 
panic  in  the  troops,  and  to  render  the  flight  they 
advised,  in  some  measure  necessary.  It  was  deter- 
mined, however,  as  a  kind  of  middle  course,  that 
the  fleet  should  put  to  sea ;  if  permitted,  with- 
draw from  the  enemy;  but  if  attacked,  give  bat- 
tle. As  it  was  observed,  that  many  of  the  ships 
were  ill  manned,  and  in  disrepair,  and  some  alto- 
gether unserviceable;  these  being  selected  and 
burnt,  the  remainder  prepared  for  the  sea. 

When  this  resolution  was  taken,  Antony 
called  his  officers  together,  put  them  in  mind  of 
the  diligence  with  which  he  had  made  his  prepa- 
rations for  the  present  war,  and  referred  for 
proof  to  the  armament  itself,  which  was  then  in 
their  view. — In  a  war,  which  was  to  turn  on  the 
event  of  naval  operations,  they  had  an  undoubted 
superiority,  he  said,  either  in  the  number  or  lofti- 
ness and  strength  of  their  ships. — He  contrasted 
his  own  reputation,  the  maturity  of  his  age,  his 
experience,  and  his  success,  with  the  opposite 
circumstances  in  the  description  of  his  enemy. 
He  put  his  officers  in  mind,  and  wished  them  to 
remind  the  army,  that  they  were  about  to  con- 
tend for  the  empire  of  the  world ;  that  great  as 
this  object  was,  the  loss  of  it,  if  they  failed,  was 
to  be  the  least  of  their  sufferings;  that  every  in- 
dignity and  insult  was  to  be  expected  from  an 
enemy,'2  who  on  former  occasions  had  shown 
himself  sufficiently  averse  to  mercy.  Having 
addressed  himself  in  this  manner  to  the  officers 
who  were  to  be  left  on  shore,  he  ordered  on 
board  all  those  who  attended  him  in  the  character 
of  Roman  citizens,  or  of  whose  inclination  to  the 


9  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  84.  10  [bid. 

11  Plut.  in  Antonio. 

1$  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  1.  c.  15-22. 


enemy  he  had  any  suspicion,  and  reinforced  his 
fleet  from  the  land  army  with  as  many  archers 
and  slingers  as  could  ply  in  the  ships. 

Octavius,  in  the  mean  time,  having  intelligence 
of  these  deliberations  and  counsels,  and  seeing 
the  bustle  which  the  embarkation  of  so  many 
men  from  the  land,  and  the  movements  of  ships 
to  get  in  their  stations,  occasioned,  he  likewise 
prepared  for  action.  In  his  address  to  the  offi- 
cers of  his  fleet,  he  still  affected  to  consider  Cleo- 
patra as  the  principal  party  in  the  war.  "  An- 
tony had  condescended,"  he  said,  "to  become  her 
dependent  and  follower,  and  was  now  preparing, 
not  to  fight,  but  to  accompany  the  queen  of 
Egypt  in  her  flight."  In  respect  to  the  conduct 
of  the  action,  he  was  inclined  to  let  the  enemy 
get  under  sail,  and  even  to  wait  until  they  should 
have  turned  the  promontory  of  Actium,  thinking 
this  would  be  the  proper  time  for  him  to  attack 
their  rear,  to  pursue  them  in  their  retreat,  and  by 
these  means  to  gain  the  advantage  and  reputa- 
tion of  a  victory,  without  the  hazard  of  a  battle  ; 
but  being  dissuaded  from  this  design  by  Agrippa, 
he  took  his  resolution  to  meet  them  at  the  mouth 
of  the  straits,  and  if  he  prevailed,  was  in  hopes 
he  might  put  them  out  of  condition  to  renew  the 
war.  For  this  purpose  he  reinforced  his  fleet 
with  as  many  men  from  the  land  as  could  con- 
veniently act  on  board.13 

After  both  fleets  were  in  readiness,  they  were 
detained  in  their  harbours  four  days  by  a  storm, 
and  a  high  sea  which  set  into  the  gulph.  But  on 
the  fifth  day  the  wind  having  abated,  and  the  sea 
becoming  smooth,  Antony's  fleet  began  to  form 
in  the  straits.  He  himself,  with  Poplieoln,  em- 
barked with  the  first  division  on  the  right,  Cadius 
on  the  left,  and  an  officer,  whom  Plutarch  names 
Marcus  Octavius,  with  M.  Justeius  in  the  cen- 
tre.14 His  ships  being  heavier  and  loftier,  tag 
less  active  than  those  of  Octavins,  he  hesitated 
for  some  time  whether  he  should  not  remain  in 
close  order,  and  endeavour  to  bring  on  the  action 
in  the  narrow  entrance  of  the  gulph,  where  his 
antagonists,  for  want  of  room,  could  not  derive 
any  great  advantage  from  the  superior  agility  of 
their  vessels,  or  quickness  of  their  motions. 

While  Antony  deliberated  on  this  matter,  Oc- 
tavius got  under  sail,  turned  the  headland  of 
Toryne,  and  formed  in  a  line  before  the  entry 
of  the  straits,  about  a  mile  from  the  enemy. 
The  right  division  was  commanded  by  M.  La- 
rius,  the  left  by  Aruntius,  the  whole  by  Agrip- 
pa.15 Both  armies,  at  the  same  time,  were  drawn 
out  on  the  shore  to  behold  the  event ;  but  the 
fleets,  for  some  time,  did  not  make  any  move- 
ment, and  it  continued  uncertain  whether  An- 
tony, being  still  in  the  road,  might  not  return  to 
his  anchors;  but  about  noon  his  ships  began  to 
clear  the  straits,  and  came  forward  where  the 
sea-room  was  sufficient  for  their  line.  As  in 
this  movement  the  fleets  came  closer  together, 
Agrippa  began  to  extend  his  front,  in  order  to 
turn  the  enemy's  flank ;  but  Poplicola,  on  the 
other  side,  to  keep  pace  with  him,  stretching  to 
the  same  side,  the  centre  of  both  fleets  was 
equally  opened,  and  they  engaged  soon  after, 
without  any  apparent  advantage  on  either  side. 

The  contest,  for  some  time,  remained  unde- 


13  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  I.e.  ^-30. 

14  Plutarch,  in  Antonio. 

15  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.e.  64. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Bock  V, 


cided.  In  the  beginning  of  the  action,  the  queen 
of  Egypt's  yacht  had  been  near  to  the  line,  and 
she  herself  continued  to  look  on  the  battle,  till, 
overcome  with  anxiety,  affright,  and  horror,  she 
gave  orders  to  remove  her  galley  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance, and  being  once  in  motion  fled  with  all  the 
sail  she  could  make  ;  her  vessel  being  distinguish- 
ed by  a  gilded  poop  and  purple  sails,  made  her 
flight  be  conspicuous  to  the  whole  fleet,1  and  drew 
away  from  the  line  about  sixty  ships  of  the 
Egyptian  squadron,  who,  under  pretence  of  at- 
tending their  mistress,  withdrew  from  the  action. 

Antony,  apprehending  the  consequence  of  this 
defection,  whether  in  despair  of  his  fortunes,  or 
in  some  hopes  to  rally  those  who  fled,  put  on 
board  of  a  quick  sailing  vessel,  and  endeavoured 
to  overtake  them.    Being  observed  from  Cleo- 

{jatra's  galley,  he  was  taken  on  board;  but  no 
onger  capable  of  any  vigorous  or  rational  pur- 
pose, he  became  the  companion  of  her  flight, 
without  any  attempt  to  rally  her  fleet  Although 
he  quitted  the  chance  of  a  victory  to  follow  the 
object  of  his  passions,  he  could  not  endure  to  be- 
hold her,  turned  his  eyes  aside,  threw  himself 
upon  the  deck,  and  continued  in  the  deepest  an- 
guish of  shame  and  despair. 

The  flight  of  Antony,  joined  to  that  of  Cleo- 
patra, an  event  so  little,  expected,  was  not  for 
some  time  observed,  and  the  fleet,  notwithstand- 
ing the  desertion  of  their  leader,  continued  the 
action  till  four  in  the  afternoon,  when  they  were 
overpowered ;  and  many  of  them  being  greatly 
damaged  in  their  oars  and  rigging,  were  not  in 
condition  either  to  resist  or  to  escape,  and  fell  an 
■easy  prey  to  the  enemy.  Three  hundred  ships 
were  taken  or  sunk,  and  about  five  thousand  men 
were  killed.2  The  strand  was  covered  with 
wrecks  and  dead  bodies.  Octavius  detached  a 
squadron  in  pursuit  of  such  of  the  enemy's  ships 
as  had  got  to  sea  from  the  engagement,  and  him- 
self continued  in  the  channel  during  the  remain- 
der of  the  dav,  and  the  following  night,  to  gather 
the  fruits  of  his  victory.3 

The  land  army  of  Antony,  having  from  the 
heights  on  shore  beheld  the  ruin  of  their  fleet, 
retired  to  their  camp  as  with  an  intention  to 
maintain  it  to  the  last  extremity.  They  flattered 
themselves,  that  their  general,  though  forced  to 
yield  to  his  enemy  at  sea,  would  make  for  the 
nearest  port,  and  again  show  himself  at  the  head 
of  his  legions.  These,  they  said,  he  never  should 
have  left  to  commit  his  fortunes  to  an  uncertain 
element,  and  a  treacherous  ally.  In  these  hopes 
they  remained  for  seven  days  unshaken  in  their 
duty,  and  rejected  all  the  offers  which  Octavius 
made  to  induce  them  to  change  their  party. 
Being  satisfied,  however,  at  last,  that  their  hopes 
were  vain,  they  consulted  their  safety  in  different 
ways.  Some  laid  down  their  arms ;  Canidius 
himself,  who  commanded  them,  withdrew  in  the 
night  ;4  others,  remaining  together  in  small  par- 
ties, took  the  route  to  Macedonia;  but,  being 
pursued  by  the  enemy,  were  separately  over- 
taken, and  forced  or  persuaded  to  surrender.  All 
the  Roman  citizens,  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
the  eastern  provinces,  all  the  foreign  allies  and 


1  Florus,  lib.  iv.  c.  11. 

2  Plut.  in  Antonio.  Orosius  says,  12,000  were  killed 
in  battle,  6000  were  wounded,  of  whom  1000  died  under 
cure,  lib.  vi. 

/  "'teton.  in  Octavio,  4  Tint,  in  Antonio. 


princes,  who  made  a  part  of  the  vanquished 
army,  successively  made  their  peace;5  and  the 
empire  itself  now  seemed  to  be  reduced  under  a 
single  head. 

Antony  having  continued  his  flight  by  the 
coasts  of  the  Peloponnesus  to  the  head  of  Tena- 
rus,  without  appearing  to  recover  his  courage, 
made  a  halt  at  this  place,  rather  from  indecision 
and  irresolution,  than  from  any  settled  purpose 
respecting  the  conduct  of  his  affairs.  Here  he 
was  joined  by  some  ships  that  remained  in  the 
action  to  the  end  of  it;  and  being  informed  by 
them,  that  the  fleet  was  entirely  demolished,  but 
that  the  army  continued  firm  in  their  camp ;  he 
seemed  to  be  revived  by  this  last  part  of  the  ac- 
count, and  despatched  an  order  to  Canidius  to 
make  the  best  of  his  way  into  Macedonia,  and 
from  thence  to  continue  his  march  into  Asia. 
Such  of  his  friends  as  came  up  with  him  at  Te- 
narius,  he  treated  with  his  usual  liberality,  divided 
his  plate  and  jewels  among  them,  and  gave  them 
orders,  for  the  supplies  they  might  want,  on  the 
keeper  of  his  treasure  at  Corinth.  In  performing 
these  acts  of  munificence,  he  seemed  to  recover 
his  mind,  and  resumed  some  part  of  his  usua/ 
manner,  but  returning  at  the  same  time  to  his 
former  habits  with  Cleopatra,6  he  suffered  him- 
self again  to  be  governed  by  her  councils;  and,  in 
compliance  with  her  desire,  steered  directly  fot 
Egypt,  without  making  any  attempt  to  rally  hLj 
forces  in  Greece,  or  to  join  his  army,  which,  in 
reality,  by  this  time,  had  been  separated,  or 
obliged  to  make  their  peace. 

The  vic  tor  having  entirely  dispersed,  or  gained 
to  his  own  party  all  the  forces  of  his  rival  in  Eu- 
rope, sent  such  a  part  of  Ids  army  into  Asia  as 
was  thought  necessary  to  finish  the  remains  of 
the  war,  and  permitted  the  veterans,  whose  turn 
it  was  to  be  disbanded,  to  return  into  Italy.  He 
himself,  in  order  that  he  might  be  at  hand  to 
observe  the  motions  of  Antony,  and  to  renew  his 
operations  in  the  spring,  proposed  to  pass  the 
winter  at  Samos.7  From  thence,  being  master 
of  a  country  in  which  his  rival  had  once  been 
favourably  received,  he  exercised  his  power  in 
punishing  those  who  had  taken  part  against 
him.  Many  towns,  by  his  order,  were  laid  under 
heavy  contributions,  and  deprived  of  their  muni- 
cipal privileges.  All  the  petty  princes  who  held 
their  territories  by  grant  from  Antony,  except 
Archelaus8  and  Amyntas,9  were  dispossessed. 
Alexander,10  the  son  of  Jamblichus,  was  not  only 
stript  of  his  territories,  but  reserved  in  chains  to 
make  a  part  in  the  procession  of  the  victor's  tri- 
umph ;  and  when  that  ceremony  should  be  over, 
was  doomed  to  die.  The  principality  of  Lyco- 
medes11  was  given  to  a  certain  Mede,  who  had 
deserted  from  Antony,  and  who  had  brought 
with  him  a  considerable  body  of  the  allies.  The 
Cydonii,2and  Lampaji,  on  account  of  their  par- 
ticular services,  were  restored  to  their  liberties. 

Of  the  Roman  citizens  of  rank,  who  had  es- 
poused the  cause  of  Antony,  some  were  pardoned, 
some  laid  under  heavy  fines,  and  others  put  to 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  1. 

6  Plut.  in  Antonio. 

7  Dio.  Cass,  lib.  li.  c.  3,  4.  Sueton.  in  Octavio,  c.  17. 

8  King  of  Cappadocia. 

9  Of  Galatia.   Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xlix.  c.  32. 

10  A  prince  of  Arabian  extraction. 

11  On  the  frontier  of  Pontus. 

12  The  people  of  certain  town*  of  Cret«. 


Chap.  VII.l 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


399 


deaths  Among  those  who  were  pardoned,  was 
Sosius  the  late  consul,  who  had  absconded  for 
some  time  after  the  battle  of  Actium,  and  remain- 
ed in  concealment,  until,  by  the  intercession  of 
his  friends,  he  made  his  peace.  With  him  like- 
wise is  mentioned  M.  Scaurus,  the  uterine  bro- 
ther of  Sextus  Pompeius,  who  had  been  con- 
demned to  die,  but  spared  at  the  intercession  of 
his  mother.  Among  those  who  were  put  to  death 
is  mentioned  Curio,  the  son  of  that  Curio,  who, 
in  the  steps  which  led  to  the  civil  war,  acted  for 
some  time  in  support  of  the  senate,  but  after- 
wards so  effectually  served  the  ambition  of  Julius 
Caesar." 

While  Antony  was  still  possessed  of  the  king- 
dom of  Egypt,  or  had  any  means  of  renewing 
the  war,  it  was  thought  expedient  that  Octavius 
in  person  should  reside  in  Asia.  The  adminis- 
tration in  Italy  was  committed  to  Maecenas  and 
Agrippa ;  the  first  entrusted  with  the  civil,  the 
other  with  the  military  department ;  but  acting 
under  orders  and  instructions  from  Caesar,  which, 
though  in  form  addressed  to  the  senate,  were 
previously  submitted  to  these  ministers;  and, 
after  having  received  such  alterations  and  correc- 
tions as  they  thought  proper,  were  likewise  in- 
trusted to  their  execution. 

Agrippa,  as  has  been  mentioned,  having  borne 
his  part  in  the  victory  at  Actium,  returned  into 
Italy  with  a  particular  charge  of  the  veterans 
who  were  now  entitled  to  their  dismission,  and  to 
the  reward  of  their  services.  He  was  chosen  for 
this  trust,  as  having  sufficient  authority  to  re- 
press the  mutinous  spirit  which  this  order  of  men 
had  ever  discovered  as  often  as  they  were  en- 
couraged by  victory  to  state  their  pretensions  and 
to  overrate  their  merits.  The  task,  however,  was 
too  arduous  even  for  the  daring  courage  and  un- 
blemished reputation  of  this  officer.  The  troops 
had  been  told,  after  the  late  action,  that,  on  ac- 
count of  the  state  of  Caesar's  finances,  the  reward 
of  their  services  must  be  deferred  to  the  end  of  the 
war;  such  of  them  as  were  destined  to  act  in 
Asia  and  Egypt,  acquiesced  in  this  delay,  expect- 
ing to  enrich  themselves  in  the  mean  time  with 
the  spoils  of  those  opulent  countries.'5  But 
those  who  were  sent  back  into  Italy,  expecting 
such  settlements  in  that  country  as  the  veterans 
had  formerly  received,  upon  their  arrival  laid 
claim  to  immediate  satisfaction,  and  complained 
that  Caesar,  in  employing  his  lieutenants  to  treat 
with  them,  meant  to  evade  their  just  demands. 

In  consequence  of  earnest  representations  from 
Maecenas  and  Agrippa,  stating  these  discontents 
of  the  veterans  as  of  the  most  dangerous  ten- 
dency, Octavius,  after  he  had  determined  to  fix 
his  residence  at  Samos  for  the  winter,  set  sail  for 
Italy  in  the  most  tempestuous  season,  and  in  his 
passage  was  twice  exposed  to  great  danger  ;  once 
in  doubling  the  headlands  of  the  Peloponnesus, 
and  again  near  to  the  rocks  of  Acroceraunus. 
Being  arrived  at  Brundusium,  he  was  met  by 
many  of  the  principal  citizens  of  Rome,  with  the 
senate  and  magistrates,  who,  having  committed 
the  government  of  the  city  to  the  tribunes,  were 
come  forward  to  receive  him,  and  to  pay  their 
■•ourt.  He  likewise  found  the  discontented  vete- 
rans still  at  the  same  place,  and  obstinate  in  their 
purpose  of  not  suffering  themselves  to  be  dis- 


13  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  2.  14  Ibid. 

15  Ibid,  c  3,  4. 


banded,  until  they  should  have  obtained  their  just 
gratification  in  money  and  allotments  of  land. 

Octavius,  having  occasion  for  all  the  arts  in 
which  he  was  already  so  well  versed,  now  affect- 
ing to  hasten  what  he  alleged  had  been  only 
delayed  to  a  more  convenient  time,  proceeded  to 
make  way  for  these  mutinous  troops,  by  dislodg- 
ing many  possessors  of  land,  on  pretence  that 
they  had  favoured  the  queen  of  Egypt  in  the  late 
war ;  and,  in  order  to  provide  the  intended  gra- 
tuities in  money,  he  pretended  to  offer  his  own 
estate  to  sale,  or  proposed  to  pledge  it  as  security 
for  a  loan.  But  no  man  having  the  courage  to 
become  either  his  creditor  or  the  purchaser  of 
his  estate,  he  represented  his  having  made  the 
offer  as  a  sufficient  excuse  to  the  army  for  the 
delay  which  he  was  still  obliged  to  make  in  grati- 
fying their  just  requests.  But  the  riches  of 
Egypt,  he  said,  now  forfeited  by  Cleopatra, 
would  be  an  ample  fund  for  the  gratification  of 

those  who  forebore  their  demands 
U.  C.  723.    for  the  present,  to  have  them  more 

fully    complied    with  hereafter.1^ 
Imp.  Cram.     Having,  by  these  means,  pacified 
.    "JJ  Lici'  the   clamours  of  those  who  were 

tUUS  Crassus,  ,  ,      .       ,  , 

ex  Kal.  Jul.  most  urgent ;  and  having  been,  dur- 
C.  Jlntistius  ing  his  stay  at  Brundusium,  vested 
Vitus,  ez  Id.  a  fourth  time  with  the  titles  and 
cTcer!?  c^z*  ens'2ns  °f  consul,  he  set  sail  again 
Kal.  Nov.  L.  wr  tnc  t,oast  of  Asia,  with  intention 
Junius.  to  give  Antony  and  Cleopatra  as 
little  time  as  possible  to  recollect 
themselves,  or  to  reinstate  their  alfairs. 

These  unfortunate  adventurers,  whose  arrival 
at  the  point  of  Tenarus  has  been  mentioned, 
steered  from  thence  for  the  coast  of  Africa,  and 
parted  from  each  other  near  to  Paretonium,  a 
sea-port  of  Lybia,  which  had  been  hold  by  the 
kings  of  Egypt,  as  a  barrier  at  some  distance  be- 
yond the  western  frontier  of  their  kingdom.  In 
the  neighbourhood  of  this  place,  Antony  ex- 
pected to  be  received  by  Pinarius  Scarpus,  whom 
ne  had  placed  at  the  head  of  his  forces  in  that 
quarter.17  But  this  officer,  from  whatever  person 
he  may  have  received  his  appointment,  or  how- 
ever he  may  have  been  inclined,  while  the  trium- 
virs divided  the  empire,  was  now,  by  the  event 
of  the  battle  of  Actium,  sufficiently  determined 
in  the  choice  of  his  party.  He  had  declared  foi 
Octavius,  and  now  ordered  the  messengers  of 
Antony,  and  all  the  officers  under  his  own  com- 
mand, who  were  disposed  to  enter  into  any  cor- 
respondence with  the  vanquished  party,  to  be 
put  to  death. 

Upon  this  disappointment,  Antony  relapsed 
into  his  former  melancholy,  proposed  to  kill  him- 
self, and  was  prevented  only  by  the  persuasion 
of  a  few  friends,  who  earnestly  entreated  him  to 
try  his  fortunes  once  more,  at  the  head  of  the 
forces  of  Egypt.13 

Cleopatra,  in  order  to  outrun  the  news  of  her 
disaster,  and  to  prevent  the  disorders  that  might 
attend  the  fall  of  her  authority,  made  all  possible 
haste  into  her  own  dominions.  When  her  ships 
came  in  sight,  she  hoisted  the  ensigns  of  victory, 


10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c  4. 

17  Ibid.  c.  5.  P!ut.  in  Antonio,  p.  13G.  Roth  these 
writers  seem  to  understand  that  Pinarius  Scarnus  had 
belonged  to  Antony,  and  deserted  from  him  on  this 
occasion. 

18  Pint,  in  Antonio,  p.  136,  4to.  edit.  Lond.  ann. 
1724.   Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c  5. 


400 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V. 


and  entered  the  harbour  of  Alexandria  with 
shouts  of  joy  and  triumph.  Upon  her  landing, 
she  gave  an  order  to  cut  off,  or  to  secure,  some 
persons  of  whose  affections  she  was  doubtful, 
and  then  acknowledging  the  event  of  her  late 
unfortunate  expedition,  took  measures  for  the 
defence  of  her  kingdom.  Under  pretence  of 
collecting  money  for  this  purpose,  she  seized  the 
effects  of  corporations  and  of  private  persons, 
and  stript  the  temples  of  their  ornaments  and  of 
their  treasures.  But,  having  still  upon  her  mind 
all  the  impressions  of  her  late  defeat,  she  rather 
looked  for  a  retreat,  to  which  she  might  fly  with 
the  money  she  amassed,  than  for  a  station  at 
which  to  withstand  her  enemy.  Under  these 
impressions,  she  formed  a  project  to  have  her  fleet 
dragged  over  land,  from  the  Nile  to  the  gulph  of 
Arabia,  and  ordered  ships  to  be  built  in  the  ports 
of  that  sea,  trusting  that  her  enemy  could  not, 
for  some  time,  be  in  condition  to  molest  her  with 
any  naval  armament  in  that  quarter. 

After  this  project  began,  in  part,  to  be  exe- 
cuted, the  Arabs,  apprehending  some  danger  to 
themselves,  from  the  preparations  which  appear- 
ed to  be  making  on  their  coasts,  demolished  the 
docks  which  the  queen  of  Egypt  had  ordered 
to  be  fitted  up,  plundered  her  stores,  and  de- 
stroyed the  ships  which  she  had  already  built ; 
so  that  she  was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  mak- 
ing her  defence  on  the  Nile,  and  of  abiding  the 
fate  which  threatened  her  country  from  this  side.1 

She  had  heard  of  Cseisar's  having  gone  back 
into  Italy  ;  and  from  this  circumstance,  as  well 
as  from  the  difficulties  of  a  winter  navigation 
round  the  coasts  of  Greece,  both  she  and  Antony 
thought  themselves  secure  for  that  season.  In 
this,  however,  they  were  disappointed  by  the 
activity  and  resolution  of  their  enemy,  who, 
having  lost  no  time  unnecessarily,  had,  in  order 
to  avoid  the  difficulties  of  the  winter  navigation, 
ordered  some  galleys  to  be  dragged  over  land  at 
the  isthmus  of  Corinth;  and  by  this  means, 
while  he  was  yet  believed  to  be  beyond  the  sea 
of  Ionia,  was  actually  well  advanced  in  his  voy- 
age to  the  Nile.2  His  plan  was  to  invade  the 
kingdom  of  Egypt  on  two  sides  at  once ;  at  Pa- 
retonium,  on  the  side  of  Africa,  by  an  army  un- 
der the  command  of  Cornelius  Gallus ;  and  at 
Pelusium,  on  the  side  of  Syria,  with  an  army 
which  he  himself  was  to  command.3 

Antony,  upon  his  return  to  Alexandria,  with 
the  mortification  of  having  been  rejected  by  the 
Roman  legions  that  were  stationed  on  the  fron- 
tier of  the  province  of  Africa,  thinking  it  might 
strengthen  his  own  party  against  that  of  Octa- 
vius, to  point  out  an  immediate  offspring  of  the 
Julian  family,  and  a  succession  of  leaders  to  the 
party  of  Caesar,  declared  Caesarion,  the  reputed 
son  of  Julius  Csesar  by  Cleopatra,  to  be  now  of 
age,  and  qualified  to  enter  upon  the  inheritance 
of  his  father.  But  while  he  exasperated  Octavius 
by  this  species  of  personal  insult,  he  appeared 
incapable  of  any  rational  plan  of  defence  for 
himself  or  the  kingdom  he  occupied.  He  even 
absented  himself  from  the  councils  that  were 
held  on  this  subject,  declined  any  share  in  the 
management  of  affairs,  and  withdrew  from  the 
palace. 

While  Antony  continued  in  this  humour,  he 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  7.    Zonaras,  lib.  x.  c.  33. 

2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  5.  3  Orosius,  lib.  vi. 


was  joined  by  Canidius,  the  late  commander  of 
his  land  forces  at  Actium.  From  this  officer  he 
had  the  melancholy  account,  that  all  his  armies 
in  Greece  were  dispersed  ;  that  Herod,  the  king 
of  Judea,  had  declared  against  him,  and  all  the 
princes  he  had  lately  placed  upon  different 
thrones  in  Asia  had  either  followed  this  example, 
or  been  displaced  ;  that  he  had  not  any  possession, 
nor  any  certain  friend  beyond  the  limits  of  Egypt. 
Upon  receiving  this  account,  he  seemed  to  re- 
cover from  his  melancholy,  and  acquired  that 
species  of  ease  which  results  from  despair.  He 
left  his  retreat,  returned  to  the  palace,  and,  with 
Cleopatra,  gave  himself  up  to  dissipation,  pro- 
fusion, and  continual  riot.  They  formed  parties 
of  pleasure,  consisting  of  such  persons  as  pro- 
fessed their  resolution  to  die  rather  than  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.4  Antony  had  an 
officer  retained  to  put  a  period  to  his  life  in  the 
supposed  extremity  in  which  this  choice  was  to 
be  made,  and  Cleopatra  had  a  collection  of 
poisons  for  the  same  purpose. 

In  the  midst  of  this  seeming  indifference  to 
life,  both  the  queen  and  her  lover,  however,  sub- 
mitted at  times  to  make  advances  to  Caesar,  and 
to  sue  for  mercy.  They  despatched  their  mes- 
sengers together ;  but  as  Cleopatra  sent,  on  her 
own  account,  presents  of  a  crown,  a  sceptre,  and 
a  throne  of  gold,  and  privately  instructed  her 
agent  to  sound  the  disposition  of  Csesar  with 
respect  to  herself,  this  crafty  politician  perceived 
that  she  wished  to  be  considered  apart  from 
Antony,  and  encouraged  her  to  hope  for  a  sepa 
rate  treaty.  While  he  made  no  reply  to  Antony, 
and  in  public  insisted  that  Cleopatra  herself 
should  surrender  at  discretion,  he,  in  private, 
encouraged  the  queen  to  hope  for  better  termsr 
and  even  to  imagine  what  he  supposed  her  will 
ing  to  believe,  that  she  might  still  make  some 
impression  on  his  mind  by  the  charms  of  her 
person. 

As  Octavius  had  an  agent  at  the  court  of 
Egypt  to  insinuate  these  hopes,  and  to  cultivate 
the  disposition  which  the  queen  had  shown  to  a 
separate  treaty,  Antony  became  jealous  of  the 
frequent  conferences  to  which  this  agent  was 
admitted,  and  ordered  him  to  be  whipped,  and 
expelled  from  the  court.  Sensible,  however,  of 
the  enormity  of  this  outrage,  he  wrote  to  Octa- 
vius soon  after  to  make  an  apology.  "  My  misfor- 
tunes," he  said,  "have  made  me  peevish,  and 
this  fellow  had  provoked  me  ;  but  you  may  take 
your  revenge  on  the  person  of  my  agent,  who  is 
with  you."  In  the  subsequent  part  of  this  letter 
he  put  Octavius  in  mind  of  their  former  inti- 
macy, of  their  near  relation,  of  their  parties  of 
pleasure,  or  rather  debaucheries;  and  observed, 
that  his  frolics  with  Cleopatra  did  not  deserve  to 
be  more  seriously  treated,  than  aflairs  of  the 
same  kind  in  which  they  had  passed  some  idle 
hours  together.  He,  at  the  same  time,  delivered 
up  P.  Turvilius,  a  Roman  senator,  who  had 
been  supposed  accessary  to  the  death  of  Julius 
Csesar,  and  who  had,  for  some  time,  been  attach- 
ed to  himself ;  and  he  concluded  his  letter  with 
some  expressions  of  magnanimity,  saying,  that 
he  was  willing  to  die,  provided  he  could  obtain 
any  favourable  terms  for  the  queen  of  Egypt.5 

Octavius,  however,  continued  inexorable;  and 
urging  his  military  operations  on  both  frontiers 


4  Plut.  in  Antonio.        5  Dio.  Case.  lib.  li.  c.  9. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


401 


of  the  kingdom  of  Egypt,  got  possession  of  Pe- 
lusium and  of  Paretonium ;  of  the  first,  it  was 
said,  in  consequence  of  his  intrigues  with  Cleo- 
patra, and  by  her  connivance ;  of  the  second,  by 
the  entire  defection  of  the  troops  which  Antony 
had  stationed  for  the  defence  of  the  place,  and 
who  now  became  an  accession  to  the  army  of 
his  rival. 

Cleopatra,  as  if  sensible  of  the  suspicions  she 
had  incurred  on  the  surrender  of  Pelusium,  and 
desirous  to  recover  the  confidence  of  Antony, 
doubled  her  attention  to  his  person,  kept  the 
anniversary  of  his  birth-day  with  unusual  splen- 
dour; and,  to  remove  any  suspicion  of  her  hav- 
ing connived  at  the  loss  of  Pelusium,  delivered 
up°the  officer  of  the  name  of  Seleucus,  who  had 
surrendered  that  place,  that  he  might  atone  for 
his  treachery  by  a  suitable  punishment. 

Antony,  observing  the  progress  which  his 
enemy  made  on  the  frontiers  of  the  kingdom, 
and  being  weary  of  the  project  of  ending  his  life 
in  a  riot,  took  a  better  resolution,  and  mustering 
what  forces  could,  both  by  sea  and  by  land, 
was  determined  to  try  the  fortune  of  a  war,  or 
to  die,  at  least,  sword  in  hand.  When  the 
enemy  advanced  to  Alexandria,  he  attacked  their 
cavalry,  and  put  them  to  flight.  Encouraged  by 
his  success  in  this  encounter,  he  ordered  all  his 
forces  to  assemble  on  the  first  of  August.6  On 
this  day  he  proposed  to  bring  the  contest  to  a 
decision  at  once,  both  by  sea  and  by  land  :7  but 
the  Egyptian  fleet  being  ordered  to  begin  the 
action,  struck  their  colours,  and  surrendered 
hemselves  without  a  blow.  The  cavalry,  at  the 
same  time,  deserted  to  the  enemy;  and  the  in- 
fantry being  routed,  fled  into  the  city. 

Upon  this  dispersion  of  all  his  forces,  Antony 
complained,  that  he  was  betrayed,  and  was  heard 
to  accuse  the  queen.  This  unhappy  author  of 
his  misfortunes  had  taken  refuge,  during  the 
action,  with  a  few  attendants,  in  the  monument 
which,  upon  a  plan  of  great  magnificence, 
was  then  recently  built  for  a  royal  sepulchre. 
Thither  she  had  already  transported  all  her 
jewels,  money,  and  most  valuable  effects.  The 
access  of  the  place  was  contrived  to  be  shut  from 
within,  in  such  a  manner  as  not  to  be  opened 
without  great  labour.8  It  was  given  out,  that 
the  queen  had  retired  in  order  to  kill  herself  at 
he  tomb,  in  which  she  was  to  be  buried ;  and 
soon  after,  the  report  was  spread  that  she  was 
actually  dead. 

Antony,  being  now  arrived  at  the  end  of  all 
his  hopes,  and  of  his  efforts,  made  haste  to  follow 
the  supposed  example  of  the  queen,  and  gave  his 
sword,  for  this  purpose,  to  Eros,  a  freed  slave, 
who  hrul  promised  to  use  it  when  required  in  the 
last  action  of  friendship  to  his  master ;  but  Eros 
unable  to  fulfil  his  promise,  instead  of  killing  his 
master,  plunged  the  sword  into  his  own  bosom. 
Antony  then  snatching  the  weapon,  wounded 
himself;  but  not  expiring  immediately,  he  was 
told,  as  he  lay  bleeding,  that  Cleopatra  was  yet 
alive,  and  safe  in  the  monument.  Seeming  to 
revive  at  these  tidings,  he  gave  directions  that  he 
should  be  carried  to  her  presence.  Upon  his 
coming,  she  appeared  on  the  battlements,  but 
under  pretence  that  she  feared  a  surprise,  refused 
to  have  the  gates  unbarred,  and  made  it  neccs- 


6  Orosius,  lib.  vi.  p.  268.  7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  10. 
8  Pint,  in  Antonio. 

3  E 


sary  to  have  him  towed  over  the  walls.  Although 
she  had  wished  to  disengage  herself  from  this 
unfortunate  man,  and  had  even  submitted  to  be- 
tray him,  now  when  she  saw  him  laid  at  her  feet 
expiring,9  and  covered  with  his  blood,  she  beat 
her  breast,  and  tore  her  hair  in  the  agonies  of 
real  suffering,  mixed  with  the  affectation  of  pre- 
tended passion. 

Antony,  having  somewhat  in  his  mind  which 
he  wished  to  express,  called  for  wine,  recovered 
strength  enough  to  utter  a  few  words,  and  ex- 
pired :'°  thus  ending  his  life  in  the  fifty-third,  or, 
according  Ao  others,  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his 
age;'i  disposed  even  in  the  last  scenes  of  it,  to 
occupy  the  intervals  of  relaxation  in  riot  and 
debauchery ;  and  verifying,  in  all  the  steps  of 
his  manhood  and  age,  the  charge  of  extravagance 
and  profligacy,  which  marked  his  youth,  and  his 
first  appearances  in  public  affairs.  He  was  pos- 
sessed of  talents  fpr  the  council  and  the  field, 
which  he  never  exerted  for  any  valuable  purpose, 
or  rather  never  exerted  at  all,  except  when  he 
was  pressed  by  the  most  urgent  necessity  of  his 
situation.  Under  this  pressure,  indeed,  he  some- 
times repaired  by  his  industry  and  vigour  the 
breaches  which  were  made  by  his  dissipation  or 
neglect  In  consequence  of  his  connexion  with 
Julius  Cssar,  and  of  the  place  he  gained  among 
the  military  factions,  which  endeavoured  to  en- 
gross or  to  divide  his  power,  he  was  tempted  to 
consider  the  Roman  empire  itself  as  the  scene  of 
his  pleasures;  and.  in  aiming  at  the  sovereignty 
of  the  world,  experienced  those  reverses  which 
fully  displayed  the  versatility  and  instability  of 
his  own  character.  But  he  fell,  at  last,  deserted 
by  every  Roman  citizen  who  had  ever  been  at- 
tached to  his  interest;  betrayed  by  that  person 
to  whose  caprices  chiefly  he  sacrificed  his  for- 
tunes, ami  under  the  fatal  experience,  that  the 
utmost  efforts  of  resolution,  incited  by  the  sense 
of  extreme  necessity,  will  not  always  retrieve  the 
errors  of  past  dissipation  and  folly. 

When  Antony  gave  himself  the  wound  of 
which  he  died,  one  of  his  attendants,  extracting' 
the  dagger  from  his  body,  ran  with  it  to  Octa- 
vius,  who  seeing  the  weapon  stained  with  blood, 
and  being  told  what  had  passed,  perhaps  in  imi- 
tation of  Julius  Caesar,  who  is  said  to  have  wept 
for  the  death  of  Ponipey,  was  observed  to  shed 
tears.12  Suetonius  reports,  that  he  afterwards  de- 
sired to  see  the  body." 

Cleopatra,  as  soon  as  the  scene  in  the  monu- 
ment was  over,  and  she  had  recollected  herself, 
sent  an  intimation  of  Antony's  death  to  Caesar, 
and  then  probably  indulged  her  hopes,  that  the 
great  obstacle  to  her  peace  being  removed,  she 
might  obtain  that  consideration  for  her  separate 
interests,  which  Octavius,  by  insinuations,  or 
expressions  of  civility,  had  given  her  cause  to  ex- 
pect. 

After  the  lafe  contest  was  in  a  great  measure 
decided,  the  victor  continued  to  encourage  the 
queen  of  Egypt  to  hope  for  a  separate  treaty  ; 
and  amused  her  with  civilities,  while  he  endea- 
voured to  inform  himself  of  her  treasure,  and  to 
make  sure  of  her  as  a  captive  to  adorn  his  triumph, 
a  circumstance  esteemed  of  the  highest  import- 
ance at  Rome ;  hut  he  had  avoided  coming  un- 


9  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  10.  10  Zonar.  lib.  x.  c.  30, 
11  Pint,  in  Antonio.  12  Ibid. 

13  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  17. 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  V, 


der  any  engagements  that  should  preclude  him 
from  the  full  use  of  his  victory.  Upon  receiving 
her  message,  he  sent  Caius  Proculeius,  a  Roman 
knight,  and  Epaphroditus,  an  emancipated  slave, 
to  sooth  her  fears,  to  administer  comfort,  and  if 
possibler  without  stipulating  any  conditions,  to 
secure  her  person. 

What  Octavius  chiefly  apprehended  from  the 
unfortunate  queen,  was  some  violent  attempt  on 
her  own  life.  His  emissaries,  therefore,  having 
suffered  her,  at  her  own  earnest  request,  to  re- 
main where  she  was  until  the  funeral  of  Antony 
should  be  over,  they  made  a  strict  search,  in  or- 
der to  remove  from  her  hands  every  weapon,  or 
supposed  instrument  of  death;  and,  under  pre- 
tence of  doing  her  honour,  placed  a  guard  on  the 
monument.  They  prevailed  upon  her  after- 
wards to  remove  to  the  palace,  where  she  was 
attended  with  the  usual  state  and  dignity  of  a 
sovereign.1  But  being  still  kept  at  a  distance 
from  Caesar,  and  in  suspense  with  respect  to  his 
intentions,  she  expressed  great  anxiety,  and 
seemed  to  meditate  some  desperate  purpose.  In 
order  to  divert  her  from  any  fatal  resolution, 
which  might  deprive  Caesar's  triumph  of  a  prin- 
cipal ornament,  she  was  told,  that  he  consented 
to  see  her,  and  was  to  make  her  a  visit  in  her 
own  apartments.  Upon  this  intimation,  she  or- 
dered the  chambers  to  be  fitted  up  in  the  most 
elegant  manner,  and  decorated,  in  particular, 
with  the  picture  and  bust  of  Julius  Caesar. — 
When  the  expected  visit  of  Octavius  was  to  be 
paid,  she  took  care  to  have  bundles  of  the  late 
Caesar's  letters  and  memorials  before  her.  She 
herself  was  dressed  in  mourning,  which  she 
knew  was  supposed,  at  all  times,  to  become  her, 
and  which,  on  this  occasion,  might  give  an  ex- 
pression of  tender  melancholy  that  rendered  her 
person  and  her  state  more  affecting.  When 
Octavius  presented  himself  she  rose  from  her 
couch ;  but  as  if  orerawed  by  his  presence,  with 
an  air  of  modesty  and  dejection,  fixed  her  eyes 
on  the  ground'.  In  accosting  him  she  called  him 
Master.  "  To  his  father,"  she  said,  "  she  owed 
all  her  fortunes,  and  now  willingly  resigned  them 
to  the  son.  The  memory  of  the  great  Julius 
should  be  a  sufficient  comfort  in  all  her  afflic- 
tions; she  would  even  consider  him  as  revived 
in  the  person  of  his  son.  But  would  to  God," 
she  said,  bursting  into  tears,  "  that  I  had  died 
before  him,  so  should  I  have  escaped  the  evils 
which  his  death,  and  the  consequences  of  it  have 
brought  upon  me !"  Octavius  bid  her  be  of  good 
courage ;  and  assured  her,  that  no  hurt  was  in- 
tended her.  But  she,  observing  that  he  spoke 
these  words  with,  coldness,  and  turned  his  eyes 
away,  threw  herself  upon  the  ground  in  agonies 
of  despair.  "  I  neither  wish,"  she  said,  "  nor  can 
I  continue  to  live.  I  should  have  died  when 
Caesar  fell ;  and  there  is  another  now  who  calls 
upon  me  to  follow  him ;  suffer  me  to  rest  with 
him  on  whose  account  I  die."2 

This  interview  concluded  with  a  request  on 
the  part  of  the  queen,  that  she  might  be  allowed 
to  perform  the  obsequies  of  Antony,  to  which 
she  proceeded  with  all  the  appearances  of  an  af- 
fectionate widow  in  the  deepest  affliction ;  but, 
as  there  is  no  doubt  that  she  had  betrayed  the 
person  whom  she  now  appeared  so  much  to  la- 
ment, it  is  probable  that  her  tears,  though  pre- 


I  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  10. 


2  Ibid.  xli.  c.  12. 


tended  to  be  shed  on  account  of  the  dead,  were, 
in  reality,  directed  to  move  and  to  win  his  sur 
viving  rival.  She  still  trusted  to  the  effects  of 
her  beauty,  and  was,  in  her  present  situation, 
what  she  had  been  in  the  most  serious  councils 
of  state,  a  mere  coquette,  who  being  naturally 
disposed  to  violent  passions,  could  personate  any 
character,  or  turn  her  real  passions  to  account 
in  serving  any  disguised  purpose  of  vanity  or 
ambition. 

The  scene  which  Cleopatra  acted  on  the  pre- 
sent occasion,  in  whatever  degree  she  was  pos- 
sessed by  real  or  affected  despair,  had  no  other 
effect  on  Octavius,  than  to  make  him  redouble 
his  intention  to  prevent  any  attempt  which  she 
might  intend  to  make  against  her  own  life. 
Epaphroditus  had  orders  to  watch  her  with 
great  diligence ;  a  circumstance  from  which  she 
had  the  sagacity  to  infer  a  fixed  determination  to 
carry  her  as  a  captive  to  Rome.  She  was  soon 
confirmed  in  her  suspicions  ;  having  intelligence, 
that  Octavius  himself,  being  to  march  by  land, 
had  given  orders  that  she,  with  her  children, 
should  be  sent  into  Italy  by  sea.  Equally  anxious 
to  avoid  being  led  in  triumph,  as  the  victor  was 
desirous  to  preserve  her  for  this  purpose,  she  in- 
stantly took  measures  to  end  her  life.  But  in 
order  to  elude  the  vigilance  of  her  keeper,  she 
affected  to  be  resigned  to  her  fate,  gave  an  inven- 
tory, and  delivered  up  all  her  effects,  reserving 
only  a  few  jewels,  which  she  professed  an  inten- 
tion to  deliver  with  her  own  hands,  in  presents, 
to  Li  via  and  Octavia.  She  even  affected  to  dress 
in  her  usual  gay  and  sumptuous  manner ;  and 
pretending  to  have  some  business  of  consequence 
to  communicate  to  Caesar,  she  gave  Epaphroditus 
a  letter,  and  charged  him  to  deliver  it  with  his 
own  hands.  It  contained  expressions  of  exulta- 
tion at  having  obtained  her  end,  and  having 
escaped  from  her  enemies. 

Octavius,  on  seeing  this  letter,  instantly  gave 
orders  to  prevent  what  he  apprehended  was  her 
purpose;  but  the  queen,  at  the  arrival  of  the 
messenger,  was  already  dead,  and  laid  upon  a 
couch  of  state.  One  of  the  women,  who  usually 
attended  her,  was  likewise  dead ;  the  other  was 
expiring;  but  while  the  messenger  of  Octavius 
was  entering  the  chamber,  observing  that  the 
crown  had  fallen  from  her  mistress's  head,  she 
made  an  effort,  with  what  strength  she  had  left, 
to  replace  it.  No  mark  of  violence  appeared  on 
the  body  of  the  queen,  except  a  small  puncture 
in  her  arm ;  and  she  was  therefore  supposed  to 
have  died  of  a  venomous  bite,  or  of  a  scratch 
with  a  poisoned  instrument.  To  render  the  last 
of  these  conjectures  the  more  probable,  it  was 
said,  that  she  always  carried  a  pin  in  her  hair 
the  point  of  which  was  tainted  with  poison. 
She  was  now  at  the  age  of  nine-and-thirty  years, 
and  of  these  had  lived  fourteen  years  with  An- 
tony. 

Octavius,  being  disappointed  of  his  design  to 
lead  the  queen  of  Egypt  as  a  captive  in  his 
triumph,  had  her  effigy,  with  an  aspick  fixed 
upon  the  arm,  fabricated  to  supply  her  place  in 
the  procession.  He  no  longer  kept  any  measures 
with  her  family  or  kingdom.  Csesarion,  her  son, 
supposed  by  Julius  Caesar,  and  of  course  a  pre- 
tended heir  to  Caesar's  fortunes,  had  too  high 
pretensions  to  be  spared ;  endeavouring  to  make 
his  escape  into  Ethiopia,  he  was  taken  in  his 
flight,  and  killed,    Antyllas,  the  son  of  Antony 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


by  Fulvia,  being  of  an  age  to  receive  impressions 
which  might  render  him  dangerous,  was  like- 
wise sacrificed  to  the  safety  of  the  conqueror. 
He  had  taken  refuge  at  the  shrine  of  Julius  Cae- 
sar, but  was  forced  from  thence,  and  slain. 
The  other  children,  whether  of  Cleopatra  or  of 
Antony,  were  spared,  and  honourably  treated. 
Those"of  the  latter,  by  Octavia,  being  near  rela- 
tions of  Csasar,  and  afterwards  intermarried  with 
the  reigning  family,  left  a  posterity  who  succeed- 
ed to  the  empire.1 

Among  the  partizans  of  the  vanquished  party 
who  were  ordered  for  execution,  only  two  or 
three  Romans  of  note  are  mentioned  :  Canidius, 
who  had  commanded  the  land  forces  of  Antony 
at  Actium,  and  who  still  adhered  to  him  in  the 


1  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  17.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  19. 
Piut  in  Antonio. 


wreck  of  his  fortunes;  Cassius  Parmensis.  a 
man  of  letters  and  a  poet,  who  had  been  attached 
to  Brutus  and  Cassius,  but,  having  employed  his 
wit  against  Octavius,  was  received  by  Antony, 
and  lived  with  him  in  great  intimacy  ;  and  Ovi- 
nius,  who,  having  been  a  Roman  senator,  is  said 
to  have  degraded  himself  by  taking  charge  of  the 
manufactures  which  were  carried  on  in  the  pa- 
lace of  the  queen  of  Egypt. 

In  limiting  the  severity  of  his  executions  to 
these  examples,  Octavius  appeared  greatly  to  re- 
strain the  cruelty  which  he  had  formerly  exer- 
cised against  his  enemies ;  he,  at  the  same  time, 
gave  proofs  of  his  munificence,  by  releasing  all 
those  who  were  in  custody  at  Alexandria,  whe- 
ther as  prisoners  of  state,  as  captives,  or  hostages 
from  foreign  nations.2 

2  Orosius,  p.  269.   Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  87 


THE 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


OF  THE 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


BOOH  VI, 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Merit  or  Demerit  of  Parties  in  the  latter  Period  of  the  Roman  Republic — Return  of  Octa- 
vius  to  Rome — His  Triumphs  and  public  Entertainments — Reform  of  the  Army — Proposition 
to  resign  his  Power — Consultation  of  Agrippa  and  Maecenas — Preludes  to  the  'pretended  Re- 
signation of  Octavius — His  Speech  in  the  Senate — His  Consent  to  retain  a  part  in  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Empire — Distribution  of  the  Provinces — Title  of  Augustus — The  Establishment 
<of  Augustus. 


ALTHOUGH,  in  compiling  this  history,  it 
has  been  intended  to  avoid  expressions  of  mere 
praise  and  blame,  other  than  are  contained  in  the 
detail  of  facts  and  specification  of  characters ;  and 
to  state,  in  every  instance,  the  transaction  itself, 
rather  than  the  judgment  of  the  writer;  yet  it  is 
hoped  that  where  questions  of  merit  or  demerit 
are  in  any  considerable  degree  problematical,  and 
where  readers  are  likely  to  take  opposite  sides,  he 
too  may  he  indulged  in  some  general  discussion. 
We  may  suppose  the  Roman  republic  to  have 

been  hastening  to  its  ruin  from  the 
U.  C.  620.     sedition  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  to 

the  time  on  which  we  are  now 
U.  C.  723.     entered.    A  great  revolution  has 

been  so  long  in  dependence,  and 
more  blood  has  been  shed  in  an  age  of  boasted 
learning  and  politeness,  than  perhaps  has  been 
known  to  flow  in  any  equal  period  of  the  most 
barbarous  times. 

In  judging  of  those  who  were  concerned  in 
this  transaction,  we  may  form  our  opinions  now 
upon  speculative  considerations,  as  they  them- 
selves joined  their  party  from  motives  of  interest, 
ambition,  or  public  virtue.  Although  it  be  al- 
lowed that,  in  point  of  justice,  we  must  give  a 
preference  to  those  who  endeavoured  to  preserve 
the  constitution  of  their  country,  and  who  acted 
merely  in  defence  of  themselves  and  their  fellow- 
citizens  ;.  yet  in  this  instance  it  will  be  alleged, 
that  the  event  has  had  the  effect  of  an  experi- 
ment, to  show  that  what  they  strove  to  perform 
was  impracticable,  and  that  notwithstanding  the 
justice  of  their  cause,  the  circumstances  of  the 

404 


times  were  such  as  to  have  rendered  their  suc- 
cess not  only  desperate,  but  in  a  great  measure 
inexpedient.  They  were  born  to  a  republic,  it 
is  true ;  but  the  people  who  were  destined  to 
govern  in  that  republic  could  no  longer  be  safely 
intrusted  with  government;  and  to  contend  for 
such  a  trust  in  behalf  of  men  who  were  unwor- 
thy of  it,  was  a  dangerous  error,  for  which  the 
best  intentions  could  not  atone.  Even  the  Ro- 
man senate  itself  could  not  supply  all  the  exi- 
gencies of  government  over  a  dominion  of  such 
extent,  and  containing  so  many  sources  of  cor- 
ruption. Its  own  members  were  degenerated, 
and  fallen  from  the  virtue  of  their  ancestors. 
They  were  trained  up  in  a  luxury  at  home, 
which  was  to  be  supplied  by  the  most  cruel  rapa- 
city abroad,  in  the  provinces.  Such  an  empire 
could  be  preserved  only  by  the  force  and  prompt 
executions  of  despotism.  "  The  change  therefore 
from  republic  to  monarchy,  it  may  be  alleged, 
was  seasonable;  and  Cato.  with  Cicero,  Brutus, 
and  all  the  other  partizans  of  the  commonwealth, 
actuated  by  a  mistaken,  though  commendable 
zeal  for  liberty,  would  have  supported  their  fel- 
low-citizens in  their  pretensions  to  government 
after  they  were  unworthy  of  it;  in  this  attempt 
they  fell  a  necessary  sacrifice  to  their  own  error; 
and  in  their  ruin  made  way  for  an  establishment 
better  fitted  to  the  condition  of  the  age,  and  to 
the  character  of  the  people,  than  that  for  which 
they  contended  and  bled. 

In  this  manner  of  stating  the  subject,  we  lay 
the  task  of  vindicating  their  own  conduct  on 
those  who  endeavoured  to  preserve,  not.  upon 


Chap.  I  ] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


405 


those  who  destroyed,  the  republic.  But  in  judg- 
ing of  the  merits  of  men  in  so  distant  a  scene, 
we  must  not  proceed  on  conceptions  drawn  from 
the  experience  of  subsequent  ages,  on  our  own 
predilection  for  monarchy  in  general,  or  even  on 
our  judgment  of  its  expedience  in  that  particular 
case  ;  we  must  suppose  ourselves  in  the  situation 
of  those  who  acted,  and  who,  in  the  result  of  this 
contest,  from  the  condition  of  equals,  were  to  be- 
come master  and  servant,  or  lord  and  vassal.  One 
party  strove  that  they  should  be  masters,  the 
other  that  they  themselves  should  not  be  slaves. 
The  lattor  contended  for  the  rights,  which,  to- 
gether with  their  fellow-citizens,  they  had  in- 
herited, as  Romans ;  they  endeavoured  to  pre- 
serve the  manners,  as  well  as  the  institutions,  of 
their  cO.'mtry,  against  the  destroyers  of  both. 
The  other  pa'tVi  at  first,  under  pretence  of  zeal 
for  higher  measures  t'f  popular  government  than 
thoselthey  enjoyed,  endeavoured  to  corrupt  the 
people  whom  they  meant  to  enslave;  and  having, 
upon  plausible  pretences,  got  possession  of  the 
sword,  they  turned  it  against  the  established  go- 
vernment of  their  country.  Neither  of  those  par- 
ties, probably,  stated  the  speculative  question 
which  we  may  now  be  inclined  to  discuss,  whe- 
ther republic  or  monarchy  was  best  accommo- 
dated to  the  Roman  state  in  the  height  of  its 
dominion,  and  in  the  full  tide  of  luxury  7 

The  wise,  the  courageous,  and  the  just  alone 
are  entitled  to  power;  the  innocent  alone  are  en- 
titled to  freedom.  But  they  who  arc  not  conscious 
of  Having  forfeited  their  right  to  either,  are  un- 
doubtedly justifiable  in  persisting  to  maintain  it. 
The  virtuous  who  resign  their  freedom,  at  the 
same  time  resign  their  virtue,  or  at  least  yield  up 
that  condition  which  is  required  to  preserve  it. 
Citizens  who  were  born  to  inherit  this  condition, 
and  who  had  the  courage  to  harbour  and  to 
cherish  that  elevation  of  mind  which  belongs  to 
it,  were  entitled  to  maintain  for  themselves  the 
post  of  honour  to  the  last,  and  must  for  ever  re- 
ceive from  those  who  respect  integrity  and  mag- 
nanimity the  tribute  of  esteem,  even  of  tender- 
ness, which  is  due  to  their  memory. 

If  ever  there  was  a  body  of  men  fit  to  govern 
the  world,  it  was  the  Roman  senate,  composed 
of  citizens  who  had  passed  through  the  higher 
offices  of  state,  who  had  studied  the  alfairs  of 
their  country  in  the  execution  of  its  councils,  and 
in  the  command  of  its  armies;  and  it  will  for 
ever  be  remembered,  in  behalf  of  those  who 
wished  to  preserve  its  authority,  that  if  their 
removal  from  the  scene  on  which  they  acted  was 
expedient  or  seasonable,  it  was  so  because  that 
scene  was  become  unworthy  of  their  presence. 

Some  of  the  characters,  indeed,  that  appeared 
in  this  cause,  may  require  a  separate  treatment. 
In  that  of  Cato,  virtue  was  the  result  of  a  deci- 
sive and  comprehensive  reflection.  To  him  rec- 
titude of  conduct  was  in  itself,  without  regard  to 
consequences,  the  supreme  object  of  desire  and 
pursuit.  His  penetration,  as  well  as  courage,  in 
the  early  endeavours  he  made,  and  in  the  mauls 
steadiness  with  which  he  persisted  to  oppose  the 
designs  of  C;esar  and  Pompey,  while  others  wa- 
vered, and  either  did  not  perceive  their  intention, 
or  tamely  submitted  to  them,  gave  him  a  striking 
superiority  over  his  contemporaries.1    lie  is  re- 

1  The  impression  of  Cato's  character  remained  so 
deep  with  posterity,  as  well  as  with  the  immediate  Wit- 
nesses of  his  conduct,  that  no  authority  on  the  part 


presented  by  Cicero,  in  some  instances,  as  retain- 
ing his  inflexibility,  when  some  degree  of  com- 
pliance was  more  likely  to  preserve  the  republic. 
The  same  censure  has  been  repeated  by  others  ; 
but  Cato  was  present  to  the  scene,  had  no  by- 
views  to  mislead  him,  and  there  is  not  any  reason 
to  prefer  the  judgment  of  those  who  censure  him 
to  his  own.  Cicero  temporised,  made  the  experi- 
ment of  what  compliance  on  some  occasions 
could  effect,  and  even  flattered  himself  that  he 
had  gained  the  affections  of  C.Tsar  and  Pompey 
to  the  republic,  by  giving  way  to  the  arts  which 
they  employed  to  destroy  it. 

The  fellow-sufferers  of  Cato  in  the  same  cause 
of  the  republic,  were  persons  of  a  different  cha- 
racter from  himself.  To  him  virtue  was  the  end, 
to  them  it  was  the  means  which  they  employed 
for  the  attainment  of  their  end,  and  they  mea- 
sured advantages  by  the  success  of  their  pursuits. 
Cato  possessed  independence  in  the  courage  and 
resolution  of  his  own  mind  ;  they  sought  for  it  in 
the  institutions  of  their  country  ;  they  wished  to 
preserve  their  own  rights,  and  would  yield  them 
to  no  individual  or  set  of  men  whatever.  This 
character  is  indeed  in  a  high  degree  meritorious ; 
no  more  is  required  to  form  an  excellent  citizen, 
and  no  more  was  required  but  the  prevalence  or 
frequency  of  such  a  character  at  Rome  to  have 
preserved,  and  even  to  have  reformed,  that  sickly 
and  perishing  constitution  of  government. 

The  natural  antidote  of  vice  is  restraint  and 
correction  ;  but  in  great  disorders,  and  where  the 
system  itself  is  corrupted,  what  is  applied  for  a 
remedy  is  sometimes  an  evil,  as  well  as  the  dis- 
ease. They  who  peruse  the  history  of  Rome, 
under  the  continued  effects  of  a  revolution,  which 
is  now  accomplished  or  fast  approaching,  will 
find  no  cause  to  congratulate  the  world,  on  its 
having  escaped  from  the  factions  of  Clodius  and 
Milo,  to  incur  the  evils  that  arose  under  Caius 
and  Nero. 

The  impossibility  of  preserving  the  republic, 
or  its  unfitness  to  remain  at  the  head  of  so  great 
an  empire,  is  no  doubt  the  most  plausible  excuse 
which  is  made  for  its  subversion ;  but  this  apo- 
logy neither  Csesar  nor  Pompey  was  entitled  to 
make  for  himself.  Caosar  affected  a  zeal  for 
popular  government,  and  Pompey  strove  to  in- 
flame all  Us  evils,  in  order  to  render  himself  ne- 
cessary to  the  aristocracy.  Caesar  fomented 
political  troubles,  in  order  to  weaken  the  hands 
of  the  senate,  or  in  order  to  find  a  pretence  to 
make  war  upon  them;  and  at  last,  under  the 
show  of  releasing  the  people  from  the  tyranny 
of  that  body,  drew  that  sword  with  which  he  ac- 
complished the  ruin  of  both. 

The  senate  indeed  had  many  difficulties  to  en- 
counter; that  of  protecting  the  provinces  from 
oppression,  in  which  many  of  their  own  mem- 
bers were  concerned;  that  of  restraining  the 
tumults  and  disorders  of  a  licentious  people,  led 
by  different  factions,  desirous  of  change,  or  im- 


of  those  who  wished  to  traduce  him  had  any  effect.  It 
is  remarkable,  that  even  the  authority  of  the  Cusars 
did  not  silence  those  who  in  other  instances  submit- 
ted  to  flatter  them,  nor  prevent  their  joining  in  the 
praises  of  Cato.  Virgil  and  Horace,  though  courtiers, 
could  not  he  restrained  on  this  subject.  Vid.  /1'neid. 
lih.  viii.  ver.  G70.  Her.  lib.  i.  od.  12.  He  was  revered, 
it  lias  been  said,  rather  as  a  good  than  as  a  great  man  ; 
but  mankind  do  not  revere  without  an  opinion  of 
great  ability,  as  well  as  benevolent  intention.  Vid 
Lord  Bolingbr^ke's  Patriot  Kinj. 


405 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


patient  of  government  ;  and  that  of  conducting  a 
pretended  popular  assembly,  in  whom  the  legis- 
lation and  sovereignty  of  the  empire  was  nomi- 
nally vested.  It  is,  however,  difficult  to  judge 
now  far  so  able  a  council,  while  they  themselves 
remained  in  any  degree  uncorrupted,  might  not 
have  found  antidotes,  or  at  least  temporary  expe- 
dients, to  resist  every  other  evil,  if  they  had  not 
been  so  ably  attacked  as  thev  were  by  the  first 
Caesar  and  Pompey,  who  joined  interests  together, 
to  break  down  the  defences  of  a  fortress,  which 
thev  afterwards  severally  intended  to  occupy. 

The  ordinary  train  of  affairs  at  Rome ;  the  sub- 
stitution of  tumults  for  regular  assemblies  of  the 
people ;  the  practice  of  committing  the  provinces, 
with  so  many  resources,  and  the  command  of 
such  armies,  with  so  little  control,  to  the  discre- 
tion of  ambitious  citizens ;  the  dangerous  powers 
which  accompanied  the  higher  offices  of  state, 
without  any  check  upon  those  who  were  inclined 
to  abuse  those  powers,  the  easy  recourse  which 

Sersons  of  dangerous  pretensions,  when  rejected 
y  the  senate,  had  to  popular  riots,  under  the  de- 
nomination of  Comitia,  or  Assemblies  of  the 
People,  made  the  destruction  of  the  common- 
wealth in  some  measure  necessary. 

With  such  citizens  as  the  Gracchi,  as  Apulei- 
us,  as  Marius  and  Cinna,  Clodius  and  Milo,  it 
was  difficult  to  preserve  a  republic ;  but  with  such 
citizens  as  Csesar  and  Pompey,  it  was  altogether 
impossible ;  or  rather  the  republic  may  be  consi- 
dered as  at  an  end  from  the  time  it  was  in  their 
power  to  dispose  of  it. 

The  first  class  of  these  adventurers  were  mis- 
led by  their  passions,  or  fell  into  the  vices  of  their 
situation.  They  endeavoured  to  rule  by  popular 
tumults  or  military  force,  and  when  they  could 
not  pervert  the  ordinary  forms  of  the  state  to 
their  purpose,  employed  violence  to  set  them 
aside;  but  even  in  this,  by  their  mutual  opposi- 
tion, they  preserved  a  kind  of  balance,  in  which 
the  freedom  of  the  commonwealth  seemed  to  re- 
main. 

Pompey  and  Csesar  promoted  systematically 
all  the  evils  to  which  their  country  was  exposed. 
They  had  recourse  to  the  populace  for  grants 
which  the  senate  refused ;  they  prolonged  the 
term  of  provincial  appointments,  which  were  suf- 
ficiently dangerous,  however  short;  they  united 
together  powers  that  were  sufficiently  dangerous 
when  separate ;  united  the  command  of  armies 
in  the  provinces  with  the  authority  of  office  at 
Rome ;  and,  instead  of  suspending  the  fate  of  the 
commonwealth  by  their  mutual  obstructions  to 
each  other,  hastened  its  ruin  by  concerting  toge- 
ther their  measures  against  it ;  leaving  the  deci- 
sion of  their  respective  claims,  till  after  they  had 
rendered  the  republic  a  necessary  prey  to  the  one 
or  the  other. 

Pompey  for  some  time  thought  himself  in  ac- 
tual possession  of  the  monarchy  ;  Caesar,  in  the 
mean  time,  provided  the  most  effectual  means  to 
ravish  it  from  him.  To  state  the  difficulty  of 
preserving  the  republic  in  such  hands,  as  an  ex- 
cuse for  their  having  destroyed  it,  were  to  offer 
the  character  of  criminals  as  an  excuse  for  their 
crimes.  When  the  highwaymen  are  abroad,  the 
traveller  must  be  robbed ;  but  this  is  not  an  ex- 
cuse for  the  crime.  Csesar  and  Pompey  are 
blamed,  not  because  the  republic  had  an  end,  but 
because  they  themselves  were  the  evils  by  which 
it  perished. 


The  necessity  of  submitting,  at  least  for  a 
time,  to  the  government  of  single  men,  had  been 
repeatedly  experienced  by  the  Romans,  and  was 
so  in  the  highest  degree  at  the  times  to  which 
these  observations  refer;  but  this  will  not  justify 
the  pretensions  of  every  profligate  person  who 
may  affect  to  place  himself  in  the  station  of  so- 
vereign. If  upon  this  ground  Cato  and  Brutus 
were  to  be  blamed  for  resisting  the  power  of 
Cassar;  the  last,  in  his  turn,  must  be  blamed  for 
resisting  the  power  of  Pompey  and  other  citi- 
zens, in  their  respective  ages,  for  rejecting  the 
advances  which  were  made  by  Marius,  Cinna, 
Catiline,  and  other  profligate  adventurers,  who 
attempted  to  place  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
empire. 

Of  the  two  Caesars,  the  first  possessed  the  ta- 
lent of  influencing,  of  gaining,  and  employing 
men  to  his  purpose,  beyond  any  other  person  that 
is  known  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  but  it  is 
surely  not  for  the  good  of  mankind  that  he  should 
be  admired  in  other  respects.  To  admire  even 
his  clemency,  is  to  mistake  policy  and  cunning 
for  humanity.  The  second  Caesar,  in  the  part 
which  he  acted  against  the  republic,  is  in  many 
respects  more  excusable  than  the  first.  He  en- 
tered the  scene  when  the  piece  was  much  farther 
advanced,  when  his  countrymen  had  submitted 
to  monarchy,  under  the  title  of  a  perpetual  dic- 
tatorship, and  when  he  himself  was  considered 
as  the  heir  of  a  person  who  had  possessed  this 
pre-eminence.  He  was  therefore  at  least  nearer 
to  the  condition  of  an  hereditary  prince,  who  may 
be  allowed  to  consider  sovereignty  as  his  birth- 
right, and  who,  however  he  may  be  disposed  to 
promote  the  good  of  mankind,  has  a  right  to 
maintain  his  own  station,  and  may  be  supposed 
to  acquit  himself  sufficiently  of  his  duty,  by 
making  a  proper  use  of  his  power,  without  being 
under  any  obligation  to  resign  it,  or  to  admit  or 
improper  encroachments  upon  the  estate  to  which 
he  is  born. 

The  first  Caesar  strove  against  those  who  en- 
deavoured to  preserve  their  own  rights  and  those 
of  their  country;  the  second,  although  he  suc- 
ceeded to  the  same  quarrel,  and  actually  paid  no 
respect  to  the  republic,  more  than  was  necessary 
to  cover  his  design  against  it,  yet  appears,  more 
than  the  first,  in  the  Tight  of  a  person  who  strove 
only  with  the  rivals  of  his  own  ambition,  and 
with  his  competitors  for  the  succession  of  his 
uncle  and  adoptive  father,  who,  having  declared 
him  the  heir  of  his  fortune,  gave  him  a  pretence  to 
support  the  pre-eminence  he  himself  had  gained. 

This  apology,  nevertheless,  though  more  pow- 
erful in  its  application  to  the  case  of  the  second 
Caesar  than  to  that  of  the  first,  is  very  imperfect 
in  its  application  to  either.  If  Octavius  had 
been  educated  under  any  impressions  of  here- 
ditary right  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  re- 
public, the  fate  of  the  person  from  whom  he 
derived  his  supposed  right,  and  the  subsequent, 
though  temporary,  re-establishment  of  the  com- 
monwealth, which  he  witnessed,  and  which  he 
pretended  to  approve,  were  sufficient  to  have  un- 
deceived him,  and  to  have  taught  him  the  part 
which  he  had  to  act  as  a  Roman  citizen,  and  the 
modesty  with  which  he  ought  to  ha\e  waited  for 
the  legal  age  and  the  constitutional  election,  in 
order  to  obtain  those  offices  of  state  to  which,  in 
common  with  the  other  citizens  of  Rome,  his  con- 
dition no  doubt  highly  entitled  him. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


407 


Octavius,  however,  is  not  perhaps  to  be  tried 
so  much  in  the  capacity  of  a  Roman  citizen  born 
to  the  republic,  as  in  that  of  leader  of  a  party, 
born  at  a  time  when  the  competition  for  superi- 
ority was  general,  and  when  sovereignty  or  death 
were  the  alternatives  to  be  chosen  by  persons  of 
such  rank  and  pretensions  as  his  own.  In  this 
capacity  he  affected  what  his  grand-uncle  and 
adoptive  father  had  taught  him  to  aim  at ;  the 
suppression  of  civil  government,  and  the  removal 
of  all  his  own  competitors  for  power. 

As  Pompey,  with  Cato  and  the  principal  sup- 
porters of  the  senate  had  sunk  under  the  first 
Caesar,  so  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  the  other  re- 
storers of  the  commonwealth,  with  the  last  of  the 
family  of  Pompey,  sunk  under  Octavius,  Anto- 
ny, and  Lepidus;  and  the  two  last,  in  their  turn, 
having  sunk  under  Octavius,  this  successful  ad- 
venturer now  remains  sole  commander  of  all  the 
armies  of  the  republic,  and  sole  master  of  all 
its  provinces,  from  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates 
to  the  sea  of  Britain.  And  the  contest  for  this 
mighty  sovereignty  being  now  at  least  decided, 
it  remains  that  we  observe  what  new  form  the 
world  is  to  receive  under  the  dominion  of  its  mas- 
ter, or  what  mighty  harvest  is  to  be  reaped  by 
him  who  is  in  possession  of  the  field,  and  who  is 
now  enabled  to  gather  what  so  many  heroes  had 
sown  or  planted,  and  what  so  many  pretenders 
to  the  same  object  would  have  ravished  or  torn 
from  each  other. 

This  able  adventurer  having,  in  other  situa- 
tions, conducted  his  affairs  with  so  much  dis- 
cretion, as  well  as  enterprise,  continued  in  his 
present  elevation  to  exercise  the  same  profitable 
virtues.  In  the  severities  which  he  had  formerly 
practised  against  those  who  opposed  him,  there 
was  sufficient  evidence  of  a  cruel  and  sanguina- 
ry nature,1  and  it  were  monstrous  to  suppose 
that  the  murders  which  were  perpetrated  by  his 
order,  or  with  his  consent,  could  be  justified  by 
the  necessity  of  affairs  in  which  his  engaging  at 
all  was  criminal.  But  as  the  horror  of  Sylla's 
cruelties,  still  remaining  in  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple, was  a  great  bar  to  the  success  of  any  similar 
usurpation,  and  suggested  to  Julius  Caesar,  in  the 
beginning  of  his  career,  an  opposite  course  of 
clemency  and  mercy ;  so  the  fate  of  this  last  ad- 
venturer, who,  after  having  shown  mercy  to 
many  of  his  opponents,  fell  at  last  by  the  hands 
of  those  he  had  spared,  probably  suggested  to  the 
triumvirate  the  necessity  of  securing  themselves 
before  +hey  affected  the  reputation  of  mercy,  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  suggested  to  this  heir  of  Caesar 
the  caution  not  to  affront,  so  directly  as  the  other 
had  done,  that  republican  spirit,  whose  effects  he 
had  occasion  to  dread. 

Octavius,  though  inferior  to  his  uncle  in  the 
capacity  of  a  soldier,  being  equally  master  of 
every  necessary  artifice,  had  recourse  to  the  use 
of  clemency  when  it  suited  the  state  of  his  affairs. 
His  steps  became  gradually  less  bloody,  from  the 
first  fatal  proscription  to  the  last  victory  which 
he  obtained  over  Antony;  and  in  this  he  reversed 
the  order  that  was  observed  by  the  first  Caesar, 
beginning  to  affect  moderation  in  a  period  of  the 
war,  corresponding  to  that  in  which  the  military 


1  See  the  History  of  the  Proscription,  and  his  at- 
tendance  at  the  sacrifices  or  executions  done  at  Peru- 
sia.   Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  15. 


executions  of  the  other  were  ooserved  to  have 
become  more  decisive  and  bloody. 

In  the  whole  management  of  the  contest  with 
Antony,  Octavius  had  conducted  himself  with  a 
singular  address.  Stating  himself  as  a  Roman 
consul,  merely,  he  discontinued  the  power  of  tri- 
umvir in  his  own  person,  in  order  to  strip  his 
antagonist  likewise  of  that  character.  To  avoid 
appearances  which  might  divide  any  part  of  the 
Roman  people  against  him,  he  overlooked  Anto- 
ny entirely  in  the  pretended  quarrel  with  the 
queen  of  Egypt,  or  he  affected  to  consider  him  as 
a  person  under  some  fatal  delusion,  and  in  hazard 
of  becoming  a  traitor  to  his  own  country,  from  his 
attachment  to  a  stranger  and  an  artful  woman. 
The  war  was  declared  against  the  queen  of 
Egypt  alone,  and,  like  any  other  foreign  war, 
was  undertaken  by  Octavius  in  the  capacity  of 
Roman  consul,  and  with  an  observance  of  all  the 
usual  forms  of  the  commonwealth. 

Octavius  was  remarkable  for  employing  dis- 
guises, which,  though  too  thin  to  conceal  the 
truth,  furnished  his  own  part)',  at  least,  with  a 
pretence  for  supporting  him,  and  considerably 
helped  him  forwards  in  the  execution  of  all  his 
designs.  Affecting  to  be  no  more  than  consul, 
or  ordinary  magistrate,  he  exercised  the  power 
of  a  master,  or  military  usurper,  in  the  western 
provinces ;  and  hastened,  by  the  reduction  of 
Egypt,  and  the  suppression  of  his  rivals  who  had 
taken  refuge  in  that  kingdom,  to  make  himself 
equally  sovereign  in  the  east.  In  the  absence 
of  this  consul  the  affairs  of  state  in  the  capital 
were  not  permitted,  as  usual,  to  devolve  on  his 
nominal  colleague,  nor,  in  the  absence  of  both 
consuls,  to  devolve  on  the  officer  that  was  next 
in  rank;  but  were  in  the  hands  of  Maecenas,  a 
person  known  for  the  minister  or  confidant  of 
Octavius,  without  any  other  rank  or  title  of  of- 
fice in  the  commonwealth.  These  circumstances 
were  sufficient  to  discredit  the  professions  which 
he  continued  to  make  of  his  zeal  for  the  consti- 
tution of  the  republic;  but  when  it  is  convenient 
for  parties  to  be  deceived,  they  shut  their  eyes 
upon  every  circumstance  which  tends  to  expose 
the  deception. 

It  was  not  indeed  necessary  at  present  that  the 
people  should  be  imposed  upon,  in  order  to  enable 
the  head  of  the  army  to  reign  with  an  absolute 
sway  in  Italy  and  overall  the  western  provinces. 
As  the  troops  who  were  actually  under  arms 
looked  forward  to  their  general  for  future  pro- 
visions and  settlements,  so  the  veterans  then 
established  in  the  country,  looked  up  to  him  as 
the  guardian  of  their  property,  and  considered 
his  power  as  the  principal  security  of  what  they 
possessed.  If  it  were  necessary,  in  this  case,  to 
preserve  the  appearances  of  civil  government,  in 
order  to  conciliate  the  minds  of  the  citizens,  it 
was  equally  necessary  to  preserve  the  reality  of 
absolute  power,  in  order  to  gratify  the  army,  and 
in  order  to  continue  to  the  veterans  the  principal 
security  by  which  they  held  their  lands.  And 
this  wary  politician  accommodated  himself  with 
uncommon  discernment,  to  the  feelings  or  preju- 
dices of  both. 

The  superior  address  of  Octavius,  in  the  con- 
test with  Antony,  gave  continual  presages  of 
victory  on  his  side;  and  from  the  beginning  of 
the  war  to  its  final  decision  at  Actium,  and  to 
the  last  close  of  the  scene  in  Egypt,  partizans 
were  continually  passing  from  the  losing  to  the 


408 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VI/ 


winning  side.  Upon  the  reduction  of  Egypt,  the 
victor,  though  pretending  to  act  in  the  capacity 
of  Roman  consul,  did  not,  as  in  former  times,  re- 
fer to  the  senate  the  arrangements  to  be  made  in 
his  conquest ;  nor  did  he  wait  the  formality  of  a 
commission  from  Rome,  authorising  him  to  settle 
the  provinces.  He  named  a  governor,  and  gave 
orders  for  the  repair  of  all  the  public  works, 
which,  on  account  of  their  effect  in  distributing 
the  inundations  of  the  Nile,  made,  in  that  king- 
dom, a  great  and  important  object  of  state,  and 
by  their  being  neglected  in  the  late  troubles,  had 
occasioned  much  distress. 

The  kingdom  of  Egypt  was  a  principal  gra- 
nary for  the  supply  of  Italy,  and  it  is  probable 
that  its  consequence  had  been  severely  felt  in  the 
late  interruption  of  its  exports.  Octavius  there- 
fore took  measures  to  secure  his  possession  of  a 
eountry,  by  which  he  observed  that  the  state  of 
Italy  and  the  capital  of  the  empire  might  be 
greatly  affected.  He  deprived  the  Egyptians  of 
all  the  forms  of  their  monarchy ;  and,  in  order  to 
efface  the  memory  of  their  national  indepen- 
dence, and  to  discontinue  pretensions  which  the 
inhabitants  of  Alexandria  used  to  support  by 
tumults  and  revolts,  he  abolished  all  their  public 
assemblies  and  national  councils.  He  forbade 
the  resort  of  Egyptian  nobles  to  Rome,  and  of 
Roman  senators  to  Egypt.  As  there  was  reason 
to  apprehend  that  there  might  still  exist,  under 
the  ruins  of  this  late  opulent  monarchy,  or  under 
the  remains  of  Antony's  party  there,  some  sparks 
of  fire  which  the  ambition  or  intrigues  of  any 
considerable  partizan  might  kindle  into  a  flame, 
he  chose  for  governor  Cornelius  Gallus,  a  person 
of  equestrian  rank  and  moderate  pretensions,  not 
likely  to  harbour  ambitious  designs  ;  and  made 
it  a  rule  to  have  similar  qualifications  in  future 
governors,  and  to  perpetuate  the  other  parts  of 
an  establishment  which  he  now  made,  for  the 
preservation  of  so  important  a  territory,  and  the 
government,  of  so  factious  a  people. 

While  Octavius  made  these  arrangements  in 
Egypt,  he  secured  a  great  treasure,  of  which  a 
considerable  part  was  found  in  the  coffers  of  the 
late  queen,  and  part  arose  from  the  contributions 
which  he  himself  imposed  on  the  city  of  Alex- 
andria and  other  parts  of  the  kingdom.  And 
being,  from  these  funds,  prepared  to  acquit  him- 
self of  the  pecuniary  engagements  he  had  come 
under  to  the  army,  and  enabled  to  make  dona- 
tions to  the  populace  of  Rome,  whose  favour  was 
necessary  for  him  in  the  farther  prosecution  of 
his  designs,  he  set  out  on  his  return  to  Italy ;  but 
having  stopped  in  the  island  of  Samos,  while  the 
army  in  separate  divisions  was  moving  to  the 
westward,  he  passed  the  winter  at  this  place,  de- 
ferring his  arrival  at  Rome  until  the  troops  should 
be  assembled,  and  every  other  circumstance  pre- 
pared for  the  triumphal  entries  he  meant  to  make 
into  the  capital. 

During  his  stay  in  Samos,  the  neighbouring 
towns  and  provinces  vied  with  each  other  in  de- 
monstrations of  submission  to  his  person,  and  of 
zeal  for  his  cause.  The  inhabitants  of  Per- 
gamus  and  Nicomedia  made  offer  of  divine  ho- 
nours to  himself,  and  petitioned  for  leave  to  erect, 
a  temple  for  the  purpose  of  performing  these 
honours.  Those  of  Ephesus  and  Nicasa,  as  being 
more  modest  or  more  delicate  in  their  flattery,  di- 
rected this  compliment  to  his  adoptive  father,  the 
late  Caesar,  to  whom,  together  with  Roma,  con- 


sidered as  joint  deities,  they  proposed  to  erect  a 
shrine  and  a  temple. 

In  Italy,  at  the  same  time,  similar  or  more  im» 
portant  tributes  of  adulation  and  servility  were 
paid  to  the  victor.  At  Rome,  all  the  honours 
with  which  the  republic  had  been  accustomed  to 
reward  the  eminent  service  of  her  citizens,  had 
been  for  some  time  lavished  on  those  who  were 
most  successful  in  subverting  her  government . 
and  these  honours  were  now  heaped  on  Octa- 
vius with  a  profusion  proportioned  to  the  as- 
cendant he  had  gained  by  the  suppression  of  all 
his  competitors.  The  statues  which  had  been 
erected  to  his  rival  Mark  Antony  were  broken 
down,  and  the  name  of  Marcus  for  ever  forbid  in 
that  family  :  as  if  the  extinction  of  this  rival  were 
an  end  of  every  war,  notwithstanding  that  many 
hostile  nations  were  yet  in  arms  on  the  frontiers 
of  the  empire,  the  gates  of  Janus  were  ostenta- 
tiously shut,  and  Octavius  declared  to  be  the  re- 
storer of  peace  to  the  world.  A  triumphal  arch 
was  erected  at  Brundusium,  on  the  spot  where 
it  was  supposed  he  was  to  set  his  foot  on  shore. 
The  anniversaries  of  his  birth  and  of  his  victo- 
ries were  to  be  celebrated  for  ever  as  days  of 
thanksgiving,  and  his  name  was  to  be  inserted 
in  the  hymns  or  public  prayers  which  were 
statedly  sung,  or  offered  up  for  the  safety  of  the 
commonwealth. 

On  the  first  of  January,  while  Oc- 
U.  C.  724.  tavius  was  still  at  Samos,  he  being  ad- 
mitted a  fifth  time  into  the  office  of 
Tmper.  Casar  consu\  the  senate  and  people  took  an 
jjpuieius,  ex  oat'1  °*  allegiance,  or  in  words  more 
Kal.  Julii  nearly  corresponding  to  the  terms  of 
Polit.  Valer.  their  language,  took  an  oath  to  ob- 
Messala.        gerve  hig  acts  an(]  Jecrees>  They 

declared  him  tribune  of  the  people  for  an  unli- 
mited time,  and  extended  the  powers  of  this  office 
beyond  the  usual  bounds  of  the  city.  They  or- 
dained, that  from  thenceforward  the  appeals 
usually  made  to  the  people  should  be  made  to 
Caesar-  alone,  and  that  in  criminal  judgments, 
what  was  called  the  vote  of  Minerva,  an  act  of 
grace  provided  for  the  pardon  of  criminals  when 
condemned  only  by  a  single  vote  of  majority, 
should  from  thenceforward  be  ascribed  to  him, 
and  consequently  be  termed,  the  Mercy,  or  the 
Vote  of  Cffisar.1 

The  precipitancy  with  which  the  Roman  se- 
nate and  people  now  rushed  into  servitude,  had 
probably  no  mixture  of  that  sullen  design  with 
which  the  partizans  of  the  republic  had  prepared 
the  first  Caesar  for  his  fate.  The  retainers  of  the 
victorious  party  raised  the  cry  of  adulation,  and 
they  were  followed,  in  expressions  of  servility,  by 
persons  who  wished  to  recommend  themselves 
in  the  most  early  advances,  or  who  dreaded  be- 
ing marked  out  for  resentment  in  case  they  ap- 
peared to  be  tardy  in  expressing  their  zeal.  But 
what,  under  established  monarchy,  may  be  con- 
sidered as  the  duty  and  the  loyalty  of  subjects  to 
their  sovereign,  and  like  filial  affection,  though 
sometimes  partial  and  misplaced,  is  always  a  vir- 
tue, and  salutary  to  mankind,  in  such  rapid 
transitions,  from  the  pretensions  of  citizens  to 
the  submission  of  slaves,  is  a  mortifying  example 
of  the  weakness  and  depravity  to  which  human 
nature  is  exposed. 

The  apparent  servility  of  all  orders  of  men 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  xxxi. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


409 


under  the  usurpation  of  Julius  Cffisar,  probably 
inspired  the  security  which  gave  the  conspira- 
tors such  an  advantage  against  him.  The  ex- 
ample, however,  put  Octavius,  though  less  ex- 
posed, much  more  on  his  guard  ;  and  may  serve 
to  account  for  manv  of  the  precautions  he  took, 
and  for  many  of  the  forms  he  observed,  in  the 
sequel  of  his  government.  He  had  occasion,  in- 
deed, to  experience,  in  his  own  person,  that  his 
precautions  were  not  altogether  unnecessary.  I  n 
/he  midst  of  the  'ate  demonstrations  of  joy  tor  his 
victory*,  there  were  still  a  few  who  whetted  their 
swords  in  secret  Against  him,  as  the  cause  of  their 
public  degradation,  and  the  author  of  their  pri- 
vate wrongs.  Le|ddus,  the  son  of  the  late  de- 
graded triumvir,  and  nephew  of  Marcus  Brutus 
bv  his  sister  Junia,  incited  probably  by  this  do- 
mestic example,  and  by  so  many  motives  of  a 
private  and  |>ub!ic  nature,  had  procured  s-mie  ac- 
complices, and  was  preparing  to  cut  short  the 
usurpation  of  Octavius  on  his  return  to  Rome. 
But  t  lis  design,  no  way  justified  bv  any  consi- 
derations of  prudence  or  public  utility,  was  de- 
feated by  the  vigilance  of  Maecenas,  and  ended 
in  the  execution  of  the  young  Lepidus,  and  in 
the  imprisonment  of  his  mother  Junia,  who  re- 
mained in  confinement  until  she  was  admitted 
to  bail,  at  the  humble  request  of  her  husband, 
the  late  triumvir  and  associate  in  the  empire  with 
Octavius  and  Antony,  and  who,  to  the  other 
marks  of  the  humiliation  which  he  now  endured, 
joined  that  of  being  overlooked  even  by  those 
who  were  supposed  to  have  suffered  by  his 
tyranny  2 

Octavius  having,  by  his  stay  in  the  island  of 
Samos,  disconcerted  the  effect  of  this  conspiracy, 
and  driven  sufficient  time  for  the  transportation 
of  his  army,  and  the  other  apjwratus  of  his  tri- 
umph into'ltaly,  set  out  for  that  country,  and  in 
his  way  visited  the  scene  of  his  late  victory  at 
Actium.  At  this  place,  Apollo  being  the  prin- 
cipal object  of  worship,  he  had,  immediately  after 
the  action,  selected  from  the  capture's  a  galley  of 
each  rate  to  be  placed  as  an  offering  to  the  god  ; 
and  at  Toryne,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  straits, 
where  his  own  army  had  been  stationed  before 
the  engagement,  he  directed  a  city  to  be  raised 
under  the  name  of  Nicopolis.3 

The  conqueror,  upon  his  arrival  at  Rome,  was 
received  by  Politus,  who  had  succeeded  to  the 
offi  re  of  consul  at  the  resignation  of  Apuleius, 
and  who,  though  now  his  colleague,  dropped  the 
pretension  to  equality,  and  performed  the  sacri- 
fices of  thanksgiving  which  had  been  appointed 
for  his  safe  return.  Octavius  hitherto,  either  by 
the  nature  of  the  wars  in  which  he  had  been 
engaged,  or  by  the  event  of  them,  had  not  been 
entitled  to  a  triumph  ;  or  being,  by  his  temper 
and  great  caution,  averse  to  ostentation,  he  had 
neglected  to  avail  himself  of  this  honour.  But 
though  he  himself,  in  appearance,  was  no  way 
governed  by  vanity,  something  was  due  to  the 
public  opinion,  to  the  wishes  of  those  who  had 
shared  in  the  glories  of  his  victories,  and  to  the 
impressions  which  even  pageantry  makes  on  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  to  be  governed.  He 
therefore  determined  to  exhibit  three  separate 
triumphal  processions.  The  first  for  his  victory 
over  the  Panonians,  the  Japydes,  and  the  Dal- 


2  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  88.  Liv.  Epitome,  lib.  exxxv. 

3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Ji.  c.  1.   Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  16. 

3  F 


matians ;  the  second  for  his  victory  at  Actium \ 
and  the  third  for  the  conquest  of  Egypt.  In  the 
first  of  these  triumphs,  Carinus,  by  whom  the 
war  of  Illyricum  had  been  chiefly  conducted,  was 
admitted  to  partake  with  the  commander  under 
whose  auspices  the  subject  of  triumph  had  been 
gained.  In  the  third  was  exhibited  a  scene, 
which,  for  riches  and  splendour,  greatly  sur- 
passed any  of  the  former,  being  enriched  with 
the  treasure  he  had  amassed  in  Egypt,  and  with 
various  trophies  constructed  from  the  spoils  of 
that  country.  Among  these  were  carried  the 
effigy  of  the  late  queen,  having,  in  allusion  to  the 
supposed  manner  of  her  death,  the  aspick  repre- 
sented on  her  arm.  This  pageant  was  followed 
bv  her  surviving  children,  who  were  led  as  cap- 
tives. 

In  these  processions  a  circumstance  was  re- 
marked, which  indicated  considerable  innova- 
tion in  the  pretensions  of  the  person  by  whom 
they  were  to  be  led.  It  had  been  usual  for  the 
officers  of  state  to  meet  the  triumphal  march  at 
the  gates  of  Rome,  and  afterwards  to  advance 
before  it  into  the  city.  In  conformity  with  the 
first  part  of  this  custom,  the  consul  and  other 
magistrates  met  the  procession  at  the  gates ;  but 
suffering  the  conqueror  to  pass  before  them,  fell 
behind,  and  followed  in  his  train  to  the  capitol. 
Here  he  deposited,  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter,  six- 
teen thousand  pondo,  or  a  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  ounces  of  gold,  with  fifty  millions  in 
Roman  money,  or  above  four  hundred  thousand 
pounds  sterling;4  and  at  the  close  of  the  cere- 
mony distributed  a  thousand  sestertii,  or  above 
eight  pounds  of  our  money  a  man  to  the  troops  ; 
and  this,  to  an  army  consisting  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  men,  amounted  to  a  sum 
of  near  a  million  sterling.  To  the  officers,  be- 
sides his  pecuniary  bounty,  he  gave  honorary 
rewards.  To  Agrippa,  in  particular,  he  gave  a 
blue  ensign  in  token  of  his  naval  victories ;  to  the 
people  he  made  a  donation  of  four  hundred  ses- 
tertii, or  about  three  pounds  five  shillings  a  man, 
and  doubled  the  usual  allowance  of  corn  from  the 
public  granaries ;  discharged  all  that  he  owed, 
remitted  all  the  debts  that  were  due  to  himself, 
and  refused  all  the  presents  which  were  offered 
to  him  from  the  different  towns  and  districts  of 
Italy. 

These  ace u munitions  and  distributions  of 
foreign  spoils  at  Rome,  or  the  general  expecta- 
tions of  prosperous  times,  produced  great  or  very 
sensible  effects  in  raising  the  price  of  houses, 
lands,  and  other  articles  of  sale,  whether  in  Italy 
or  in  the  contiguous  provinces;  a  circumstance 
which,  joined  to  the  new  and  strange  appear- 
ance of  the  gates  of  the  temple  of  Janus  being 
shut,  as  a  signal  of  universal  peace,  made  these 
triumphs  of  Octavius  appear  an  a?ra  of  felicity 
and  lwpe  to  the  empire. 

They  were  followed  by  other  magnificent 
ceremonies;  the  dedicating  of  a  temple  which 
had  been  erected  to  Minerva,  and  the  opening  of 
a  great  hall  which  had  been  inscribed  with  the 
name  of  Julius  Ca;sar.  In  that  hall  was  placed 
a  noted  statue  of  victory  which  had  been  broujht 
from  Tarentum;  and  there  too  were  hung  up 
the  trophies  which  had  been  collected  in  Egypt. 
The  statue  of  Cleopatra,  in  gold,  was  placed  in 
the  temple  of  Venus,  and  at  the  same  time  the 

4  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  xx. 


410 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


shrine  of  Julius  Caesar,  as  well  as  those  of  Jupi- 
ter, Juno,  and  Minerva,  were  decorated  with 
many  ensigns  or  badges  of  victory. 

On  occasion  of  these  solemnities,  a  variety  of 
games  were  exhibited:  that  of  Troy,  in  particu- 
lar, was  now  instituted,  being  a  procession  formed 
by  youth  of  high  rank,  mounted  on  horseback, 
and  led  by  Marcellus  and  Tiberius,  the  nephew 
and  the  stepson  of  Octavius.  Races  were  run 
in  chariots  and  on  horseback,  by  persons  of  high 
rank  ;  and  fights  of  gladiators  were  exhibited,  in 
which,  to  the  supposed  disgrace  of  the  times,  it 
is  remarked,  that  a  Roman  senator,  of  the  name 
of  Gtuintus  Ventelius,  was  one  of  the  combatants. 
Numerous  parties  of  captives  from  the  Daci  and 
Suevi,  in  a  form  that  might  pass  for  real  battles, 
were  m  ule  to  fi^ht  for  their  liberty,  that  was  pro- 
posed as  the  prize  of  the  victors.  Many  exhibi- 
tions were  made  of  hunting  and  baiting  of  wild 
beasts,  in  which  were  presented  a  rhinoceros  and 
hippopotamos  or  sea  horse,  animals,  till  then,  un- 
known at  Rome.  In  the  time  of  these  enter- 
tainments, which  continued  many  days,  Octa- 
vius either  really  was,  or  pretended  to  be  taken 
ill,  and  left  the  honour  of  presiding  at  the  shows 
to  some  private  senators,  who,  together  with 
many  other  members  of  their  body,  to  increase 
the  solemnity,  feasted  the  people  in  their  turns.1 

Such  had  been  the  arts  by  which  candidates 
for  public  favour,  in  the  latter  times  of  the  re- 
public, maintained  in  the  capital  the  considera- 
tion tiiey  had  gained  by  their  services  on  the 
frontiers  of  the  empire ;  and  the  continuance  of 
these  arts  had  now  the  more  effect,  that  the 
people,  who  still  had  a  claim  to  this  species  of 
courtship,  were  become  insensible  to  any  other 
privilege  of  Roman  citizens,  and  were  ready  to 
barter  a  political  consequence,  which  they  were 
no  longer  fit  to  enjoy,  for  a  succession  of  sports 
and  entertainments  that  amused  their  leisure,  or 
for  a  distribution  of  bread,  which,  without  the 
usual  and  hard  conditions  of  industry  or  labour, 
helped  to  give  them  subsistence. 

It  is  observed,  that  in  the  preceding  year, 
while  the  Egyptian  war  was  yet  in  dependance, 
a  concourse  of  Roman  citizens,  assuming  the 
powers  of  the  people  in  public  assembly,  bestow- 
ed on  Statiiius  Taurus  by  a  formal  decree,  in 
return  for  his  munificence,  in  exhibiting  matches 
of  gladiators  and  the  baiting  of  wild  beasts,  the 
privilege  of  naming  annually  one  of  the  prsetors. 
So  irregular  and  absurd  were  become  the  pro- 
ceedings of  what  were  called  the  assemblies  of 
the  people;  and  the  wary  Octavius  could  not 
overlook  the  effect  of  these  arts,  in  gaining  their 
consent  to  the  dominion  he  meant  to  establish. 
But  while  he  indulged  the  people  in  their  dispo- 
sition to  amusement  and  dissipation,  he  gave  the 
necessary  attention  to  his  military  arrangements, 
and  took  measures  to  secure  the  possession  of 
that  principal  support,  on  which  sovereignty,  in 
such  an  empire,  must  be  founded.  He  had 
experienced  the  danger  which  may  arise  from 
armies  ill  governed,  and  knew  that  a  power  may 
become  insecure,  by  an  abuse  of  the  means  by 
which  it  is  gained.  When  to  the  troops,  which 
he  himself  commanded  in  Sicily,  were  joined 
those  of  Lepidus  and  Sextus  Pompeius,  the 
engine,  become  too  unwieldy  for  his  manage- 
ment, and  without  any  other  principle  of  govern- 

1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  li.  c.  22,  23. 


m 

ment,  but  fear,  might  baffle  his  skill  to  conduct  "1 
it.  He  learned,  upon  that  occasion,  that  the 
considerations  of  civil  justice,  and  the  respect 
which  is  paid  to  some  form  of  political  subordi- 
nation, are  necessary  even  to  the  discipline  and 
order  of  a  military  establishment. 

Upon  this  account,  Octavius,  immediately 
after  his  victories  in  Sicily,  had  proceeded  with 
great  address,  to  reduce  and  to  purge  the  legions, 
by  dismissing  strangers  and  fugitive  slaves,  and 
by  ordering  the  levies  from  thenceforward  to  be 
confined  to  citizens  of  Rome.  The  denomina- 
tion of  Roman  citizen,  indeed,  was  no  longer  ap- 
propriated to  the  descendants  of  the  Alban  or 
Sabin  colony,  nor  even  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
municipal  towns  of  Italy.  It  had  been  commu- 
nicated to  many  cities  and  provinces  beyond 
these  limits,  and  it  was  likely  now,  with  much 
greater  propriety  than  ever,  to  be  extended  to 
the  free,  or  well-born  and  respectable  class  of 
the  inhabitants  in  all  parts  of  the  empire.  By 
limiting,  however,  the  levies  of  the  army  to  this 
name  of  respect  and  of  real  privilege,  Octavius 
restored,  in  some  degree,  the  connection  between 
the  civil  and  military  honours,  taught  the  soldier 
to  value  himself  on  his  condition  as  a  citizen, 
and  the  citizen  to  consider  as  an  honour  the 
name  of  a  soldier.  f 

Upon  this  arrangement,  the  commander  in 
chief  of  the  army,  as  first  magistrate  of  the 
commonwealth,  had  a  double  claim  to  obedience, 
and,  joined  to  his  military  power,  had  an  autho- 
rity, derived  from  a  principle  of  justice  and  of 
civil  right,  without  which  armies  are  no  more 
than  companies  of  banditti,  whose  force  may  be 
occasionally  turned  against  the  person  who  leads 
them,  as  well  as  against  his  enemies. 

The  legions  assembled  at  Rome,  on  occasion 
of  the  late  triumphal  processions,  were  now  to 
be  distributed  to  what  were  intended  as  their 
ordinary  stations  in  time  of  peace.  Of  these 
stations,  the  principal  were  on  the  Euphrates,  on 
the  Rhine,  and  on  the  Danube ;  but,  before  this 
distribution  could  be  finally  made,  some  troubles, 
which,  notwithstanding  the  late  signal  of  general 
peace,  still  subsisted  in  some  parts  of  the  empire, 
particularly  on  the  Moselle  and  the  Rhine,  in 
the  interior  parts  of  Spain,  and  on  the  confines 
of  Macedonia,  required  attention.  To  the  first 
of  these  quarters.  Nonius  Gallus  was  sent  to  re- 
duce the  Treviri,2  who,  in  concert  with  some 
German  nations,  made  incursions  into  Gaul. 
Statiiius  Taurus  was  sent  into  Spain,  against 
the  Astures  and  Cantabri,3  and  Marcus  Crassus, 
from  Macedonia,  had  orders  to  repress  the  incur- 
sions of  the  Daci  and  Bastarni,  Scythian  nations, 
who  had  passed  the  Danube  and  the  mountains 
of  Heemus,  and  who  had  taken  possession  of 
some  districts  in  Thrace ;  butr  upon  the  ap- 
proach of  Crassus,  they  repassed  those  moun- 
tains, and  left  the  Romans  again  in  possession  of 
the  lands,  which  they  had  formerly  occupied  in 
that  quarter.4 

The  officers  employed  on  these  different  ser- 
vices, were  no  longer,  as  formerly,  supreme  in 
their  respective  stations,  and  accountable  only  to 
the  senate  and  people ;  they  were  understood  to 

2  The  Bishoprick  of  Treves. 

3  Tlie  inhabitants  of  what  is  now  called  Asturia 
and  Cantabria. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvii.  c.  54—57.   Tacit.  An.  lib.  nr. 
e.  5. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


411 


be  lieutenants  of  a  superior  officer  acting  as 
general  governor  over  all  the  provinces,  and  com- 
mander m  chief  of  all  the  armies  in  the  empire. 
This  supreme  command  Octavius  held  under 
the  well  known  name  of  imperator,  which  was 
usually  given  in  the  field  to  victorious  generals, 
and  which  he,  contrary  to  former  practice,  now 
retained  even  in  the  city;  and,, as  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  observe,  gradually  appropriated  to 
himself  and  his  successors. 

In  the  character  which  Octavius  now  assumed, 
he  united,  in  support  of  his  authority,  the  pre- 
rogatives of  consul,  censor  and  tribune  of  the 
people;  and  thus,  in  divesting  himself  of  the 
name  of  triumvir,  he  affected  to  re-establish  the 
constitution  of  the  republic,  and  to  restore  the 
ordinary  magistrates  and  officers  of  state :  but 
to  a  person,  who  valued  safety  no  less  than 
power,  such  an  establishment  was  far  from  being 
sufficiently  secure.  The  dignities  of  consul, 
censor,  and  tribune,  being  by  the  constitution  of 
the  republic  separate  and  temporary,  the  unpre- 
cedented conjunction,  and  continuance  of  them 
in  the  same  person,  was  a  palpable  imposition, 
which  could  be  no  longer  safe  than  it  was  sup- 
ported by  force;  and  depending  on  the  army 
merely,  without  any  plea  of  right,  presented  an 
object  of  aiflhition  to  every  adventurer,  who  could 
bring  an  army  in  support  of  his  claim. 

These  considerations,  probably,  suggested 
to  Octavius  the  necessity  of  endeavouring  to 
strengthen  his  title.  He  had  hitherto  kept  pos- 
session of  the  government  under  various  pre- 
tences; but  never  declared  any  intention  to 
realize,  or  to  perpetuate  the  sovereignty  in  his 
own  person.  For  some  time,  he  had  professed 
no  more  than  a  desire  to  avenge  the  death  of  his 
relation  Julius  Ca^;ar.  Next,  he  pretended  to 
remove  some  disorders  which  had  crept  into  the 
commonwealth  ;  and,  last  of  all,  to  oppose  the  de- 
signs of  Antony,  who,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
quarrel  between  them,  he  suggested,  was  likely 
to  sacrifice  the  rights  of  the  Roman  people  to  the 
caprices  of  a  stranger  and  a  woman. 

These  rivals,  in  their  appeal*  to  the  judgment 
of  the  public,  vied  in  their  professions  of  zeal  for 
the  commonwealth,  mutually  challenged  each 
other  to  resign  their  unconstitutional  powers; 
and  each  retained  his  own  power,  under  the 
single  pretence  that  he  was  obliged  to  continue 
in  arms,  until  he  should  have  secured  the  re- 
public against  the  designs  of  his  antagonist. 

This  pretence  being  now  removed,  it  was  be- 
rome  necessary  that  Octavius  should  more  fully 
explain  himself,  and  declare  upon  what  footing 
he  was  to  hold  the  government.  The  chief  par- 
tialis of  the  republic  had  fallen  by  their  own 
hands,  or  by  the  swords  of  their  enemies.  All 
his  rivals  were  cut  off,  and  the  whole  military 
force  of  the  empire  centred  in  himself;  but  he 
had  experienced,  in  the  repeated  mutinies  of  the 
army,  the  precarious  state  of  his  authority  over 
men,  who  were  directed  by  mere  caprice  or  per- 
sonal attachment,  without  any  acknowledged 
title  on  the  part  of  their  leader. 

An  open  usurpation  of  kingly  power  was  still 
odious  at  Rome;  it  appeared  as  a  direet  attack, 
not  only  upon  the  forms  of  the  Roma n>  republic, 
but  likewise  as  an  attack  upon  the  private  right 
of  every  citizen  who  pretended  to  consideration 
and  power  proportioned  to  the  rank  of  his  family 
or  his  personal  qualities;  and  though  the  people 


in  general  were  disposed  to  submission,  yet  the 
violence  of  a  few,  who  might  be  willing  to  ex- 
pose themselves  as  the  champions  of  the  com- 
monwealth, was  still  to  be  dreaded.  In  this 
capacity,  not  only  citizens  having  high  preten- 
sions in  the  civil  line,  but  military  officers  like- 
wise, might  be  dangerous  to  their  leader;  and 
choosing  rather  to  claim  preferments  and  honours 
as  their  right,  than  as  the  gift  of  a  master,  might 
publicly  spurn  his  authority,  or  employ  against 
him  the  hands  of  some  secret  assassin,  whom 
in  any  successful  attempt  the  law  would  protect, 
and  the  public  voice  would  applaud. 

Julius  Caesar,  whose  personal  qualities  were 
sufficient  to  have  supported  him  in  any  preten- 
sions, still  found  himself  mistaken  in  relying  on 
the  attachment  of  his  own  officers,  as  much  as 
on  the  submission  of  his  fellow-citizens.  He 
found  persons  of  every  condition,  still  animated 
with  the  spirit  of  republican  government,  com- 
bined for  his  destruction,  and  he  fell  a  sacrifice 
to  his  excessive  security,  or  rather  to  the  vanity 
and  ostentation  with  which  he  affected  to  hold 
his  power.  His  successor  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, as  he  was  by  nature  more  cautious  and  had 
less  ostentation,  so  he  was  taught,  by  this  alarm- 
ing  example  to  disguise  his  ambition,  or  to  pro- 
ceed less  directly  to  his  object. 

Octavius,  therefore,  having  taken  the  most 
effectual  measures  to  secure  his  power,  still 
thought  it  necessary  to  affect  a  purpose  of  re- 
signing it,  and  of  restoring  the  republican  go- 
vernment. It  is  reported,  that  he  even  held  a 
serious  consultation  on  this  subject  with  his 
principal  advisers  and  confidents,  Agrippa  and 
Maecenas.  This  fact  may  be  questioned  j  but  in 
a  character  so  entirely  made  up  of  artifice  and 
design,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  he 
wished  to  disguise  his  thoughts  even  to  his  most 
intimate  counsellors,  or  to  secure  their  approba- 
tion before  he  disclosed  his  real  intentions. 

Agrippa  and  Maecenas  are  said  to  have  been 
of  different  opinions  respecting  the  propriety  of 
their  master's  resignation;  and  the  question  ac- 
cordingly, as  it  was  supposed  to  be  debated  in 
this  famous  council,  has  furnished  a  curious 
theme  to  historians  and  rhetoricians.  Agrippa 
encouraged  Octavius  to  persist  in  his  supposed 
intention  to  resign  his  power,  and  supported  this 
opinion,  by  stating  the  advantages  of  republican 
government.  "It  is  the  tendency  of  the  re- 
public," he  said,  "to  multiply  examples  of  great 
men  ;  it  is  the  tendency  of  monarchy  to  diminish 
their  numbers,  and  to  sacrifice  to  one  person, 
the  pretensions  and  the  elevation  of  many.  Un- 
der the  first  species  of  government,  the  Reman 
state  has  attained  to  its  present  greatness;  under 
the  second,  it  may  languish,  and  sink  to  the  level 
of  other  nations."  He  put  Octavius  in  mind  of 
his  duty  to  the  senate,  and  to  the  Roman  people, 
for  whose  rights,  while  he  took  arms  against  the 
murderers  of  his  father,  he  had  always  professed 
the  greatest  respect : — bid  him  beware  of  the  re- 
proaches he  must  incur,  if  it  should  now  appear, 
either  that  he  had  formerly  employed  the  pre- 
tence of  filial  duty  as  a  cloak  to  his  ambition  ;  or 
that,  now  finding  the  people  at  his  mercy,  he 
neglected  their  rights  the  moment  it  was  in  his 
power  bo  violate  them  with  impunity, — He  men- 
tioned the  danger  of  attempting  to  reduce  into 
servitude  a  people,  who  had  been  accustomed  not 
only  to  freedom,  but  to  dominion  over  other 


412 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VJ. 


nations; — the  difficulties  that  must  arise  in  the 
government  of  so  great  an  empire ; — the  thorns 
thnt  are  for  ever  fastened  in  the  pillows  of  kings ; 
— the  dangers  to  which  he  must  be  exposed,  from 
persons  who  should  feel  themselves  injured  by 
his  seizing  the  government,  or  who  should  think 
themselves  entitled  to  supplant  him,  and  whose 
courage,  in  every  attempt  against  his  person, 
would  be  extolled  as  a  noble  effort  of  patriotism 
to  restore  the  freedom  of  their  country. 

Msecenas  took  the  opposite  side,  and  contended 
for  the  necessity  of  a  new  species  of  government, 
in  circumstances  so  different  from  those  in  which 
the  republic  had  been  formed.  "So  great  an 
empire,"  he  said,  "surrounded  by  so  many 
enemies,  required  the  authority  and  the  secret 
counsels  of  a  prince,  aided,  but  not  controlled, 
by  the  opinions  of  those  who  were  qualified  to 
serve  him.  The  time,  when  the  republic  might 
rely  on  the  virtue  and  moderation  of  the  greater 
part  of  her  citizens  is  now  no  more ;  men  are 
governed  by  ambition  or  interest,  and  if  one  per- 
son decline  the  sovereignty,  many  pretenders 
will  arise,  who  will  again  tear  the  republic  asun- 
der by  their  wars  and  contensions."  He  ob- 
served, that  the  fortune  or  destiny  of  Octavius 
had  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  that  he  ought  not  to  despise  its  gifts,  or 
to  thiow  the  Roman  people  again  into  a  state  of 
confusion  and  anarchy,  out  of  which  he  had 
been  destined  to  save  them.  From  these  topics, 
he  proceeded  to  consider  the  difficulties  to  be 
encountered  in  the  administration  of  such  a  go- 
vernment, delivered  maxims  that  contain  the 
wisdom  of  monarchy,  pointed  at  regulations 
calculated  to  preserve  some  species  of  civil  con- 
stitution, yet  depending  on  the  will  of  the  prince, 
and,  according  to  the  account  which  is  given  of 
his  speech,  suggested  at  this  conference  most 
parts  of  the  plan  which  Octavius  actually  carried 
into  execution.1 

In  the  result  of  this  consultation,  it  is  said, 
that  not  only  Octavius,  but  Agrippa  likewise, 
embraced  the  opinion  of  Maecenas;  and  that 
they,  from  thenceforward,  considered  the  secure 
establishment  of  the  monarchy  as  the  common 
object  of  all  their  councils.  They  appear  to 
have  agreed,  that  Octavius  should  treat  the  se- 
nate as  he  had  in  this  conference  treated  his 
friends ;  that  he  should  propose  to  resign  his 
power,  affect  to  make  his  continuing  to  hold  it 
the  result  of  their  own  deliberations,  and,  by 
these  means,  obtain  the  sanction  of  a  legal  esta- 
blishment. 

To  smopth  the  way  to  this  end,  some  previous 
steps  were  yet  to  be  taken.  Much  had  already 
been  done  by  Octavius  to  secure  his  power,  to 
reconcile  his  new  subjects,  and,  in  case  of  any 
competition,  to  recommend  himself  to  the  public 
choice ;  but  some  caution  was  still  to  be  employed 
in  bringing  forward  a  question,  relating  to  the 
continuance  of  the  present  government,  or  the 
restoration  of  the  republic.  The  senate,  on  whose 
readily  embracing  and  acting  the  part  that  was 
expected  from  them  the  whole  depended,  was  to 
be  scrutinized  and  purged  of  all  members,  who 
were  by  the  love  of  republican  government,  or  by 
any  other  circumstances,  likely  to  mar  the  de- 
sign. A  single  voice  in  this  assembly,  given  for 
receiving  the  demission,  which  Octavius  was 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Jii.  c.  1—42. 


about  to  offer,  might  have  greatly  disconcerted 
his  project,  obliged  him  to  throw  aside  his  dis- 
guise, and  might  have  made  it  necessary  for  him 
to  continue  holding  by  force  what  he  wished  to 
IT  r  nor,  rece*ve  hy  consent,  or  even  to  have 
U.  O.  725.  pressed  upon  him  by  the  interests  of 
Imperator  a11  orders  of  men-  ln  or^T  to  culti- 
Grsar  VI.  vate  dispositions  with  which  he 
M  Jlgrippa.  already  endeavoured  to  inspire  the 
senate  and  the  people,  he  himself,  in 
conjunction  with  Agrippa,  entered  on  the  office 
of  consul  for  the  sixth  time,  divided  the  fasces 
with  him,  as  usual  in  the  purest  times  of  the 
republic,  and  in  all  the  exertions  of  their  au- 
thority, or  in  the  discharge  of  their  common 
duties,  knowing  how  little  he  had  to  apprehend 
from  the  pretensions  of  his  colleague,  affected 
to  rank  with  him  on  the  most  perfect  footing  of 
equality. 

The  new  consuls,  in  proceeding  to  their  prin- 
cipal objectj  which  was  to  reform  the  senate,  and 
to  fill  it  with  such  members  as  were  likely  to  co- 
operate in  the  design  they  had  formed,  of  obtain- 
ing for  Octavius  the  sovereignty  by  a  formal 
consent,  made  a  review  or  census,  as  usual,  of  all 
the  different  orders  of  the  commonwealth ;  and 
having,  in  consequence  of  the  late  troubles, 
much  property  as  well  as  public  honors  in  their 
power,  they  had  an  opportunity  to  enrich,  as 
well  as  to  promote  those  whom  they  wished  to 
oblige ;  and  accordingly  made  such  a  distribu- 
tion of  estates  and  dignities,  as  plainly  showed, 
that  obsequiousness  to  the  will  of  Csesar  was  the 
road  to  distinction  a  .  <  'brtune. 

At  this  census  or  review  of  the  people,  the 
Roman  citizens  were  found  to  amount  to  four 
million  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  thousand 
men  fit  to  carry  arms.5  So  much  had  their  num- 
ber, without  any  increase  of  population,  aug- 
mented by  the  continual  admission  of  the  free- 
men of  entire  towns  and  provinces,  upon  the  rolls 
of  the  people. 

The  senate  had,  during  the  devastations,  and 
in  the  event  of  the  civil  wars,  not  only  lost  those 
who  made  its  principal  ornament,  considered  as 
a  republican  council,  but  had  even  undergone  a 
great,  if  not  an  entire  change  of  its  members.  It 
consisted  now  of  persons  occasionally  intruded 
by  the  parties  lately  contending  for  superiority ; 
many,  in  particular,  named  by  Antony,  and 
who,  during  the  late  struggles,  endeavoured  to 
support  the  cause  of  their  patron.  These,  more 
especially,  it  was  the  object  of  Octavius  to  re- 
move ;  but  being  desirous  to  court  all  orders  of 
men,  as  well  as  to  set  aside  his  enemies,  he  af- 
fected a  reluctance  in  expelling  particular  per- 
sons, and  recommended  to  those,  who  were  con- 
scious of  any  disqualification,  voluntarily  to  with- 
draw their  names. 

In  consequence  of  this  intimation,  fifty  sena- 
tors retired,  probably  most  of  them  conscious  of 
a  disaffection  to  the  reigning  power.  One  hun- 
dred and  forty  more  were  struck  off  the  rolls.  In 
discharging  this  invidious  service,  Octavius  was 
guarded  by  ten  chosen  senators,  who  surrounded 
his  person  with  concealed  weapons,  and  is  said 
himself  to  have  been  cased  in  armour  under  his 
robe,    ye,  at  the  same  time,  endeavoured  to  pal- 


2  The  whole  number  of  souls  must  have  exceeded 
sixteen  millions.  Rusebii  Chronicon.  Caesar  Impera- 
tor VI.  M.  Agrippa,  p.  163. 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


413 


liate  the  severity  of  his  censures  in  different 
ways,  suffering  those,  who  were  excluded  from 
the  senate,  still  to  retain  the  dress  of  that  order, 
and  to  enjoy,  at  the  theatre,  and  other  public 
places,  the  usual  precedence  of  the  senatorial! 
rank.  Under  pretence  of  rendering  the  order 
itself  more  independent  and  more  respectable,  he 
raised  the  money  qualification  of  a  senator  from 
eight  to  twelve  hundred  thousand  sesterces  ;3 
and,  without  any  personal  imputation,  affected 
to  exclude  some  senators  for  the  want  of  this 
new  qualification  ;  others  he  contrived  to  gain  by 
a  very  artful  method  of  bribery,  alleging,  that 
the  public  should  not  be  deprived  of  the  services 
of  worthy  citizens  merely  by  a  deficiency  in 
their  fortune,  he  from  his  own  coffers,  made  up 
the  estates  of  several  senators  to  the  new  quali- 
fication. A  striking  instance  of  the  policy  in 
which  he  excelled  ;  at  once  the  most  effectual  to 
obtain  his  purpose,  and  the  most  artful  to  pal- 
liate or  to  conceal  his  design. 

By  the  forms  which  the  present  consuls,  Oc- 
tavius  and  Agrippa,  affected  to  observe  in  the 
discharge  of  their  public  duties,  the  republic 
seemed  so  much  to  revive,  that  one  Gtuintus 
Statilius  was  tempted  to  offer  himself  as  candi- 
date in  free  election  for  the  office  of  tribune  ;  but 
in  this  instance,  Octavius  thought  himself  obliged 
to  resume  the  character  of  master.  Although  he 
employed  the  forms  of  the  republic  to  reconcile 
the  minds  of  men  to  his  government,  he  knew 
how  to  distinguish  what  hud  a  tendency  to  ravish 
that  government  out  of  his  hands,  or  to  embroil 
him  in  contests  with  the  people :  he  therefore 
commanded  this  candidate  for  the  office  of  tribune 
to  withdraw  his  pretensions,  and  not  to  awaken, 
by  his  unseasonable  canvas,  the  turbulent  dispo- 
sitions which  had  formerly  so  much  afflicted  the 
state. 

In  the  arts  which  were  practised  on  the  citi- 
zens of  Rome,  shows,  processions,  and  public 
entertainments  always  made  a  part,  and  they 
jperited  on  this  people,  perhaps  operate  on  all 
mankind,  with  such  powerful  effects,  as  not  to 
be  overlooked  without  the  danger  of  mistaking 
the  circumstances  which  lead  to  the  most  import- 
ant events.  Octavius,  aware  of  this  circum- 
stance, on  the  present  as  well  as  on  former  oc- 
casions, having  temples  and  other  public  works 
executed  with  great  magnificence,  celebrated  the 
dedication,  or  the  completion  of  them,  with  many 
pompous  entertainments  and  shows;  he  furnish* 
ed,  at  his  own  expense,  the  circus  and  theatres 
with  continual  entertainments,  with  the  fights 
of  gladiators,  and  the.  baiting  or  hunting  of 
wild  beasts.  While  he  thus  encouraged  the  peo- 
ple in  their  usual  vices  of  idleness  and  dissipa- 
tion, he  avoided  laying  any  new  burdens,  cancell- 
ed all  arrears  due  to  trie  treasury  within  the  city, 
and  increased  fourfold  the  gratuitous  distributions 
of  corn.  To  these  popular  arts,  he  joined  a  species 
of  amnesty  of  all  past  offences  and  differences; 
repealed  ail  the  acts,  which,  during  the  late  vio- 
lent times,  the  spirit  of  a  party  had  dictated  ;  and, 
to  quiet  the  apprehensions  of  many,  who  were 
conscious  of  having  taken  part  with  his  enemies, 
he  give  out  that  all  papers  or  records  seized  in 
Egvpt,  upon  the  final  reduction  of  Antony's 
party,  were  destroyed;  though  in  this  Dion  Cas- 
sius  contradicts  him,  and  alleges,  that  such  pa- 


pers were  preserved  and  afterwards  employed  is 
evidence  against  persons  whom  he  thought  pro- 
per to  oppress.4 

At  the  close  of  this  memorable  consulate,  Oc- 
tavius laid  down  the  fasces,  and,  agreeable  to 
the  forms  of  the  republic,  took  the  usual  oath  of 
declaration,  that  he  had  faithfully,  and  with 
his  utmost  ability,  discharged  the  duties  of  his 

station.  Being  destined  to  the  same 
U.  C.  726.  office  of  consul  for  the  following  year, 

he  resumed  the  ensigns  of  power; 
CxsaT^jT.  anc^  tnm^mg  tne  senate  an(l  people, 
MAgrippa  by  the  stePs  he  had  alr(,ady  taken, 
///.  °  sufficiently  prepared  for  the  subject 

he  meant  to  bring  under  considera- 
tion, he,  on  the  Ides,  or  thirteenth  of  January, 
surprised  them  with  a  direct  and  full  resignation 
of  all  the  extraordinary  powers  which  he  held  in 
the  empire.  This  solemn  act  he  accompanied 
with  a  speech,  which,  according  to  his  usual 
practice,  having  committed  it  to  writing,  he  read. 
Being  sensible  that  his  sincerity  would  be  ques- 
tioned, and  that  his  having  taken  the  most  effec- 
tual measures  to  obtain  and  to  secure  the  govern- 
ment was  but  an  ill  indication  of  his  intention  to 
resign  it,  he  employed  a  great  part  of  his  ha- 
rangue in  removing  suspicions,  not  merely  by 
assurances  of  sincerity,  but  by  arguments  like- 
wise drawn  from  general  topics  of  probability  and 
reason.  To  this  purpose,  he  observed,  that  many 
persons,  who  were  themselves  incapable  of  such 
intentions,  might  doubt  his  sincerity,  and  that 
many,  who  could  not  behold  a  superior  without 
envy,  would  be  disposed  to  misrepresent  his  ac- 
tions ;  but  that  the  immediate  execution  of  the 
purpose  he  had  declared,  would  remove  every 
doubt,  would  silence  every  attempt  of  calumny, 
entitle  him  to  credit,  and  to  their  just  esteem. 

"  That  I  have  it  in  my  power  to  retain  the 
government,"  he  said,  "  no  one  will  question. 
Of  my  enemies,  some  have  Buffered  the  just 
effects  of  their  own  obstinacy,  and  others  having 
experienced  my  clemency,  are  fully  reconciled. 
My  friends  are  confirmed  in  their  attachment,  by 
the  mutual  exchange  of  good  offices  between 
us,  and  by  a  participation  in  the  management  of 
affairs.  I  have  no  real  danger  to  fear,  and  any 
alarm  I  might  receive,  would  only  hasten  the 
proofs  I  am  in  condition  to  give  of  my  power.  I 
have  many  allies,  and  numerous  forces,  wdl  at- 
tached to  my  person  ;  money,  magazines,  and 
stores  of  every  description  ;  with  what  is  of  more 
consequence  than  all  these  put  together,  I  am 
placed,  by  the  choice  of  the  senate  and  people  of 
Home,  at  the  head  of  the  republic. 

"What  I  now  do,  I  hope  will  explain  my  past 
actions,  and  silence  those  who  impute  my  former 
conduct  to  ambition,  or  who  suppose  that  I  am 
not  now  sincere  in  the  resignation  which  I  pro- 
fess to  make.  'Having  the  sovereignty  at  present 
in  my  possession,  I  renounce  it,  and  deliver  into 
your  hands,  the  army,  the  state,  the  provinces, 
not  merely  in  the  condition  in  which  I  received 
them,  but  in  a  condition  much  improved  by  my 
exertions. 

"  Let  this  action  then  evince  the  sincerity  of 
the  declarations  1  made,  when,  being  engaged 
in  the  late  unhappy  contest,  I  professed  that  my 
intentions  were  to  obtain  justice  against  the 
murderers  of  my  father,  and  some  relief  to  the 


3  From  about  7000Z.  to  10,000/ 


4  Lib.  lii.  c  42.&.C. 


414 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI 


commonwealth  from  the  evils  with  which  it  was 
afflicted. 

"I  wish,  indeed,  that  this  task  had  never 
heen  imposed  upon  me;  that  the  republic  had 
never  stood  in  need  of  my  services,  and  that  the 
fatal  divisions  we  have  experienced,  had  never 
taken  place.  But  since  the  fates  had  otherwise 
decreed,  and  since  the  republic,  young:  as  I  was: 
required  even  my  assistance,  I  declined  no  la- 
bour, I  shunned  no  danger,  I  made  efforts  above 
my  years  and  my  strength.  Neither  toil  nor 
danger,  the  entreaties  of  my  friends,  the  threats 
of  my  enemies,  the  tumults  of  the  seditious,  nor 
the  fury  of  those  who  opposed  me,  could  turn 
me  aside  from  the  pursuit  of  your  good.  I  for- 
got myself;  I  became  altogether  yours.  The 
event,  with  respect  to  you,  is  known  ;  for  my- 
self, the  only  reward  I  desire,  is  the  sense  of 
having  delivered  my  country  from  the  evils 
with  which  it  was  distressed,  and  of  having 
restored  you  to  the  state  of  peace  and  tranquil- 
lity which  you  now  enjoy.  With  these  advan- 
tages, resume  vour  political  trust,  and  the  forms 
of  your  constitution  ;  take  charge  of  your  pro- 
vinces, and  the  direction  of  your  military  forces; 
conduct  every  part  according  to  the  rules  and  pre- 
cedents which  were  laid  down  by  your  ancestors. 

"  My  conduct,  in  this  resignation,  will  not 
appear  unaccountable  to  those  who  have  ob- 
served the  moderation  with  which  1  have  fre- 
quently declined  the  uncommon  distinctions  bv 
which  you  offered  to  raise  me  above  the  level  of 
my  fellow-citizens ;  nor  to  those  who  know  the 
real  value  of  human  possessions,  will  it  appear  a 
folly,  that  having  such  an  empire  in  my  power, 
I  choose  to  resign  it.  If  I  am  supposed  to  have 
any  regard  to  justice,  what  more  just  than  that 
I  should  restore  to  you  what  is  your  own  ?  If 
I  am  supposed  to  be  governed  by  prudence, 
what  mare  prudent,  than  to  withdraw  from  trou 
ble,  from  general  envy,  and  from  the  snares  of 
my  enemies  '?  If  I  am  supposed  to  aim  at  glory, 
the  great  object  for  which  men  have  most  wil- 
lingly exposed  themselves  to  hazards  and  toils, 
what  more  glorious  than  to  dispose  of  empire  to 
others,  and  to  rest  secure  myself  in  the  honours 
of  a  private  station'? 

"  Having  the  choice  of  many  actions,  which 
reflect  honour  on  my  father's  memory,  and  may 
do  so  on  my  own,  these  actions  I  prefer  to  any 
other;  that  he,  being  offered  the  sovereignty  of 
his  country  refused  to  accept  of  it;  and  that  I 
myself,  being  in  actual  possession  of  that  sove- 
reignty, have  resigned  it.  To  these  actions,  the 
conquest  of  Gaul,  of  Mysia,  of  Egypt  and  Pa- 
nonia,  the  victories  obtained  over  Pharnaces,  Ju- 
ki, Phraates,  the  passage  of  the  Rhine,  and  of 
the  British  sea,  though  far  exceeding  the  achieve- 
ments of  former  times,  are  yet  of  inferior  ac- 
count :  even  the  merit  of  having  conducted  to  so 
glorious  an  issue  the  unhappy  contest  in  which 
we  have  been  engaged,  the  having  overcome  as 
enemies  all  who  witiistood  our  reformations,  the 
having  protected  as  friends  all  who  were  pacific 
and  well  inclined  to  the  commonwealth,  the 
having  by  moderation  and  clemency  stript  civil 
war  itself  of  many  of  its  greatest  evils,  are  not 
comparable  to  this ;  That  being  in  a  condition  to 
reign,  we  have  not  been  intoxicated  with  power: 
neither  could  he  be  seduced  to  accept  of  a  crown 
which  was  offered  to  him,  nor  I  to  retain  a  do- 
minion which  is  actually  in  my  hands. 


"  I  do  not  mention  any  past  action  from  os- 
tentation, or  with  a  view  to  profit  by  the  advan- 
tage it  oives  me,  but  merely  to  show,  that  I  know 
the  value  of  my  present  conduct,  and  have  made 
it  my  choice,  because  I  think  it  more  glorious 
than  anv  other  conduct  I  could  hold. 

"  I  might,  indeed,  (not  to  drag  any  more  the 
name  of  my  father  into  this  argument,)  chal- 
lenge any  one  to  compare  with  myself  in  the 
part  which  I  now  act.  Being  at  the  head  of 
great  and  well  appointed  armies  attached  to  my 
person;  being  master  of  the  seas  within  the  pil- 
lars of  Hercules;  of  all  the  towns  and  provinces 
of  this  mighty  empire,  without  any  foreign  ene- 
my, or  domestic  sedition  to  molest  me;  being 
cheerfully  acknowledged  and  obeyed  as  sovereign 
in  profound  peace,  I  now  willingly  and  of  my 
own  accord  resign  the  whole,  from  a  regard  to 
my  fellow-citizens,  and  from  a  respect  for  the 
laws  of  my  country. 

"  What  I  have  to  apprehend,  is  not  your  in- 
sensibility to  the  merit  of  what  I  perform,  but 
vour  doubt  of  its  reality,  and  of  the  sincerity  of 
my  intention  ;  but  you  give  credit  to  illustrious 
examples  recorded  of  former  times.  You  admit 
that  the  Horatii  and  the  Decii,  that  Mucius, 
Curtius,  and  Regulus  exposed  themselves  to 
danger,  even  rushed  upon  certain  destruction  to 
establish  for  themselves  a  reputation  after  death. 
Why  should  not  I,  to  enjoy,  even  during  my 
lifetime,  a  fame  far  superior  to  theirs,  perform 
the  action  which  I  now  propose  ?  Were  the  an- 
cients alone  possessed  of  magnanimity  ?  or  is  the 
age  become  barren  and  unabled  to  bring  forth 
such  examples? 

"  Think  not.  however,  that  T  mean  to  revive 
the  late  public  distractions,  or  propose  to  commit 
the  government  to  an  unruly  and  factious  multi- 
tude. No;  broken  with  toil,  and  overwhelmed 
with  labour  as  1  am,  I  should  prefer  death  to 
such  a  desertion  of  the  public  cause.  To  you, 
my  fathers,  who  possess  wisdom  and  virtue 
equal  to  the  trust,  I  resign  this  government. 
Weary  with  solicitude  and  care,  1  retire  from 
that  envy  which  the  best  of  men  cannot  escape, 
and  prefer  the  glories  of  a  private  life  to  the  dan- 
gers of  empire.  To  your  judgments  and  to  that 
multiplicity  of  counsel  which  must  in  wisdom 
ever  excel  the  reason  and  understanding  of  any 
single  person,  I  now  commit  the  republic.  I 
therefore  adjure  you,  in  consideration  of  any  ser» 
vice  which  I  may  have  rendered  to  my  country, 
either  in  a  civil  or  military  capacity,  that  you 
will  suffer  me  to  retire  in  quiet,  and  give  me  an 
opportunity  to  evince,  that  I  know  how  to  obey 
as  well  as  how  to  command  ;  and  that,  while  in 
power,  I  imposed  no  condition  upon  others,  with 
which,  as  a  subject,  I  am  not  myself  willing  to 
comply.  In  this  capacity,  my  conscience  tells 
me,  that  unguarded  and  unattended  I  may  rely 
for  safety  on  your  affection,  and  that  I  have  no- 
thing to  fear,  either  in  the  way  of  violence  or  in- 
sult. But,  if  there  should  be  a  danger  from  any 
secret  enemy,  (for  what  person  ever  passed 
through  scenes  like  those,  in  which  I  have  acted, 
without  creating  some  private  enemies?)  it  is 
better  to  die,  than  to  purchase  security  by  en- 
slaving my  country.  If  the  event  should  be  fatal, 
posterity  at  least  will  do  me  the  justice  to  own, 
that  so  far  from  seeking  a  kingdom  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  blood  of  other  men,  I  have  freely 
resigned  one  at  the  hazard  of  my  own.  Who 


Chap.  I.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


415 


ever  wrongs  me,  will  have  the  immortal  gods  and 
you  for  their  enemies ;  they  will  perish,  as  the 
murderers  of  ray  father  have  perished,  leaving 
their  names  as  monuments  of  divine  justice  and 
wrath.  In  this,  every  one  has  had  his  just  re- 
tribution ;  my  father  is  placed  among  the  gods, 
and  is  vested  with  eternal  jrlory ;  his  murderers 
have  undergone  the  punishment  due  to  their 
crimes. 

"All  men  are  horn  to  die;  hut  he  who  dies, 
as  well  as  lives  with  honour,  in  some  measure 
disappoints  his  fate,  and  acquires  a  species  of 
immortal  life.  I  have  lived,  as  I  trust,  with 
honour;  the  other  and  less  arduous  part  of  my 
task,  I  hope  is  likewise  in  my  power.  I  now, 
therefore,  restore  to  you  the  arms,  the  govern- 
ments, the  revenue,  and  all  the  legal  powers  of 
the  commonwealth.  Be  not  dismayed  by  the 
greatness  of  the  object  on  the  one  hand,  nor  re- 
ceive it  too  lightly  on  the  other.  My  counsel,  in 
what  relates  to  matters  of  moment,  shall  be 
freely  given. 

"  Let  the  law  he  the  unalterable  rule  of  your 
conduct.  In  the  administration  of  government, 
a  determinate  order,  though  attended  with  some 
inconveniency,  is  preferable  to  fluctuation  and 
frequent  change,  which,  aiming  at  improvement, 
renders  the  condition  of  men  precarious  and  un- 
certain. 

"In  private,  therefore,  as  well  as  in  public  life, 
comply  with  the  laws;  not  as  persons  who  aim 
at  impunity  merely,  hut  as  persons  who  aim  at 
the  rewards  which  are  due  to  merit. 

"Commit  the  provinces,  whether  in  peace  or 
war,  to  men  of  wisdom  and  virtue ;  do  not  envy 
each  other  the  emoluments  that  attend  the  public 
service;  strive  not  for  profit  to  yourselves,  but  for 
security  and  prosj>erity  to  the  commonwealth  ; 
reward  the  faithful,  punish  the  guilty;  not  only 
consider  the  public  property  as  too  sacred  to  be 
invaded,  but  consider  even  your  private  posses- 
sions as  a  debt  which  you  owe  to  the  state 
Manage  well  what  is  your  own;  covet  not  what 
belongs  to  others;  wrong  not  your  allies  or  sub- 
jects; do  not  rashly  provoke  any  power  to  hos- 
tility, nor  meanly  stand  in  fear  of  those  who  are 
disposed  to  be  your  enemies.  Be  always  armed, 
but  not  against  each  other,  nor  against  those 
who  are  in  •lined  to  peace.  Supply  your  troops 
regularly  with  what  is  appointed  for  their  pav 
and  subsistence,  that  they  may  not  l>e  tempted 
to  supply  themselves  by  invading  the  property 
of  their  fellow-citizens;  keep  them  under  strict 
discipline,  that  they  may  respect  their  duty  as 
gu  irdims  of  the  public  peace,  and  not  become, 
from  a  consciousness  of  their  force,  a  school  for 
violence  and  the  commission  of  crimes. 

"Such  in  general  are  the  rules  of  your  con- 
duct, of  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  make  the 
particular  applications :  these  are  sufficiently  evi- 
dent. One  tiling  only  I  will  mention,  before  I 
conclude.  If  you  conform  yourselves  to  these 
rules,  you  will  be  happy,  and  you  will  owe  thanks 
to  me,  for  having  placed  the  administration  in 
your  hands;  but,  if  you  depart  from  them,  you 
will  make  me  to  repent  of  what  I  now  do,  and 
you  will  relapse  into  all  the  disorders  from  which 
I  have  so  happily  rescued  the  commonwealth." 

Such  is  the  purport  of  a  speech,  said  to  have 
been  delivered  by  Octavius,  in  announcing  his 
intention  to  resign  the  empire.  The  perform- 
ance may  not  appear  worthy  of  the  person  to 


whom  it  is  ascribed,  and,  like  other  speeches 
recorded  in  ancient  history,  may  have  been 
framed  by  the  historian.1  The  occasion,  how- 
ever, was  remarkable,  and  this  speech  having  been 
committed  to  writing,  may  have  been  preserved 
in  the  records  of  the  senate.  The  historian  may 
have  copied  it  from  thence;  or,  if  disposed  to 
fabricate  a  speech,  could  not  in  this  case,  with- 
out detection,  substitute  any  fiction  for  what 
was  real.  The  composition  indeed  may  have 
suffered  in  the  first  translation,2  as  well  as  in 
this  extract  or  paraphrase  of  it;  but  the  matter, 
though  not  such  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  the  conqueror  of  the  Roman  empire  on  a 
serious  occasion,  and  in  the  actual  exertion  of  al 
his  abilities,  yet  is  such  as  we  may  suppose  Oc- 
tavius to  have  employed  in  supporting  an  assumed 
character,  and  in  proposing  what  he  did  not  wish 
to  obtain. 

The  references  which,  in  ushering  in  this  pre- 
ten  Jed  resignation,  are  made  to  the  disorders  of 
the  late  republic;  the  arguments  which  are  made 
use  of  to  prove  the  sincerity  of  a  purpose  to  re- 
sign the  government  of  it,  and  the  ostentation 
of  great  merit  in  making  this  sacrifice,  are  well 
enough  suited  to  the  part  which  the  speaker  was 
acting,  and  to  the  solicitude  under  which  he 
spoke,  not  to  make  too  deep  an  impression,  nor 
to  be  taken  at  his  word.  The  barefaced  and  pal- 
pable imposture  in  which  he  was  engaged,  did 
not  admit  of  the  dignity  which  might  have  been 
expected  in  so  high  a  place;  and,  if  the  history 
of  this  pretended  resignation  were  not  confirmed 
by  the  united  testimony  of  many  writers,  and 
still  more  by  the  lasting  effects  of  if,  in  the  forms 
and  in  the  state  of  the  empire,  the  want  of  dig- 
nity in  other  parts  of  this  business,  as  well  as  in 
the  tenor  of  this  speech,  might  create  a  doubt  of 
its  veracity ;  but  the  same  forms  of  resignation 
were  again  repeated,  and  great  lestivaU3  at  cer- 
tain periods  were  held  on  this  account. 

As  soon  as  this  speech  was  ended,  notwith- 
standing the  many  evils  which  had  been  recent- 
ly felt  under  the  republic,  it  is  probable,  that  if 
Octavius  had  appeared  to  lie  sincere  in  making 
it,  his  proposal  to  restore  the  commonwealth 
would  have  been  received  with  joy.  There  were 
yet  many  who  revered  the  ancient  constitution, 
and  lamented  the  loss  of  their  own  |>ohtical  con- 
sequence. Some,  who  would  have  been  glad  to 
renew  the  competition  for  power  and  dominion 
which  hail  been  recently  decided,  and  many 
who  would  have  rejoiced  to  find  so  much  conse- 
quence at  once  bestowed  on  the  order  of  senators 
to  which  they  themselves  had  been  unexpectedly 
raiseil ;  but  as  much  care  had  been  taken  in  the 
nomination  of  senators,  to  fill  this  assembly  with 
unambitious  men,  who  were  likely  to  prefer 
peace  to  every  other  object,  or  with  men  of  a  ser- 
vile cast,  who  would  follow  the  cry  when  raised 
to  confirm  the  emperor's  power,  it  is  probable, 
that  proper  persons  were  prepared  to  lead  the 
way  in  the  part  which  the  senate  was  to  take  on 
this  occasion. 

The  majority  of  the  meeting  indeed  was  sur- 
prised and  perplexed.  There  could  be  no  doubt, 
that  Octavius  wished  to  have  his  proposal  re- 
jected ;  but  it  would  have  been  an  ill  manner  of 
paying  court,  to  appear  to  have  penetrated  his 


1  Dio.  Cass.  2  From  the  Latin  to  Greek. 

3  The  Deeennalia. 


416 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VI. 


design.  It  was  necessary  to  affect  implicit  faith 
in  the  sincerity  of  his  purpose,  at  the  same  time 
to  withstand  the  execution  of  it  in  the  most  per- 
emptory manner.  This  ground  being  pointed 
out  by  those  who  were  in  the  concert,  or  by 
those  who  had  discernment  enough  to  perceive 
it,  was  instantly  seized  by  the  whole  assembly.' 
They  beseeched  Octavius,  as  with  one  voice,  not 
to  abandon  the  commonwealth ;  observed,  that 
services,  still  greater  than  those  he  had  already 
performed,  were  yet  due  to  the  republic  ;  that  the 
fear  of  his  intending  to  resign  the  government, 
had  already  filled  the  minds  of  the  people  with  a 
cruel  anxiety;  that  he  alone  could  quiet  their  ap- 
prehensions, by  not  only  remaining  at  the  head 
of  the  empire,  but  by  accepting  the  government 
in  such  a  formal  manner,  as  would  give  them  as- 
surance of  his  continuing  to  hold  it.3 

To  this  request,  Octavius  was  inexorable;  but 
he  was  prevailed  upon  not  to  lay  the  whole  load 
of  administration  at  once  on  the  senate.  He 
was  willing  to  administer  some  part  of  the  go- 
vernment for  a  limited  time,  and  to  retain  the 
command  of  the  army  for  ten  years;  to  continue 
his  inspection  over  some  of  the  most  refractory 
provinces,  such  as  were  yet  unsettled,  such  as 
were  wild  and  uncultivated,  such  as  had  many 
inaccessible  retreats,  under  the  favour  of  which 
the  people  still  continued  unsubdued,  or  still  in 
condition  to  rebel.  He  agreed  to  take  charge  of 
such  provinces  on  the  frontier,  as,  being  contigu- 
ous to  warlike  and  hostile  neighbours,  were  ex- 
posed to  frequent  invasion ;  but  such  as  were 
already  pacific,  and  accustomed  to  civil  forms, 
such  as  were  reconciled  to  the  tribute  which  they 
paid,  he  insisted  that  the  senate,  as  the  more  easy 
and  profitable  part  of  the  government,  should 
take  under  their  own  administration ;  and  that 
they  should  be  ready  to  relieve  him  of  the  whole, 
or  any  part  of  his  burden,  at  the  expiration  of 
the  period  to  which  he  limited  his  acceptance  of 
the  military  command. 

By  this  imaginary  partition  of  the  empire,  the 
provinces  which  in  Africa  had  formed  the  states 
of  Carthage  and  Cyrene,  with  the  kingdom  of 
Numidia :  in  Europe,  the  more  wealthy  and  pa- 
cific parts  of  Spain,  the  islands  of  Sardinia, 
Sicily,  and  Crete  ;  with  the  different  districts  of 
Greece,  Epirus,  Macedonia,  and  Dalmatia ;  and 
beyond  the  JEgean  sea,  the  rich  province  of 
Asia,  with  the  kingdoms  of  Bithynia  and  Pon- 
tus,  were  committed  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
senate. 

The  emperor  still  retained,  under  his  own  im- 
mediate charge,  the  more  warlike  districts  in 
Spain,  in  Gaxd  and  in  Syria,  with  the  kingdom  of 
Egypt,  and  all  the  great  military  stations  and  re- 
sorts of  the  legions  on  the  Euphrates,  the  Da- 
nube, and  the  Rhine.3  Some  time  afterwards, 
under  pretence  of  a  war  which  arose  in  Dalma- 
tia, he  accepted  of  this  province,  in  exchange  for 
the  island  of  Cyprus,  and  the  district  of  Narbonne. 

It  was  understood,  that  the  emperor  and  the 
senate,  in  their  quality  of  partners  in  the  sove- 
reignty, should  have  the  nomination  of  governors 
in  their  respective  provinces ;  that  those  named 
by  the  senate  should  be  civil  officers  merely,  with 
the  title  of  proconsul,  but  without  the  power  of 
the  sword  or  any  military  rank,  and  they  were 


1  Zonar.  lib.  x.  c.  34.  2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  11. 
3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  e.  12.  Strabo,  lib.  xvii.  fine. 


not  to  remain  in  office  longer  than  one  year,  that 
the  officers  to  be  named  by  the  emperor  were  to 
have  military  rank,  with  the  title  of  propraetor, 
and  were  to  act  in  the  capacity  of  his  lieutenants, 
accountable  only  to  himself,  and  to  hold  their  com- 
missions during  his  pleasure.4 

From  the  reformations  which  Octavius  now 
made  in  the  establishment  of  the  provinces,  it 
appeared  that  he  himself  clearly  understced  the 
circumstances  by  which  those  members  of  the 
empire  had  become  too  great  for  the  head,  and 
by  which  the  dependencies  of  the  republic  had 
become  the  means  of  its  ruin  ;  that  he  looked 
back  to  the  steps,  by  which  the  first  Caesar  and 
himself  had  advanced  to  dominion,  and  wished 
to  efface  the  track,  in  order  that  no  one  might 
follow  it,  or  employ  the  same  means  to  supplant 
himself,  which  Julius  Caesar  had  employed  to 
subvert  the  republic. 

The  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire  had  been 
hitherto  not  so  much  the  demesne  of  the  com- 
monwealth, as  the  property  of  private  citizens, 
by  whom  they  were  conveyed  from  one  to  an- 
other by  quick  succession.  As  they  were  received 
in  trust  for  the  republic,  without  any  particular 
assignment  of  a  share  in  the  profits,5  great  part 
was  diverted  to  private  uses;  or  where  great 
sums  were  to  be  accounted  for  to  the  state,  there 
was  much  extorted  likewise  to  enrich  individuate 
by  peculation  and  oppression. 

from  their  stations  ahroad,  the  officers  of  the 
republic  returned  with  the  spoils  of  the  provinces 
to  purchase  importance  at  Rome.  If  they  were 
frequently  changed,  the  empty  hand  was  often 
held  out  with  fresh  rapacity,  and  the  full  one 
brought  back  with  quicker  succession  to  corrupt 
the  city  :  if  continued  too  long,  they  acquired  the 
force  of  great  monarchs,  got  possession  of  armies 
and  of  revenue,  and  had  sufficient  resources  of 
men  and  money  to  enable  them  to  make  war  on 
the  state.  Marius  and  Sylla  showed  what  could 
be  done  with  armies  levied  from  the  opposite  fac- 
tions in  the  city  of  Rome ;  and  Julius  Caesar 
showed  what  use  could  be  made  of  the  extensive 
territory,  entrusted  for  a  continued  term  of  years 
to  the  government  of  the  same  person.  The  re- 
public had  often  tottered  under  the  effect  of 
disorders  which  arose  in  the  capital,  but  fell  irre- 
coverably under  the  blows  that  were  struck  from 
the  provinces. 

It  is  evident,  that  the  head  of  the  empire,  of 
whatever  description,  whether  a  commonwealth 
or  the  court  of  a  monarch,  could  not  be  safe  under 
this  distribution  of  power  and  trust.  Measures 
were  accordingly  now  taken  by  Octavius  to  re- 
form the  establishment,  and  to  reduce  the  provin- 
cial officers  to  their  proper  state  of  subordina- 
tion and  dependence.  The  duties  they  were  to 
levy,  and  their  own  emoluments,  were  clearly 
ascertained.  The  greater  provinces  were  divided, 
and  separate  officers  appointed  to  each  division. 


4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  13. 

5  The  provincial  officers  under  the  republic  had  no 
salary,  nor  public  appointments.  They  were  under- 
stood to  subsist  at  the  expense  of  the  provinces  ;  and 
in  their  jouniies  were  allowed  to  impress  horses  and 
carriages,  and  to  demand  every  supply  of  provisions 
and  forage  for  the  numerous  retinue  or  court  that 
usually  attend  them.  These  powers  being  abused,  it 
was  proposed  that  the  provincial  officers  should  bo 
supplied  by  contract;  but  the  leaders  of  faction  at 
Rome  went  forth  to  the  provinces,  with  a  power  tha* 
could  not  be  restrained  by  any  rules  whatever. 


ClUP.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC, 


Neither  men  nor  money  were  to  be  levied  with- 
out authority  from  the  emperor  and  the  senate, 
nor  was  any  officer,  to  whom  a  successor  was 
appointed,  to  remain  in  his  command,  or  to  ab- 
sent himself  from  Rome  above  three  months.0 
To  secure  the  observance  of  these  regulations, 
and  to  accelerate  the  communication  from  every 
part  of  the  empire,  an  institution,  resembling  that 
of  the  modern  posts,  was  for  the  first  time  intro- 
duced in  the  ancient  world.  Couriers  were 
placed  at  convenient  stages,  with  orders  to  for-  j 
ward  from  one  to  the  other  the  public  despatches. 
It  was  afterwards  thought  more  effectual,  for  the 
purpose  of  intelligence,  to  transport  the  original 
messenger  to  Rome. 

In  this  establishment,  the  senate  and  the  em- 
peror, in  their  respective  civil  and  military  cha- 
racters, had  their  several  departments,  and  their 
revenue  apart ;  what  was  collected  in  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  senate,  went  to  the  JErarium  or 
public  treasury ;  what  was  collected  in  the  pro- 
vinces of  Ceesar,  went  to  his  own  coffers.  The 
latter  professed  being  no  more  than  a  servant  of 
the  public,  appointed  for  a  limited  time ;  but,  in 
being  head  of  the  army,  he  secured  the  sove- 
reignty, and  meant  to  employ  the  senate  only  as 
an  aid  to  retain  the  army  within  the  bounds  of 
their  duty.  In  his  proposal  to  divest  himself  of 
the  government,  there  was  sufficient  season  to 
suspect  his  sincerity ;  but  in  this  partial  and 
supposed  temporary  resumption  of  government, 
the  artifice  was  so  obvious,  as  to  become  a  spe- 
cies of  insult  upon  the  understandings  of  man- 
kind. The  Romans,  nevertheless,  on  this  memo- 
rable occasion  had  learned  to  be  courtiers,  could 
affect  to  want  penetration  and  conceal  their 
sentiments. 

The  senate,  in  return  to  the  emperor's  gra- 
cious acceptance  of  the  government,  proceeded  to 
distinguish  his  person,  and  even  the  place  of  his 
residence,  by  many  honorary  decrees.  They 
took  into  their  serious  consideration,  by  what 
title  he  should  for  the  future  be  known.  That 
of  king  had  always  been  odious  at  Rome;  that 
of  dictator  had  been  feared,  ever  since  the  san- 


guinary exercise  of  its  powers  by  Sylla,  and  it 
had  been  formally  abolished  by  law,  soon  after 
the  demise  of  Juiius  Caeear.  The  name  of  Ro- 
mulus was  proposed,  and  thought  due  to  Octa- 
vius,  as  the  second  founder  of  Rome ;  but  this 
name  he  himself  rejected,  not  on  account  of  the 
ridicule  conveyed  in  it,  but  on  account  of  the  im- 
plication of  kingly  power.  The  title  of  Augustus 
was  in  the  end  accepted  by  him,  rather  as  an 
expression  of  personal  respect,  than  as  a  mark 
|  of  any  new  or  unprecedented  dignity  in  the 
commonwealth. 

While  the  senate  bestowed  on  their  emperor 
the  title  of  Augustus,  they  ordered  that  the  court 
of  his  palace  should  be  for  ever  hung  with  laurel, 
the  badge  of  victories  that  were  ever  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  people,  and  with  wreaths  of  oak, 
the  usual  distinction  of  those  who  had  saved  a 
fellow-citizen  ;  in  token  that  the  Roman  people 
were  continually  preserved  by  his  acceptance  of 
the  sovereignty,  and  by  the  wisdom  of  his  admi- 
nistration. 

Octavius  from  henceforward  came  to  be  known 
by  the  name  of  Augustus.  He  had  been  some 
time  the  object  of  fear,  and  consequently  of  adu- 
lation to  the  people,  and  was  now  probably  be- 
come the  object  of  that  fond  admiration,  with 
which  the  bulk  of  mankind  regard  those  who  are 
greatly  elevated  by  fortune.  Under  the  effect  of 
this  sentiment,  or  supported  by  the  prevalence  of 
it,  citizens  of  high  rank  devoted  themselves  to 
Augustus,  as  they  were  told  that  the  vassal  de- 
voted himself  to  his  lord  in  some  of  the  barbarous 
cantons  of  Spain  and  Gaul.  They  took  an  oath 
to  interpose  their  persons  in  all  his  dangers,  and 
if  he  must  die,  to  perish  with  him.  The  dying, 
under  pretence  of  bequeathing  some  legacy  to 
Augustus,  introduced  his  name  in  their  wills, 
with  a  lavish  encomium  or  faltering  character 
Many  appointed  him  sole  heir,  or,  together  With 
their  children,  the  joint  heir  of  all  their  fortunes. 
Some,  on  their  deathbed,  bequeathed  particular 
sums  to  defray  the  expense  of  sacrifices  to  the 
gods  for  this  signal  blessing,  that  Augustus  was 
still  living  when  they  expired. 


CHAPTER  II. 


State  of  the  Emperor — Condition  of  the  Empire — Amount  of  the  Revenue  unknown — 
Military  Establishments,  t$°c. 


IN  what  degree  the  court  which  began  to  be 

(>aid  to  Augustus,  and  which  continued  during 
lis  reign,  proceeded  from  design  and  servility,  or 
respect  and  affection,  we  must  endeavour  to  col- 
lect from  a  farther  view  of  his  life,  and  must  sus- 
pend our  judgment  until  the  scene  of  his  trial  is 
passed.  At  the  late  formal  establishment  of  the 
monarchy  in  his  person,  he  was  in  the  thirty-fifth 
year  of  his  age,  and  had  still  the  aspect  of  youth. 
His  complexion  is  said  to  have  been  fair,  his  eyes 
bright,  and  his  features  regular  and  elegant.  He 
was  well  made  in  his  person,  and  though  below 
the  middling  stature,  had  so  much  the  propor- 
tions of  a  tall  man,  as,  except  when  compared 
with  some  person  who  overlooked  him,  to  appear 


6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  13. 
3  G 


above  the  ordinary  size.  Two-and-twenty  years 
of  a  life  so  little  advanced,  he  had  passed  in  the 
midst  of  civil  wars,  and  in  the  contest  for  empire, 
which  was  begun  by  his  adoptive  father,  and 
maintained  by  himself.  During  seventeen  of 
those  years  he  had  himself  been  a  leader  of  party, 
and  veered  in  his  professions  and  conduct  with 
every  turn  of  fortune;  at  one  time  courting  the 
senate,  by  affecting  the  zeal  of  a  citizen  in  behalf 
of  the  republic;  at  another  time  courting  the 
veterans,  by  affecting  concern  for  their  interests, 
and  a  zeal  to  revenge  their  late  general's  death. 
He  opposed  himself  to  Antony,  or  joined  with 
him  as  suited  with  the  state  of  his  a  flairs ;  made 
or  broke  concerts  with  the  other  leaders  of  faction, 
made  and  unmade  treaties  of  marriage;  even  had 
intrigues  of  pleasure  with  women  to  forward 


418 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


some  political  design  ;l  and  at  an  age  when  other 
young  men  have  scarcely  any  object  but  plea- 
sure, sacrificed  every  supposed  private  or  public 
connexion,  and  every  friend  and  every  enemy  to 
his  ambition,  or  to  the  cool  and  deliberate  con- 
sideration of  his  own  conveniency. 

By  such  means  as  these  Octavius  became 
sovereign  of  the  Roman  empire  at  the  age  of 
three-and-thirty  years,  the  same  age  at  which 
Alexander,  with  the  greatest  efforts  of  ability  and 
courage,  which  were  afterwards  marred  by  equal 
instances  of  intemperance  and  folly,  effected  the 
conquest  of  the  Persian  monarchy.  Much,  no 
doubt,  in  the  fortunes  of  men,  is  to  be  imputed 
to  accident.  To  this  they  owe,  at  least,  great 
part  of  the  occasions  on  which  they  act ;  but  the 
use  of  the  occasion,  and  sometimes  the  prepara- 
tion of  it,  is  their  own  ;  and  nothing  besides  the 
most  consummate  abilities  can,  through  a  great 
variety  of  scenes,  retain  the  uniform  appearance 
of  a  fortunate  life.  It  is  true,  that  Octavius,  with 
the  name  of  Csesar,  was  become  convenient  or 
necessary  to  the  military  faction  which  he  found 
already  formed  in  the  empire;  that  his  youth, 
and  other  circumstances,  prevented  the  alarm 
which  might  have  led  his  enemies  to  take  more 
effectual  and  earlier  measures  against  him.  But 
he  did  not  fail  to  improve  these  ad-vantages ;  af- 
fected, when  necessary,  to  be  the  mere  instru- 
ment of  the  army,  or  of  the  senate,  for  obtaining 
their  respective  purposes;  preserved  the  same 
discretion  in  every  state  of  his  fortunes;  and, 
with  the  same  address  with  which  he  supplanted 
every  rival  in  the  contest  for  power,  continuing 
to  avoid  every  offensive  appearance  in  the  model 
of  his  government,  he  still  retained  the  forms  of 
the  commonwealth;  and,  besides  the  title  of  Au- 
gustus, did  not  introduce  any  new  appellation  of 
dignity  or  of  office.2 

Every  possible  power  under  the  republic  had 
been  implied  in  the  titles  of  consul,  censor,  augur, 
pontiff,  and  tribune  of  the  people.  Some  of 
them  could,  even  under  that  form  of  government, 
have  been  united  in  the  same  person,  as  that  of 
augur  and  pontiff,  with  the  office  either  of  consul 
or  censor;  and  there  was  no  law  to  forbid  the 
accumulation  of  such  dignities  in  the  hands  of 
the  same  person,  probably  because  it  was  deemed 
sufficiently  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  of  them 
apart.  To  constitute  a  despotic  power,  there- 
fore, provided  that  these  titles  could  be  united  in 
the  same  person,  it  was  not  necessary  to  intro- 
duce any  new  forms  of  office,  nor  even  to  assume 
the  name  of  dictator.  It  was  more  effectual  to 
unite  the  prerogatives  of  separate  stations  in  the 
person  of  one  man,  or  to  bestow  them  on  persons, 
who  would  be  content  to  employ  them  at  the 
pleasure  of  a  master:  and  this  method  accord- 
ingly being  suited  to  the  wary  policy  and  affected 
modesty  of  Octavius,  could  not  escape  him  in  the 
choice  of  his  model. 

1  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  69. 

2  The  title  of  Princeps  had  been  usually  given  to  the 
person  whose  name  was  first  in  the  rolls  of  the  se- 
nate, and  Augustus  assumed  it  in  no  other  sense  than 
this;  that  of  Imperator  had  been  given  to  every  suc- 
cessful leader  of  an  army,  and  in  its  application  to 
Octavius,  implied  no  pie-eminence  above  what  other 
leaders  had  formerly  enjoyed.  These  titles,  indeed,  by 
being  from  henceforward  appropriated  to  the  sove- 
reign, acquired,  by  degrees,  their  significance  in  the 
original  language;  and  in  our  translation  of  them 
into  Prince  and  Emperor,  are  applied  only  to  royal 
persons,  and  the  sovereigns  of  extensive  dominion. 


In  the  character  of  consul,  the  new  empero? 
presided  in  the  senate,  and  was  first  executive 
magistrate  in  the  city.  In  the  character  of  tri- 
bune he  could  not  only  suspend  all  proceedings, 
whether  of  administration,  of  public  council,  or 
of  justice;  but  likewise  could  punish  with  in- 
stant death  any  breach  of  the  peace,  or  any 
attempt  that  was  made  on  his  own  person.  In 
the  capacity  of  censor,  which  was  now  compre- 
hended in  the  office  of  consul,  he  was  the  foun- 
tain of  honour,  could  pry  into  every  citizen's 
private  life,  and  could  promote  or  degrade,  at 
pleasure,  every  person  who  had  courted  his  fa- 
vour, or  incurred  his  dislike.  In  the  capacity  of 
augur  and  pontiff  he  could  overrule  the  super- 
stition of  the  times ;  and,  last  of  all,  in  the  capa- 
city of  imperator,  or  head  of  the  army,  he  held, 
at  his  disposal,  all  the  forces  of  the  empire,  both 
by  sea  and  by  land.  The  republic,  at  the  same 
time,  retained  most  of  its  forms.  There  were 
meetings  of  the  senate,  and  assemblies  of  the 
people ;  there  were  laws  enacted,  and  elections 
made  ;  affairs  proceeded  as  usual  in  the  name  of 
the  consul,  the  censor,  the  augur,  and  tribune  of 
the  people.  The  only  change  which  had  hap- 
pened, and  that  which  the  emperor  endeavoured 
to  disguise,  was,  that  he  himself  acted  in  all  these 
capacities,  and  dictated  every  resolution  in  the 
senate,  and  pointed  out  every  candidate  who  was 
to  succeed  in  the  pretended  elections. 

In  these  appearances  of  republican  govern 
ment,  however,  which  were  preserved  by  Octa 
vius,  we  are  not  to  suppose,  that  there  was  any 
image  of  that  mixed  constitution,  which  subsists 
with  so  much  advantage  in  some  of  the  kingdoms 
of  modern  Europe.  The  Roman  senate,  under 
the  emperors,  was  no  more  than  a  species  of  privy 
council,  of  which  the  members  were  named  or 
displaced  by  the  prince ;  and  which,  under  some 
specious  appearances  of  freedom  in  their  speech, 
were  actually  the  mere  instruments  of  his  will. 

The  comitia,  or  assemblies  of  the  people,  had 
still  less  of  their  original  dignity  or  powe*.  We 
have  had  occasion  to  observe,  that  even  under 
the  republic,  when  the  number  of  citizens,  fit  to 
array  in  the  field  of  Mars,  amounted  to  no  more 
than  four  hundred  thousand  men ;  it  was  im- 
possible that  any  adequate  number  could  be 
assembled  for  any  purpose  of  legislation  or  elec- 
tion. In  the  present  times,  when  the  musters 
extended  to  four  millions,  and  the  Roman  citi- 
zens were  dispersed  over  the  whole  empire,  the 
assembly  of  any  proportionable  number  was  still 
more  impracticable.  No  precautions  had  ever 
been  taken,  even  under  the  republic,  to  prevent  the 
great  irregularities  to  which  the  assemblies  of  the 
people  were  exposed,  nor  was  it  ever  ascertained 
what  numbers  were  necessary  to  constitute  a  le- 
gal assembly.  In  consequence  of  this  defect,  in 
the  latter  times  of  the  republic,  any  tumultuary 
meeting,  however  thinly  or  partially  assembled, 
took  the  sacred  name  of  the  Roman  people,  and 
gave  officers  to  the  state,  or  laws  to  the  common- 
wealth. Every  faction  which,  by  violence  or 
surprise,  could  seize  the  place  of  the  assembly,,  so 
as  to  exclude  their  opponents,  were  masters  of 
the  elections,  or  sovereigns  of  the  state. 

After  Julius  Caesar  had  taken  possession  of 
the  city,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  commanding  the 
elections,  or  the  resolutions  of  the  people ;  he 
even  planned  the  succession  that  was  to  take 
place  in  his  absence  j  and,  being  to  set  out  for 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


419 


Asia,  he  named  the  officers  of  state  for  five  years. 
The  triumvirs,  in  like  circumstances,  fixed  the 
succession  for  different  periods  of  an  equal  and 
greater  length  ;  and  it  was  now  understood,  that 
the  officers  of  state,  though  under  the  show  of 
popular  election,  were  actually  filled  up  by  the 
emperor. 

The  apparent  respect  which,  under  the  pre- 
sent establishment,  was  paid  to  civil  forms  im- 
plied no  abatement  of  the  military  power.  On 
the  contrary,  instead  of  weakening,  it  served  to 
support,  as  usual,  the  authority  of  that  govern- 
ment, under  which  these  forms  were  observed. 
By  flattering  the  people  with  an  idea  that  their 
political  consequence  was  still  entire,  this  sem- 
blance of  the  ancient  republic  reconciled  them  to 
the  state  of  degradation  into  which  they  were 
fallen.  It  vested  the  emperor  himself  With  a  spe- 
cies of  civil  character,  and  with  a  political  consi- 
deration which  he  could  employ  in  support  of 
his  military  power,  and  which,  in  some  measure, 
secured  him  against  the  caprice  of  troops,  who 
might  think  themselves  entitled  to  subvert  what 
they  alone  had  established.  It  enabled  him  to 
treat  their  mutinies  as  acts  of  treason,  and  as 
crimes  of  state.  He  was  no  longer  obliged  to 
court  their  favour,  or  to  affect  condescension,  in 
order  to  obtain  their  obedience.  He  accordingly, 
in  consequence  of  the  late  votes  of  the  senate, 
changed  the  style  of  his  address  to  the  legions, 
called  them  Milite.s,  not  Comm  ililones ;  soldiers, 
not  fellow-soldiers,  as  formerly. 

This  was  probably  the  whole  amount  of  the 
political  establishment  now  made  by  Octavius, 
and  which  he  meant  to  employ  as  a  stock  on 
which  to  ingraft  his  military  power.  The  senate 
and  assemblies  of  the  people  were  retained  only 
in  name,  and  were  far  from  having  the  energy 
of  collateral  members  in  the  government,  such 
as  could  check  or  control  the  perpetual  executive, 
which  was  now  established  in  the  empire  :  but 
we  shall  nevertheless  be  disappointed,  if,  upon  a 
supposition  of  absolute  power  in  the  emperor,  we 
expect,  in  his  court,  the  splendour  and  magnifi- 
cence of  a  royal  estate. 

Octavius  still  lived  in  the  house  of  Horten- 
b'ius,  a  Roman  senator,  which  he  occupied  with- 
out making  any  addition  to  it,  either  in  point  of 
dimension  or  ornament.  Tlie  equipage,  retinue, 
or  accommodation  of  the  imperial  family  was  not 
composed  for  show  and  magnificence,  as  in  mo- 
narchies long  established.  Such  an  attempt  in 
the  eyes  of  a  decayed  republic  might  have  had 
an  improper  effect,  might  have  moved  envy,  and 
not  procured  respect.3  The  emperor  indeed  was 
attended  with  an  armed  guard ;  but  this  was  in- 
tended for  safety,  and  not  for  parade.  He  pre- 
served, in  his  own  person,  the  exterior  appear- 
ances of  a  citizen,  was  accosted  by  the  simple 
name  of  Caesar,  took  his  place  in  the  senate,  in 
the  theatre,  in  the  public  assembly,  in  the  bench 
of  judges.  At  funerals  he  pronounced  the  ora- 
tion that  was  delivered  in  honour  of  the  dead ; 
and  even  at  the  bar  appeared  in  behalf  of  his 
clients.4  The  females  of  his  house  preserved  the 
virtue  of  notable  house-wives,  and  fabricated, 


3  We  may  read  in  the  journal  of  a  voyage  made  by 
Horace,  in  company  with  Maecenas,  that  much  reti- 
nue, or  equipage,  did  not  accompany  great  power  as 
they  do  in  modern  times.    Vid.  Sat.  lib.  i.  sat. 

4  Dio  Cass.  lib.  Iv.  c.  4. 


with  their  own  hands,  the  stuffs  which  he  wore 
in  his  dress. 

In  respect  to  manners,  and  appearance  of  state, 
the  emperor,  with  his  family,  was  not  raised 
above  the  condition  of  citizens ;  but  he  had  full 
compensation  in  the  extent  and  arbitrary  effects 
of  his  power.  While  he  retained  the  appear- 
ances of  an  equal,  he  took  care  to  be  master  ;  and, 
with  no  higher  pretensions  than  those  of  a  citi- 
zen, was  more  than  a  king.  While  he  suffered 
the  senate  and  people  to  retain  the  ancient  names 
and  titles  of  sovereignty,  he  withheld  from  them 
the  substance  of  any  privilege  whatever.  He 
personated  the  simple  senator  and  the  citizen 
with  all  the  terrors  of  military  power  in  his  hands, 
and  preserved  the  force  of  a  tyrant,  because  he 
could  not  assume  the  precedence  and  authority 
of  a  legal  monarch. 

If  in  this  account  of  the  sovereign's  person  and 
state  our  expectations  of  grandeur  are  not  ful- 
filled, his  dominions  will  surpass  the  highest  and 
most  enlarged  conception  we  can  form  of  their 
greatness.  The  Roman  empire  contained  within 
itself,  and  in  a  very  entire  and  populous  condi- 
tion, what  had  been  the  seat  or  territory  of  many 
famous  republics  and  extensive  empires,  or  what 
has  since,  in  modern  times,  upon  the  revival  of 
nations,  furnished  their  possessions  to  no  less 
considerable  states  and  great  monarchies.  As  it 
had  swallowed  up  the  states  of  Italy  and  Greece, 
Macedonia,  the  Lesser  Asia,  Syria,  Egypt, 
Carthage,  Numidia,  Spain,  and  Gaul  to  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube;  so  there  have  sprung 
from  its  ruins  many  states  now  formed  within 
the  Alps,  the  kingdoms  of  Portugal,  Spain,  and 
France,  with  all  the  divisions  of  the  Ottoman 
empire  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  These  are 
its  fragments,  or  shreds  of  the  vast  territory  of 
which  it  was  composed. 

This  empire  seemed  to  comprehend,  within 
itself,  all  the  most  favourable  parts  of  the  earth  ; 
at  least,  those  parts  on  which  the  human  species, 
whether  by  the  effects  of  climate,  or  the  qualities 
of  the  race,  have,  in  respect  to  ingenuity  and 
courage,  possessed  a  distinguished  superiority. 
It  extended  to  a  variety  of  climates,  and  con- 
tained lands  diversified  in  respect  to  situation  and 
soil,  distributing  the  productions  of  nature  and 
art,  so  as  to  render  its  different  divisions  mutually 
useful  and  subservient  to  each  other.  The  com- 
munication between  these  parts,  thfiwtl  remote, 
was  easy,  and  by  a  sea  which,  with  tlie  sj«cies 
of  shipping  then  in  use,  and  with  the  measure  of 
skill  which  the  mariner  then  possessed,  could  be 
easily  navigated. 

The  Mediterranean  being  rcct  ived  into  tho 
bosom  of  this  empire,  gave  to  the  whole  a  greater 
extent  of  coast,  and  to  the  inland  parts  an  easier 
access  to  navigation,  than  could  be  obtained  by 
any  different  distribution  of  its  land  and  water. 
In  consequence  of  this  circumstance,  the  coasts 
of  the  Roman  empire,  without  measuring  mi- 
nutely round  the  indentures  of  creeks  and  }  ro- 
montories,  and  even  without  including  the  outline 
of  some  considerable  as  well  as  many  smaller 
islands,  may  be  computed  at  thirteen  thousand 
miles;  an  extent  which,  if  stretched  into  a  single 
line,  would  exceed  half  the  circumference  of  tho 
earth.  Over  this  extensive  coast,  the  empire 
was  furnished  with  numerous  seaports,  and  the 
I  frequent  openings  of  gulphs  and  navigable  rivers 
|  EO  that,  notwithstanding  the  great  extent  of  itt> 


420 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


t£oOK  VI. 


territory,  the  distance  of  any  inland  place,  the 
most  remote  from  the  sea,  does  nat  appear  to  ex- 
ceed two  hundred  miles. 

In  forming  this  mighty  dominion,  the  republic 
had  united,  under  its  territories,  all  the  princi- 
pal seats  of  industry  then  known  in  the  western 
world,  had  come  into  possession  of  all  the  sea- 
ports the  most  famous  for  shipping,  and  for  the 
residence  of  merchants,  who  had  conducted  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  world.  Its  subjects  were 
possessed  of  all  the  profitable*  arts,  and  having  all 
the  means  and  instruments  of  trade,  might  be 
expected  to  reap  all  the  fruits  of  commerce.  But, 
.n  making  these  acquisitions,  the  capital  of  the 
empire  had  been  a  place  of  arms,  and  a  mere 
nursery  of  statesmen  and  warriors,  more  occupied 
with  the  ideas  of  spoil  and  farther  conquest,  than 
with  the  attentions  necessary  to  promote  the  in- 
dustry or  the  prosperity  of  the  nations  subjected 
to  its  power.  And  it  is  probable  that  the  Romans, 
in  reducing  so  many  separate  nations  to  the  con- 
dition of  provinces,  greatly  impaired  the  sources 
of  wealth,  at  the  same  time  that  they  suppressed 
the  pretensions  to  independence  and  national 
freedom. 

It  might  be  hoped,  that  the  peace  now  given 
to  the  empire,  and  the  protection  which  every 
province  was  to  receive  against  the  avarice  and 
rapacity  of  subordinate  oppressors,  would  revive 
the  pursuit  of  lucrative  arts,  and  encourage  the 
Roman  traders  to  settle  where  the  natives  were 
not  in  capacity  to  pursue  the  advantages  of  their 
situation.  *But  even  these  circumstances,  without 
the  aid  of  a  happier  government  than  that  which 
was  now  established,  were  not  sufficient  to  repair 
the  damage  formerly  sustained  by  the  provinces 
in  their  reduction  and  subsequent  oppression. 
So  that  although  Carthage,  with  all  its  depen- 
dencies, Egypt,  Syria,  the  Lesser  Asia,  and 
Greece,  with  all  the  trading  establishments  of 
Spain  and  Gaul,  were  united  under  one  head, 
we  are  not  to  suppose,  that  the  wealth  of  the  em- 
pire ever  equalled  the  sum  of  what  might  have 
been  raised  from  the  separate  and  independent 
states  of  which  it  was  composed. 

The  commercial  policy  of  Rome  was  limited, 
in  a  great  measure,  to  the  supply  of  Italy,  and  to 
the  conveyance  of  what  the  provinces  yielded  to 
the  treasury  of  the  empire.  Both  these  objects 
were  entrusted  to  mercantile  companies,  who 
farmed  the  revenue,  and  who  made  commerce 
subservient  to  the  business  of  their  own  remit- 
tances and  exclusive  trade. 

It  were,  no  doubt,  matter  of  curiosity  to  know 
the  whole  amount  of  a  revenue  collected  from  so 
rich  and  so  extensive  a  territory;  but  we  are 
deprived  of  this  satisfaction  by  the  silence  of 
historians,  or  by  the  loss  of  records  in  which  this 
subject  was  stated.  Vespasian  was  heard  to  say, 
That  a  sum,  supposed  equal  to  about  three  hun- 
dred and  thirty  millions  sterling,  was  required 
annually  to  support  the  imperial  establishment.1 
This  emperor,  however,  being  rapacious  or 
severe  in  his  exactions,  might  be  supposed  to 
exacrcrerate  the  necessities  of  the  state ;  but  as 
thisTum  is  beyond  the  bounds  of  credibility,  and 
must  lead  us  to  suspect  a  mistake  in  the  num- 
bers, it  will  not  enable  us  to  form  any  probable 
conjecture  of  the  truth. 

Under  the  republic,  both  the  treasury  of  the 


1  Sueton.  in  Vespas.  c.  10. 


state,  and  the  fortunes  of  individuals,  were  sup- 
plied, in  a  great  measure,  by  the  spoils  of  van-" 
quished  enemies,  brought  to  the  capital  With 
great  ostentation  by  every  victorious  general.  To 
this  source  of  revenue  we  may  join  the  presents 
that  were  made  by  foreign  princes'  and  states, 
together  with  the  military  contributions  that 
were  exacted  from  the  provinces, 

Julius  Csesar  brought,  at  once,  into  the  trea» 
sury,  sixty-five  thousand  talents,  or  above  twelve 
millions  and  a  half  sterling.  As  the  lustre  of  d 
triumph  depended  very  much  on  the  sums  that 
were  carried  in  procession,  and  placed  in  the 
capitol,  Roman  officers  were  more  faithful  stew- 
ards of  the  plunder  taken  from  their  enemies, 
than  they  were  probably  of  any  other  public 
trust. 

It  had  been,  for  some  time,  the  practice  of  the 
Romans  to  lay  every  burden  on  the  conquered 
provinces,  and  to  exempt  themselves.  This 
policy  is  dated  from  the  conquest  of  Macedonia, 
the  spoils  of  which  kingdom  being  joined  to  their 
former  acquisitions,  put  them  in  condition  to 
effectuate  this  exemption.  It  was,  however,  but 
of  short  duration.  The  practice  of  taxing  citizens 
was  resumed  in  time  of  the  civil  wars,  and  the 
privilege,  or  rather  the  mere  designation  of  Ro- 
mans, being  extended  to  the  inhabitants  of  many 
parts  of  the  empire,  all  the  burdens  that  were 
borne  by  any  subjects  were,  at  the  same  time, 
brought  home  into  Italy,  and  all  the  former  dis- 
tinctions gradually  removed. 

Under  the  establishment  now  made  by  Au^ 
gustus,  conquests  were  discontinued,  or  became 
less  frequent ;  and  the  returns  made  to  the  trea- 
sury, from  the  spoil  of  enemies,  failed  in  propor- 
tion ;  but  the  avidity  of  receiving  presents,  the 
worst  form  under  which  extortion  can  be  exer 
cised  was  still  indulged,  and,  as  in  every  other 
despotical  government,  became  a  considerable 
engine  of  oppression.2 

The  republic,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  latter 
periods  of  her  conquests,  entered  on  the  posses- 
sion of  territories  without  any  capitulation,  and 
considered  not  only  the  sovereignty,  but  the  pro- 
perty likewise  of  the  land  and  of  its  inhabitants, 
as  devolving  upon  themselves.  They,  in  some 
instances,  seized  on  the  persons  as  well  as  the 
effects  of  the  vanquished,  and  set  both  to  sale. 
They  leased  the  lands  at  considerable  quit-rents, 
or  leaving  them  in  the  hands  of  the  original 
proprietors,  exacted,  under  the  appellation  of 
tithes,  or  fifths  of  corn,  fruit,  and  cattle,  a  pro- 
portion of  the  produce.  By  diversifying  the  tax, 
the  burden  was  made  to  fall  upon  different  sub- 
jects, or  was  exacted  from  different  persons,  and 
by  these  means  the  whole  amount  was  less  easily 
computed,  or  less  sensibly  felt.  The  Romans, 
in  continuing  the  taxes  which  they  found  already 
established  in  the  countries  they  had  conquered, 
or  by  imposing  such  new  ones  as  suited  their 
own  character  as  conquerors,  set  examples  of 
every  species  almost  that  is  known  in  the  history 
of  mankind.  They  levied  customs  at  sea-ports, 
excises  on  many  articles  of  consumption,  and  a 
considerable  capitation  or  poll-tax,  in  which  they 


2  There  being  no  rule  by  which  to  limit  the  extent 
of  a  present,  the  person  who  receives  it,  allowing  the 
giver  to  proceed  as  far  as  his  means,  or  his  desire  to 
pay  court  will  carry  him,  still  resents  any  imaginary 
defect,  and  employs  terror  and  force  to  extort  what  he 
affects  to  receive  as  a  gift. 


Chap.  II.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


421 


made  no  distinction  of  rank  or  fortune.  These 
modes  of  taxation,  already  known  under  the  re- 
public, and  various  in  different  provinces,  now 
began  to  be  regulated  upon  the  maxims  of  a 
general  policy,  extending  over  the  whole  empire. 

Some  of  the  burdens  laid  by  Octavius,  as  that 
which  was  imposed  on  the  value  of  goods  ex- 
posed to  sale,  were  charged  directly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  army  as  a  fund  for  the  discharge 
of  their  pay,  or  an  immediate  supply  for  their 
subsistence  or  clothing  ;  and  by  this  sort  of  im- 
propriation were  unalterably  fixed.  The  country, 
where  any  troops  were  quartered,  was  charged, 
for  their  use,  with  supplies  of  straw,  forage,  car- 
riages, corn,  bread,  provisions,  and  even  clothing. 

From  such  particulars,  we  may  form  some 
conception  of  the  mode  and  tendency  of  Roman 
taxation,  although  we  have  no  certain  accounts, 
or  even  probable  conjecture,  of  the  amount  of 
the  whole.  Under  the  present  or  preceding 
state  of  the  Roman  government,  there  was  no 
principle  operating  in  behalf  of  the  subject,  be- 
sides the  spontaneous  humanity  or  justice  of 
those  who  exercised  the  sovereignty ;  and  as  the 
provinces  under  the  republic  had  been  ill-pro- 
tected against  the  rapacity  of  proconsuls  and 
propraetors,  they  were  now  considered,  together 
with  the  republic  itself,  as  the  property  of  a 
master;  and  the  examples  of  taxation  that  were 
set  by  either,  may  instruct  a  sovereign  how  to 
profit  by  the  wealth  of  his  subjects,  rather  than 
admonish  a  free  people  how  to  constitute  a 
revenue  with  the  least  inconvenience  to  them- 
selves, or  the  least  possible  injury  to  the  sources 
of  wealth. 

The  situation  of  Ttaly,  and  the  distribution  of 
land  and  water  in  its  neighbourhood,  had  made 
navigation  familiar  to  the  Romans  in  the  earliest 
ages  of  the  republic.  A  considerable  part  of 
their  force,  in  many  of  their  wars,  consisted  in 
shipping.  The  battle  of  Actium,  which  decided 
the  fate  of  the  empire,  was  fought  at  sea ;  and 
although  the  Romans,  at  this  date,  had  subdued 
every  nation  within  reach  of  their  seas,  and  had 
no  enemy  to  fear  on  that  element;  yet  the  trans- 
port of  armies,  the  safety  of  their  navigation, 
and  the  suppression  of  piracies,  by  which  the 
supply  of  corn,  and  the  conveyance  of  the  public 
revenue  from  the  provinces,  were  often  inter- 
rupted, made  a  naval  force,  and  a  proper  distri- 
bution of  guard  ships,  necessary  to  the  peace  and 
government  of  the  empire. 

Three  capital  Heets  were  accordingly  stationed 
by  Augustus  for  the  security  of  the  coasts,  one  at 
Ravenna,  near  the  bottom  of  the  Hadriatic 
Gulph;  one  at  Forum  Julii,  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  peninsula ;  and  a  third  at  Misenum,  the 
principal  promontory  or  head-land  of  Campania. 
Besides  these,  there  were  numbers  of  armed 


vessels  destined  to  ply  in  all  the  gulphs  and 
navigable  rivers  throughout  the  empire. 

The  ordinary  military  establishment  consisted 
of  about  five-and-forty  legions,  besides  cavalry 
and  city  and  provincial  troops.  The  whole, 
reckoning  each  legion,  with  its  attendants  and 
officers,  at  six  thousand  men,  and  making  a 
reasonable  allowance  for  cavalry,  may  have 
amounted  to  three  hundred  thousand.  Of  the 
manner  in  which  this  army  was  distributed,  the 
following  particulars  only  are  mentioned  :  on  the 
Rhine,  there  were  stationed  eight  legions ;  on 
the  Danube,  two;  on  the  frontiers  of  Syria, 
four;  in  Spain,  three;  in  Africa,  in  Egypt,  in 
Mysia,  and  Dalmatia,  each  two  legions ;  in  the 
city  were  nine,  or,  according  to  others,  ten  co- 
horts, in  the  capacity  of  guards,  or  praetorian 
bands,  to  attend  the  person  of  the  emperor  ;  and, 
together  with  these,  three  cohorts  of  a  thousand 
men  each,  intended  as  a  city  watch,  to  be  employed 
in  preserving  the  peace,  in  extinguishing  fires, 
and  in  suppressing  any  other  occasional  disorder.3 

For  the  farther  security  of  the  empire,  consi- 
derable territories  on  the  frontier,  which  might 
have  been  easily  occupied  by  the  Roman  arms, 
were  suffered  to  remain  in  the  possession  of 
allies,  dependant  princes,  or  free  cities  and  repub- 
lican states,  who,  owing  their  safety  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  Roman  power,  formed  a  kind  of 
barrier  against  its  enemies,  were  vigilant  to  ob- 
serve, and  ready  to  oppose  every  attempt  of 
invasion,  and  were  prepared  to  co-operate  with 
the  Roman  armies,  and  to  support  them  with 
stores  and  provisions  as  oft  as  they  had  occasion 
to  act  in  their  neighbourhood.  The  republic  had 
ever  cultivated  such  alliances  with  powers  that 
were  contiguous  to  the  place  of  their  operations  ; 
and  frequently,  after  having  made  the  defence 
of  their  ally  the  pretence  of  a  war,  and  after 
having  availed  themselves  of  his  assistance,  they, 
upon  occasion  of  some  breach  or  quarrel,  joined 
the  ally  himself  to  the  conquest  which  he  had 
assisted  them  to  make.  This  same  policy  which 
had  been  useful  in  acquiring  the  dominion  of  so 
great  an  empire,  was  still  employed  for  its  safety. 
In  pursuance  of  this  policy,  the  kings  of  Mauri- 
tania, of  the  Bosphorus,  of  the  Lesser  and  Greater 
Armenia,  of  Cappadocia,  Commagne,  Galatia, 
and  Paraphilia,  with  Paphlagonia,  Colchis,  and 
Judaea,  together  with  the  republican  states  of 
Rhodes,  Cyrene,  Pisidia,  and  Lycia.  acted  under 
the  denomination  of  allies,  as  advanced  parties 
on  the  frontiers  of  the  empire,  and  encouraged 
by  the  prospect  of  a  powerful  support,  were 
ready  to  withstand  every  enemy  by  whom  their 
own  peace,  or  that  of  the  Romans,  was  likely  to 
be  disturbed. 


3  Tacitus,  lib.  i. 


422 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


CHAPTER  III. 


The  Family  and  Court  of  Augustus — His  pretended  Resignation  of  the  Empire  renewed  The 

exercise  of  his  Power  becomes  less  disguised — Death  of  Agrippa. 


IN  the  Roman  empire,  thus  subjected  to  a 
monarch,  though  planted  with  races  of  men  the 
most  famed  for  activity  and  vigour,  it  has  been 
observed,  that  the  materials  of  history  became 
less  frequent  and  less  interesting  than  they  had 
been  in  the  times  of  the  republic,  while  confined 
to  much  narrower  bounds.  Under  the  dominion 
of  a  single  person,  all  the  interesting  exertions 
of  the  national,  the  political,  and  the  military 
spirit  over  great  parts  of  the  earth,  were  sup- 
pressed. Even  in  the  capital  of  the  world,  so 
lately  agitated  with  every  difference  of  opinion 
or  interfering  of  interests,  the  operations  of  go- 
vernment itself  were  become  silent  and  secret. 
Matters  of  public  concern,  considered  as  the 
affairs  of  an  individual,  were  adjusted  to  his  con- 
veniency,  and  directed  by  his  passions,  or  by 
those  of  his  family,  relations,  or  domestics.  The 
list  of  such  persons  accordingly,  with  their  cha- 
racters, dispositions,  and  fortunes,  make  a  prin- 
cipal part  in  the  subsequent  history  of  this 
mighty  empire. 

Augustus  still  continued  to  employ  Maecenas 
and  Agrippa  as  the  chief  instruments  of  his 
government.  To  their  abilities  and  conduct,  in 
their  respective  departments,  he  in  a  great  mea- 
sure owed  the  prosperous  state  of  his  affairs.  He 
likewise  persevered  in  his  attachment  to  Livia, 
whose  separation  from  her  former  husband  has 
been  already  mentioned.  Together  with  the 
mother,  he  received  into  his'  family  her  two  sons, 
Tiberius  and  Drusus.  Of  these  Tiberius,  born 
in  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Philippi,  was  now 
about  twelve  years  old;  Drusus,  of  whom  she 
was  pregnant  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  with 
Octavius,  and  whom  she  brought  forth  about 
three  months  afterwards,  was  now  about  seven 
years  old. 

The  emperor  having  no  children  by  Livia,  had 
offspring  only  a  daughter,  famous  by  the  name 
of  Julia,  born  to  him  by  Scribonia,  the  relation  of 
Sextus  Pompeius,  with  whom  he  had  contracted 
a  marriage  of  political  conveniency,  and  of  short 
duration.  Next  to  this  daughter,  in  point  .of 
consanguinity,  were  his  sister  Octavia,  the  widow, 
first  of  Marcellus,  and  afterwards  of  Antony, 
with  her  children  by  both  her  husbands.  Among 
these  were,  by  her  first  husband,  Marcella,  mar- 
ried to  Agrippa,  and  the  young  Marcellus,1  who 
being  married  to  the  emperor's  daughter  Julia, 
was  looked  upon  as  the  undoubted  representative 
of  the  Octavian  and  Julian  families,  and  heir  to 
the  fortunes  of  Caesar. 

Such  then  are  the  persons  to  whom  many  parts 
in  the  immediate  sequel  of  this  narration  will 
principally  refer ;  and  such  are  the  outset  and 
first  considerable  lines  of  a  very  long  reign,  of 
which  the  materials  will  not  furnish,  nor  the 


1  In  relation  to  this  young  man,  Virgil,  in  flattering 
Augustus,  has  composed  so  many  beautiful  lines  in 
he  sixth  book  of  the  ^Eneid. 

 Si  qua  fata  aspera  rumpas, 

Tu  Marcellus  eris,  &c. 


professed  intention  of  this  history  require,  a  long 
or  minute  detail. 

The  establishment  now  made  by  Augustus  has 
nearly  completed  the  revolution  of  which  it  was 
proposed  to  give  an  account.  The  despotism, 
though  exercised  under  the  name  of  republic, 
and  in  the  form  of  a  temporary  and  legal  insti- 
tution, being  in  reality  absolute,  and  without 
any  qualification  of  mixed  government,  it  could 
not  be  doubted  that  the  same  powers  would  be 
continued  after  the  period  for  which  they  were 
now  granted  should  expire,  and  that  the  empire, 
for  the  future,  must  for  ever  submit  to  the  head 
of  the  army  :  but  in  what  form  of  succession,  or 
with  what  immediate  effect  on  the  character  and 
condition  of  those  who  were  subject  to  it,  re- 
mains to  be  collected  from  the  sequel  of  this  and 
a  few  of  the  following  reigns.  Military  govern- 
ment is  almost  a  necessary  result  of  the  abuse  of 
liberty,  or,  in  certain  extremities  of  this  evil,  ap- 
pears to  be  the  sole  remedy  that  can  be  applied.2 
But,  in  order  to  know  with  how  much  care  the 
evil  itself  ought  to  be  avoided,  we  must  attend 
likewise  to  the  full  effects  of  the  cure. 

It  appears  from  the  particulars  which  have 
been  stated,  relating  to  the  first  uses  which  Oc- 
tavius made  of  his  power,  that  he  was  not  to  be 
caught,  in  the  snare  into  which  many  others 
have  fallen  in  consequence  of  great  success.  In 
his  prosperity  he  still  retained  his  vigilance,  his 
caution,  and  his  industry,  and  relied  upon  these 
alone  for  the  preservation  of  what  he  had  gained. 
Though  now  secure  by  the  pretended  forms  of  a 
legal  establishment,  he  continued  attentive  to 
what  was  passing  in  every  part  of  the  empire, 
frequently  withdrew  from  the  seats  of  adulation 
and  pleasure  in  the  city  of  Rome  to  visit  the 
provinces ;  and,  without  any  view  to  conquest, 
or  purpose  of  ostentation  whatever,  gave  his  pre- 
sence where  any  affairs  of  moment  were  in  de~ 
pendence,  merely  to  extend  the  effects  of  his 
government,  and  to  realize  the  dominion  he  had 
planned. 

The  peace  which  immediately  followed  the 
victories  obtained  on  the  coast  of  Epirus  and  in 
Egypt,  was  the  circumstance  on  which  Augus- 
tus chiefly  relied  for  the  recommendation  of  his 
government,  and  he  seems,  from  inclination  as 
well  as  policy,  to  have  early  entertained  a  maxim 
favourable  to  peace  with  foreign  nations,  and 
which  he  afterwards  openly  inculcated,  That  the 
bounds  of  the  empire  should  not  be  extended. 
He  himself  had  made  some  acquisitions  in  Dal- 
matia  and  in  Panonia.  But  his  object  in  making 
war  in  those  countries,  had  been,  rather  to  ex- 
ercise and  prepare  his  army  for  the  contest  he 
expected  with  Antony,  than  for  any  purpose  of 
extending  his  conquests ;  and  he  reduced  Egypt 
to  a  province,  merely  to  extirpate  the  last  re- 
mains of  his  rival's  party,  and  to  prevent  farther 
molestation  from  that  rich  and  powerful  king- 


2  IVon  aliud  discordantis  patriss  remedium  ftivjse 
(juam  ut  ab  uno  regeretur.   Tacit,  lib.  i.  c.  9. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


423 


dom.  In  his  first  plan  of  operations  communi- 
cated to  the  senate,  he  expressed  his  disposition 
to  acquiesce  in  the  present  extent  of  the  empire; 
nut  it  was  necessary  to  secure  the  frontier  from 
invasions,  and  to  ascertain,  though  not  to  extend, 
its  hounds.  Soon  after  his  new  model  of  go- 
vernment was  established,  he  took  measures  ac- 
cordingly to  repress  the  disorder  which  subsisted 
in  some  of  the  provinces,  and  to  reduce  to  obe- 
dience some  cantons  on  which  the  state  had 
already  a  claim  of  sovereignty,  though  not  fully 
acknowledged.  He  proceeded  to  punish  others, 
who,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  wars,  had 
taken  advantage  of  the  general  distraction  of  the 
empire  to  resume  their  independency,  or  to  make 
war  on  the  Roman  settlements.  He  had  exam- 
ples of  both  sorts  to  contend  with  in  different 
parts;  in  Thrace,  on  the  Rhine,  and  among  the 
Alps,  but  chiefly  in  Spain. 

Of  all  the  provinces  that  became  subject  to 
Rome,  those  of  Spain  had  been  the  most  diffi- 
cult acquisition ;  insomuch  that,  after  all  the 
wars  so  frequently  renewed  in  that  country, 
there  were  still  some  warlike  cantons  who  con- 
tinued to  maintain  their  independence.  Among 
these  the  Astures  and  Cantabri3  being  in  actual 
rebellion,  the  emperor  himself,  at  the  head  of  a 
powerful  army,  still  pretending  a  design  to  in- 
vade Britain,  passed  into  Gaul,  and  there  having 
fixed  a  rate  of  taxation  for  the  province,  turned 
into  Spain.  He  obliged  the  rebels,  upon  his  ap- 
proach, to  quit  their  usual  habitations,  and  retire 
to  the  mountains.  But  finding  that  they  were 
likely  to  protract  the  war,  and  to  engage  him  in 
a  succession  of  tedious  and  indecisive  operations, 
he  fixed  his  quarters  at  Tarraco,4  and  left  the 
command  of  the  army  employed  on  this  service 
to  C.  Antistius  and  Carisius.    Soon  after  his 

arrival  at  Tarraco  he  entered  on  his 
U.  C.  734.  eighth  consulate.    From  that  place 

he  sent  Terentius  Varro  to  quell  a 

SSFr.  ssrrebeiii°n  °f  the  Saiassi  anj  the  °ther 

Uus  Taurus,  nations  of  the  Alps,  and  sent  M. 
August  Irto.  Vincius  to  punish  some  German 
JEtai.  3G.  tribes,  by  whom  the  Roman  traders 
TT  P  "'oa  frequenting  their  country,  or  settled 
among  them,  had  been  massacred. 
Impcrator  He  himself,  while  tits  generals  were 
Caesar &rio.  employed  in  these  services,  remained 
M  Junius    two  years  at  his  quarters  in  Spain  ; 

%l™ust,  3tio  and  U,')0n  tne  e'aPse  °f  ms  e,gnth 
JEtat.  37.     consulate  resumed  that  office  for  the 
ninth  time. 

During  the  residence  of  Augustus  in  Spain, 
arrived  the  famous  reference  or  appeal  from  the 
Parthians,  submitting  to  his  decision  a  contest 
for  the  throne  of  their  kingdom.5  The  compe- 
titors were  Phraates  and  Tiridates.  The  first 
having  been  in  possession,  was  expelled  by  a 
powerful  insurrection  of  the  people  in  favour  of 
his  rival :  but,  after  a  little  time,  having  assem- 
bled his  forces  and  his  allies,  he  attacked  Tiri- 
dates, obliged  him  to  fly  in  his  turn,  and  to  take 
refuse  in  the  contiguous  province  of  the  Roman 
empire.  This  exile,  having  the  son  of  his  rival 
a  prisoner,  proceeded  to  Rome,  and  from  thence 


3  Nations  inhabiting  the  mountainous  coasts  of  the 
Bay  of  Biscay. 

4  Tarragona. 

5  Dio.  ''ass.  lib.  liii.  c.  22  et  25.  Orosius,  lib.  vi. 
c.  21.  Velleius.  Liv.  Epitome,  lib  exxxiv.  Dio.  Cass, 
lib.  liii.  c.  33. 


to  the  quarters  of  the-emperor  in  Spain.  At  the 
same  time  arrived  an  embassy  from  Phraates, 
then  in  actual  possession  of  the  throne,  desiring 
that  Tiridates  should  be  delivered  up  to  him,  and 
that  his  son  should  be  restored.  Both  parties 
offered  honourable  terms  to  the  Romans,  parti- 
cularly the  restoration  of  all  the  captives,  and  of 
all  the  trophies  taken  either  from  Crassus  or  from 
Antony,  in  their  unfortunate  invasions  of  that 
kingdom. 

Augustus  willingly  accepted  of  these  terms; 
but  affecting  to  refer  the  Parthian  dispute  to  the 
Roman  senate,  gave  instructions  that  the  son  of 
Phraates  should  be  restored  to  his  father,  but 
that  Tiridates  should  not  be  delivered  up  to  his 
enemy.c 

By  this  transaction,  though  a  pacific  one,  the 
disgrace  incurred  by  the  Roman  legions  in  Par- 
thia  was  supposed  to  be  entirely  effaced.  And 
it  being  said  that  Augustus,  on  this  occasion, 
had  performed,  by  the  authority  of  his  name, 
what  other  Roman  leaders  had  attempted  in 
vain  by  force  of  arms,  he  had  a  variety  of  honours 
drc reed  to  him  by  the  senate.  It  passed,  among 
other  resolutions,  that  his  name  should  be  in- 
scribed among  those  of  the  gods  in  the  address 
of  the  public  hymns ;  that  one  of  the  Roman 
tribes  should  be  named  the  Julian  tribe,  in 
honour  of  him ;  that  he  should  wear  the  trium- 
phal crown  at  all  public  entertainments ;  that 
all  Roman  senators,  who  had  been  present  at 
any  of  his  victories,  should  attend  his  triumphs 
dressed  in  purple  robes;  that  the  anniversary  of 
his  return  to  Rome  should  be  observed  as  a  fes- 
tival ;  that  he  should  have  the  nomination  of  per- 
sons to  be  honoured  with  the  priesthood,  and 
should  fill  up  the  list  to  any  numbers  he  thought 
proper.  From  this  time  forward,  accordingly, 
the  number  was  supposed  to  be  unlimited. 

Soon  after  the  conclusion  of  this  negotiation 
with  the  Parthians,  the  operations  of  the  armies 
in  Spain  and  Germany  were  brought  to  a  suc- 
cessful period.  Caius  Antistius  being  attacked 
by  the  Cantabri.  obtained  a  complete  victory, 
and  obliged  that  people  a^ain  to  take  separate 
retreats  in  the  woods  and  mountains,  where 
numbers  of  them  were  reduced  by  famine,  and 
others,  beinjr  invested  in  their  strong  holds,  and 
in  danger  of  being  taken,  chose  to  perish  by  their 
own  hands. 

Carisius  was  equally  successful  against  the 
Asturi  ;  obliged  them  to  abandon  their  habita- 
tions, or  to  submit  at  discretion.7 

Terentius  Varro,  having  invaded  the  Saiassi 
or  Piedmontese,  on  different  quarters,  made  them 
a«rrce  to  pay  a  cotribution,  and,  under  pretence 
of  levying  it,  sent  an  army  in  separate  di\isions 
into  their  country  ;  and  thus  having  them  at  his 
mercy,  exercised  a  cruelty  of  which  too  many 
examples  are  to  be  found  in  every  period  of  an- 
cient history.  He  ordered,  that  all  the  children 
and  youth  of  the  nation,  thus  taken  by  surprise, 
should  be  put  up  for  sale ;  the  buyer  being  re- 
quired to  come  under  engagements,  that  none  of 
this  unhappy  people,  thus  sold  for  slaves,  should 
be  restored  to  freedom,  or  allowed  to  return  to 
their  own  country,  till  after  an  interval  of  twenty 
years.8 


fi  Justin,  lib.  xlii.  c.  5.    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  33. 
Velleius  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  91. 
7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.c.  23.  8  Ibid. 


424  ' 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


About  the  same  time  Augustus  received  from 
the  army  the  title  of  Imperator,  and  from  the 
senate  the  offer  of  a  triumph,  on  account  of  the 
victories  gained  by  his  lieutenants.  The  last  of 
these  honours  he  declined ;  but  took  occasion  to 
exhibit  games  in  Spain,  in  name  of  his  nephew 
Marcellus  and  of  his  step-son  Tiberius,  whom 
he  wished  to  recommend  to  the  army  by  this  act 
of  munificence.  He  likewise  distributed  lands, 
both  in  Spain  and  in  the  Cisalpine  Gaul,  to  the 
soldiers  who  were  discharged  from  the  legions, 
and  on  this  occasion  built  the  Augusta  Emerito- 
rum1  in  Spain,  and  the  Augusta  Praetoria2  on 
the  descent  of  the  Alps  towards  Italy.  In  con- 
formity with  his  general  plan  of  dividing  the 
provinces,  he  separated  Spain  into  three  govern- 
ments, the  Boetica,  Lusitania,  and  Taraconensis. 
The  first  was  included  under  the  department  of 
the  senate,  the  other  two  had  been  reserved  to 
himself. 

Gaul  was,  at  the  same  time,  divided  into  four 
separate  governments ;  the  Narbonensis,  Ac- 
quitania,  Lugdunensis,  and  Celtica  or  Belgica. 
Upon  this  increase  of  the  number  of  provinces, 
additional  officers,  particularly  in  the  capacity 
of  quaestors,  became  necessary.  All  who  had, 
for  ten  years  preceding  the  date  of  these  arrange- 
ments, held  the  office  of  quaestor  in  the  city, 
without  succeeding  to  any  foreign  employment, 
were  now  ordered  to  cast  lots  for  the  vacant 
stations. 

The  general  peace  being  again  restored,  by 
the  successful  operations  of  the  army  in  different 
quarters  of  the  empire,  the  gates  of  Janus  once 
more  were  shut,  and  a  column  was  erected  on 
a  summit  of  the  Alps,  bearing  an  inscription, 
with  the  names  of  forty-eight  separate  nations 
or  cantons,  who  were  now  reduced  to  obedience 
under  the  auspices  of  Augustus.3 
TT  C  7-20  emPeror  being  on  his  return 

'  '  to  Rome,  and  having  accepted  of 

Imper.  Casara.  tenth  consulate,  the  ceremony  of 
10mo,  G  his  admission  into  office  was  per- 
FlaccTsU$  formed  before  his  arrival  on  the  first 
August. ,4to,  °f  January,  with  a  renewal  of  the 
JEtat.  38.  '  oaths  formerly  taken  by  the  people, 
that  they  would  observe  his  decrees. 
The  senate,  at  the  same  time,  being  informed 
that  he  intended  to  make  a  donation  to  the  peo- 
ple, amounting  to  a  hundred  denarii  for  each 
person  ;  but  that,  from  respect  to  the  laws  which 
gave  them  a  negative  on  such  donations,  he 
meant  to  defer  the  publication  of  his  intention 
until  he  had  their  consent;  they  immediately 
passed  a  decree,  giving  him  full  exemption  from 
every  law  or  form  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
empowering  him4  to  govern  in  all  matters  accord- 
ing to  his  own  will.  This  decree,  of  which  the 
effect  was  not  so  much  to  vest  him  with  any  new 
powers,  as  to  remove  the  veil  from  that  power  of 
which  he  was  already  possessed,  it  is  probable, 
from  his  caution  in  other  matters,  he  would  have 
gladly  avoided.  At  his  return,  after  so  long  an 
absence,  he  was  received  by  all  orders  of  men 
with  every  demonstration  of  joy.  Having  al- 
ready been  flattered  in  his  own  person  with  every 
mark  of  distinction  and  honour,  he  was  now 
courted  in  the  person  of  his  favourite  nephew 
Marcellus.    This  young  man  was  admitted,  by 


1  Now  Merida.  2  Now  Aosta. 

!?  Plin.  lib.  x\x.  c.  1.         4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  28. 


a  formal  decree,  to  a  place  m  the  senate  among 
the  members  of  praetorian  rank,  and  was  allowed 
to  sue  for  the  consulate  ten  years  before  the  legal 
age.  Livia  too  had  a  share  in  these  flatteries,  by 
a  like  privilege  bestowed  on  her  son  Tiberius, 
though  in  order  to  retain  some  distinction  be- 
tween the  favourite  nephew  and  the  step-son  of 
the  emperor,  the  decree  in  favour  of  Tiberius 
only  bore  that  he  might  sue  for  the  consulate 
five  years  before  the  legal  age. 

In  the  mean  time  Marcellus  held  the  office  of 
sedile,  and  Tiberius  that  of  quaestor.  The  first, 
to  signalize  his  magistracy,  ordered  that  that  part 
of  the  forum  or  space  in  which  the  courts  of  jus- 
tice were  held,  which  till  then  had  been  always 
uncovered  and  exposed  to  the  open  air,  should 
be  shaded  with  a  covering  or  awning  of  cloth,5 

During  the  absence  of  the  emperor,  the  plans 
which  had  been  formed  for  the  better  government 
of  the  city,  for  adorning  it  with  public  buildings, 
and  for  repairing  the  highways  throughout 
Italy,  were  carried  into  execution  by  Agrippa. 
The  repair  of  the  highways  had  been  assigned, 
in  separate  lots,  to  such  of  the  senators  as  were 
supposed  able  to  defray  the  expense  of  it ;  and, 
among  these,  the  Flaminian  Way  had  been  as- 
signed to  Augustus  himself.  The  town  was  di- 
vided into  quarters  or  districts,  under  proper 
officers,  annually  chosen  or  taken  by  lot ;  and  a 
watch  was  established,  to  prevent  disorders,  and 
to  guard  against  fire. 

The  channel  of  the  river,  in  a  great  measure 
choked  up  with  heaps  of  rubbish  from  the  ruins 
of  houses,  that  formed  considerable  banks  and 
islands  in  the  midst  of  it,  and,  at  every  flood, 
forced  great  inundations  into  the  streets,  was 
now  effectually  cleared.6  The  Septa  Julia,  or 
place  of  assembly,  called  the  Julian  place,  in  ho- 
nour of  the  emperor,  was  repaired,  adorned,  and 
dedicated.  A  temple  was  erected  to  Neptune, 
in  memory  of  the  late  naval  victories.  The  por- 
tico of  the  pantheon  was  finished  about  this  time; 
within  was  placed,  among  the  images  of  the 
gods,  a  statue  of  Julius  Caesar ;  in  the  vestibule, 
or  portico,  were  placed  those  of  Augustus  and 
Agrippa.7 

The  emperor,  upon  his  approach  to  the  city, 
published,  by  virtue  of  the  power  lately  conferred 
upon  him  by  the  senate,  his  intention  to  distri- 
bute to  the  citizens  a  hundred  denarii  a  man.  In 
this  it  appears  that  the  Roman  people  had  still 
retained  the  worst  and  most  corrupting  part  of 
their  republican  privileges,  that  of  receiving 
gratuities  in  money  and  corn,  as  well  as  that  of 
being  frequently  amused  with  expensive  shows. 
By  the  first  they  were  supported  in  idleness, 
and  by  the  other  taught  dissipation,  and  made 
to  forget  the  state  of  political  degradation  into 
which  they  were  fallen.  At  the  games  exhibited 
in  the  preceding  year,  by  the  praetor  Servilius,  it 
is  said,  that  three  hundred  bears,  and  an  equal 
number  of  African  wild  beasts,  were  baited  or 
hunted  down.8 

The  restoration  of  peace  being  a  principal 
point  on  which  Augustus  valued  himself  with 
the  public,  the  gates  of  Janus,  in  a  few  of  the 
first  years  of  his  reign,  had  been  already  three 


5  Quantum  mutatis  moribus  Catonis  censorii  qui 
sternendum  quoque  forum  muricibus  censuerat.  Plin 
Nat.  Hist.  lib.  iii.  c.  20. 

6  Sueton.  in  August,  c.  29,  30. 

7  Dio  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  22  &c.  &c         8  Ibid.  c.  27 


Chap.  ll\>) 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


425 


times  repeatedly  shut .9  But  on  a  frontier  so  ex- 
tensive, beset  on  the  one  hand  by  fierce  nations, 
jealous  of  their  liberties,  and  on  the  other,  by 
armies,  whose  commanders  were  fond  of  oppor- 
tunities to  distinguish  themselves,  it  was  not  pos- 
sible long  to  avoid  every  species  of  war.  Soon 
after  the  emperor  had  withdrawn  from  Spain, 
leaving  the  command  in  Lusitania  to  L.  jEmili- 
us,  the  Cantabn  and  AstUtes,  still  impatient  of 
the  dominion  to  which  they  had  lately,  in  ap- 
pearance, made  a  perpetual  submission,  took  a 
resolution  again  to  shake  off"  the  Roman  yoke; 
Proposing  to  give  the  first  intimation  of  their 
design  by  a  stroke  of  importance,  they  drew  a 
considerable  part  of  the  Roman  army  L»o  their 
country,  under  pretence  of  furnishing  them  with 
a  supply  of  corn;  and  when  they  found  them 
dispersed  in  small  parties  to  receive  the  proposed 
distribution,  they  put  the  whole,  or  the  greater 
part,  to  the  sword.  In  revenge  for  this  piece  of 
treachery,  TEmilius  laid  their  country  under 
military  execution,  and  by  a  barbarous  policy,  to 
prevent  future  revolts,  cut  oft' the  right  hands  of 
the  prisoners  whose  lives  he  spared.'0 

At  the  same  time  Augustus  himself,  though 
somewhat  contrary  to  the  general  system  of  his 
reign,  entertained  a  project  of  extending  the  Ro- 
man settlements,  or  at  least  of  making  discoveries 
on  the  side  of  Arabia,  and  on  the  coasts  of  the 
Indian  seas.  He  was  tempted,  probably,  by  the 
prospect  of  getting  access  to  the  rare  and  costly 
commodities,  which  the  Arabians  were  known  to 
receive  from  India,"  and  which  they  sold  in  the 
markets  of  Egypt  and  Asia  at  their  own  price. 
He  expected  to  refund  the  expense  of  his  arma- 
ment from  the  great  treasures  of  gold  and  silver 
which  the  Arabians  were  supposed  to  possess. 

For  this  purpose  iElius  Gallus,  the  proprator 
of  Egypt,  was  entrusted  with  the  conduct  of  an 
expedition  to  the  Gulph  of  Arabia.  This  oflioer 
spent  a  considerable  time  in  fitting  out  a  fleet  of 
armed  ships,  which  he  afterwards  found  to  be 
unnecessary,  as  the  Arabians  were  mere  traders, 
and  had  no  ships  of  force.  In  passing  the  gulph 
with  one  hundred  and  thirty  transports,  he,  by 
the  unskilfulness  of  his  mariners  and  pilots,  sus- 
tained a  great  loss  both  in  shipping  and  men,  and 
in  the  delays  which  he  afterwards  incurred,  or 
in  attempting  to  penetrate  the  deserts  of  Arabia 
eastward,  he  lost  a  great  part  of  his  army,  which 
perished  by  want  of  water,  or  by  disease.  And 
thus,  after  a  fruitless  attempt,  in  which  he  spent 
many  months,  returned  to  Alexandria  with  a 
small  part  of  his  army,  without  having  gained 
any  considerable  advantage,  or  even  obtained  in- 
formation of  the  sources  of  wealth  which  he  was 
sent  to  explore.12 

While  these  transactions  passed 
U.  C.  733.  in  the  provinces  and  on  the  frontier 
of  the  empire,  Augustus,  then  re- 
siding at  Rome,  entered  on  an 
eleventh  consulate.  His  colleague, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  year,  was 
Terentius  Varro  Murena.  But 
this  consul  died  in  office,  and  was 
succeeded  for  the  remainder  of  the 
year  by  C.  Calpurnius  Piso. 


fmpcr.  Ca- 
sar  11  mo. 
Tribunus 
plebis. 
Terentius 
Varro  Mu- 
rena mort. 
C  Calpur. 
nius  Piso. 


9  S;ieton.  in  August,  c  22.       10  Ibid.  lib.  liii.c  29. 

11  Strabo  mentions,  that  in  tlie  port  of  Nus  tliere 
were  above  100  ships  from  India. 

12  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  2:1.  Zonaras,  lib.  x.  c.  33. 
Plin.  lib  vi.  c.  28.  Str.  lib.  ii.  p.  118.  lb.  lib.  xvi.  p.  762. 

3  H 


August  5to  Augustus  himself,  in  this  consul- 
ate! 39'.  ate  was  taken  ill;  and  being  sup- 
posed in  danger,  called  his  colleague, 
with  a  number  of  the  principal  senators,  into  his 
presence,  to  receive  his  last  instructions  relating 
to  the  empire.  The  title  by  which  he  affected 
to  hold  the  government  could  not  support  him  in 
pointing  out  a  succession.  He  accordingly  made 
no  mention  of  any  successor  to  himself,  but  de- 
livered to  the  consul  Piso,  as  being  first  officer 
of  state,  the  memorials  he  had  drawn  up  relating 
to  the  revenue  and  other  public  establishments. 
He  gave  to  Agrippa  his  ring,  which  was  the 
badge  of  his  nobility,  and  which,  according  to 
the  ideas  of  the  Romans,  had  an  emblematical 
reference  to  his  power.  He  seemed  to  overlook 
his  nephew  Marcellus,  though  at  this  time  the 
first  in  his  favour,  and  probably  destined  to  in- 
herit his  fortune.  This  circumstance,  together 
with  the  general  opinion  of  his  dissimulation, 
made  it  be  suspected  that  he  had  no  real  appre- 
hensions of  dying,  and  that  he  called  his  friends 
to  this  solemn  audience,  merely  to  show,  on  a 
supposed  death-bed,  his  respect  for  the  common- 
wealth. To  elude  the  penetration  of  those  who 
suspected  his  arts,  and  whom  he  still  continued 
to  dread,  after  his  recovery,  he  desired  that  the 
will  which  he  had  made  on  this  occasion  should 
be  publicly  read  ;  but  the  senate,  already  knowing 
the  contents,  and  affecting  to  believe,  without 
this  evidence,  the  sincerity  of  his  intentions  to 
restore  the  republic,  refused  to  comply.  They 
appointed  great  rejoicings  on  account  of  his  re- 
covery, and  amply  distinguished  and  rewarded 
the  physician,  to  whose  skill  it  was  supposed  that 
they  owed  the  preservation  of  so  valuable  a  life." 

Although  the  circumstance  of  Augustus  not 
having  mentioned  his  nephew  Marcellus,  and 
the  honour  he  had  done  to  Agrippa,  were  proba- 
bly not  the  effects  of  any  serious  design  respect- 
ing the  succession,  they  nevertheless  became  a 
subject  of  jealousy  in  the  mind  of  the  young^ 
man,  and  soon  alter  occasioned  the  retirement  of 
Agrippa  from  the  court.  This  officer,  under 
pretence  of  going  into  Syria,  where  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  command,  set  out  from  Rome,  but 
stopped  at  Mitylene  in  the  island  of  Lesbos, 
where  he  lived  in  retirement,  without  taking  any 
part  in  public  affairs. 

During  the  stay  of  Agrippa  at  Mitylene,  and 
in  less  than  a  year  after  his  departure  from 
Rome,  happened  the  death  of  Marcellusj  an 
event  which  Livia  was,  by  some,  alleged  to  have 
hastened,  in  order  to  make  way  for  the  advance- 
ment of  her  own  sons;  but  the  sickliness  of  the 
season  and  the  mortality  at  Rome,  during  the 
two  preceding  years,  might  have  accounted  for 
the  death  of  Marcellus,  without  any  supposition 
of  unnatural  means  |M  and  the  event  itself  brought 
no  immediate  advantage  to  the  sons  of  Livia.  It 
was  followed  by  the  recall  of  Agrippa,  and  by  a 
new  arrangement,  which  removed  the  Claudii 
still  farther  from  the  place  to  which  the  mother 
was  desirous  to  raise  them  in  the  consideration 
and  favour  of  the  emperor. 

Augustus  had  now.  for  some  years,  without 
intermission,  assumed  and  exercised  the  office  of 
consul ,  but  thinking  its  authority  no  longer  ne- 
cessary to  support  his  power,  he  divested  himself 
of  the  title,  and  gave  a  fresh  proof  of  his  modera- 


13  Dio.  Cass,  lib  liii.  c.  31. 


14  Ibid.c.  32,33. 


426 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


tion,  by  substituting  in  his  place  L.  Sestius,  one 
of  the  few  who  were  still  supposed  to  regret  the 
fall  of  the  republic.  Sestius  had  been  the  friend 
of  Marcus  Brutus,  adhered  to  the  cause  of  the 
commonwealth  in  every  period  of  the  civil  wars, 
and,  though  spared  by  the  victors  at  Philippi,  still 
ventured  to  retain  the  statue  and  picture  of  his 
friend. 

The  magnanimity  of  Augustus,  in  getting 
over  these  objections  to  the  character  of  Sestius, 
was  not  neglected  by  the  flatterers  of  his  court; 
nor  was  his  declining  the  consulate  overlooked 
by  the  senate,  in  their  zeal  to  devise  new  honours 
and  additional  concessions.  The  character  of 
tribune,  which  had  been  annually  conferred  on 
the  emperor  for  some  years,  was,  on  the  present 
occasion,  rendered  perpetual  in  his  person,  and 
the  privilege  of  proposing  matters  for  the  consi- 
deration of  the  senate,  hitherto  appropriated  to 
the  consuls  in  office,  was  now  likewise  extended 
to  him.  As  a  compensation  for  the  dignity  of 
consul,  which  he  now  declined,  he  was  declared 
perpetual  proconsul,  both  at  Rome  and  in  the 
provinces,  and  empowered  to  supersede  every  of- 
ficer, even  in  his  own  government.1  He  was,  at 
the  same  time,  pressed  to  accept  the  title  and 
power  of  dictator. 

The  people,  labouring  under  a 
U.  C.  731.  a  plague  or  epidemic  distemper, 
M  Claudius  which,  in  the  usual  mode  of  their 
JUarcellus  superstition,  they  considered  as  a 
Arsenivus,  punishment  inflicted  by  the  gods 
August.  6to  *or  some  public  offence,  and  in  par- 
tial 40.  '  ticular  for  their  having  suffered  the 
emperor  to  divest  himself  of  the  con- 
sulate, proposed  that  he  should  instantly  assume 
this  or  a  higher  dignity.  While  the  senate  was 
assembled,  multitudes  crowded  together  in  a  riot- 
ous manner,  and  with  threats  required  that  a 
decree  should  pass  to  vest  Augustus  with  the 
style  and  powers  of  dictator.  They  collected 
twenty-four  fasces,  the  number  usually  carried 
before  this  officer,  and  repairing  to  the  emperor's 
palace,  called  upon  him  to  assume  his  power, 
and  to  rescue  the  people  from  their  present  cala- 
mities. 

Augustus,  who  had  sufficiently  provided  for  all 
the  objects  of  his  ambition,  without  the  alarming 
name  of  dictator,  took  this  opportunity  to  esta- 
blish his  character  for  moderation.  He  intreated 
the  people  to  desist  from  their  purpose ;  and  when 
still  pressed,  he  appeared  to  be  greatly  agitated, 
tore  his  clothes,2  and  gave  other  signs  of  extreme 
distress.  Being  likewise  pressed  to  accept  of  the 
office  of  perpetual  censor,  he,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, declined  it,  recommending,  for  the  immedi- 
ate discharge  of  its  duties,  P.  iEmilius  Lepidus 
and  Munatius  Plancus. 

In  acting  this  part,  it  is  probable  that  Octavius 
uarded  against  the  fate  of  Julius  Caesar;  that 
e  preferred  security  to  the  ostentation  of  power, 
and  relied  more  on  the  caution  with  which  he 
avoided  offence,  than  he  did  on  the  vigilance  of 
his  informers  and  spies,  or  on  the  terror  of  his 
arms.  He  could  not,  however,  at  all  times,  avoid 
having  recourse  to  these  means  of  defence.  Dur- 
ing his  present  residence  at  Rome,  he  received 
information  of  a  design  formed  on  his  life  by 
Muraena  and  Fannius  Csepio,  and  brought  them 
to  trial.    Velleius  Paterculus,  without  any  scru- 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  32.       2  Ibid.  lib.  liv.  c.  J. 


pie,  affirms  the  guilt  of  these  supposed  conspira- 
tors ;  but  Dion  Cassius  insinuates,  that  the  guilt 
of  Muraena,  at  least,  was  rather  indiscretion,  and 
an  unguarded  freedom  of  speech,  with  which  he 
was  accustomed  to  censure  the  conduct  of  hi* 
superiors,  than  any  formed  design  of  so  criminal 
a  nature. 

Murama  was  the  brother-in-law  of  Maecenas,, 
and  himself  appeared  -to  be  in  favour  with  Au- 
gustus. Upon  the  surmise  of  an  intention  to 
seize  him,  together  with  Fannius,  both  abscond- 
ed and  fled.  They  were  arraigned  and  tried  in 
absence;  but  as  the  judges  still  enjoyed  the  pri- 
vilege of  voting  by  secret  ballot,  they  availed 
themselves  of  it  to  acquit  the  accused. 

The  use  of  the  secret  ballot  in  criminal  trials, 
when  first  introduced  in  the  republic,  as  it  dimi- 
nished the  power  of  the  aristocracy,  which  was 
so  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  public  order, 
no  doubt  had  a  tendency  unfavourable  to  public 
justice.  But  now,  when  it  might  have  been 
salutary,  at  least  in  all  state  trials,  it  was,  under 
pretence  of  the  false  judgment  given  in  the  case 
of  Mursena  and  Caapio,  so  far  abolished,  that  all 
persons  who  fled  from  trial,  or  who  declined  ap- 
pearance, were,  by  an  express  statute,  deprived 
of  the  benefit  of  it  ;3  and  this  circumstance  de 
serves  to  be  mentioned  as  the  first  instance,  per 
haps,  in  which  the  judicial  forms  of  the  republic, 
formerly  partial  to  the  interests  of  the  people,  be- 
gan to  be  changed  in  favour  of  despotism.  This 
innovation  was  probably  the  more  fatal  in  the 
sequel,  that  the  emperor  himself,  under  pretence 
of  giving  evidence,  of  urging  prosecutions,  or  of 
appearing  as  an  advocate  for  his  clients,  fre- 
quently attended  the  courts.4  And  it  cannot  be 
doubted,  that  as  often  as  he  appeared,5  the  part 
which  he  took,  whether  as  a  witness  or  as  a 
pleader,  must  have  had  very  great  and  improper 
influence  in  the  cause. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  reign,  are  dated  some 
regulations  calculated  for  the  peace  and  general 
order  of  the  city.  Among  these,  it  is  mentioned, 
that  the  number  of  praetors  was  reduced  to  ten ; 
and  that  two  of  this  number  were  appointed  to 
inspect  the  public  revenue;6  that  some  feasts, 
which  had  been  customary,  were  prohibited,  and 
the  expense  of  others  restrained  within  moderate 
bounds ;  that  the  care  of  the  pubiic  shows  was 
entrusted  to  the  praetors,  with  a  competent  allow- 


3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  3. 

4  Ibid.  Sueton.  in  August,  c.  56. 

5  Among  the  remarkable  trials  of  this  period  is 
mentioned  that  of  M.  Primus,  who  having  the  com- 
mand in  Macedonia,  was  accused-of  having,  without 
orders,  made  war  on  the  Odrysians,  a  Thracian  na 
tion.  He  pleaded  the  orders  of  Augustus  or  of  Mar 
celius;  but  the  emperor  himself,  attending  the  trial, 
denied  his  having  ever  given  such  orders,  and  the  de 
fendant  was  condemned  He  is  said,  at  another  time, 
to  have  appeared  in  behalf  of  his  confidents  Apulius 
and  Maecenas,  who  were  arraigned  of  some  undue  in- 
fluence in  protecting  a  person  under  prosecution  foi 
adultery.  After  the  prosecutor  began  to  open  the 
charge,  Augustus  himself  came  into  court,  and  com- 
manded him  not  to  traduce  his  relations  and  friends; 
a  stretch  of  power  which,  under  legal  government, 
ought  to  have  given  offence  ;  but  in  the  present  state 
of  the  Romans,  only  put  the  subject  in  mind  how 
necessary  it  was  for  himself  to  court  the  imperial 
favour;  and  it  was  decreed  accordingly,  by  the  unani- 
mous votes  of  all  the  senators,  that  in  memory  of  this 
gracious  interposition  of  the  emperor,  an  additional 
statue  should  be  erected  to  him. 

G  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liii.  c.  32. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


427 


nnce  from  the  treasury  to  defray  the  expense  of 
them,  but  under  an  express  prohibition  to  add,  as 
they  had  been  hitherto  inclined  to  do,  from  am- 
bitious motives,  above  an  equal  sum  from  their 
own  private  estates.  The  shows  of  gladiators 
were  subjected  to  the  control  of  the  senate,  and 
the  number  of  pairs  to  be  exhibited,  on  any  par- 
ticular occasion,  restricted  to  sixty.  The  care  of 
extinguishing  and  guarding  against  fire  being  in 
the  department  of  the  aediles,  a  body  of  six  hun- 
dred men,  destined  to  this  service,  was  put  under 
the  command  of  these  magistrates.  Persons  of 
rank  having  given  cause  of  complaint,  by  pre- 
senting themselves  as  dancers  or  performers  on 
the  public  theatre,  such  examples  were  strictly 
prohibited. 

As  the  emperor  ever  affected  a  desire  to  be  en- 
tirely relieved  of  the  government,  he  accompanied 
his  most  popular  acts  and  regulations  with  a  for- 
mal and  ostentatious  resignation  of  some  parti- 
cular parts  of  his  power.  The  provinces  of  Nar- 
bonne  and  of  Cyprus,  which  had  been  originally 
part  of  his  trust,  being  in  the  first  period  of  his 
reign  restored  to  peace,  he  formally  resigned 
them  into  the  hands  of  the  senate.  But  while  he 
was  occupied  with  these  pacific  or  popular  mea- 
sures, the  Astures  and  Cantabri,  notwithstand- 
ing their  former  distresses,  still  passionately  fond 
of  their  expiring  liberties,  having  revolted  yet  a 
third  time,  were  again  reduced  with  great  slaugh- 
ter. Most  of  those  who  escaped  from  the  swords 
of  the  Roman  legions,  perished  by  their  own 
hands  7  While  this  event,  in  appearance,  ter- 
minated all  the  troubles  which  subsisted  in  the 
western  part  of  the  empire,  an  alarm  was  re- 
ceived from  Egypt,  of  a  formidable  enemy  ap- 
pearing^ to  intend  the  invasion  of  that  kingdom. 
The  Ethiopians,  probably,  encouraged  by  the 
low  state  to  which,  from  the  unfortunate  expedi- 
tion of  Gallus  against  the  Arabians,  they  sup- 
posed the  Roman  forces  on  the  Nile  to  have  been 
reduced,  had,  by  the  time  that  the  alarm  had  been 
communicated  to  Rome,  actually  entered  the  pro- 
vince; and,  before  any  assistance  could  be  sent 
from  other  parts  of  the  empire,  were  repulsed  by 
Petronius,  who  succeeded  to  Gallus  in  the  go- 
vernment of  Egypt. 

But  before  these  events  were  known,  the  em- 
peror had  taken  his  resolution  to  attend  to  the 
defence  of  this  kingdom  in  person,  and  was  set 
out  on  his  voyage.  Having  put  into  Sicily  in  his 
way,  while  he  yet.  remained  in  this  island,  the 
usual  election  of  consuls  came  on  at  Rome.8 
He  himself  was  named,  together 
U.  C.  732.  with  M.  LoUius  Nepos;  but  he  de- 
clined accepting  of  the  office,  and 
Q.  Emilius     affected  to  leave  the  Roman  people, 

L*p\d™  .      as  of  old,  to  a  free  choice.  This 

M-  Lolltus  ,.  '       •     ,  ,  \ 

JVepos.  novelty  gave  rise  to  a  warm  contest, 

August  9n»,  in  which  Gluintus  Emilius  Lepidus, 
JEtat.il.  and  L.  Silanus  appeared  as  com- 
petitors, and  were  supported  by 
numerous  parties  of  their  friends.  The  people 
began  to  recover  the  remembrance  of  their  former 
power,  and  were  encouraged  or  supported  by  the 
candidates  in  disorders  or  freedoms,  from  which 
they  had  for  some  time  been  restrained.  Augus- 
tus himself  was  alarmed  with  these  appearances 
of  a  reviving  republic,  summoned  both  the  can- 
didates to  attend  him  in  Sicily;  and  havin<r  re- 


primanded them  for  the  disturbances  they  gave, 
forbade  them  to  appear  at  Rome,  until  the  de- 
pending elections  were  passed.  The  competi- 
tion, nevertheless,  was  carried  on  with  great 
warmth  in  their  absence,  and  ended  with  much 
difficulty  in  favour  of  Lepidus. 

This  specimen  of  the  supposed  disorders  to 
which  the  people  were  inclined,  in  the  absence 
of  an  authority  that  was  fit  to  restrain  them,  pro- 
bably induced  the  emperor  to  hasten  the  recall  of 
Agrippa,  as  a  person  on  which  he  could  devolve 
the  care  of  the  city.  The  breach  which  had 
been  some  time  made  in  his  family,  by  the  death 
of  Marceltus,  remained  unrepaired ;  and  he  seems 
to  have  hesitated  in  the  choice  of  the  person 
whom  he  was  to  place  next  to  himself  in  power, 
and  in  succession  to  the  government.  His  daugh- 
ter Julia,  the  widow  of  Marcellus,  had  yet 
brought  no  addition  to  his  offspring.  She  was 
now  to  be  disposed  of  in  a  second  marriage,  and 
was  likely  to  bestow  on  her  husband  the  character 
of  heir  apparent  to  the  fortunes  of  her  father.  It 
is  said,  that  Mecaenas  advised  the  emperor  to 
make  choice  of  Agrippa.  "This  man,"  he  said 
"is  already  too  high  to  remain  where  he  is:  ho 
must  be  lifted  up  to  a  place  yet  higher,  or  be  cast 
to  the  ground."  9 

Agrippa  was  accordingly,  about  this  time, 
made  to  part  with  Marcella,  the  niece  of  Augus- 
tus, to  whom  he  had  been  some  time  married,  in 
order  that  he  might  become  the  husband  of 
Julia,  and  by  this  title  the  first  in  the  family  of 
Caisar. 

The  emperor,  while  in  Sicily,  having  bestowed 
on  the  city  of  Syracuse,  and  on  other  towns 
of  that  island,  the  privilege  of  Roman  colonies, 
and  having  made  some  other  arrangements  for 
the  better  government  of  the  province,  continued 
his  voyage  from  thence  into  Greece.  As  he 
passed  through  Sparta  and  Athens,  he  treated 
the  inhabitants  of  those  once  eminent  cities  with 
marks  of  favour  or  displeasure,  according  to  the 
part  they  had  taken  in  the  late  divisions  of  the 
empire. 

The  Spartans  had,  with  proper  hospitality,  re- 
ceived Livia  in  her  flight  from  Italy,  and,  in 
return,  were  now  honoured  with  the  presence  of 
the  emperor  at  one  of  the  public  meals,  which 
they  still  affected  to  retain  in  memory  of  their 
ancient  institutions.  They  likewise  received  a 
grant  of  the  island  of  Cithera,  which  formerly 
had  belonged  to  their  territory. 

The  Athenians,  on  the  contrary,  it.  is  said, 
were  put  in  mind  of  their  partiality  to  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  and  of  the  singular  ostentation 
with  which  they  admitted  the  queen  of  Egypt  a 
citizen  of  Athens.  In  resentment  of  this  be- 
haviour, they  were  deprived  of  their  sovereignty 
in  ^Egina  and  Eretria,  and  forbid  to  receive  any 
presents  in  return  for  the  freedom  of  their  city, 
a  distinction,  which,  it  seems,  was  still  earnestly 
courted,  and  from  the  sale  of  which  they  derived 
some  revenue. 

From  these  visits  to  Sparta  and  Athens,  the 
emperor  proceeded  to  Samos,  where  he  remained 
for  the  winter.10  Here  he  not  only  had  a  confirm- 
ation of  the  reports  already  mentioned,  relating  to 
the  success  of  Petronius  against  the  Ethiopians, 
but  received  an  embassy  from  this  people  to  sue 
for  peace.    They  had  addressed  themselves  to 


7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  4. 


8  Ibid.  c.  5,  C.        i    9  Dio  Cms.  lib.  liv  c  8 


428 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


U.  C.  733. 

M.  Jlpuleius, 
P.  Silius 
Narva. 
August.  8vo, 
JEtat.  42. 


Petromus;  and  being  referred  to  the  emperor, 
desired  that  they  mijrht  have  guides  to  conduct 
them  to  him.    "  This  emperor,"  they  said,  "  or 
the  place  of  his  abode,  wc  know  not."  Being 
conducted  to  Samos,  on  the  route  by  which  he 
was  expected  to  arrive  in  Asia,  they  obtained  a 
peace,  without  any  of  the  submissions  or  unequal 
conditions  by  which  the  Romans  were  formerly 
accustomed  to  prepare  the  way,  in  every  treaty, 
for  the  farther  extension  of  their  conquests.1 
In  the  springr,  Augustus  passed  from  Samos  to 
Bithynia,  in  which,  though  one  of 
the  provinces  that  had  been  com- 
mitted to  the  administration  of  the 
senate,  he,  by  his  own  authority, 
made  some  reformations,  and  upon 
a  complaint  that  the  people  of  Cyzi- 
cum  had  insulted  with  the  rod,  and 
put  to  death  some  Roman  citizens, 
lie  stript  them  of  several  privileges  which  they 
had  hitherto  enjoyed.  From  thence,  he  continued 
his  progress  into  Syria,  and  there  likewise  in 
tiicted  some  severities  on  the  citizens  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon,  as  a  punishment  of  their  seditions  and 
disrespect  to  his  government.2 

The  Parthians  had  not  yet  restored  the  Roman 
captives,  and  the  trophies  of  which  they  had 
got  possession  on  the  defeats  of  Crassus  and  An- 
tony. This  was  the  condition,  on  which  the 
king  had  obtained  the  release  of  his  son.  Being 
now  reminded  of  it,  or  alarmed  by  the  approach 
of  the  Roman  emperor  to  his  frontier,  he  sent  an 
embassy  to  perform  this  article.  But  of  the  Ro- 
man prisoners,  many,  soon  after  they  were  taken, 
perished  by  their  own  hands;  others,  being  re- 
conciled by  degrees  to  their  condition,  and  having 
settled,  were  unwilling  to  remove.  They  con- 
cealed themselves  from  .the  persons  who  were 
sent  to  assemble  and  conduct  them  to  the  fron- 
tier, and  but  a  few  were  recovered.  These, 
together  with  the  restored  standards  and  other 
trophies,  were  conducted  with  great  pomp  to  the 
city  of  Rome. 

Augustus  had  already  received  the  congratu- 
lations of  the  senate  and  people,  on  the  conclu- 
sion of  his  treaty  with  the  Parthians,  and  know- 
ing how  much  it  was  become  a  point  of  honour  at 
Rome  to  repair  the  disgrace  which  Roman  armies 
had  incurred  on  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris, 
he  indulged,  on  the  conclusion  of  this  transac- 
tion, a  degree  of  vanity,  which  was  unusual  with 
him  on  other  occasions.  He  ordered  the  rites  of 
thanksgiving  that  were  appropriated  to  the  great- 
est victories ;  gave  instructions  to  erect  a  tri- 
umphal arch ;  and,  upon  his  return  to  Rome, 
entered  the  city  in  triumph. 

The  Romans,  in  conferring  honours  on  those 
who  performed  any  successful  service,  considered 
the  advantage  itself,  more  than  the  means  by 
which  it  had  been  obtained,  and  indulged,  with 
all  the  distinctions  that  military  courage  or  per- 
sonal ability  could  claim,  every  officer,  under 
whose  auspices  they  prospered,  whether  by  arti- 
fice or  valour.3  On  this  principle,  Augustus, 
without  having  performed  any  military  operation 
whatever,  took  occasion  to  triumph  over  an  ene- 
my, before  whom  the  armies  of  Antony  and 
Crassus  had  perished. 

The  object  of  the  emperor's  journey  to  the 


[Book  Vi. 


1  Strabo.  lib.  vii  p  821. 

2  Dio.  Cess.  lib.  liv.  c.  6, 


3  Ibid.  e.  & 


east  having  been  obtained  by  the  restoration  of 
peace  to  Egypt,  he  did  not  proceed  in  his  pro- 
gress beyond  the  province  of  Syria.  From 
thence,  in  his  letters  to  the  senate,  he  declaimed 
every  intention  or  wish  to  extend  the  bounds  of 
the  empire,  and  disposed  of  kingdoms  on  the 
frontier  to  the  princes  of  Asia,  who  were  consi- 
dered as  confederates  or  allies  of  the  Romans. 
Among  these,  he  gave  to  Tarcondimotus  a  prin- 
cipality in  Cilicia;  to  Archelaus,  the  Lesser  Ar- 
menia ;  to  Herod,  over  and  above  his  own  king- 
dom of  Judea,  the  principality  of  Zenodorus,  in 
its  neighbourhood.  He  restored  a  prince,  of  the 
name  of  Mithridates,  to  the  kingdom  of  Comma- 
gene,  from  which  his  father  had  been  expelled  ; 
and,  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  Armenia,  sent 
his  step-son  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero,  now  about 
twenty  years  of  age,  with  a  commission  to  remove 
Artabazus,  then  in  possession  of  that  kingdom, 
and  to  declare  Tiridates,  who  was  still  at  Rome, 
to  be  its  sovereign.  This  revolution  in  Armenia 
however  was,  by  the  death  of  Artabazus,  who  fell 
by  the  hands  of  his  own  subjects,  in  part  effected 
before  the  arrival  of  Tiberius. 

While  the  emperor  was  thus  employed  in  the 
provinces,  the  ordinary  succession  of  magistrates 
took  place  at  Rome,  and  he  himself  being  named 
consul,  together  with  Caius  Sentius,  again  de* 
clined  the  title,  without  recommending  a  substi- 
tute. Great  animosities  arose  among  the  candi- 
dates for  this  honour.  Agrippa  had  been  called 
away  into  Gaul,  upon  an  alarm  received  on  the 
German  frontier,  and  from  thence  into  Spain,  to 
quell  another  revolt  of  the  Asturesand  Cantabri. 
In  his  absence  the  consul  Sentius  and  the  senate, 
unable  to  repress  the  tumults,  sent  a  deputation 
to  the  emperor,  who  was  still  in  Asia,  to  know 
his  pleasure  respecting  the  election,  and,  in  re- 
turn, had  a  fresh  proof  of  his  magnanimity  and 
candour  in  the  recommendation  of  Lucretius,  a 
known  partizan  of  the  republic,  and  one  of  those, 
who  being  among  the  proscribed,  had  escaped 
from  the  massacre. 

Augustus,  during  his  stay  in  Syria,  had  ac- 
counts of  the  birth  of  a  grandson  Caius,  the 
eldest  of  the  sons  of  Agrippa,  by  his  daughter 
Julia,  and  had  a  copy  of  the  decree, 
U.  C.  734.  by  which  the  senate  annexed  thean- 
C.  Sentius  niversary  of  this  birth  to  the  days  of 
Satuminus.  public  rejoicing.  On  his  way  to 
Q.  Lucretius  Italy,  he  passed  another  winter  in 
Vespello.  Samos,  where  he  received  the  amhas- 
M.  Venur'ius  sa^ovs  °f  man.Y  nations,  and  among 
vipsanius  these,  an  embassy  from  India,  at, 
Asrippa.  tended  with  a  numerous  retinue,  and 
August.  9no,  charged  with  a  variety  of  presents.4 
&tat.  43,  But  wha(.  prokably  most  entertained 
the  curious  in  the  western  world,  was  the  exhi- 
bition of  an  Indian  sage  or  Brahmin,  who  having 
taken  his  resolution  to  die,  was  ambitious  to  make 
his  exit  in  presence  of  the  Roman  court.  Being 
indulged  in  this  desire,  and  flattered  with  the  at- 
tendance of  a  numerous  crowd  of  spectators,  he 
prepared  a  funeral  pile,  which  he  set  on  fire,  and 
with  much  ostentation  and  gravity,  threw  him- 
self into  the  midst  of  it.5    His  tomb  was  marked 


4  Among  these  are  mentioned  by  Strabo  a  snake 
ten  cubits  long,  though  it  appears  from  Suetonius, 

ib.  xv.  p.  719,  that  a  snake  of  a  much  greater  length  was 
exhibited  in  the  public  spectacles  at  Rome,  fifty  cubit*. 
Sueton.  in  August,  c.  43. 

5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  8.  10, 11.  Veil.  Pat.  lib.  ii.  e.  22 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


429 


with  the  following  inscription.  "Here  lies  Tar- 
rnarus  or  Tarmanochegas,  an  Indian  of  Bargosa, 
who,  in  the  manner  of  his  country,  ended  his 
days  by  a  voluntary  death."  6  In  such  actions, 
we  may  perceive  the  powerful  attraction  of  glory, 
from  whatever  sort  of  performance  it  be  sup- 
posed to  arise. 

When  the  emperor's  intended  return  was  an- 
nounced at  Rome,  many  honours  were  decreed  to 
him,  all  of  which  he  declined,  except  that  of  hav- 
ing an  altar  erected  on  the  occasion  to  Jupiter 
Redux,  and  that  of  having  the  day  of  his  arrival 
inserted,  under  the  title  Augustalia,  among  the 
festivals  of  the  kalendar.  On  his  approach  to  the 
city,  the  magistrates  and  the  people  prepared  to 
go  forth  in  procession  to  meet  him  ;  but  either 
from  an  aversion  to  pageantry,  which  he  ever 
shunned,  except  when  necessary  to  serve  some 
purpose,  or  from  a  desire  of  procuring  fresh  enco- 
miums of  moderation,  he  made  his  entry  in  the 
night  to  avoid  this  compliment.  On  the  follow- 
ing day,  he  procured  resolutions  of  the  senate 
and  people,  promoting  Tiberius,  the  eldest  of  the 
sons  of  Livia,  to  the  rank  of  praetor,  and  bestow- 
ing on  Drusus,  the  younger  brother,  the  privilege 
of  standing  for  any  of  the  ancient  honours  of  the 
commonwealth  five  years  before  the  legal  age. 
He  himself,  at  the  same  time,  accepted  the  office 
of  censor,  with  a  new  title,  that  of  inspector  of 
manners,7  for  five  years. 

This  new  designation  was  annexed  to  the 
titles  of  Augustus,  under  pretence  that  such 
an  authority  was  wanting  to  take  cognizance  of 
the  disorders  committed  in  the  late  canvass  for 
the  election  of  consuls ;  but,  as  the  period  was 
near  approaching,  at  which  he  was  to  repeat  the 
form  of  resigning  the  government,  it  is  probable 
that  he  chose  to  be  vested  with  the  character  of 
censor,  in  order  to  make  the  arrangements  pre- 
paratory to  this  ceremony. 

Near  ten  years  had  elapsed  since  the  rolls  of 
the  senate  had  been  made  up,  and  in  this  inter- 
val many  reasons  may  have  occurred  for  remov- 
ing some  of  the  members,  and  for  substituting 
others.  The  powers  of  censor,  with  which  the 
emperor  was  now  vested,  enabled  him,  without 
any  unprecedented  stretch  of  authority,  to  effect 
his  purpose;  but,  notwithstanding  this  circum- 
stance, his  usual  caution  led  him  to  seek  for  pal- 
liatives, and  to  devise  means  to  lessen  or  to  divide 
the  odium  of  so  disagreeable  a  measure.  He 
gave  out,  that  the  number  of  senators  was  be- 
come too  great,  and  thus  provided  himself  with 
an  excuse  for  excluding  many  of  them,  without 
stating  any  personal  objection.  He  at  first  pro- 
posed to  take  upon  himself  only  the  nomination 
of  thirty  members,  and  under  a  solemn  oath,  that 
he  should  name  the  most  worthy.  These  thirty, 
under  a  like  solemn  oath,  were  directed  each,  to 
give  in  a  list  of  five,  which  would  have  made  up 
the  number  to  one  hundred  and  fifty.  And  these, 
if  they  had  been  agreeable  to  the  emperor,  would 
have  probably  made  the  first  part  of  the  roll.  But 
as  he  was  in  many  instances  disappointed  and 
displeased  with  the  choice  that  was  made,  he  se- 
lected only  thirty  of  the  whole,  to  whom  he  gave 
the  same  directions  as  before,  each  to  name  five  5 
but  being  equally  dissatisfied  with  this  new  no- 
mination, he  took  the  whole  on  himself;  and 
alleging,  that  the  officer  who  collected  the  names 


e  Strabo,  lib.  sv.  p.  720.         7  Pnrfectus  Morum. 


had  made  some  mistakes,  and  that  many,  who 
were  thus  proposed  to  be  members  of  the  "senate, 
had  necessary  avocations  in  the  provinces,  he 
undertook,  by  his  own  authority,  to  reform  the 
list.  This  task,  however,  he  performed  under  so 
much  apprehension  of  danger  to  his  person,  that, 
as  in  the  former  instance  of  the  same  kind,  he 
carried  armour  under  his  clothes,  and  had  a  guard 
of  ten  chosen  senators,  with  concealed  weapons, 
who  had  orders  not  to  admit  above  one  person  at 
a  time  to  approach  him.8  By  his  conduct  in 
this  matter,  or  by  the  severity  of  his  censures,  he 
was  supposed  to  have  made  so  many  enemies,  or 
he  himself  at  least  took  such  impressions  of 
jealousy  and  distrust  as  kept  him  in  alarm,  and 
occasioned  some  trials  and  executions,  by  which 
he  proposed  to  counteract  or  prevent  the  conspi- 
racies which  were  forming  against  him.9 

Upon  observing  how  much  the  emperor  was 
alarmed,  it  was  moved  in  the  senate,  as  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  danger  to  which  he  was 
exposed,  that  the  members  should  take  arms,  and 
in  certain  numbers  by  turns  pass  the  night  in 
the  palace.  "  I  am  unfortunately  addicted  to 
snore,"  said  Antistius  Lubeo,  who  still  possessed 
some  remains  of  the  republican  spirit,  "  and  am 
afraid,  that  I  should  be  an  unwelcome  guest  in 
the  anti-chamber  of  the  prince."  10 

The  period  for  which  Augustus 
U.  C.  735.  had  accepted  the  command  of  the 
armies,  and  taken  charge  of  part  of 
p.  Cornelius  tne  provinces  being  about  to  expire, 

Lcnttilus        ,       r       .    «         e  ^       ....         .r  ' 

Marceiiivus.  ne  repeated  the  form  of  his  resigna- 
Cn. Cornelius  tion,  and  was  prevailed  upon  to  re- 
Lentulus.      sume  his  trust,  though  but  for  a  term 

JEfat^™0'  °^  ^ve  years  'on?er'  Agrippa  being 
a  '  ' '  now  the  son-in-law  of  the  emperor, 
and  the  first  in  his  favour,  as  well  as  his  nearest 
relation,  was  joined  with  him  for  the  same  term 
of  five  years,  in  the  character  of  tribune  of  the 
people. 

During  the  preceding  part  of  the  new  esta- 
blishment, Augustus  had  affected  to  limit  the 
exercise  of  his  power  to  the  military  department, 
or  to  the  provinces  committed  to  his  charge.  In  the 
city,  or  in  civil  affairs,  he  acted  in  the  name  of 
the  seriate,  or  under  the  veil  of  some  temporary 
office  of  magistracy.  But  in  the  period  upon 
which  he  was  now  entering,  he  seemed  to  have 
thought  himself  safe  in  assuming  a  more  direct 
authority.  He  accordingly  received  from  the  se- 
nate, an  appointment  of  perpetual  extraordinary 
consul,  to  be  preceded  in  all  public  appearances 
by  twelve  lictors,  and  in  the  senate  to  have  a 
chair  of  state  placed  between  the  ordinary  consuls 
of  the  year.  He  likewise  received  unlimited  au- 
thority to  enact  laws,  to  the  observance  of  which, 
the  senate  offered  to  bind  themselves  by  oath. 
In  this,  he  took  occasion  to  give  a  proof  of  his 
moderation,  by  preventing  the  oath  to  be  admi- 
nistered ;  but.  he  proceeded  from  henceforward 
in  the  exercise  of  his  power,  with  fewer  dis- 
guises than  he  had  formerly  employed. 

Prerogatives,  hitherto  assumed  under  the  name 
of  some  ordinary  magistracy,  were  committed  to 
officers,  acting  by  the  appointment  of  Caesar,  ami 
by  his  sole  authority.  Among  these,  may  be 
numbered  the  inspection  of  the  public  works;  of 


8  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  13,  14,  15. 

9  Sueton.  in  August,  c  ?.r>. 

10  Din.  Cnc».  lib.  liv.  11  Ibid.  c.  17. 


430 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


Hie  highways;  the  navigation  of  the  river;  the  i 
markets  j1  the  public  granaries  ;  the  preservation  | 
of  the  peace,  or  government  of  the  city,  which  ! 
was  now  committed  to  a  military  prsefect  or  go- 
vernor.   Other  new  institutions  were  made,  to 
remedy  evils  of  a  recent  date. 

From  the  time  of  the  civil  wars,  Italy  had  re- 
mained subject  to  many  disorders.  The  inha- 
bitants, alleging  the  dangers  to  which  they  had 
been  exposed  in  their  persons  and  properties, 
continued  to  form  into  bands,  and  taking  arms, 
under  pretence  of  defending  themselves,  employed 
those  arms  for  lawless  purposes ;  robbed,  mur- 
dered, or  by  force  confined  to  labour  in  their 
workhouses  many  innocent  passengers,  whether 
freemen  or  slaves,  whom  they  thought  proper  to 
question  or  violate,  under  the  appellation  of  dis- 
orderly persons.  To  remedy  this  evil,  guards 
were  posted  at  proper  intervals,  and  a  species  of 
military  patrole  established  throughout  the  coun- 
try, with  orders  to  protect  travellers,  to  inspect 
the  workhouses  or  receptacles  of  labouring  slaves, 
and  to  suppress  all  associations,  besides  those  of 
the  ancient  corporations.2 

By  the  same  authority  Augustus  revived  some 
obsolete  laws,  and  gave  instructions  to  put  them 
in  force :  such  as  the  laws  limiting  expense,  re- 
straining adultery,  lewdness,  and  bribery,  to- 
gether with  the  laws  which  had  been  provided 
to  promote  marriage,  or  to  discourage  celibacy. 
The  limitation  of  expense  may  have  had  its  pro- 
priety under  a  republic,  where  it  is  an  object  of 
state  not  to  suffer  the  citizen  by  his  manner  of 
living,  or  by  his  affectation  of  magnificence,  to 
ruin  himself,  or  to  aim  at  distinction  above  his 
equals ;  but  the  object  of  the  sumptuary  laws, 
now  enforced,  is  not  specially  mentioned.  It 
was  probably  the  same  with  that  of  the  laws  re- 
vived by  Julius  Caesar,  and  consequently  the 
same  with  that  of  the  laws  long  since  obtained, 
under  the  republic,  by  the  tribune  Licinius,  and 
chiefly  respecting  the  consumption  of  provisions. 

In  limiting  the  excess  of  the  table,  Augustus 
was  himself  a  striking  example  of  sobriety,  being 
extremely  moderate  and  abstemious  in  the  use  of 
wine  and  of  food  ;3  and  with  respect  to  the  other 
objects  of  his  severity,  although  he  himself  was 
not  equally  free  from  imputation,  he  probably 
already  experienced  the  necessity  of  certain  re- 
straints in  his  own  family,  and  very  properly 
thought  it  became  him,  in  the  capacity  of  magis- 
trate, every  where  to  watch  over  the  purity  of 
domestic  manners.  His  zeal  to  recommend  mar- 
riage, and  to  promote  the  settlement  of  families, 
probably  suggested  the  same  measures.4 

The  Romans,  by  means  of  the  census,  ob- 
tained a  more  regular  account  of  the  numbers  of 
the  people  than  any  other  nation,  and  they  were 
exceedingly  watchful  of  their  population,  even 
when  they  had  least  cause  to  apprehend  a  dimi- 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c  17. 

2  Sueton.  in  Octav  c.  32. 

3  In  his  ordinary  diet,  when  he  wanted  nourish- 
ment, he  eat  a  little  bread,  with  some  dried  fruit, 
without  observing  any  stated  time  for  his  meals.  He 
ordered  his  table  indeed  to  be  regularly  served  ;  but  he 
himself  joined  the  company  irregularly,  often  after 
they  were  set,  and  frequently  left  them  before  they 
were  done,  and  insisted  that  he  should  not  be  disturb- 
ed in  this  freedom  by  any  ceremony  of  waiting  for  him, 
or  by  any  troublesome  attention  whatever.  Sueton. 
in  Octav.  c.  72,  73.  76,77. 

4  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  69. 


I  nution  of  it.  They  made  laws  to  encourage  mar- 
riage, when  the  advantages  enjoyed  by  any 
Roman  citizen,  as  father  of  a  family,  were  of 
themselves  a  sufficient  encouragement.  Augustus 
being  to  revive  those  laws,  produced  and  read  in 
the  senate  a  speech  at  that  time,  still  extant, 
which  had  been  delivered  by  Metellus  Numidi- 
cus  on  this  subject,  about  a  hundred  years  before 
the  present  date. 

Even  so  far  back,  under  the  republic,  the  de- 
cline of  domestic  manners  may  have  begun  to  be 
felt.  Licentiousness  and  want  of  economy  may 
have  already  broke  into  the  establishment  of 
Roman  families;  disorders  happening  in  the  state 
of  matrimony,  may  have  deterred  the  single  from 
embracing  it.  But  if  the  effect  of  such  circum- 
stances then  began  to  appear,  how  much  more 
may  we  suppose  that  the  destructive  civil  wars, 
which  followed  ;  the  removal  of  the  ancient  in- 
habitants of  Italy,  to  make  way  for  strangers  and 
soldiers  of  fortune,  must  have  operated  to  reduce 
the  numbers  of  the  people?  These  troubles  end- 
ing in  military  government ;  the  uncertainty  of 
every  man's  condition  depending  on  the  will  of 
a  master ;  fear,  melancholy,  and  dejection,  felt 
amidst  the  ruins  of  a  fallen  republic,  may  have 
completed  the  accumulation  of  f  ils,  .*nd  the 
effect  may  have  suggested  to  Augustus  the  ne- 
cessity of  reviving  the  ancient  laws  of  the  repub- 
lic for  the  encouragement  of  population  ;  inso- 
much, that  the  extension  and  application  of  them 
became  a  principal  object  of  his  reign. 

Suetonius,  as  usual  in  hiis  manner,  without 
regard  to  dates,  brings  into  one  view  many  par- 
ticulars of  the  policy  of  Augustus  relating  to 
this  subject.  Among  these,  it  is  mentioned  that 
he  augmented  the  rewards  of  marriage,  and  the 
penalties  on  celibacy.5  That  he  sometimes 
brought  forward  the  children  of  his  own  family 
into  the  place  of  public  assembly,  and  exhorted 
the  people  to  profit  by  that  example ;  but  that 
his  zeal  in  this  matter  was  far  from  being  ac- 
ceptable to  the  people.  That  he  was  frequently 
accosted  in  the  theatres  and  places  of  public  re- 
sort, with  general  cries  of  aversion  ; — had  repre- 
sentations from  citizens  of  rank,  that  it  was 
impossible  to  support  the  extravagance  of  women 
educated  in  high  condition,  and  was  obliged  to 
correct  many  of  the  edicts  he  at  first  had  pub- 
lished, and  to  abate  much  of  their  rigour ; — that, 
in  order  to  facilitate  the  settlement  of  families, 
he  permitted  free  and  noble  citizens  to  marry 
emancipated  slaves  ;& — that  the  law.  nevertheless, 
was  still  eluded ; — that  pretended  marriages 
were  contracted  with  children  or  females  under 
age,  and  the  completion  of  course  indefinitely  de- 
ferred ;7  that  to  prevent  such  evasions  or  frauds, 
it  was  enacted  that  no  marriage  could  be  legally 
contracted  with  any  female  under  ten  years  of 
age,  nor  the  completion  of  any  marriage  be  de- 
layed above  two  years  after  the  date  of  the  sup- 
posed contract.8 

As  it  was  proposed  to  multiply  marriages,  so 
it  appeared  likewise  of  consequence  to  render 
the  dissolution  of  those  already  formed  more  dif- 
ficult, and  to  lay  divorces  and  separations  under 
proportional  restraints.9  Under  this  wretched 
policy  it  seemed  to  be  forgotten,  that  where  man- 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  16.    6  Ibid. 
7  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  34.   8  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lrv.  c.  16. 
]     !)  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c  34. 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


431 


kind  are  happy,  nature  has  provided  sufficient 
inducements  to  marriage.  The  sovereign,  who 
charged  himself  with  the  care  of  the  people, 
seemed  to  consider  a  state  into  which  mankind 
are  powerfully  led,  hy  the  most  irresistible  calls 
of  affection,  passion  and  desire,  as  a  kind  of 
workhouse  into  which  they  must  be  driven  by 
the  goad  and  the  whip,  or  a  prison  in  which 
they  must  be  detained  under  bars  and  fetters  of 
iron.  The  people  seemed  to  feel  themselves  be- 
come the  property  of  a  master,  who  required 
them  to  multiply,  in  order  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  his  subjects ;  and  they  resisted  this  part 
of  his  administration,  more  than  any  other  cir- 
cumstance of  the  state  of  degradation  into 
which  they  were  fallen. 

Augustus,  in  this  second  period 
U.  C.  736.  of  his  reign,  while  he  extended  the 
exercise  of  his  power,  still  endea- 
•jE.  Ficmius,  voured  to  disguise  it  under  some 
C. Julius  forms  or  regulations  of  the  ancient 
dug.  Wmo,  constitution,  tor  this  purpose,  he 
JEtut.  45.  '  revived  the  laws  against  bribery, 
those  against  taking  fees  for  the 
pleading  of  causes,  and  the  laws  that  were  made 
to  enforce  the  attendance  of  senators.  In  these 
particulars,  we  cannot  imagine  that  he  so  far 
mistook  the  situation  into  which  he  had  brought 
the  people,  as  to  revive  laws  against  bribery,  after 
there  ceased  to  be  any  free  election  ;  the  laws 
against  accepting  of  fees10  for  pleading  of  causes, 
after  all  the  motives  which  formerly  induced 
senators  to  lend  their  gratuitous  protection,  had 
ceased  to  exist  ;11  the  law  imposing  a  fine  upon  i 
members  of  the  senate  coming  too  late  to  their 
places,  after  the  proceedings  of  the  senate,  were 
reduced  to  a  mere  form,  by  which  the  emperor 
enforced  his  own  decrees.12  In  these  instances, 
then,  we  must  suppose  that  Augustus,  in  the 
usual  strain  of  his  policy,  revived  the  laws  of 
the  republic,  in  order  to  make  it  be  believed  that 
the  republic  was  still  in  existence.  But  not- 
withstanding  his  attention,  by  these  and  other 
methods,  to  conceal  the  extent  of  his  usurpation, 
he  could  not  escape  the  penetration  of  his  sub- 
jects, nor  even  the  animadversion  of  buffoons,  to 
whom  some  degrees  of  freedom  or  of  petulance 
are  permitted,  after  they  are  withheld  from  every 
one  else.  Having  banished  a  player  of  the  name 
of  Pylades,  for  a  difference  with  another  player 
of  the  name  of  Bathyllus,  he  afterwards,  to 
please  the  people,  recalled  Pylades ;  and  giving 
him  some  admonition  to  be  upon  his  good  be- 
haviour for  the  future:  "That  is  a  jest."  said 
the  otlier,  "  for  the  more  that  the  people  are 
occupied  with  our  quarrels,  the  better  for  you."13 
The  emperor  having  remained  at  Rome  about 
two  years  after  the  commencement  of  the  second 
period  of  his  reign,  continued,  or  began  to  carry 
on  many  works  for  the  ornament,  magnificence, 
or  convenience  of  the  city.  To  defray  the  ex- 
pense of  such  works,  he  laid  persons,  who  had 
obtained  a  triumph,  or  any  military  honour, 
under  a  contribution  of  some  part  of  their  spoils  ; 
and  by  these  means,  perhaps,  made  some  officers 
pay  for  their  vanity  more  than  they  had  taken 


10  Lex  Cincia.  The  offender  was  subjected  to  a 
fine,  equal  to  double  the  fee  he  had  accepted. 

11  Under  the  republic,  the  character  of  an  able 
pleader  led  to  the  highest  preferments  and  honours  of 
the  state. 

12  Diu.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  18.  13  Ibid.  c.  17. 


from  the  enemy.  He  was  supposed  to  be  lavish 
of  military  honours,  which  in  reality  began  to 
lose  their  value,  or  to  change  their  nature,  being 
mere  badges  of  court  favour,  not  as  formerly, 
the  evidence  or  record  of  signal  services  rendered 
to  the  state,  and  supported  by  the  testimony  of 
victorious  armies,  and  the  voice  of  the  people.  It 
may  be  observed,  as  an  evidence,  how  much  the 
triumph  was  fallen  in  its  value,  that,  for  some 
advantage  gained  over  the  Garamantes,14  an 
obscure  nation  on  the  frontier  of  the  Roman  pro- 
vince in  Africa,  it  was  bestowed  on  Balbus,  a 
native  of  Gades  in  Spain,  and  but  newly  ad- 
mitted a  Roman  citizen  ;  while  it  was  declined 
by  Agrippa,  to  whom  it  was  due  for  his  eminent 
services,  and  who  considered  it  as  a  piece  of 
empty  pageantry,  which  could  add  nothing  to 
the  consideration  he  already  enjoyed.15 

About  this  time  Augustus  re- 
U.  C.  73G.  ceived  an  accession  to  nis  family 
.  by  the  birth  of  another  grandson, 

1 1  mo  JEiat.    °f  tne  name  °f  Lucius,  the  second 

45.  '  son  of  Agrippa,  by  his  daughter 

Julia ;  and  by  adopting  both  the 
brothers,  conferred  upon  them  the  names  of 
Caius  and  Lucius  Cassar,  and,  by  the  same  act, 
published  the  destination  of  his  fortunes. 

In  the  midst  of  festivals,  which  were  instituted 
on  this  occasion,  the  attention  of  the  emperor 
was  called  anew  to  the  provinces  by  alarms 
which  were  received  at  once  in  many  parts  of 
the  empire. 

Historians  give  us  n  list  of  par- 
U.  C.  737.  ticulars,  exhibiting  the  troubles  to 
L.  DomUius  which  so  extensive  a  territory  was 
Ahenobar-  still  exposed.  The  Commend  and 
bus,  P.  Cor-  Venones,  nations  inhabiting  the 
vcltus  Scipio.  valleys  of  the  Alps,  were  in  arms. 
12wh>,  Altai.     1  he  Panonu  and  j>  onset  had  at- 

46.  '  tacked   Istria.      The  Danthadeti 

and  Scordisci  had  invaded  Mace- 
donia. The  Sauromataet  had  passed  the  Danube. 
Some  cantons,  both  of  Dalmatia  and  Spain,  had 
revolted.  The  Sicambri,  Usupetes,  and  Tench- 
teri,  German  nations  bordering  on  the  Rhine, 
having  seized  on  the  Italian  traders  who  fre- 
quented their  country,  in  imitation  of  the  Ro- 
man manner  of  punishing  slaves,  nailed  them 
to  the  cross,  and  employing  this  insult  as  a  de- 
claration of  war,  passed  the  Rhine,  and  made  a 
descent  upon  Gaul.  They  surprised  and  put 
to  flight  a  party  of  horse  which  had  been  sent 
by  Lollius  to  observe  their  motions.  In  pursuit 
of  this  advantage,  they  fell  in  with  the  main 
body,  commanded  by  Lollius  himself,  equally 
unprepared  to  receive  them,  obliged  him  to  re- 
tire with  great  loss,  and  with  the  disgrace  of 
leaving  the  standard  of  one  of  the  legions  in  the 
hands  of  his  enemies.16 

These  revolts  of  the  frontier  provinces,  or  in- 
cursions of  barbarous  neighbours,  may  be  con- 
sidered as  part  of  a  war  which  lasted  for  ages, 
and  terminated  at  last  in  the  ruin  of  the  empire. 
The  defeat  of  Lollius  was  indeed  the  first  signal 
calamity  which  had  befallen  the  Roman  arms 
under  the  auspices  of  the  present  emperor.'7  It 
was  supposed  to  have  greatly  affected  him,  and 
to  have  caused  the  resolution  which  he  took  (| 
pass  the  Alps,  and  to  superintend,  in  person,  the 

14  Plin.  lib.  v.  c.  6.  15  Dio.  Cnss.  lib.  liv.  c.  !] 

1(5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  20.  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  20.  c.  9? 
17  Sueton  in  Octav.  c  33. 


439 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  Vf. 


measures  that  were  necessary  to  repair  this  loss. 
His  departure  from  Rome,  however,  at  this 
time,  is  likewise  ascribed  to  other  motives.  He 
nad  now,  for  about  two  years,  been  exposed  in 
the  city  to  the  animadversion  and  censure  which 
a  people  stilj  petulant  though  not  free,  were 
ready,  on  so  near  a  view;  to  bestow  on  his  person 
and  government ;  and  it  was  part  of  his  policy 
to  withdraw,  at  proper  intervals,  from  the  obser- 
vation of  such  a  people,  in  order  to  preserve  that 
respect  and  authority  which  too  much  familiarity 
is  apt  to  impair.  He  accordingly  took  occasion 
from  these  alarms,  on  the  west  and  northern 
frontier,  to  absent  himself  from  the  city ;  and 
despatched  Agrippa  at  the  same  time,  into  Asia, 
where  a  contest  which  had  arisen  respecting  the 
succession  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Bosphorus  re- 
quired his  presence. 

The  emperor,  leaving  the  administration  of 
affairs  at  Rome  in  the  hands  of  Statilius  Taurus, 
set  out  for  Gaul,  accompanied  by  Meca^nas  and 
Tiberius,  now  in  the  rank  of  praetor,  who  made 
a  part  of  his  court.  At  his  arrival  in  Gaul,  the 
people  were  relieved  of  the  alarm  they  had 
taken  on  the  approach  of  the  German  invaders, 
who,  not  being  prepared  to  make  a  continual 
war  beyond  their  own  boundaries,  had  repassed 
the  Rhine.  He  proceeded,  therefore,  to  receive  the 
representations  that  were  made  to 
U.  C.  738.  him  relating  to  the  administration 
Jlf  Livius  °f tne  province.  Among  these  are 
Drusus,  mentioned  complaints  of  extortion 
L.  Calpur-  *0n  the  part  of  the  governor.  This 
™Au<Tust°  officer,  though  now  bearing  a  Ro- 
13mo  JEtat.  man  namej  that  °f  Licinius,  was 
47.  '  himself  a  native  of  Gaul,  and  had 

been  a  slave  in  the  family  of  Julius 
Csesar.  Having  become  by  the  bounty  of  his 
master,  a  freeman  and  a  Roman  citizen,  he  was 
afterward  gradually  raised,  by  Augustus  himself, 
to  the  height  of  his  present  command,  in  which 
he  committed  enormous  oppressions.  Being 
convicted  of  the  crimes  which  were  laid  to  his 
charge,  it  is  said,  that  the  money  of  which  he 
had  robbed  the  province  was  seized,  but  not  re- 
turned to  the  owners.1 

While  the  Germans  fled  from  Gaul  upon  the 
report  of  the  emperor's  approach,  the  revolts  of 
the  Commenii  and  Venones,  of  the  Panonii  and 
Ligures  Commati,  were  quelled  at  the  same 
time  by  the  different  officers  who  had  been  em- 
ployed against  them.  The  Rheti  and  Vendelici, 
nations  inhabiting  the  valley  of  Trent,  \aving 
been  long  in  the  practice  of  plundering  the  Ro- 
man traders,  of  making  incursions  into  Gaul, 
and  even  into  Italy,  were  attacked  first  by 
Drusus,  the  younger  of  the  sons  of  Livia,  and 
being  forced  from  their  own  country,  moved  in 
a  hostile  manner  into  the  Roman  province, 
where  they  were  received  by  Tiberius,  at  the 
head  of  a.  considerable  army ;  and  being  pressed 
at  once  by  both  the  brothers,  were  obliged  to 
make  their  submission,  and  to  suffer  the  greater 
part  of  their  men,  able  to  carry  arms,  to  be  trans- 
planted into  other  countries.2 

The  peace  being  thus  established  on  the  side 
of  Germany,  the  emperor  applied  himself  to 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  21. 

2  Videre  Rh^eti  bella  sub  Alpibus.  Diusum,  Ge- 
rentcm,  et  Vendelici,  &c.  Horat.  Carm.  lib.  iv.  Od.  4. 
Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c  22.    Veil.  Paler,  lib.  ii.  r,95. 


restore  some  cities  which  had  gone  to  ruin  in 
different  parts  of  the  empire,  and  to  plant  new 
colonies  in  Gaul  and  in  Spain.  Whether  these 
were  settlements  provided  for  the  veterans  and 
Emeriti,  by  dispossessing  the  ancient  inhabi- 
tants, or  new  plantations  made  in  waste  and 
unappropriated  lands,^  is  uncertain.  Suetonius 
informs  us,  that  no  less  than  twenty-eight  dif- 
ferent colonies  were  settled  in  Italy,  towns  built, 
and  funds  allotted  to  defray  the  expense  of 
these  newly  established  communities;  and  that 
persons,  who  had  filled  any  office  of  magistracy 
in  these  colonies,  were  entitled  to  a  vote  in  the 
elections  at  Rome. 

Among  the  acts  of  Augustus,  during  his  pro- 
gress in  Gaul,  are  mentioned  the  effects  of  his 
attention  to  the  favourite  object  of  encouraging 
population,  with  the  premiums  he  gave,  wherever 
he  passed,  to  such  persons  as  presented  him  with 
numerous  families  of  children;3  it  is  mentioned 
that  the  city  of  Paphos  being  destroyed  by  an 
earthquake,  he  gave  orders  to  have  it  rebuilt ; 
and,  as  an  earnest  of  his  future  patronage,  gave 
the  inhabitants  leave  to  ehange  the  name  to 
Augusta  :4  that  he  restored  to  the 
U.  C.  739.  people  of  Cyzicum  in  Bithynia, 
the  privileges  of  which  he  himself 
M.  Licinius,    had  lately  deprived  them :  that  his 

LnenuauseliUS  °r(3erS'  l°  re-estabIish  th«  king  of 
August'  Pontus  in  possession  of  the  Bos- 
Umo,  JEtau  phorus,  which  had  been  usurped  by 
48.  a  pretended  descendant  of  Mithri- 

dates,  being  successfully  executed 
by  Agrippa,  he  received  the  report  of  this  service 
without  having  it  communicated  to  the  senate. 
And  this  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  instance 
in  which  this  form  was  omitted. 

A  triumph  having  been  offered  to  Agrippa,  on 
this  occasion,  was  again  declined.5 

Augustus  had  now  passed  above  two  years  in 
Gaul,  and  obtained  the  end  for  which 
TJ.  C.  740.  he  went,  whether  of  a  temporary  re 
cess  from  Rome,  or  of  making  the 
Tiherjus  necessary  provision  for  the  security 
jYero  lUS  °f  tne  province.  Leaving  Drusus, 
Quincelius  the  younger  of  the  sons  of  Livia,  to 
Varus.  command  on  the  Rhine,  and  to  con- 
August.  tinue  tiie  military  services  he  had 
\5mo,  JEtat.  among  ^  he 

himself  set  out  on  his  return  to  Italy. 
But,  willing  to  avoid  the  crowds  which  usually 
advanced  to  receive  him  on  his  approach  to  the 
city,  he  made  his  entry  in  the  night.  The  se- 
nate, however,  not  to  lose  any  opportunity  of 
paying  their  court,  ordered  to  be  erected,  in  the 
usual  place  of  their  assembly,  an  altar,  on  which 
to  offer  a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  for  his  safe 
return;  and  to  signalize  tire  occasion  by  some 
circumstance  of  a  gracious  nature,  resolved,  that, 
from  this  date,  whatever  criminal  within  the  city 
presented  his  prayer  for  forgiveness  to  the  empe- 
ror in  person,  should  obtain  his  pardon.  Both 
these  flattering  decrees,  presented  to  him  on  the 
day  of  his  arrival,  he  rejected.  On  the  following 
day,  he  received  the  salutations  of  the  people  on 
the  Palatine  Hill,6  ordered  the  baths  to  be  thrown 
open  to  them,  and  the  usual  attendance  at  such 
places  to  be  given  at  his  own  expense.  From 


3  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  46. 

4  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  23.  5  Ibid. 
6  The  place  of  his  own  residence 


Chap.  III.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


433 


this  ceremony  he  proceeded  to  the  capitol,  and 
going  up  to  the  statue  of  Jupiter,  stript  the 
laurel  from  his  fasces,  and  laid  this  hadge  of  his 
victory  at  the  feet  of  the  pedestal.  He  then  as- 
semhled  the  senate ;  hut  excusing  himself  from 
speaking,  on  account  of  a  hoarseness,  he  delivered 
a  paper  to  be  read  by  his  quaestor,  containing  a 
summary  of  his  late  operations  in  the  provinces, 
and  some  new  regulations,  by  which  the  army, 
for  the  future,  were  to  be  governed.7 

Augustus  had  gradually,  since  his  accession 
to  the  government  of  the  empire,  endeavoured 
to  improve  the  discipline  of  the  legions,  and  par- 
ticularly to  restore  the  dignity  of  the  military 
character,  by  forbidding  the  admission  of  slaves. 
Prom  this  rule  he  never  departed,  except  either 
upon  extraordinary  occasions,  which  required 
sudden  augmentations  of  the  army,  or  in  recruit- 
ing particular  bodies  of  men,  such  as  the  city- 
watch,  appointed  to  guard  against  fire  and  other 
disorders.  And  he  succeeded  so  far  in  restoring 
the  discipline,  which  had  been  much  relaxed  in 
times  of  the  civil  war,  that  he  had  authority 
enough,  on  different  occasions,  to  dismiss,  with- 
out any  provision  or  reward,  all  such  as  pre- 
sumed to  make  any  demands  in  a  mutinous 
manner.  He  had  entirely  disbanded  the  tenth 
legion  for  mutiny.  In  urging  the  duties  of  the 
service,  he  generally  decimated  such  bodies  of 
men  as  gave  way  before  an  enemy,  and  punish- 
ed with  death  the  desertion  of  a  post,  whether 
in  officers  or  private  men.  Less  offences  he 
punished  with  some  species  of  ignominy  or  dis- 
grace, as,  by  obliging  the  offender  to  stand  a 
whole  day  unarmed  before  the  general's  tent, 
with  some  mark  or  badge  of  disgrace.8 

By  the  regulations  now  presented  to  the  senate 
for  their  approbation,  the  term  of  military  service 
was  fixed,  if  in  the  praetorian  bands,  at  twelve 
years ;  if  in  the  legions,  at  sixteen  years.  After 
this  term,  it  was  admitted  that  a  soldier  might 
claim  his  discharge. 

It  had  been  the  practice  in  the  course  of  the 
late  civil  wars  to  gratify  the  veterans,  at  their 
dismission,  with  grants  of  land  ;  a  practice  which 
taught  the  armies  to  covet  the  possessions  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  and  to  seek  for  pretences 
against  them,  which,  in  reality,  rendered  that 
species  of  property  extremely  insecure.  But 
Augustus  now  thought  himself  possessed  of  a 
sufficient  authority  to  reform  this  abuse,  and  to 
substitute,  for  these  grants  of  land,  a  gratuity  in 
money .9  By  publishing  his  regulation*  on  this 
subject,  he  greatly  quieted  the  fears  and  appre- 
hensions under  which  the  pacific  inhabitants  la- 
boured in  different  parts  of  the  empire. 

The  utmost  efforts  of  the  emperor  were  like- 
wise required,  on  the  present  occasion,  to  pre- 
serve the  mask  under  which  he  wished  to  con- 
duct his  government.  The  senate,  though 
maintained  in  all  its  formalities,  was  observed 
to  have  no  power,  and  began  to  be  deserted. 
The  civil  offices  were  shunned  as  a  burden,  or  as 
a  conspicuous  servitude.  Many  families  of  sena- 
tors were  gone  to  decay,  and  those  who  were 
called  into  supply  their  places,  either  had  not, 
or  denied  that  they  had  the  legal  qualification. 
The  titles  of  magistracy  continued  for  some  time 
to  be  coveted,  on  account  of  the  rank  which 


7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  25.  8  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.23. 
9  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  25. 

3  1 


they  were  supposed  to  bestow ;  but  the  frequency 
and  prostitution  of  such  honours  now  rendered 
them  contemptible  ;'°  and,  in  some  degree  al- 
ready an  object  of  that  ridicule  which  is  so  well 
expressed  by  the  satirist  in  writings  of  a  later 
date." 

To  relieve  senators,  in  part,  of  the  burdens 
which  they  alone  were  hitherto  appointed  to 
bear,  the  emperor,  while  yet  in  Gaul,  gave  direc- 
tions that  the  ten  judges,  who  decided  in  all 
questions  relating  to  public  sales  and  confisca- 
tions, the  three  inspectors  of  the  coin,12  the  of- 
ficers who  had  charge  of  public  executions,13  and 
the  wardens  of  the  streets  and  highways,14 
should  all,  for  the  future,  be  taken  from  the 
equestrian  order.  It  was  now  the  practice  to 
decline,  not  only  servile  or  burdensome  offices 
of  this  sort,  but  likewise  what  had  been  the 
highest  stations  under  the  republic ;  and  it  be- 
came necessary  to  force  the  acceptance  of  them 
under  actual  penalties.  At  first,  all  who  had 
been  quaestors,  if  still  under  forty  years  of  age, 
were  draughted  by  lot  for  the  superior  offices  ;15 
all  likewise  who  had  been  quaestors,  and  who 
were  possessed  of  the  legal  estate,  if  not  above 
thirty  years  of  age,  were  obliged  to  enrol  in  the 
senate. 

From  this  forced  enrolment  or  promotion, 
however,  which  may  be  considered  as  a  general 
press  for  senators  and  officers  of  state,  were  ex- 
cluded all  such  as  had  any  bodily  deformity  or 
blemish,  or  who  wanted  the  legal  estate.  In 
ascertaining  the  fortunes  of  senators  the  parties 
themselves  were  examined,  and  other  evidence 
was  brought  to  investigate  the  truth.  Such  as 
appeared  to  have  made  any  diminution  in  their 
paternal  inheritance  were  obliged  to  specify  the 
losses  they  had  sustained,  and  to  give  an  account 
of  their  own  manner  of  life.16 

In  the  sequel  of  these  measures,  which  were 
intended  to  preserve  the  appearance  of  a  com- 
monwealth, and  to  support  the  formalities  of  a 
civil  institution,  it  is  probable,  although  not 
mentioned  by  any  of  the  historians,  that  Augus- 
tus accepted  of  a  prolongation  of  his  power  lor 
other  five  years;17  and  again  assumed  Agrippa 
with  himself  into  the  office  of  tribune  for  the 
same  term.  The  ceremony  of  this  resignation 
became,  by  degrees,  a  matter  of  form,  and  his 
resumption  of  the  empire  was  made  known  by 
sports  and  entertainments,  which  rendered  the 
occasion  extremely  agreeable  to  the  people. 

At  this  time  a  theatre,  which  had  been  begun 
by  Marcellus,  was  finished  and  opened  with 
great  solemnity.*  A  procession  of  noble  youth 
was  led  by  Caius  the  son  of  Agrippa,"  and 
adoptive  son  of  the  emperor.  Six  hundred  Afri- 
can wild  beasts  were  baited  in  the  circus,  and 
among  them  a  tiger,  it  being  the  first  time  that 
this  animal  made  its  appearance  at  Rome.'8 


10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  30. 

11  Pcr|Kjtiio  risn,  pulmonem  asitare  solobat 
Deinocritus  qoanquam  bob  essent  urbibus  iOis, 
Pra-texta:  ct  Trabeae,  Fasces,  Lectica,  Tribunal. 

Juvcn.  Sat.  x.  v.  33. 

12  Triumviri  Monitalos.     13  Triumviri  Capitales. 

14  Viginti  Viri.  15  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  C.9B.  16  Ibid. 
17  His  having;  accepted  the  empire  for  ten  years,  and, 

at  the  expiration  of  this  period,  his  having  accepted 
of  it  for  five  years,  are  mentioned;  and  again,  it  ia 
mentioned  about  his  twentieth  year,  or  rive  years  after; 
this  date,  that  he  accepted  of  it  for  ten  years  more 

15  Plin.  lib.  viii.  c.  17. 


434 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI, 


In  continuation  of  these  entertainments,  Julus, 
he  son  of  Antony,  being  praetor,  celebrated  the 
Dirth-day  of  Augustus  with  the  most  expensive 
shows,  and  in  his  public  character  entertained 
the  senate,  together  with  the  emperor  himself, 
at  a  feast  in  the  capitol.1 

Tiberius,  at  the  same  time,  in  performance  of 
a  vow  which  he  had  made  for  the  emperor's  safe 
return  from  his  last  excursion  to  the  provinces, 
gave  splendid  entertainments.  Having  intro- 
duced Caius  Caesar,  the  eldest  of  the  emperor's 
adoptive  sons,  and  placed  him  by  himself  in  the 
praetor's  chair  at  the  theatre,  he  was  received  by 
the  people  with  shouts  of  applause. 

The  emperor,  however,  gave  signs  of  displea- 
sure. "  Such  premature  honours,"  he  said, 
"  could  only  serve  to  inspire  the  mind  of  a  young 
man  with  presumption  and  pride."2 

About  this  time  died  the  famous 
U.  C.  740.  triumvir  M,  iEmihus  Lepidus,  for- 
merly the  associate  or  the  tool  of 
August.  Octavius  and  Antony,  in  the  execu- 
15wio,  JEtat.  tjon  Gf  tnejr  designs  against  the  re- 
public. While  he  was  subservient 
to  the  interest  of  these  competitors,  he  was  al- 
lowed, in  appearance,  to  hold  a  third  part  of  the 
empire  ;  but  being  unsupported  by  any  real  abili- 
ties or  personal  authority,  he  ceased  to  be  of  any 
consequence  the  moment  he  presumed  to  act 
for  himself,  and  was  too  inconsiderable,  even  to 
be  an  object  of  resentment  to  those  he  had  injured. 

Augustus  had  suffered  this  fallen  rival  to  re- 
main, during  his  life,  in  the  dignity  of  Pontiff, 
and,  by  keeping  him  in  public  view,  deprived 
him  of  the  consolation  even  of  being  forgotten.3 
The  emperor,  though  himself  desirous  to  hold 
this  sacred  character,  and  frequently  pressed,  by 
his  flatterers,  to  supplant  Lepidus,  was  too  cau- 
tious to  violate  any  supposed  religious  institution, 
and  too  politic  to  trifle  with  acknowledged  rights, 
of  which  he  meant,  on  occasion,  to  avail  himself. 
But  upon  the  death  of  Lepidus,  he  did  not  ne- 
glect to  assume  the  only  dignity  which  was 
wanting  to  complete  the  accumulation  of  prero- 
gatives united  in  his  own  person. 

Agrippa  had  returned  to  Rome,  about  the 
same  time,  with  the  emperor ;  but  soon  had  oc- 
casion again  to  depart  from  Italy, 
U.  Cf  741.  being  sent  to  quell  a  rebellion  that 
broke  out  in  Panonia.  Upon  his 
M  Valerius  arrival  in  this  country,  finding  the 
parsarVS-  natives  already  subdued  by  the  fear 
o'milianinS'  °f  ms  approach,  he  accepted  of  their 
jtfag.  mprt.    submission ;  and  though  still  in  the 


C.  V tgius     depth  of  winter,  set  out  on  his  return 
OoSL  I?  Rome'    After  he  had  repassed 
the  seas,  on  his  way  through  Cam- 
Jiugust.       pania,  he  was  taken  dangerously  ill, 
167HO,  JEtat.  Augustus  received  the  accounts  of 
his  danger,  while  he  was  exhibiting 
sports  to  the  people  in  the  name  of 
his  two  sons,  Caius  and  Lucius,  and  left  the  city 
immediately  to  attend  his  friend  ;  but  came  too- 
late,  and  after  he  expired. 

This  great  man  appears  to  have  been  worthy 
of  the  best  times  of  the  republic.  He  had  mag- 
nanimity enough  to  have  relied  on  his  personal 
qualities  alone  for  consideration  and  honour,  and 
was  fit  to  have  been  a  citizen  of  Rome  in  its 
happiest  age ;  but  from  the  necessity  of  the  times, 
and  the  principles  of  fidelity  to  the  friend  who- 
trusted  himr  he  became  a  principal  support  of  the 
monarchy.  His  great  abilities  being  employed 
to  maintain  the  government  and  authority  of  the 
prince,  and  his  credit  with  the  prince  employed 
in  acts  of  justice  and  moderation  to  the  people, 
he  was  neither  an  object  of  jealousy  to  the  oner 
nor  of  envy  to  the  other. 

It  was  a  singular  instance  of  good  fortune  to 
have  found  such  an  officer,  and  a  mark  of  under- 
standing and  steadiness,  without  jealousy,  and 
without  wavering,  to  have  persevered  in  the 
choice.  In  this,  and  in  some  other  instances, 
Augustus  showed  that  his  talent  was  not  mere 
cunning,  but  a  principle  of  able  conduct,  which 
is  tried  in  nothing  more  than  in  the  choice  and 
employment  of  proper  men.  He  raised  Agrippa. 
though  not  a  flatterer,  from  a  low  condition,  to 
command  his  forces,  to  preside  in  his  councils, 
and,  last  of  all,  by  the  marriage  of  his  daughter, 
to  the  highest  place  in  his  own  family. 

At  the  funeral  of  his  friend,  the  emperor  took 
upon  himself  the  office  of  principal  mourner,  ac- 
companied the  corpse  from  Campania  to  Rome  ; 
and  having  it  brought  into  the  forum,  pronounced 
the  funeral  oration,  having,  while  he  spoke,  a 
screen  placed  between  himself  and  the  dead 
body.  In  order  to  confirm  and  to  increase  the 
regard  that  was  paid  to  the  memory  of  the  de- 
ceased,, he  not  only  ratified  that  part  of  the  will, 
by  which  Agrippa  bequeathed  his  gardens  and 
his  baths  to  the  public,  but  in  his  name  also  made 
farther  additions  to  the  legacy. 

Juha,  at  the  death  of  her  husband,  was  again 
pregnant,  and  bore  a  third  son,  who,  from  the 
family  of  his  father,  and  the  circumstances  of 
his  birth,  was  known  by  the  name  of  Agrippa 
Posthumus.4 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Marriage  of  Julia  with  Tiberius— Death  of  Drusus— Death  of  Meccenas— Disgrace  of  Julia- 
War  in  Panonia — Roman  Legions  cut  off  in  Germany —  Tiberius  associated  in  the  Empire- 
Death  of  Augustus. 

Octavius  had  received  this  young 
man  in  the  arms  of  his  mother 
Livia,  had  observed  the  progress  of 
his  childhood  and  youth,  and  had  given  him  no 
distinguished  place  in  his  favour  during  the  lives 
of  Marcellus  or  Agrippa,  to  whom  he  had  suc- 
cessive^ married  his  daughter;  but  being  de- 


THE  death  of  Agrippa  made  way  for  Tibe- 
rius Claudius  Nero,  then  about  twenty-eight 

years  of  age,  into  a  higher  place 
U.  C.  721.    than  he  yet  held  in  the  family  and 

confidence  of  the  emperor. 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  25/26. 
3  Ibid.  c.  15. 


2  Ibid.  c.  27. 
4  Ibid.  c.  28 


August. 
16wio,  JEtat. 
50. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


435 


prived  of  both  these  supports,  and  his  adopted 
children,  Caius  and  Lucius  being  yet  of  tender 
age,  he  was  led  to  receive  Tiberius  as  a  relation, 
the  nearest  to  supply  the  place  of  those  he  had 
lost 

Livia,  by  whose  arts  the  emperor  now  began 
to  be  governed,  was,  according  to  the  report  of 
historians,  and,  as  we  may  infer  from  her  own 
conduct,  perfectly  formed  to  the  mind  of  her 
husband.  In  all  matters,  not  only  of  business, 
whether  private  or  public,  but  even  in  those  af- 
fairs in  which  the  sexes  are  least  patient  of  each 
other's  failings,  she  preserved  or  affected  the 
most  implicit  submission  to  his  will.  She  is  said, 
not  only  to  have  connived  at  his  infidelities,  but 
as  often  as  he  was  inclined  to  diversify  his  plea- 
sures, even  to  have  employed  her  sagacity  and 
her  knowledge  of  his  choice  in  procuring  him  the 
■means  of  indulging  his  fancy.  Herself,  the  dupe 
of  no  passion  which  was  likely  to  mislead  her, 
she  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  advance  her  fa- 
mily, nor  risked  the  miscarriage  of  her  purpose, 
by  hastening  improperly  the  means  of  obtaining 
it.  Favoured  by  the  death  of  Agrippa,  and  the 
minority  of  the  young  Caesars,  she  easily,  with- 
out seeming  to  entertain  any  improper  views  for 
her  son,  procured  his  advancement.  He  was  at 
first  received  by  the  emperor  as  a  temporary  aid 
in  the  government,  and  afterwards  as  a  person 
fit  to  become  the  third  husband  of  Julia ;  and  by 
this  connexion  to  occupy  a  rank  in  his  family, 
which  had  been  hitherto  considered  as  the  near- 
est to  his  own. 

Tiberius,  at  the  time  that  this  resolution  was 
taken  in  his  favour,  was  already  a  husband  and 
a  father,  having  been  married  to  Vipsania,  the 
daughter  of  Agrippa,  by  whom  he  had  a  son 
named  Drusus.  He  is  said  to  have  parted,  with 
great  reluctance,  from  Vipsania,  then  a  second 
time  pregnant,  in  order  to  make  way  for  Julia, 
by  whom  he  was  to  hold  the  second  place  in  the 
empire. 

Augustus  had  hitherto  distinguished,  by  the 
marriage  of  his  daughter,  the  person  whom  he 
meant  to  point  out  as  his  successor ;  but,  his  fa- 
mily being  now  become  numerous,  it  does  not 
.appear  that  he  had  any  thoughts  of  giving  to  this 
new  son-in-law  precedence  of  his  adopted  chil- 
dren, Caius  and  Lucius,  who,  bearing  the  name 
•of  Caesar,  already  precluded  any  competition  for 
Tank  in  the  empire.5  This  third  marriage  of  Ju- 
lia, he  probably  intended  for  a  purpose,  which  it 
did  not  by  any  means  serve,  that  of  restraining 
the  disorders  to  which  this  unhappy  person  was 
inclined. 

Tiberius  had  begun  his  military  services  with 
some  distinction  in  Gaul,  and  now  coming  into 
the  place  of  Agrippa,  was  sent  to  repress  a  re- 
bellion, which,  upon  the  report  of  that  officer's 
death,  had  again  broke  out  in  Panonia.  Having 
succeeded  in  this  service,  he  gave  orders,  that  the 
youth  of  the  vanquished  nation  should  be  sold 
into  slavery,  and  that  the  buyer  should  come  un- 
der an  obligation  to  transport  them  far  from  their 
native  country  ;  a  cruel  action,  but  not  to  be  im- 
puted merely  to  the  personal  character  of  this 
young  man,  as  it  did  not  exceed  what  was  fre- 
quent in  the  history  of  the  Romans.  Upon  this 
occasion  Tiberius  had  the  honour  of  a  triumph 
.conferred  by  the  senate;  but  by  the  emperor's 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  31. 


directions,  while  he  accepted  of  the  triumphal 
robes,  he  declined  to  enter  the  city  in  proces- 
sion.6 

About  the  same  time  Drusus,  the  younger 
brother  of  Tiberius,  then  stationed  on  the  Rhine, 
had  repulsed  a  body  of  Germans,  passed  the 
river  in  pursuit  of  them,  and  laid  waste  the  con- 
tiguous country  of  the  Sicambri  and  Usipeteg, 
which,  lying  between  the  Lippe  and  the  Issel,  is 
now  the  bishopric  of  Munstet,  or  the  province 
of  Zutphen.  Having  embarked  his  army,  he  fell 
down  the  Issel  to  the  marshy  lands  inhabited  by 
the  Frisii  and  Chauci,  probably  what  are  now 
the  provinces  of  Friesland  and  Groningen,  ar 
rived  without  resistance  at  the  sea,  where  the 
tides,  to  which  his  Italian  mariners  were  unac- 
customed, leaving  them  sometimes  ashore,  and 
almost  out  of  sight  of  the  sea,  at  other  times 
threatening  to  overflow  all  the  lands  in  their 
view,  gavethem  at  first  considerable  trouble;  but 
having  learned  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
this  alternate  flux  and  reflux  of  the  waters,  they 
took  the  benefit  of  the  floods  to  re-ascend  the  river, 
and  returned  to  their  station  on  the  frontiers  of 
Gaul.? 

Drusus,  having  thus  explored  the  coasts  of  the 
northern  ocean,  set  out  for  Italy ;  and,  though 
already  vested  with  the  dignity  of  pra;tor,  was 
made  to  accept  of  an  inferior  rank  in  the  office 
of  32dile;  probably  to  set  an  example,  encourag- 
ing others  to  comply  with  the  forms  of  the  re- 
public which  were  still  kept  up;  but  which  were 
at  this  time  very  much  neglected  by  persons  of 
rank.8 

As  the  Roman  armies  had  now,  for  some  time, 
ceased  to  make  offensive  war,  many  of  the  bar- 
barous nations  took  courage  from  this  circum- 
stance, and  began  to  harass  the  provinces  in  their 
neighbourhood,  passed  the  Rhine  and  the  Da- 
nube in  frequent  incursions,  and  laid  waste  the 
frontiers  of  Gaul,  Panonia,  and  Thrace ;  inso- 
much, that  it  appeared  necessary,  for  the  securi- 
ty of  these  provinces,  to  attack  the  enemy,  and  to 
furnish  them  sufficient  occupation  in  the  defence 
of  their  own  country. 

In  the  spring  of  the  following 
U.  C.  721.  year,  Drusus  accordingly  having 
Q.  &lius  returned  to  his  command  on  the 
Paulas  Tre-  fronticrs  of  Gaul,  passed  the  Rhine, 
bias  Max.  overran  the  territory  of  the  Chat- 
ti,9  and  penetrated  to  the  "Weser. 
August.  In  these  operations,  although  the 
lTnp,  &tat.  empeppr*!  object,  on  this  and  every 
other  service,  was  merely  defensive, 
it  appeared  necessary,  not  only  to  occupy  both 
banks  of  the  Rhine,  but  likewise,  to  have  fortified 
stations  on  the  Lippe,  from  which  to  observe  the 
Germans  in  their  future  preparations  to  pass  the 
river  for  the  purpose  of  invading  Gaul. 

Drusus,  for  his  services  in  tins  campaign,  was 
saluted  by  the  army,  as  had  been  customary  in 
the  times  of  the  republic,  with  the  title  of  Im- 
perator;  but  this  designation  having  been,  for 
some  time,  appropriated  to  the  sovereign  as  head 
of  the  armies  of  the  empire,  was  now,  by  him, 
refused  to  Drusus.  The  title  of  proconsul,  with 
the  triumphal  robes,  were  decreed  to  him  instead 
of  the  other.  On  his  return  to  Gaul,  the  Ger- 
mans laid  an  ambuscade  on  the  route  by  which 


6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  31.  7  Ibid.  c.  32. 

8  Ibid.  .9  Supposed  to  be  that  of  Hesse. 


436 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VL 


he  was  to  pass,  and  threatened  his  army  with 
imminent  danger  ;  but  lost  the  advantage  of  the 
disposition  they  had  made,  by  discovering  their 
posture  too  soon,  and  by  giving  the  Romans  an 
opportunity  to  extricate  themselves  by  a  vigorous 
attack,  in  which  they  gained  a  decisive  victory. 

Upon  the  news  of  this  event,  which  seemed 
to  remove,  for  some  time,  the  prospect  of  any 
farther  trouble  on  the  side  of  Germany,  it  was 
proposed,  once  more,  to  shut  the  gates  of  Janus.1 
But  an  irruption  of  the  Daci,  who  passed  the 
Danube  on  the  ice,  together  with  inroads  made 
by  the  Thracians  into  Macedonia,  and  fresh  in- 
surrections in  Dalmatia,  still  kept  the  empire  in 
a  state  of  war. 

Lucius  Piso,  formerly  governor  of  Pamphilia, 
was  employed  in  repressing  the  attempts  of  the 
Thracians;  and  Tiberius,  in  reducing  the  Dal- 
matians. The  last  of  these  territories,  which, 
in  the  general  partition  of  the  empire,  had  been 
committed  to  the  senate,  was  now,  on  account  of 
its  frequent  revolts,  taken  under  the  immediate 
inspection  of  the  emperor. 

While  these  operations  took  place,  under  the 
officers  whom  the  emperor  employed  in  the  pro- 
vinces, he  himself  remained  at  Rome ;  and  the 
few  circumstances  which  are  mentioned,  relating 
to  affairs  of  state  in  the  capital,  are  characteristic 
of  the  times,  but  not  otherwise  interesting  or  im- 
portant. 

The  emperor  himself,  in  his  capacity  of  inspec- 
tor of  manners,  took  an  account  of  the  people, 
paying  the  highest  regard  to  the  distinctions  of 
senator  and  knight,  and  to  the  honours  which 
were  constituted  by  titles  of  office,  as  those  of 
praetor  and  consul.  But  these  names  of  distinc- 
tion, which  he  affected  to  preserve,  having  no 
real  consideration  or  power  annexed  to  them, 
only  served  to  remind  the  people  of  dignities 
which  no  longer  existed. 

The  senate  itself,  though  filled  with  persons 
who  bore  the  titles  of  praetorian  and  consular, 
and  though,  with  affected  respect,  still  preserved 
among  the  ruins  of  the  commonwealth,  being 
deprived  of  its  ancient  foundations,  underwent  a 
continual  decay  :  and  the  honours  to  which  citi- 
zens had  formerly  aspired,  with  so  much  ardour, 
were  now  neglected  or  shunned  with  disdain. 
The  wealthy,  fearing  more  the  burdens  to  which 
they  might  be  exposed,  on  the  supposition  of  pos- 
sessing great  riches,  than  coveting  the  honours  to 
which  the  qualification  of  senator  entitled  them, 
came  to  the  musters  with  reluctance,  and  even 
concealed  their  effects. 

To  counteract  this  disposition,  and  to  set  an 
example  of  public  duty,  the  emperor  made  a  fair 
return  of  his  own  patrimonial  estate,  and,  as  far 
as  was  consistent  with  his  sovereignty,  endea- 
voured to  raise  the  value  of  subordinate  ranks, 
admitted  members  into  the  senate  with  lower 
qualifications  than  formerly;  diminished  the 
quorum,  or  number  that  was  hitherto  required  to 
constitute  a  legal  assembly :  and,  affecting  great 
respect  for  the  proceedings  of  the  senate,  ordered 
their  journals  to  be  regularly  kept ;  and  gave  this 
matter  in  particular  charge  to  the  quaestors. 

In  other  respects,  the  servility  of  the  times 
seemed  to  outrun  the  exactions  of  the  sovereign. 
Some  of  the  courtiers,  in  their  desire  to  flatter, 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  liv.  c.  36. 

2  Ibid.  c.  34.    Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c. 


and  others,  under  the  fear  of  being  suspected  of 
disaffection,  began  the  practice  of  contributing 
sums  of  money  to  erect  statues  to  the  emperor: 
and  he  himself,  in  consequence  of  some  dream, 
or  directed  by  some  species  of  superstition,  made 
it  a  practice,  on  certain  days,  to  ask,  as  in  chari- 
ty, from  all  who  came  in  his  way,  some  small 
pieces  of  money.3  As  he  was  in  his  temper  suffi- 
ciently liberal,  neither  of  these  practices  brought 
him  under  any  imputation  of  rapacity.  What 
was  contributed  to  erect  statues  for  himself  he 
employed  in  multiplying  those  of  the  gods,  par- 
ticularly in  erecting  the  allegorical  images  of 
Safety,  Concord,  and  Peace.  What  he  received 
as  a  charity  was  returned  twofold. 

The  republican  honours,  though  much  faded 
on  every  other  brow,  still  bore  a  considerable 
lustre  among  the  emperor's  titles,  made  a  part  of 
his  state,  and  an  engine  of  his  power.  Those  of  the 
priesthood,  in  particular,  equally  suited  to  every 
constitution  of  government,  were  easily  brought 
in  aid  of  his  military  power.  For  this  reason 
the  title  of  Flamen  Dialis,  or  priest  of  Jupiter, 
was  now  added  to  the  other  dignities  of  the  same 
kind  which  the  emperor  had  recently  assumed. 
It  being  deemed  ominous,  and  presaging  the 
greatest  calamities,  if  a  Flamen  Dialis  should  die 
in  office,  this  dignity  formed  an  additional  guard 
to  the  emperor's  person.  It  had  been  vacant 
about  seventy  years  from  the  demise  of  Merula, 
who  being  consul  when  Cinna  forced  his  wav 
into  the  city,  and  seeing  no  means  of  escape,  in 
order  to  avert  from  his  country  the  supposed 
evils  which  must  have  followed  from  his  dying 
in  the  priesthood,  divested  himself \  stripped  the 
sacred  crest  or  fillet  from  his  hair,  and  being  thus 
reduced  to  a  private  station,  cut  his  own  arte- 
ries, and  sprinkled  the  altar  of  Jupiter  with  his 
blood. 

This  ceremony,  it  was  supposed,  had  averted 
the  evils  to  which  the  republic,  to  expiate  the 
death  of  this  sacred  person,  would  have  been 
otherwise  exposed ;  and  the  priesthood  had,  from 
reverence  to  this  illustrious  martyr,  been  suffered 
to  remain  vacant  till  a  person  could  be  found  that 
was  worthy  to  succeed  him ;  a  condition  which 
was  now  supposed  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  person  of 
Augustus. 

n  About  this  date  died  Octavia,  the 

U.  O.  wijow  0f  Marcellus  and  of  Mark 
JuLus  Anto-  Antony.  Her  obsequies  being  per 
nine  Africa-  forme{j  great  pompi  the  empe. 

q  Fabius  ror  himself  pronounced  the  funeral 
Maximus.  oration,  having  a  screen,  as  at  the 
Aug.  i8mo,  burial  of  Aerrippa,  to  hide  the  body 
from  his  view. 
Soon  after  this  event,  notwithstanding  there 
was  no  recent  alarm  from  the  enemy  on  the 
Rhine,  the  emperor  thought  proper  to  change  the 
place  of  his  residence  from  Italy  to  the  north  of 
the  Alps.  Under  pretence  of  observing  the  storms 
which  still  threatened  the  province  of  Gaul  from 
the  barbarous  nations  on  its  frontier,  he  took  his 
station  for  the  campaign  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Soane  and  the  Rhone,  and  from  thence  gave  his 
instructions  to  the  two  brothers,  Tiberius  and 
Drusus,  to  whom  the  war  was  committed  on  the 
Save  and  the  Rhine.  Both  having  been  suc- 
cessful in  the  services  entrusted  to  them,  joined 
the  emperor  at  his  quarters,  and  from  thence  ac- 


3  Sueton.  in  Vit.  August  c.  91. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


437 


rompanied  him  to  Rome,  where  they  partook  in 
the  honours  which  were  paid  to  him  for  the  suc- 
cess of  his  arms. 

In  the  following  spring  the  two 
U.  C.  744.  brothers  resumed  their  commands, 
and  the  emperor  returned  to  his 
diu™ Drusus  *ormer  residence  on  the  Rhone. 
q.  Fabius  '  Drusus  passed  the  Rhine,  overran 
Maiimus.  the  country  of  the  Chatti,  and  pene- 
■gf-  ^o'0'  trated  to  the  Elbe,  where  he  erected 
'  some  trophies,  and  left  some  monu- 
ments of  the  progress  he  had  made  ;  but  on  the 
approach  of  winter,  being  obliged  to  retire,  he 
was  taken  ill  on  the  march  and  died. 

Tiberius,  who  had  been  sent  by  the  emperor 
on  the  first  news  of  his  brother's  illness,  came  in 
time  to  see  him  expire.  The  funeral  being  to  be 
performed  in  Italy,  the  corpse,  during  the  march 
of  the  army  to  the  Rhine,  was  carried  by  officers 
of  the  highest  rank.  From  the  Rhine  it  was 
conveyed  on  the  shoulders  of  the  principal  inha- 
bitants, who  received  it  on  the  confines  of  their 
respective  districts,  and  bore  it  to  the  next.  Au- 
gustus himself,  on  the  occasion,  repaired  to  Rome; 
but  being  then  in  a  military  character,  or  in  the 
actual  exercise  of  a  military  commission,  and  not 
permitted,  by  the  ancient  forms  of  the  republic, 
to  enter  the  city,  ho  spoke  a  funeral  oration  in 
the  circus  Flaminius,  which  was  without  the 
walls.  Tiberius  followed  the  corpse  to  the  fo- 
rum, and  delivered  another  oration  there.  The 
obsequies  were  performed  by  persons  of  the 
equestrian  and  senatorian  rank.  The  ashes 
were  deposited  in  the  tomb  of  Augustus. 

The  title  of  Germanicus  having  been  conferred 
on  Drusus,  it  remained  in  his  family.  He  had 
issue  two  sons  and  a  daughter;  the  eldest  known 
by  the  name  of  Germanicus  Caesar,  the  younger 
by  the  name  of  Claudius,  long  neglected  on  ac- 
count of  his  imbecility  ;  and  the  daughter  Livilla, 
hereafter  to  be  mentioned  as  the  wile  of  succes- 
sive husbands. 

Tiberius,  soon  after  the  funeral  of  his  brother, 
entered  the  city  in  procession,  to  celebrate  the 
success  of  his  arms  in  Dalmatia.  He  gave  a 
public  feast  to  the  people ;  and  as  in  this  enter- 
tainment only  one  of  the  sexes  cou'd  partake, 
Livia  and  Julia  were  allowed  to  entertain  the 
other. 

The  influence  of  Livia,  and  the  elevation  of 
her  family,  notwithstanding  the  hopes  that  were 
entertained  of  Caius  and  Lucius  Caesar,  were 
now  apparent,  and  procured  her  flattering  de- 
crees from  the  senate,  that  were  offered  in  conso- 
lation for  the  loss  of  her  son.  Her  statue  was 
erected  at  the  public  expense,  and  she  herself 
was  vested  with  the  privilege,  reckoned  so  highly 
honourable  at  Rome,  that  of  being  the  parent  of 
three  children.4 

In  the  beginning  of  the  following 
year  Augustus  again  entered  the  city 
in  a  kind  of  triumphal  procession, 
carrying  his  laurel  to  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Ferretrius,  instead  of  that  of 
Jupiter  ( 'apitolinus.  But  he  made 
no  rejoicings,  alleging,  that  he  had 
suffered  more  by  the  death  of  Drusus 
than  he  had  gained  by  the  success  of  his  arms. 
The  consuls,  however,  took  charge  of  the  so- 
lemnities usual  on  such  occasions,  and  among  the 


U.  C.  745. 

C.  Martins 
Censor  inu.8, 
C.  Jlsiiiius 
Gallus. 
Aug.  20mo, 
JEtat.  54. 


public  shows  brought  forth  some  captives,  whom 
they  obliged,  for  the  entertainment  of  the  people, 
to  fight  in  the  theatre.5 

The  period  for  which  Augustus,  at  his  last 
pretended  resignation,  had  consented  to  accept 
of  the  government,  being  expired,  he  affected  a 
purpose,  as  formerly,  to  resign  the  empire ;  and 
was  again  prevailed  upon  to  resume  it  for  ten 
years  more.  The  decline  of  the  civil  establish- 
ment, of  which  he  still  wished  to  preserve  the 
appearances,  occupied  his  principal  attention. 
The  senate,  as  has  been  observed,  underwent  a 
continual  degradation,  and  its  assemblies  were 
neglected.  The  members  excused  their  neglect, 
by  pretending,  that  the  times  of  meeting  being 
irregular,  they  had  no  proper  intimation  to  at- 
tend ;  and  that  they  were  frequently  engaged  in 
trials  and  other  public  bnsiness  when  the  senate 
was  called. 

To  obviate  such  excuses  for  the  future,  the 
emperor  appointed  ordinary  assemblies  of  the  se- 
nate on  particular  days  of  each  month,  and  or- 
dered that  those  days  should  be  kept  clear  of 
trials,  or  any  other  public  business  whatever,  that 
might  occupy  the  members.  Having  formerly 
reduced  the  number  that  was  required  to  con- 
stitute a  legal  meeting,  from  four  hundred  to 
three  hundred,  he  now  directed,  that  in  matters 
of  less  moment,  even  fewer  might  constitute  such 
meetings,  and  that  in  fixing  the  quorum  on  any 
particular  occasion,  regard  should  be  had  to  the 
importance  of  the  business  before  them;  that 
even  without  requiring  the  presence  of  any  de- 
terminate number,  the  senate  might  form  reso- 
lutions which,  though  not  accompanied  with  the 
force  of  laws,  should  nevertheless  be  deemed  of 
great  authority.  He,  at  the  same  time,  ordered 
a  list  of  the  meml>ers  to  be  published  ;  increased 
the  fine  usually  paid  for  absence,  and,  to  facili- 
tate the  ordinary  course  of  their  proceedings,  ex- 
tended to  the  praetors  the  privilege  of  making 
motions,  which  had  been  confined  to  the  consuls 
or  to  himself. 

These  several  resolutions,  before  they  passed 
into  laws,  were  }>osted  up  in  the  senate-house, 
and  every  person  was  invited  to  oiler  his  obser- 
vations and  corrections.6 

About  the  same  time  are  dated  other  regula- 
tions ascribed  to  Augustus,  of  which  some  re- 
lated to  the  conduct  of  elections,  and  others  to 
that  of  criminal  trials.  As  to  the  first,  although 
every  office  was  filled  by  his  own  nomination,  he 
affected  to  preserve  the  ancient  forms ;  and  in 
order  to  give  some  appearance  of  reality  to  the 
right  of  election,  which  he  affected  to  leave  with 
the  people,  he  prescribed  rules,  which  were  to  be 
observed  in  the  manner  of  collecting  the  votes, 
and  in  restraining  corruption.  Among  these  it 
is  mentioned,  that  he  ordered,  as  soon  as  any 
candidate  had  declared  himself,  he  should  deposit 
a  certain  sum  of  money,  to  be  forfeited  in  case  he 
were  detected  in  procuring  any  suffrage  by  cor- 
rupt means. 

In  respect  to  criminal  trials,  as  the  subject  was 
more  serious,  the  regulations  now  made  by  the 
emperor  were  of  more  effect.  In  this  matter,  b° 
wished  to  set  aside  the  forms  of  the  republic, 
though  by  evasion,  rather  than  by  a  formal  repeal. 

So  long  as  the  people  were  sovereigns  of  the 
commonwealth,  it  was  part  of  the  security  which, 


4  Dio.  Cays  lib.  xxxv.  c.  1,  2 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  5. 


G  Ibid.  c.  3,  4. 


433 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


in  their  collective  capacity,  they  provided  for  them- 
selves, as  individuals  amenable  to  the  laws,  "that 
no  slave  could  be  tortured  to  give  evidence  against 
his  master."  As  this  law,  in  the  present  state 
of  the  government,  might  obstruct  prosecutions 
that  were  instituted  even  for  the  emperor's  safety, 
it  was  thought,  necessary  to  find  some  expedient 
by  which  to  elude  its  force.  For  this  purpose  it 
was  enacted,  that  such  slaves  as  might  be  wanted 
in  evidence  against  their  masters  should  be  con- 
veyed by  a  formal  process  of  sale  to  the  emperor, 
and  that,  being  in  his  possession,  they  might  be 
put  to  the  question,  or  cited  as  witnesses,  even 
against  their  former  masters. 

This  act  is  by  Tacitus  imputed  to  Tiberius, 
and  in  either  emperor  was  considered  as  a  dread- 
ful innovation.1  But  the  consideration  of  the 
emperor's  safety  was  supposed  to  be  a  sufficient 
excuse  for  any  deviation  that  was  made  from  the 
forms  of  the  republic. 

In  whatever  degree  the  present  emperor  em- 
ployed, in  defence  of  his  person,  the  severity  of 
criminal  prosecutions,  and  the  fear  of  the  execu- 
tioner, he  appears  to  have  relied  for  his  safety 
more  on  the  disguises  under  which  he  concealed 
his  usurpation,  and  on  the  moderation  and  the 
popularity  of  his  manners.  By  the  respect  which 
he  affected  to  pay  to  the  senate  and  officers  of 
state,  he  held  up  the  forms  of  the  republic  as  a 
kind  of  shield  between  himself  and  the  zealots  of 
the  republican  government.  He  endeavoured  to 
gain  the  people  by  his  affability,  and  frequently 
bore  with  familiarities  from  persons  of  the  lowest 
condition.  As  an  example  of  the  temper  with 
which  he  endured  the  saucy  or  petulant  remains 
of  military  or  republican  freedom,2  it  is  mentioned, 
that  being  called  upon  to  act  as  counsel  in  behalf 
of  a  soldier  who  was  to  be  tried  for  some  crime, 
and  having,  under  pretence  of  some  other  en- 
gagement, named  a  friend  to  undertake  the  cause: 
"  This,"  said  the  soldier,  "  is  not  a  proper  return 
to  me.  In  your  danger  I  did  not  employ  a  sub- 
stitute, but  interposed  myself."  He  received 
with  seeming  indifference  the  reports  of  spies  and 
informers.  To  a  person  of  this  character,  who 
accused  iEmilius  iElianus  of  having  frequently 
traduced  him ;  "  Prove  me  this,"  said  he,  "  and 
I  will  show  iEiianus,  that  I  too  in  my  turn  can 
find  faults  in  his  character."  Tiberius  having 
once  written  him  a  warm  letter,  with  a  complaint 
of  the  same  kind,  he  bid  him  beware  of  the  heats 
of  youth.  "  It  is  enough,"  he  said,  "  that  we  can 
hinder  people  from  doing  us  any  harm  ;3  we  may 
allow  them  to  say  what  they  please."  Yet  in 
this  he  did  not  act  from  contempt  of  the  public 
opinion  ;  for  in  some  instances  he  even  conde- 
scended to  answer  accusations  that  were  publish- 
ed against  his  private  or  public  character.4  His 
discretion  and  prudence  prevented  the  occasions 
of  much  jealousy  and  resentment ;  and,  in  many 
parts  of  his  reign,  imitated  the  effects  of  gene- 
rosity and  elevation  of  mind,  if  they  did  not 
amount  to  the  real  possession  of  these  characters. 

Augustus  having  passed  the  winter  at  Rome, 
returned  in  the  spring  to  his  former  station  in 
Gaul,  accompanied  by  Caius,  the  elder  of  his 
adopted  sons,  whom  he  now  proposed  to  intro- 
duce to  the  military  service ;  and  by  Tiberius, 
who,  notwithstanding  the  rise  of  a  new  light  in 


the  person  of  the  young  Caesar,  who  threatened 
to  obscure  his  lustre,  continued  to  receive  fresh 
marks  of  the  emperor's  favour,  and  was  consi- 
dered as  a  principal  support  of  his  government. 
Being  placed  at  the  head  of  the  army  on  the 
Rhine,  he  had  charge  of  the  war  which  had 
lately  been  committed  to  Drusus,  his  younger 
brother.  But  few  particulars  are  mentioned  of 
the  campaign  which  followed  in  that  quarter. 
He  is  accused,  in  one  instance,  of  having  violated 
the  public  faith,  by  having  seized  as  prisoners, 
and  sent  in  chains  to  different  parts  of  the  Ro- 
man pro";"\ces,  the  deputies  of  some  German  na- 
tions, whv.  came  in  a  public  capacity  to  treat  of 
peace  :  and  ot  having  laid  waste  the  country  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  his  province. 

The  Germans,  however,  were  probably  rather 
incensed  than  subdued  by  these  measures.  Their 
deputies,  who  had  been  made  prisoners,  that  they 
might  not  be  employed  against  their  own  nations 
as  hostages,  put  themselves  to  death ;  and  their 
countrymen  retained  the  most  vehement  purpose 
of  revenge.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the 
result,  it  is  mentioned,  that  Augustus  received 
from  the  army  the  title  of  imperator,  and  gave 
this  title  likewise  to  Tiberius ;  that  he  put  him 
in  nomination  for  consul  on  the  following  year, 
and,  at  their  return  to  Rome,  permitted  him  to 
make  his  entry  into  the  city  in  triumph,  while 
he  himself  declined  the  honour. 

Soon  after  the  emperor's  arrival  in  Italy,  he 
suffered  a  great  loss  by  the  death  of  Meesenas. 
This  event  made  a  breach  in  the  civil  department 
of  his  affairs,  not  less  than  that  which  the  death 
of  Agrippa  had  made  in  the  military.  The  pre- 
dilection of  this  minister  for  learning,  and  the  in- 
timacy in  which  he  lived  with  persons  of  the 
best  and  most  elegant  accomplishments,  who 
were  recommended  to  him  merely  by  their  merit, 
has  made  his  name  proverbial  among  those  of  the 
patrons  of  letters.  His  inclination  in  this  mat- 
ter, if  it  did  not  form  the  taste  of  his  master, 
happily  concurred  with  it,  and  brought  him  ac- 
quainted with  those  elegant  productions  of  genius 
which  occupy  the  affections,  as  well  as  the  fancy ; 
and  which,  in  a  situation  otherwise  likely  to  in- 
still pride,  jealousy,  and  distrust  of  mankind, 
served  at  once  as  an  antidote  to  these  evils, 
and  opened  the  way  to  better  dispositions.  Me- 
camas  had  served  his  prince  with  great  fidelity, 
and,  if  not  insensible  to  personal  ambition,  xvat 
at  least  satisfied  with  the  elevation  he  had  gained 
in  the  confidence  of  his  prince.  He  retained  the 
equestrian  rank  to  which  he  was  born,  without 
endeavouring  to  accumulate  the  preferments  or 
titles  which  were  so  much  an  object  of  ambition 
in  the  early  part  of  this  reign,  and  so  easy  an 
acquisition  in  the  latter  part  of  it.5  It  is  observed, 
however,  that  he  experienced,  as  is  common, 
some  vicissitude  in  his  master's  temper,  and  out- 
lived the  high  measure  of  favour  which  he  en- 
joyed, but  without  any  interruption  of  his  duty. 
As  he  lived,  when  most  in  favour,  without  any 
public  envy,  so  he  escaped  every  public  insult 
when  supposed  in  disgrace.  While  he  presented 
the  emperor  with  a  continual  model  of  elegance, 
ingenuity,  and  good  temper,  he  took  the  liberty 
to  check  his  passions,  and  served  him  no  less  by 
the  sincerity  of  his  speech,  than  by  the  ability  of 
his  conduct.  An  instance  of  the  freedom  he  took 


1  Tacit".  Annal.  2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  4. 

3  Sueton.  in  August,  c.  56.  4  Ibid. 


5  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  iii.  c.  30. 


Chap.  IV.j 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


439 


is  mentioned  on  occasion  of  a  trial  in  which  Au- 
gustus himself,  according  to  custom,  sat  in  judg- 
ment on  some  criminals  of  state.  Mecaenas  ob- 
serving him  agitated  with  passion,  and  likely  to 
pronounce  some  precipitant  or  cruel  sentence, 
and  being  hindered  by  the  crowd  from  reaching 
his  ear,  handed  a  billet  to  him,  which  contained 
no  more  than  two  words,  which  may  be  transla- 
ted into  this  homely  expression,  hangman,  be- 
gone!6 The  admonition,  however,  had  its  effect, 
and  the  emperor  adjourned  the  court. 

The  minister  left  his  whole  estate,  as  was  the 
fashion  of  the  age,  to  the  emperor's  disposal.7 

By  the  successive  diminutions  of  the  list  of 
confidants,  on  whom  Augustus  relied  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  his  government,  the  influence  of 
Livia,  and  the  fortunes  of  her  son  Tiberius, 
received  a  continual  advancement. 
U.  C.  746.  The  latter,  after  he  had  resumed 
Tiberius  the  military  habit,  in  his  capacity 
Ner?lCn  °^  comman^er  °f  tne  armies  on  the 
Calpumius,  Rhine,  being  to  enter  on  the  office 
Au<r.2\mo,'  of  consul,  was  received  by  the  se- 
JELat.  55.  nate  in  the  Curia  Octavia,  beyond 
the  walls  of  the  city.  In  his  ad- 
dress to  this  assembly  he  spoke  of  the  public 
works  which  he  proposed  to  erect.  Among  these 
a  temple  of  Concord,  to  be  inscribed  with  his 
own  name,  joined  with  that  of  his  brother ;  and 
of  another  temple,  to  be  dedicated  by  himself,  in 
conjunction  with  his  mother  Livia.  He  gave, 
in  her  name  and  in  his  own,  upon  this  occasion, 
splendid  entertainments  to  the  senate,  and  to 
persons  of  distinction  of  both  sexes.  Having 
vowed  an  exhibition  of  public  shows  for  the  safe 
return  of  the  emperor  from  his  last  campaign,  he 
made  all  the  necessary  provision  for  the  perform- 
ance of  his  vow ;  but  being  obliged  to  set  out  for 
the  army,  he  trusted  the  discharge  of  this  duty 
with  Piso,  his  colleague  in  the  consulate,  and  with 
Caius,  the  eldest  of  the  emperor's  sons. 

This  solemnity  received  a  great  addition  from 
the  sports  and  entertainments  which  were  given 
at  the  same  time  by  the  emperor  himself,  to  cele- 
brate the  memory  of  Agrippa,  at  the  opening 
of  the  portico,  of  the  hall,  and  of  the  pleasure- 
grounds  which  had  been  bequeathed  by  that  of- 
ficer to  the  Roman  people.8  Gladiators  were 
exhibited  at  first  in  simple  pairs,  afterwards  in 
numerous  parties,  that  fought  as  in  real  battles. 
Such  was  the  ferocity  of  the  Romans  in  the 
choice  of  amusements,  even  after  the  character 
of  the  people  ceased  to  be  military,  and  when  the 
public  entertainments,  formerly  perhaps  in  part 
intended  as  nurseries  for  soldiers,  had  no  longer 
any  other  obiect  than  that  of  ministering  to  their 
pleasure. 

The  Caesars,  Cams  and  Lucius,  though  yet 
too  young  for  business  of  state,  began  to  feel  the 
spur  of  ambition,  and  were  alarmed  at  the  ad- 
vancement of  Livia's  family.  Even  their  own 
step-father,  Tiberius,  they  were  taught  to  consi- 
der as  a  rival  in  consideration  and  power.  And 
it  is  said,  that,  in  order  to  keep  pace  with  him  in 
his  advancement  to  public  honours,  the  youngest 
of  the  two  brothers  made  application  to  be  vested 
with  the  dignity  of  consul.    The  proposal  was 

6  Surge,  Carnifex. 

7  The  same  year  in  which  Mecrcnas  died  put  a  period 
likewise  to  the  life  of  Horace.  That  of  Virgil  ended 
about  ten  years  before.   Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  7. 

8  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  8. 


received  by  the  people  with  applause,  but  discou 
raged  by  the  emperor,  who  reflecting,  as  he  pre- 
tended, on  the  presumption  of  his  own  youth,  or 
on  the  necessity  of  the  times  which  had  brought 
himself  forward  into  this  station  at  an  improper 
age,  was  pleased  to  say,  "That  he  hoped  never 
again  to  see  a  time  when  the  office  of  consul 
must  be  intrusted  to  a  person  under  twenty." 
To  pacify  the  young  man  under  this  disappoint- 
ment, he  was  advanced  to  the  dignity  of  the  priest- 
hood, got  admission  into  the  senate,  and  had  a 
place  among  the  members  of  that  body  at  the 
public  theatre. 

Soon  after  this  date  Tiberius,  probably  in  con- 
sequence of  the  jealousy  he  had 
U.  C.  747.    thus  given  to  the  emperor' s  adopted 
D.  Leliiis       sons,  underwent  a  great  and  sud- 

C^SnteHus  den  chanSe  in  the  state  of  his>  for- 
Vetus.  Aug.  tunes.  Upon  his  return  from  the 
22do,  JEtat.  5G.  campaign  on  the  Rhine,  he  was 

vested  with  the  character  of  tri- 
bune of  the  people  for  five  years;  and,  under 
pretence  of  a  war  likely  to  arise  on  the  Euphra- 
tes, from  the  defection  of  the  king  of  Armenia, 
who  was  disposed  to  join  the  Parthians,  he  was 
appointed  to  command  the  armies  in  Syria;  but 
it  soon  after  appeared,  that  this  preferment  and 
change  of  station  were  devised  to  conceal  a  spe- 
cies of  exile  or  removal  from  the  court.  At  his 
departure  from  Rome,  he  passed  into  Asia ;  but 
instead  of  continuing  his  route  to  his  pretended 
destination  in  Syria,  he  withdrew  to  the  island 
of  Rhodes,  where,  under  pretence  of  study,  he 
lived  some  years  in  retirement. 

The  real  cause  of  this  retreat  of 
U.  C.  748.  Tiberius,  whether  the  jealousies  of 
Imperator  the  young  Caesars,  the  misconduct 
C&sar  \2mo.  of  Julia,  or  any  other  offence  taken 
P.  Cornelius,  nv  tne  empCror  himself,  was  never 
Aug.Zitio  known;  and  we  are  deprived  of 
JEtat.  57.  '     any  light  which  might  have  been 

thrown  by  Dion  Cassius,  on  this,  or 
U.  C.  749.  the  transactions  of  some  of  the  suc- 
C.  Calvinius,   ceeding  years,  by  a  manifest  breach 

JSjjjj     in  the text of his  history-  This de- 

jiUSsus!enUS  fect  *s  very  imperfectly  supplied 
Aug  2\to,  from  Xiphilinus,  Zonaras,  or  any 
JEtat.  58.       other  of  the  abbreviators  or  copiers 

of  this  historian. 
U.  C.  750.  In  collecting  from  such  authors, 
L  Cornelius  what  is  little  more  than  the  names 
Lcntnliis,  0f  consuls,  which  serve  to  mark  the 
M  "',/ariUS  ProSross  of  tlattJS.  we  lcarn  that  & 
Aug?%5to  tne  tirst  vear  a^tvT  ,ne  retirement  of 
JEtat.  59.'  Tiberius,  the  emperor  himself  hav- 
ing persisted,  for  seventeen  years 
U.  C.  751.  preceding  this  date,  in  rejecting  the 
Im  erator  office  of  ordinary  consul,  now  again 
OcmrYMo,  accepted  of  it ;  that  he  intended,  in 
Jib.  M  S-lau-  this  character,  to  solemnize  the  ad- 
tus  Silanus,  mission  of  his  sons  Caius  and  Lu- 
CciHinius  cius  to  the  affe  0f  manhood;9  that 
Oallus.  ...  &  i  i 

Au<r.  2Gto.  tne  ceremony  was  accordingly  per- 
JEtat~W.  formed  with  respect  to  the  eldest, 
who  now  assumed  the  ordinary 
dress  of  a  man,  was  brought  into  the  senate,  and 
declared  chief  of  the  Roman  youth  ;10  but  with 
respect  to  the  youngest,  that  it  was  deferred  till 
about  three  years  afterwards,  when  the  emperor 
again  appeared  in  the  character  of  consul. 


9  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  26.     10  Zonaras,  lib.  x.  c.  35 


440 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  "VI. 


In  one  of  the  years  of  this  period,  or  about  the 
year  of  Rome  seven  hundred  and  fifty-one,  is 
fixed  by  the  vulgar  computation  the  commence- 
ment of  our  era  at  the  birth  of  Christ;  an  event 
not  calculated  to  have  an  immediate  influence  on 
the  transactions  of  state,  or  to  make  a  part  in  the 
materials  of  political  history,  though  destined  to 
produce,  in  a  few  ages,  a  great  change  in  the 
institutions,  manners,  and  general  character  of 
nations. 

At  this  date,  from  the  imperfect  records  which 
remain,  we  have  scarcely  any  materials  of  histo- 
ry, besides  the  occurrences  of  the  court,  and  the 
city  of  Rome ;  the  public  entertainments  that 
were  given,  the  occasions  on  which  they  were 
exhibited,  and  the  provision  that  was  made  in 
the  capital  for  the  subsistence  and  pleasure  of  an 
idle  and  profligate  populace. 

The  emperor  having  again  assumed  the  office 
of  ordinary  consul,  that  he  might  preside  at  the 
admission  of  his  younger  adopted  son,  Lucius 
Caesar,  to  the  age  of  manhood,  continued  to  hold 
the  office  no  longer  than  was  necessary  for  this 
purpose.  He  exhibited  magnificent  shows  as 
usual  upon  this  occasion,  and  among  others,  one 
that  is  mentioned  probably  as  a  novelty,  a  shoal 
of  six-and-thirty  crocodiles  of  uncommon  size, 
turned  out  to  be  hunted  or  fished  in  the  bason  of 
the  circus  Flaminius.1  While  the  emperor  gra- 
tified the  people  in  their  public  diversions  to  a 
degree  of  debauch,  he  made  some  attempts  to  re- 
gulate the  gratuitous  distribution  of  com,  that 
other  principal  engine  of  abuse  which  the  Roman 
citizens,  though  in  other  respects  fallen  from 
their  sovereignty,  still  carefully  retained  among 
the  relics  of  their  democratical  government. 

The  people  of  Rome,  so  long  as  they  could 
overawe  the  senate  by  their  assemblies  or  tumults, 
and  so  long  as  they  had  the  disposal  of  prefer- 
ments and  honours,  bartered  their  suffrages  for 
sports  and  distributions  of  corn.  For  these  too, 
they  were  now  willing  to  sell  their  submission  to 
the  present  establishment,  and  it  was  undoubted- 
ly more  safe  to  have  deprived  them  of  every  other 
prerogative,  than  to  restrain  them  in  these.  The 
numbers  that  were  accustomed  to  receive  corn  at 
the  public  granaries,  as  we  may  judge  from  the 
number  of  two  hundred  thousand,  to  which  it 
was  now  proposed  to  reduce  them,  had  increased 
to  an  immoderate  height ;  and  as  the  circum- 
stance of  being  subsisted  gratuitously,  encouraged 
idleness,  so  the  very  attendance  required  at  these 
monthly  distributions  gave  a  considerable  inter- 
ruption to  labour.  The  emperor  endeavoured  to 
apply  some  correction  to  both  these  evils,  by  re- 
ducing the  number  of  pensioners,  and  by  limit- 
ing the  times  of  distribution  to  three  particular 
terms  in  the  year.2  But  in  making  this  attempt 
he  received  so  many  complaints,  that  he  was 
obliged  to  lay  aside  the  design. 

A  populace  thus  supported  in  idleness  must 
likewise  be  amused,  and  they  received,  in  this 
particular,  from  their  masters,  whether  acting 
from  choice  or.  policy,  not  only  in  the  first  period, 
but,  in  the  subsequent  ages  of  this  monarchy,  the 
most  lavish  indulgence.  By  Augustus  in  person, 
they  were  presented  at  different  times  with  four 
capital  exhibitions,  consisting  of  all  the  entertain- 
ments in  which  they  were  known  to  delight,  and 
with  three-and-twenty  great  festivals,  solemnized 


in  honour  of  some  other  persons,  as  of  his  fathe? 
Julius  Caesar,  of  his  nephew  Marcellus,  of  hi* 
friend  Agrippa,  and  of  his  young  relations  now 
entering  into  manhood,  and  coming  to  the  pos- 
session of  public  honours. 

The  sports  themselves,  though  fierce  and  irra- 
tional in  many  instances,  were  splendid,  magni- 
ficent, and  sometimes  interesting.  The  presence 
of  the  Roman  people,  in  vast  spaces  or  theatres 
fitted  up  to  receive  them,  was  always  awful  and 
sublime.  The  precedence  of  rank  at  these  en- 
tertainments, was  considered,  even  under  the 
republic,  as  a  principal  object  of  state.  The  first 
benches  were  reserved  for  the  senators ;  the  next, 
at  certain  periods,  had  been  allotted  to  the  eques- 
trian order ;  and  the  question,  whether  this  order 
should  be  mixed  with  the  people,  or  separated 
from  them,  made  a  subject  at  different  times  of 
much  dispute  and  contention.  The  female  sex 
too  had  their  places,  though  at  the  fights  of  gla- 
diators they  were  removed  to  a  distance,  being 
seated  behind  the  other  spectators ;  and  from  the 
athletic  games  were  excluded  altogether.3 

The  coarseness,  nevertheless,  of  those  public 
entertainments  to  which  the  Roman  women  were 
still  admitted ;  the  want,  of  any  interval,  in  their 
manners,  between  a  rigorous  severity,  and  the 
other  extreme  of  an  unbounded  license,  had,  in 
many  instances,  the  worst  effect  on  their  conduct. 
The  emperor  himself  had  a  distressing  example 
of  this  effect  in  his  own  family,  by  the  flagrant 
debaucheries  of  his  daughter  Julia,  who,  having 
once  quitted  the  reserve,  and  broke  through  the 
austerities  of  her  father's  house,  had  no  longer 
any  restraints  of  decency  or  established  propriety 
to  regulate  her  behaviour.  It  was  reported,  that, 
without  any  pretence  of  seduction,  affection,  01 
choice,  she  multiplied  her  paramours  indefinitely, 
and  even  frequented  the  places  of  public  debauch. 

The  emperor,  though  not  supposed  to  be  want- 
ing in  the  tenderness  of  a  parent,  upon  the  de- 
tection of  these  disorders,  proceeded  against  his 
daughter  more  with  the  rigour  of  an  offended 
magistrate,  than  with  the  reluctant  severity  of  a 
father.  In  the  first  transport  of  his  passion, 
he  hastened  to  lay  his  accusation  before  the  se- 
nate, and  obtained  from  this  assembly  an  act  of 
banishment  against  her,  by  which  she  was  re- 
moved to  a  small  island  on  the  coast,  reduced  to 
low  diet,  and  forbid  to  receive  any  visits ;  a  species 
of  imprisonment,  which  became  common  in  the 
sequel  of  this  and  the  subsequent  reigns. 

Scribonia,  the  mother  of  the  unhappy  exile, 
now  arrived  at  a  great  age,  and  preserving  i 
a  state  of  separation  from  her  husband,  an  un 
blemished  reputation,  gave  way  to  the  feeling 
of  nature,  and  followed  her  child  into  this  pla 
of  retreat  or  imprisonment.  The  father  to 
upon  reflection,  grievously  lamented  his  rashness 
in  publishing,  by  a  reference  to  the  senate,  th 
scandal  of  his  own  house,  and  bitterly  regretter 
the  severity  by  which  he  had  empoisoned  an 
rendered  incurable  the  wounds  of  his  own  fami 
ly.  "  If  Agrippa  or  Mecsnas  had  lived,"  h 
was  heard  to  say,  "I  should  have  been restraine 
from  this  act  of  imprudence."4 

In  the  sequel  of  this  transaction,  he  indulg- 
his  resentment  with  less  struggle  against  th 
supposed  partners  of  his  daughter's  guilt ;  ordere 
Julius  Antonius,  with  some  other  persons  o 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  10. 


2  Ibid. 


3  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  44.      4  Seneca  de  Ben.  c.  32 


Chap.  IV.] 


OP  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


441 


high  rank  involved  in  the  same  charge,  to  be  put 
to  death.  With  respect  to  one  of  these  crimi- 
nals, who  happened  to  be  vested  with  the  cha- 
racter of  tribune,  he  affected  a  regard  to  the  an- 
cient laws  of  the  republic,  and  was  pleased  to 
respite  the  execution  of  the  sentence,  until  the 
time  of  his  office  as  tribune  should  expire.  Be- 
ing told  that  Phoebe,  the  freed  woman  and  con- 
fidant of  Julia,  when  she  heard  of  her  mistress's 
fate,  had  put  herself  to  death ;  "  I  had  rather  he 
the  father  of  Phoebe,"  he  said,  "than  of  Julia." 

Persons  who  were  disposed  to  pay  their  court, 
ever  ready  to  seize  the  opportunity,  took  occasion 
to  flatter  the  emperor,  even  on  occasion  of  this 
painful  transaction.  They  hastened  to  show 
themselves  in  a  situation  like  that  of  the  prince, 
and  to  offer  him  the  consolation  of  fellow-sufferers, 
in  the  distress  he  endured  ;  made  complaints  in 
the  senate  of  the  license  of  their  daughters  and 
of  their  wives,  and  even  raked  up  particulars  of  a 
very  obsolete  date.  They  too  brought  formal 
prosecutions,  in  order  to  obtain  the  interposition 
of  law  and  public  authority,  to  restrain  the  dis- 
orders of  their  children  ;  but  the  emperor  re- 
ceived this  species  of  courtship  with  indifference, 
and  refused  to  hear  any  accusation,  of  which  the 
Buhject  had  preceded  a  fixed  and  very  recent 
date.5 

■rj  «  -ro  We  are  left  at  a  loss  for  the  sequel 
.  /o-.  Qf  tkjs  history^  during  the  two  years 
Cassus  Cor-  that  immediately  followed ;  but  in  a 
nehus  Lcn-  peri0(i  0f  which  these  were  the 
purnius  Piso.  principal  transactions,  we  cannot  be 
Jtug.  27mo.  surprised  that  the  chronicle  is  defec- 
JEtat.  61.      tive,  nor  indeed  greatly  regret  the 

silence  of  a  few  years. 
The  ordinary  administration  of  Augustus,  in 

pursuing  the  political,  civil,  and  mili- 
U.  C  753.  tary  forms,  which  he  had  established, 

no  doubt  was  able  and  successful; 
C.  Catsar,      but  being  once  described,  does  not 

£M£/i£T'  atlmit  °f  rePetition-  The  more  in" 
PaulullUS  teresting  subjects  of  history,  trans- 
Aag.  28vo.  actions  that  rouse  the  passions,  and 
JEtal.  62.  keep  in  suspense  the  expectations, 
the  hopes,  and  the  fears  of  men,  were 
in  this  reign  most  carefully  avoided.  A  powerf  ul 
army  was  stationed  on  the  Rhine,  to  keep  the 
peace  of  that  frontier.  Even  the  court  was  lull- 
ed into  perfect  tranquillity  by  the  want  of  any 
competition  for  the  emperor's  favour.  This  point 
being  fully  decided,  by  the  place  which  was  oc- 
cupied by  the  Caesars,  Caius  and  Lucius;  their 
supposed  rival  Tiberius,  who  had  been  sacrificed 
to  their  jealousy,  still  remained  in  his  exile  at 
Rhodes. 

The  defection  of  Armenia  from  the  alliance 
of  the  Romans  to  that  of  the  Parthians,  the  oc- 
casion upon  which  it  had  been  pretended  that 
Tiberius  was  destined  to  command  in  Asia,  still 

subsisted ;  but  the  command  of  the 
U.  C.  754.  armies  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
P.  Vinucius  with  the  charge  of  recovering  the 

kingdom  of  Armenia  to  its  former 
Jhiff.^no.  stat^  °f  dependence  on  Rome,  was 
JEtat.  63.      committed  to  Caius  Caesar,  now  first 

in  the  favour  of  the  emperor,  and 
highest  in  the  expectations  of  the  people. 

It  was  thought  proper,  that  both  the  brothers, 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  10. 
3K 


about  this  time,  should  be  sent  to  the  command 
of  armies ;  Caius  to  that  of  Syria,  and  Lucius  to 
Spain ;  and  these  removals  of  the  young  Csesars 
from  court  were  supposed  to  be  devised  or  pro- 
cured by  the  empress  Livia,  because  they  made 
way,  in  a  little  time  afterwards,  for  the  recall  of 
her  son  .6 

But  before  any  resolution  taken  at  court  in  fa- 
vour of  Tiberius  was  publicly  known,  Caius 
Cffisar,  in  his  way  to  the  east,  arrived  in  Greece, 
attended  by  a  numerous  train  of  officers.  At 
Chios,  he  received  a  visit  from  Tiberius,  profess- 
ing the  most  submissive  respect  to  the  prince 
himself,  and  to  the  officers  of  his  court ;  and  from 
thence  continued  his  route  through  the  province 
of  Asia,  every  where  received  as  the  son  of  the 
emperor. 

The  king  of  Parthia,  upon  the  arrival  of  the 
young  Caesar  in  his  neighbourhood,  desired  to 
have  a  conference  with  him,  and  they  met  on 
the  Euphrates  in  a  small  island,  each  having  an 
equal  number  of  attendants.  They  afterwards 
mutually  accepted  of  entertainments  from  each 
other  in  their  respective  quarters.  Phraates 
agreed  not  to  support  the  Armenians,  in  their 
defection  from  the  alliance  of  the  Romans,  and 
Caius  proceeded  to  take  possession  of  their  coun- 
try, as  a  province  of  Rome.  On  his  approach  to 
Antagera,  a  place  on  the  frontier  of  Armenia,  the 
gates  being  shut  against  him,  he  presented  him- 
self under  the  walls,  and  while  he  summoned  the 
governor  to  surrender,  was  struck  by  an  arrow 
from  the  battlements.  The  wound  he  received, 
though  in  appearance  not  mortal,  affected  his 
health,  and  threw  him  into  a  state  of  dejection 
and  languor,  in  which  he  desired  to  be  recalled 
from  his  station,  and  expressed  his  disgust  to 
affairs  of  state. 

Caius  being  permitted  to  retire  from 
U.  C.  755.  his  command  by  the  emperor,  who 
L.  JKlius  was  mortified  to  find  in  him  a  pusil- 
Lamia,  lanimity  so  unworthy  of  the  son  of 
M  Serviliu.3  Agrippa,  and  of  his  own  successor 
j:iir°%0mo.  was  cari"ie(l  to  coast  in  a  litter, 
JEtat.  64.  and  there  embarked  for  Italy ;  but 
having  on  his  way  put  into  a  port  of 
Lycia,  he  died  at  Lymira  in  that  province. 

Lucius,  the  other  grandson  of  Augustus,  by 
his  daughter  Julia,  died  some  time  before  at 
Marseilles,  in  his  way  to  Spain  ;  and  these  deaths 
happening  so  opportunely  for  the  family  of  Livia, 
laid  this  designing  woman  under  suspicion  of 
having  been  active  in  procuring  them.  The 
bodies  of  the  deceased  were  borne  through  the 
provinces  by  officers  of  rank,  and  by  the  princi- 
pal inhabitants,  to  be  entered  at  Rome.  Their 
shields  and  lances,  richly  adorned  with  gold, 
being  gifts  made  to  them  by  the  equestrian  order, 
when  they  were  admitted  to  the  age  of  manhood, 
were  hung  up  as  monuments  in  the  hall  of  the 
senate.7 

About  this  time,  the  third  period  of  ten  years, 
for  which  Augustus  had  accepted  of  the  govern- 
ment, being  expired,  he  went  through  the  form 
of  laying  down,  and  re-assuming  his  power. 

The  people,  at  one  of  the  entertainments 
which  were  given  on  this  occasion,  having  ap- 
plied to  the  emperor  an  applauded  passage  of 


6  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  103. 

7  Zonaras,  lib.  x.  c.  36.  Yell.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  \0\ 
103    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  11,  12. 


442  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


some  poet,  with  the  title  of  "lord  or  master,"  he 
gave  signs  of  displeasure,  and,  on  the  following 
day,  published  a  severe  edict,  forbidding  the  title 
of  "  master"  being  given  to  him  by  any  person, 
or  upon  any  occasion  whatever.1  "  My  name  is 
Csesar,"  he  said,  "and  not  master." 

Augustus  was  now  in  the  decline  of  life,  had 
survived  his  principal  confidants  and  friends, 
his  nephew  and  grandchildren,  on  whom  he  had 
rested  his  hopes.  He  had  been  recently  dishonour- 
ed in  the  conduct  of  his  daughter,  and  had  bound 
himself,  by  a  formal  act  of  the  senate,  to  persist 
in  the  rigour  of  his  treatment  towards  her.  In 
these  circumstances,  it  was  thought  that  inter- 
cessions in  favour  of  a  child  must  be  flattering  to 
the  father,  and  many  applications  were  accord- 
ingly made  in  her  behalf;  but  he  remained  inex- 
orable, and  being  guided  entirely  by  the  in- 
fluence of  Livia,  cast  himself  upon  her  family  as 
a  last  resource,  Under  these  circumstances,  and 
from  the  approach  of  old  age,  he  was  observed  to 
languish,  and  to  lose  much  of  his  former  vivacity. 

Tiberius  had  been  recalled  to  Rome  soon  after 
the  departure,  and  before  the  death  of  the  two 
Ceesars.  Upon  this  last  event,  he  was  adopted 
by  the  emperor ;  but  on  condition,  that  he  him- 
self, though  a  father,  having  a  son  already  men- 
tioned of  the  name  of  Drusus,.  by  his  first  wife 
"Vipsania,  should  nevertheless  adopt  Germanicus 
Csesar,  the  son  of  his  brother,  who  being  elder 
than  his  own  son,  was  intended  to  have  the  advan- 
tage of  seniority  in  all  their  future  pretensions. 

This  successor  to  Agrippa  and  his 
U.  C.  756.  family,  being  now  the  adopted  son 
Sext  JElius  °f  Augustus,  and  heir  apparent  of 
Catus,  his  fortunes,  had  every  where  a 
C.  Sentius  numerous  attendance  of  persons  who 
Satarrnus.  wished  to  pay  their  court.  Being 
'jEtatl™*  appointed  to  his  former  station,  at 
the  head  of  the  armies  on  the  Rhine, 
his  progress  through  the  provinces  to  that  fron- 
tier, was  marked  by  the  multitudes  who  flocked 
from  all  quarters  to  receive  him.  In  his  first 
campaign  he  penetrated  to  the  Weser,  and  over- 
ran all  the  nations  of  that  neighbourhood.2 

The  emperor,  relying  upon  his  newly  adopted 
son  for  the  conduct  of  the  war  on  the  Rhine, 
remained  at  Rome,  where  he  was  employed 
chiefly  in  reforming  the  senate,  and  in  rebuilding 
the  palace  which  had  been  lately  consumed  by 
fire.  In  the  last  of  these  works,  he  had  offers  of 
assistance  from  many  of  the  senators,  and  from 
persons  of  his  court,  who  brought  him  consider- 
able sums  in  the  way  of  voluntary  contributions. 
Being  unwilling,  however,  to  let  the  burden  thus 
fall  entirely  upon  persons  the  most  attached  to 
himself,  he  laid  a  tax  of  twenty-five  denarii  on 
each  corporation,  and  a  capitation  of  one  dena- 
rius on  each  private  person ;  and  having  from 
this  fund  rebuilt  the  palace,  which  had  hitherto 
been  accounted  a  private  property,  he  declared  it 
for  the  future  a  public  edifice,  destined  as  a  man- 
sion for  the  supreme  commander  of  the  army, 
and  head  of  the  empire,3 

Ten  commissioners  being  appointed  to  inspect 
the  rolls  of  the  senate,  and  to  restore  its  dignity, 
the  first  measure  proposed  for  this  purpose  was 
to  take  away  all  appearance  of  constraint,  and 
to  leave  every  member  at-  liberty  to  resign  his 


[Book  Vf, 

seat ;  but  the  greater  number,  either  fearing  to 
be  marked  out  as  disaffected  to  the  present  go- 
vernment, or  willing  to  partake  in  the  bounty 
of  CfBsar,  who,  in  many  instances,  repaired  the 
fortunes  of  senators  that  were  gone  to  decay, 
still  continued  to  hold  their  places,  and  affected 
zeal  for  the  forms  on  which  Augustus  was  pleased 
to  rest  his  authority. 

In  this  and  other  instances,  it  is  instructive  to 
observe  with  what  care  this  sovereign  of  the  em* 
pire  endeavoured  to  flatter  the  vanity  of  Roman 
citizens,  and  to  preserve  the  distinction  of  ranks, 
while  in  reality  his  policy  was  calculated  to  re- 
move all  distinctions,  to  render  all  ranks  equally 
dependant  on  himself ;  or,: if  any  distinction  were 
suffered  to  remain,  tended  in  the  sequel,  or  under 
his  successors,  to  render  the  most  honourable 
conditions  the  least  secure. 

Augustus  had  returns  made  of  all  the  most 
respectable  families  in  Italy,  and  of  those  who 
had  a  property  of  above  two  hundred  sestertia.* 
He  laid  great  restraints  on  the  manumission  of 
slaves  ;  a  practice  by  which  he  alleged,  that  the 
privileges  of  Romans  were  rashly  prostituted 
to  the  refuse  of  all  nations,  and  to  the  meanest 
order  of  men.  The  Lex  iElia  Sentia,  which 
took  its  name  from  one  of  the  consuls  of  this 
year,  had,  for  its  object,  the  reformation  of  this 
abuse.  By  this  law  was  fixed  the  age  at  which 
a  master  should  have  the  power  of  setting  his 
slave  at  liberty,  and  the  age  of  the  slave  at  which 
he  might  be  set  free,  together  with  the  mutual 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  patron  or  former 
master,  and  of  the  freed  man,  or  emancipated 
slave.5 

As  the  present  government  began  to  have 
proscription,  as  well  as  expediency  on  its  side,, 
every  attempt  on  the  emperor's  life  had  the  crimi- 
nality of  treason,  and  must  have  been  condemn- 
ed upon  every  consideration  which  established 
monarchy  can  suggest.  Whoever  made  such 
an  attempt  might  be  considered  as  a  dangerous^ 
and  ill-advised  assassin,  who  attacked  the  com- 
munity itself  in  the  person  of  its  sovereign,  and 
whose  crime,  in  that  particular  instance,  tended 
to  involve  the  world  anew  in  anarchy  and  blood- 
shed. 

The  privileges  or  pretensions  of  citizens,  under 
the  republic,  were  long  since  effaced.  But  a  very 
few  were  left  who  had  enjoyed,  or  even  could- 
remember  the  existence  of  them ;  yet  private 
resentment,  or  the  remains  of  republican  zeal, 
and  the  supposed  right  of  every  person  to  repel 
usurpations,  had  produced  some  attempts  of  this 
sort  during  the  present  reign.  Even  in  this 
advanced  period  of  it,  a  conspiracy  was  detected, 
in  which*  Cornelius  Cinna,  a  grandson  of  Pom- 
pey,  and  descended  of  that  Cinna,  who,  together 
with  Caius  Marius,  was  once  at  the  head  of  the 
popular  faction,  formed  a  design  to  suppress  the 
present  usurpation  of  Caesar,  and  to  restore  the 
republic,  in  which  his  ancestors  had  made  so 
conspicuous  a  figure. 

Augustus  was  greatly  perplexed  on  the  disco- 
very of  this  plot ;  and  having  already,  on  like 
occasions,  exhausted  the  means  of  severity,  was 
now,  it  is  said,  persuaded  by  Livia  to  try  the 
effects  of  clemency,  and  of  a  generous  confi- 
dence. "  This  conduct,"  she  observed,  "  would 
tend  to  disarm  his  enemies,  and  would  interest 


1  Orosius,  lib.  vi.  fine.'  2  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  104. 
3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  12,  13. 


4  About  1600/*  5  Dio.  Ca?s.  lib.  lv.  c.  13. 


Chap.  IV.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


443 


numbers  in  his  preservation  by  the  ties  of  affec- 
tion and  gratitude." 

The  emperor,  being  accordingly  prevailed  on 
to  take  this  course,  ordered  that  the  conspirator 
should  be  introduced  to  his  presence,  gave  him 
to  understand,  that  his  guilt  was  discovered,  and 
his  accomplices  known,  remonstrated  against  an 
attempt  so  ungenerous  and  unprovoked,  but  re- 
lieved the  young  man  of  his  fears,  by  assuring 
him  of  pardon,  and  of  every  other  species  of 
protection  for  the  future.  In  these  assurances 
fie  even  went  beyond  what  mere  clemency  re- 
quired, affected  to  upbraid  the  author  of  a  design 
on  his  own  life  with  false  modesty,  in  not  de- 
manding the  honours  to  which  he  was  justly 
entitled  by  his  birth  ;  and  concluded  with  saying, 
That,  as  he  trusted  they  were  from  hencefor- 
ward to  be  friends,  he  should  be  glad  to  receive 
his  applications  in  any  matter  by  which  he  could 
■contribute  to  his  advancement  or  interest^  and, 
in  the  mean  time,  named  him  for  consul  at  the 
next  succession  to  this  dignity. 

In  this  year  are  dated,  among 
TJ.  C.  757.  other  measures,  some  regulations 
Cn  Cornelius  wn^c*1  were  ma('e  DY  tne  emperor 
{Jin-no,™* f°r  tne  better  government  of  the 
JUapnus.  army  ;  and,  what  was  scarcely  less 
L.  Valerius,  important  in  the  opinion  of  the 
^lasiM  times,  for  the  conduct  of  entertain- 
v9«^S32A>.  ments  in  the  public  theatres.  The 
JEtat.  66.  military  establishment  consisted  of 
six-and-twenty  legions,6  with  nine 
or  ten  praetorian  bands,  composed  of  a  thousand 
men  each.  Augustus,  to  restore  the  honours  of 
the  military  character,  had,  from  the  beginning 
of  his  reign,  made  it  a  rule  to  exclude  from  his 
armies,  as  much  as  possible,  all  emancipated 
slaves.  This  exclusion,  together  with  some  re- 
formations which  diminished  the  profits  formerly 
enjoyed  by  military  men,  rendered  it  extremely 
difficult,  upon  any  sudden  emergency,  to  com- 
plete the  legions.  Augustus  found  himself 
obliged  to  increase  his  bounty  in  order  to  recruit 
Ahe  army ;  but  instead  of  giving  more  to  fhose 
who  enlisted,  or  increasing  his  levy-money,  he 
chose  to  engage  them  by  the  hope  of  future 
.advantages,  to  be  reaped  after  certain  periods  of 
dutiful  service.  In  the  prsetorian  bands,  he  made 
*  regulation,  that,  after  sixteen  years'  service,  the 
veteran  should  be  entitled  to  his  dismission,  and 
a  premium  of  twenty  thousand  sesterces.7  In 
the  legions,  after  twelve  years'  service,  that  he 
should  be  entitled  to  twelve  thousand  sesterces  ;8 
and,  as  a  fund  for  these  payments,  it  is  probable 
that  the  tax  of  a  twentieth  on  all  legacies  be- 
queathed to  strangers,  heirs  of  choice,  or  to 
distant  relations,  was  imposed  about  this  time. 
This  tax  did  not  extend  to  the  inheritance  of 
the  ordinary  heir  at  law,  nor  to  legacies9  made 
to  the  poor,  or  to  persons  in  indigent  circum- 
stances. 

With  respect  to  the  publie  entertainments, 
fresh  regulations  were  made  to  keep  places  in 
>the  circus  for  senators  and  knights,  apart  from 
the  commons,  or  lower  class  of  the  people. 

It  being  observed,  that  the  office  of  sedile, 
which  formerly  included  the  care  of  all  public 
entertainments,  was  avoided  ;  and  that  even  the 


6  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  23.  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  iv.s.  5, 

7  About  100/.  8  About  100/. 
9  Dio,  Cobs.  lib.  lv.  c  24. 


dignity  of  a  vestal,  which  was  wont  to  be  so 
much  desired  by  the  most  honourable  families  at 
Rome,  ceased  to  be  in  request,  it  was  decreed, 
that  all  the  quaestors  of  any  preceding  year  should 
cast  lots  for  the  office  of  ssdile ;  and  that  the 
rules  restricting  the  choice  of  vestals  to  persons 
of  the  most  noble  extraction,  should  now  be  con- 
siderably relaxed,  or  dispensed  with;  so  that 
women,  even  descended  from  enfranchised-slaves, 
might  be  admitted  into  this  order :  a  very  un- 
likely way  to  engage  persons  of  superior  rank  to 
adopt  it. 

This  year  Agrippa  Posthumus  came  of  age, 
and  assumed  the  dress  of  manhood  ;  but,  though 
adopted,  as  his  eider  brothers  had  been,  into  the 
family  of  the  emperor,  he  appears  not  to  have 
been  thought  worthy  to  replace  them  ;  and  being 
ol)scured  by  the  riper  age  and  superior  favour 
of  Tiberius,  he  passed  through  this  ceremony 
with  fewer  demonstrations  of  consideration  or 
respect  from  the  people  than  had  been  paid  to 
his  brothers. 

The  public  was  alarmed  with  earthquakes 
and  inundations  of  rivers,  which,  however  de- 
structive, were  considered  more  as  the  presages 
of  future  calamities  than  as  present  evils,  and 
their  significance  in  that  point  of  view  was  con- 
firmed by  a  famine,  which  immediately  followed 
or  accompanied  these  events.  The  inundation 
of  the  Tiber  had  overflowed  the  city  for  many 
days,  so  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  pass  through 
the  streets  in  boats.  The  markets  could  not  be. 
supplied  ;  and  this  circumstance,  joined  to  a  real 
scarcity,  which  kept  up  the  prices  after  the  inun- 
dation subsided,  occasioned  a  dearth  which  lasted 
for  some  years. 

During  this  time  of  distress,  it 
U.  C.  758.    being  thought  impossible  to  find  the 
usual  supply  of  provisions,  it  was 
Jfl.  JEmilius   judged  necessary  to  lessen  the  usual 
Lepidus,         consumption ;  and  for  this  purpose 

L  fi?j£?  a11  g,a(]iators>10  »11  s|aves  kePi  f°r 

"caucus  sa'°'  anu"  a"  f°rc'gnerfS  except  phy- 
Cams  Vibius.  sicians  and  public  teachers,  were 
Auff.  33tio,  ordered  to  be  removed  a  hundred 
•flSSot.  67.  miles  from  the  city.11  Even  the 
servants  and  attendants  of  the 
court  were  dismissed  in  great  numbers,  and  a 
vacation  was  proclaimed  in  the  courts  of  justice, 
in  order  that  as  many  as  could  possibly  be  spared 
from  the  city  should  depart.  The  attendance  of 
senators  was  dispensed  with,  and  the  law  requir- 
ing the  presence  of  certain  number*;  of  that  body 
to  give  validity  ;to  their  act*  was  suspended. 
Commissioners  were  named  to  inspect  the  mar- 
kets. All  feasting,  on  the  birth-day  of  the 
emperor,  or  on  other  days  of  rejoicing,  was  pro- 
hibited ;  and  persons,  wont  to  receive  .any  part 
of  their  subsistence  in  corn  from  the  jmblic  gra- 
naries, had  double  the  usual  quantity  served  out 
to  then). 

Notwithstanding  these  measures  taken  for  the 
relief  of  the  people,  their  discontents  breaking 
forth  in  libels  and  seditious  com  plaints,  rewards 
were  published  for  discovering  the  authors,  and 
some  being  detected,  were  brought  to  trial,  and 
punished.12 

The  emperor  now  willing,  from  the  decline 
of  his  age,  to  be  relieved  of  part  of  the  ordinary 


10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Iv.  c.  22.  11  Sueton.  in  Aug.  c-  40. 
12  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  26. 


444 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VL 


business  of  state,  intrusted  the  receiving  of 
foreign  ambassadors  to  three  persons  whom  he 
chose  from  the  senate.  At  the  same  time  he 
himself,  with  his  ordinary  council,  continued  to 
deliberate  on  all  questions  which  arose  relating  to 
the  internal  government  of  the  empire.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  committed  himself,  without  any 
prospect  of  change,  to  the  influence  of  Livia 
and  her  family  ;  and,  to  confirm  him  in  this  dis- 
position, had  frequent  visits  from  Tiberius,  who, 
though  generally  stationed  on  the  frontier  of  the 
empire,  carefully  attended  to  the  state  of  his 
interests  at  Rome,  as  they  stood  both  with  the 
emperor  and  with  the  people. 

In  the  tide  which  was  thus  turned  in  favour 
of  the  Claudian  family,  the  surviving  Agrippa 
seemed  to  form  an  insurmountable  bar  ;  but  this 
young  man,  being  of  a  rude  and  brutal  disposi- 
tion, gave  his  antagonist  every  advantage  in  their 
supposed  competition.    Having,  about  this  time, 

f riven  some  flagrant  proof  of  this  character  in 
lis  behaviour  to  Livia,  and  even  to  the  emperor 
himself,  he  was  degraded  from  his  place  in  the 
family  of  Caesar,  and  sent,  under  a  military 
guard,  to  the  island  of  Planasia,  near  to  Corsica, 
where  he  remained  a  prisoner  during  the  re- 
mainder of  this  reign.1 

From  the  disgrace  of  Agrippa  Posthumus, 
it  was  no  longer  doubtful  that  Tiberius  was  des- 
tined to  inherit  the  fortunes  and  power  of  Au- 
gustus. He  alone  was  entrusted  wherever 
great  armies  were  to  be  assembled,  and  was 
employed  in  every  service  that  was  likely  to  end 
with  iustre.  Troubles  on  the  frontier  of  Asia 
or  Africa  were  entrusted  to  other  hands ;  but 
the  harder  struggle  with  the  Germans,  Dalma- 
tians, and  other  fierce  nations  of  Europe,  was 
committed  to  him.  After  having  penetrated,  in 
his  last  campaign,  to  the  Weser  and  the  Elbe,2 
he  was  called  off  to  support  his  nephew  and 
adopted  son  Germanicus,  who,  commanding  the 
army  on  the  side  of  Dalmatia,  found  himself  too 
weak  to,  execute  the  service  on  which  he  had 
been  employed. 

The  provinces  east  of  the  Hadriatic,  and  from 
thence  probably  to  the  Danube, 
U.  C.  759.  had  formed  the  plan  of  a  general 
AZAcinius  revolt.  It  was  reported,  at  this 
Neroa  JF.lia-  time,  that  those  nations  could  as- 
nus,  Q.  Cvci-  semble  eight  hundred  thousand 
lias  Metellus  merl)  an<3  triat  they  had  two  hun- 
jlu<?C-i4to  ""red  thousand  foot  properly  armed, 
JEtat.  68.'  with  nine  thousand  horse.  Being 
so  powerful  in  point  of  numbers, 
they  were  enabled  to  divide  their  strength,  and 
to  carry  on  operations,  at  the  same  time,  in  dif- 
ferent places.  They  destined  one  part  of  their 
force  to  invade  Italy,  by  Tergeste  and  Nau- 
portus  ;  another  to  take  possession  of  Macedonia ; 
and  a  third  to  defend  their  own  possessions  at 
home.  They  had  now  joined  to  their  own  ferocity 
a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  discipline  and 
forms  of  the  Roman  legion,  and  conducted  their 
present  design  with  so  much  address  as  to  escape 
observation  until  it  was  ripe  for  execution.  They 
gave  the  first  intimation  of  their  hostile  inten- 
tions by  a  general  massacre  of  the  Romans, 
who,  as  provincial  officers  or  traders,  were  settled 
in  the  country,  and  cut  off  all  the  military  posts 
which  had  been  advanced  to  protect  them. 


1  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  \v.  c.  33. 


3  Ibid.  c.  27—30. 


They  entered  Macedonia  without  opposition, 
and  with  fire  and  sword  laid  waste  all  the  pos- 
sessions and  settlements  of  the  Romans  in  that 
province.3 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  a  war  with  the 
barbarous  nations  of  the  northern 
U.  C.  7G0.  and  eastern  frontier  of  the  empire, 
M.  Furius  whi^'h,  during  some  ages,  was,  at 
Camillas,  intervals,  interrupted  and  resumed, 
Sext.  Nonius  often  put  Italy  itself  upon  the 
Oeavtelianus.  defensive,  was  alwavs  formidable, 

JEtat  m,'      am]  at  last  fatal  t0  tne  sovereignty 
of  Rome. 

The  Romans,  by  the  continual  labours  of 
seven  centuries,  had  made  their  way  from  the 
Tiber  to  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  through 
the  territory  of  warlike  hordes  who  opposed 
them,  and  over  forests  and  rugged  ways  that 
were  every  where  to  be  cleared  at  the  expense 
of  their  labour  and  their  blocd  :  but  the  ways 
they  had  made  to  reach  their  enemies  were  now 
open,  in  their  turns,  for  enemies  to  reach  them. 
The  ample  resources  which  they  had  formed  by 
their  cultivation  increased  the  temptation  to 
invade  them,  and  facilitated  all  the  means  of 
making  war  upon  their  country.  By  reducing 
the  inhabitants  of  their  provinces,  in  every  part, 
to  pacific  subjects,  they  brought  the  defence  of 
the  empire  to  depend  on  a  few  professional  sol- 
diers who  composed  the  legions. 

Under  apprehension  of  these  circumstances, 
Augustus  was  heard  to  say,  on  the 
U.  C.  761.  present  occasion,  that  if  proper 
measures  were  not  speedily  taken 
Q.  Sulpicins  for  the  defence  of  Italy,  an  enemy 
Cawerinus,  from  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine 
Sabivus,  ex  might,  in  ten  days,  be  seen  from 
Kal  Jul.  the  battlements  of  Rome.  New 
M.  Papius  levies  were  accordingly  made,  and 
Maul  s,  tjle  orjer  not  to  enlist  emancipated 
Secmidl^8  slaves  was  suspended.  The  vete- 
Aag.  3fito.  rans,  who  had  been  discharged 
J&tcit.  70.  from  the  legions,  were  again  order- 
ed to  repair  to  their  colours;  and 
citizens  of  every  condition  were  required  to  fur- 
nish, in  proportion  to  their  estates  or  possessions, 
certain  quotas  of  men  for  the  service. 

While  the  people,  under  so  many  symptoms 
of  trepidation,  were  made  sensible  of  their  dan- 
ger, Augustus  seems  to  have  thought  it  a  proper 
opportunity  to  renew  the  part  he  had  often  acted 
in  recommending  population  and  marriage.  He 
called  together,  in  separate  assemblies,  first  the 
married  who  had  families  of  children,  afterwards 
the  barren  and  the  unmarried  ;  and  finding  the 
superiority  of  numbers  on  the  side  of  the  latter, 
expressed  his  concern  in  a  public  address  to  the 
people ;  enlarged  on  the  consequences  of  popula- 
tion to  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  revived  the  marriage-laws,  and,  by  an 
act  which  took  its  name  from  Papius  and  Pop- 
paeus,4  consuls  of  this  year,  gave  additional  re- 
wards to  the  married,  and  laid  new  penalties  on 
celibacy,  with  a  considerable  premium  to  the 
prosecutor  by  whom  any  person  should  be  con- 
victed of  this  offence. 

Before  these  regulations  should  be  enforced,  a 
year  was  allowed  to  the  unmarried  to  change 
their  condition  ;  and  the  rigour  of  former  laws,5 


3  Velleius  Paterculus,  lib.  ii.  c.  110. 

4  Lex  Papia  Pcppsa.  5  Lex  Voconia. 


Chap.  IV.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


445 


respecting  the  inheritance  of  women,  which  had 
hitherto  been  restricted  to  a  hundred  thousand 
sesterces,6  was  considerably  abated.  Females 
were  allowed  to  inherit  a  larger  sum ;  and,  the 
better  to  testify  the  homage  that  was  paid  to  fe- 
male virtue,  the  vestals  were  admitted  to  partake 
in  the  privilege  of  Roman  parents  having  three 
children.7 

In  the  mean  time,  great  efforts  were  made  to 
keep  the  enemy  at  a  distance,  and  to  fix  the  seat 
of  the  war  in  their  own  country.  Tiberius  ad- 
vanced for  this  purpose  into  Dalmatia,  and  the 
emperor  himself  set  out  for  Ariminum,  that  he 
might  be  nearer  the  scene  of  operation  to  receive 
reports,  to  profit  by  intelligence,  and  to  give  his 
directions.  He  had,  for  some  time,  empowered  the 
senate  to  continue  their  proceedings  in  his  ab- 
sence; as  he  ceased  to  attend  the  comitia  or 
assemblies  of  the  people,  he  made  free  with  their 
privileges;  and,  under  pretence  of  disorders  occa- 
sioned by  the  elections,  took  upon  himself  the 
nomination  of  magistrates,  or  signified  his  choice 
to  the  tribes  by  a  writ  of  recommendation.  Public 
prayers  were  now  offered  for  his  preservation ; 
and  at  his  departure  from  the  city,  as  if  he  were 
going  on  a  service  of  great  danger  to  his  person, 
many  vows  were  made,  and  sacrifices  destined  to 
be  offered  up  in  case  of  his  safe  return.8 

Although  the  force  of  the  empire  was  not  yet 
fallen  so  low  as  to  justify  so  much  apprehension, 
the  alarm  nevertheless  continued  for  three  years.9 

Tiberius  upon  his  arrival  in  Dalmatia,  found 
the  barbarians,  who  had  invaded  that  country, 
commanded  by  two  leaders  of  the  names  of  Bato 
and  Pinetes.  He  formed  his  own  army  into 
three  divisions,  commanded  by  Germanicus,  Syl- 
vanus  Lepidus,  and  himself.  By  this  disposition 
he  began  his  operations  in  three  different  quar- 
ters at  once. 

In  the  service  which  was  committed  to  Sylva- 
nus  Lepidus,  he  met  with  little  re- 
(J.  C.  7G2.  sistancp.  Where  he  himself  com- 
manded, the  Romans  were  long 
P.  Cornelius  detaineci  m  the  blockade  of  a  castle, 

Uo/abella.  ,  •  ,     ,    .        ,    ...  , 

C  Junius  Si-  which  being  built  on  a  rock,  was 
lanus,  ex.  rendered  inaccessible  by  the  height 
Kal.  Jul.  of  its  situation,  and  by  the  depths  of 
lius  C°rnC'  the  SIens  anJ  gullcys  that  were 
Mug.  37ww.  formed  by  the  torrents  with  which 
JEtat.  71.  it  was  surrounded.  Bato  had  taken 
post  in  this  place  with  a  numerous 
body  of  his  countrymen;  and  being  provided 
with  necessaries,  endeavoured  to  tire  out  the  ene- 
my. But  he  himself,  in  the  end,  being  weary  of 
his  inactive  and  hopeless  situation,  found  means 
to  escape,  and  left  the  remains  of  his  countrymen, 
worn  out  with  want  and  impatience,  to  surrender 
at  discretion. 

Where  Germanicus  commanded,  the  enemy 
had  taken  refuge  in  Anduba,  a  fortress  similarly 
situated  with  the  former;  but  which,  after  re- 
peated attacks,  was  at  last  put  into  his  hands  by 
the  dissension  of  the  barbarians  who  defended  it. 
These,  having  quarrelled,  turned  their  swords 
mutually  against  each  other.  One  of  the  parties 
set  the  quarters  of  their  antagonists  on  fire,  and 
both  fell  an  easy  prey  to  their  enemies.  Many 
of  the  women,  to  avoid  captivity,  threw  them- 


selves, with  their  children,  into  the  flames." 
Bato  soon  after  surrendered  himself;  and  be- 
ing asked,  what  tempted  him  to  make  war  upon 
the  Romans  7  made  answer,  "  You  affect  to  treat 
every  nation  as  your  flocks  and  your  property ; 
but  you  intrust  the  care  of  them  to  ravenous 
wolves,  not  to  shepherds  and  their  dogs.'3  u 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  the  title  of  imperator, 
with  the  triumphal  ornaments,  were  decreed  to 
Tiberius,  and  to  his  adopted  son  Germanicus  ;12 
but  in  the  midst  of  the  rejoicings  which  were 
made  on  this  occasion,  accounts  of  a  different  na- 
ture were  received  from  the  Rhine. 

The  Romans,  wishing  to  command  the  pas- 
sage of  the  river,  had  occupied,  as  has  been  ob- 
served, some  country,  and  fortified  some  stations 
on  the  German  side.  By  this  disposition  it  was 
intended,  in  case  the  Germans  should  attempt  a 
descent  upon  Gaul,  that  part  of  the  Roman  army 
should  be  so  placed  as  to  remain  in  their  rear. 
And  indeed  while  they  kept  possession  of  the 
navigation  of  the  river,  and  of  both  its  banks, 
they,  in  some  measure,  rendered  every  such  at- 
tempt impracticaCle.  In  consequence  of  this  dis- 
position, the  Germans  had,  for  some  time,  discon- 
tinued the  practice  of  making  incursions  into 
Gaul.  They  were  become  familiar  with  the 
Roman  army  that  was  stationed  in  their  country, 
exchanged  commodities  with  the  Roman  traders, 
and  began  to  imitate  their  manners. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  nations  situated  be- 
tween the  Rhine  and  the  Weser,  when  Quincti- 
lius  Varus,  who  had  been  left  by  Tiberius  in  the 
command  of  the  German  frontier,  began  to  con- 
sider the  natives  of  the  country  around  him,  as 
ripe  for  the  ordinary  impositions  which  the  Ro- 
mans laid  on  their  subjects,  and  made  some  ex- 
actions for  the  supply  of  his  army. 

Some  chiefs  or  leaders  of  the  neighbourhood, 
particularly  Segimerus,  prince  of  the  Chatti,  and 
his  son  Armenius,  had  observed,  with  indigna- 
tion, these  encroachments  of  the  Roman  general, 
and  the  gradual  decline  of  their  country  into  a 
Roman  province.  Being  at  the  head  of  a  power- 
ful canton,  and  much  respected  by  all  the  nations 
of  that  quarter,  they  entered  into  a  concert  to 
cut  off  all  the  Romans  that  were  posted  on  the 
German  side  of  the  Rhine  ;  and  to  restore  the 
independence  of  their  people.  They  concealed 
their  design  by  redoubling  their  attention  to  the 
Roman  general ;  took  their  residence  in  his  quar- 
ters, and  applied  to  him  for  decision  in  all  the 
disputes  which  arose  among  the  natives ;  made 
him  acquainted  with  the  weaknesses  and  the 
strengths  of  their  country,  and  served  him  as 
guides  in  conducting  the  marches,  and  in  fixing 
the  stations  of  his  army. 

While,  by  these  artifices,  Segimerus  and  Ar- 
minius  lulled  the  Roman  general  into  perfect 
security,  they  had  their  followers  ready  to  assem- 
ble under  arms,  and  brought  all  the  chieftains  of 
their  neighbourhood  under  engagements  to  join 
them,  as  soon  as  their  design  should  be  ripe  for 
execution.  They  proposed  to  draw  the  Roman 
general  into  a  situation  in  which  he  could  be  at- 
tacked with  advantage,  while  they  themselves, 
without  giving  him  any  alarm,  should  have  a 
pretence  for  advancing  towards  him  with  all  their 
forces. 


6  About  800/. 
8  Ibid.  c.  34. 


7  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lv.  c.  1,2.  ]0. 

8  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  114. 


10  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvi.  c.  12.  14,  15. 

11  Ibid.  lib.  lv.  c.  56.  12  Ibid.  Ii1>.  lvi.  c.  17. 


446 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VL 


To  effect  both  these  purposes,  they  procured 
an  insurrection  of  some  of  the  cantons  over 
which  Segimerus  claimed  a  supremacy,  and  im- 
plored the  assistance  of  the  Roman  army  in  sup- 
pressing the  revolt.  Varus,  apprehending  that 
the  safety  of  the  Romans,  in  all  their  possessions 
beyond  the  Rhine,  depended  on  the  support  he 
should  give  to  their  allies,  put  his  army  in  motion 
to  quell  this  pretended  rebellion,  and  advanced 
through  difficult  ways  into  the  interior  parts  of 
the  country.  On  this  march  he  was  attended  by 
Segimerus  and  Arminius,  and  supplied  with 
every  requisite  to  promote  the  service,  or  to  en- 
sure its  success.  These  chiefs  had  assembled 
their  forces,  and  brought  forth  the  inhabitants  of 
the  neighbouring  country,  under  pretence  of 
acting  as  irregulars  to  cover  the  march  of  the 
Roman  legions.  In  performing  this  service,  they 
pervaded  the  marshes  and  woods  in  his  front,  on 
his  flanks,  and  his  rear,  and  had  actually  sur- 
rounded him,  when  he  came  upon  the  ground  on 
which  they  proposed  to  make  their  attack. 

Here  the  forests  and  marshes  were  extensive 
and  impassable,  except  by  a  single  tract.  The 
Romans  were  crowded  together,  and  entangled 
with  their  baggage  ;  and  being  in  this  condition 
attacked  from  every  quarter  at  once,  were  unable 
to  resist  or  to  escape.  Varus  succeeded  in  gain- 
ing an  opening  which  appeared  at  some  distance 
in  the  woods ;  and  there,  with  as  many  as  could 
follow  him,  attempted  to  intrench  himself;  but 
the  greater  part  of  the  army  fell  by  the  hands  of 
the  enemy.  At  night,  seeing  no  hopes  of  a  re- 
treat, the  general  himself  fell  upon  his  own 
sword,  and  by  his  example  induced  many  officers 
and  soldiers  to  employ  the  same  means  of  avoid- 
ing the  cruelties  or  insults  to  which  they  were 
exposed. 

A  few  having  found  means  to  retire  under 
cover  of  the  night,  made  their  way  to  the  Rhine. 
Here  they  were  received  by  a  party  sent  upon 
the  first  news  of  their  disaster  by  Asprenas  from 
Gaul,  to  favour  their  retreat. 

It  had  been  concerted  by  the  Germans,  that  on 
the  same  day  every  Roman  post  in  their  country 
should  be  attacked.  Lucius  Ceditius,  who  com- 
manded at  Aliso,  now  supposed  to  be  Elsemberg, 
being  surrounded  by  superior  numbers,  forced  his 
way  through  the  enemy,  and,  under  the  greatest 
distresses,  arrived  on  the  Rhine.  All  the  other 
posts  were  forced,  and  the  troops  who  had  occu- 
pied them  taken  or  killed.  Among  the  former, 
Caldus,  an  officer  of  rank,  being  a  prisoner  and 
in  irons,  upon  some  insult  that  was  offered  to 
him,  struck  himself  on  the  head  with  his  chains, 
and  expired. 

The  Romans,  on  this  occasion,  lost  three  entire 
legions,  or  about  eighteen  thousand  foot,  and  a 
considerable  body  of  horse.  Asprenas  having 
remained  on  the  German  side  of  the  Rhine  only 
until  he  had  collected  the  remains  of  the  Roman 
army  which  had  escaped  from  this  calamity, 
withdrew  into  Gaul,  and  made  dispositions  to 
prevent  any  commotions  in  that  province. 

The  first  accounts  of  this  disaster  were  re- 
ceived at  Rome  with  the  highest  degree  of  con- 
sternation. The  victorious  enemy  having  cut 
off  what  was  considered  as  the  strength  of  the 
empire  on  the  Rhine,  were  supposed  to  be  fol- 
lowing at  the  heels  of  the  messenger  who  brought 
the  news.  Guards  were  posted  in  different  quar-  j 
ters  of  the  city  to  prevent  disorders,  and  to  quiet  1 


the  fears  of  the  people.  A  proclamation  was 
issued  to  suspend  the  changes  usually  made  in 
the  provincial  appointments,  and  requiring  every 
officer  to  continue  in  his  present  command  until 
express  orders  were  given  to  the  contrary.  The 
sacred  records  Were  consulted,  to  find  what  reli- 
gious processions  or  ceremonies  had  been  per- 
formed on  the  invasion  of  the  Cimbri,  and  on  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Marsic  war,  and  the  same 
rites  were  now  to  be  repeated.  The  emperor  put 
on  mourning,  and  for  some  months  carried  in  his 
looks,  and  in  the  neglect  of  his  person,  every  ap- 
pearance of  distress.1  It  was  given  out  that,  in 
the  first  transport  of  grief,  he  struck  his  head  on 
the  wall  of  his  chamber.  The  Germans  and 
Gauls  that  were  at  Rome,  were  secured  and  sent 
into  the  islands  on  the  coasts  of  Italy.  All  citi- 
zens were  ordered  to  arm.  and  many  disappeared 
from  the  streets,  to  avoid  being  pressed  to  serve 
in  the  legions. 

There  remained  a  great  army  on  the  establish- 
ment of  the  empire ;  but  this  army  being  dispersed 
over  an  extensive  frontier  in  Asia  and  Africa,  it 
was  not  supposed  that  a  sufficient  force  could  be 
brought  from  thence  in  time  to  protect  the  capi- 
tal against  an  enemy  who  was  believed  to  be 
hastening  to  its  gates.  Very  violent  means  were 
therefore  employed  to  form  an  army  in  Italy,  and 
men  were  forced  under  arms  by  the  terror  of  mili- 
tary execution.  The  forces  which  were  brought 
in  this  manner  to  the  emperor's  standard  were 
placed  under  the  command  of  Tiberius  ;  and,  as 
fast  as  they  could  be  put  into  a  regular  form,  be- 
gan to  move  towards  Gaul. 

In  these  measures  the  Romans  acted  more 
from  their  own  fears,  than  from  a  just  apprehen- 
sion of  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the  enemy. 
The  most  active  and  vigorous  conquerors  can 
seldom  act  up  to  the  fears  of  those  they  have  van- 
quished ;  and  the  Germans,  on  this  occasion, 
content  with  having  freed  their  own  country 
from  the  presence  of  a  Roman  army,  made  no 
attempt  to  pursue  their  victory,  and  remained 
quiet  in  their  own  possessions.2 

In  the  following  summer  Tibe- 
U.  C.  763.    rius  and  Germanicus,  to  recover  the 
credit  of  the  Roman  arms,  having 

Lej$usbU$  Passed  the  Rhine'  laid  Waste  the 
F  Statilius  adjacent  country,  but  not  meeting 
Taurus,  with  an  enemy,  returned  without 
ex  Kal.  Jul.  having  given  occasion  to  any  signal 
L.  Cassius  t     Th     supposed  that  the 

Aug.  38770.  natives  were  retired  irom  the  fron- 
JEiat.  72.  tier,  in  order  to  tempt  them  to  fol- 
low into  the  forests  of  that  imper- 
vious country,  and  to  engage  them  in  difficult 
situations.  But  having  done  enough  to  enable 
the  capital  to  recover  from  its  panic,  they  brought 
back  in  autumn  the  Roman  army  into  Gaul, 
and  from  thence  themselves  returned  into  Italy. 

In  this  year  Drusus,  the  son  of 
U.  C.  763.  Tiberius,  acted  in  the  capacity  of 
jj  38t?o  quaestor ;  sixteen  praetors  were  em- 
JS&.  72. '  ployed.  In  the  year  following,  the 
number  of  these  magistrates  was 
reduced  to  twelve.  It  being  alleged  that  gover- 
nors of  provinces,  to  preclude  the  complaints 
which  were  often  made  against  them  upon  their 
removal,  extorted  attestations  and  complimentary 


1  Sueton.  in  Octav.  c.  23. 

2  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvi.  c.  23,  24. 


Chap.  IV.} 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


447 


from  the  people  they  had  oppressed,  it 
was  enacted,  that  no  governor  should  receive  any 
honorary  gift  or  attestation  from  his  province, 
during  the  continuance  of  his  power,  nor  sooner 
than  six  months  after  his  return  to  Rome. 

The  age  of  the  emperor  now  led  men  to  think 
of  his  successor ;  and  predictions  of  his  death 
were  surmised  abroad.  This  probably  gave 
occasion  to  the  edict  which  forbade  soothsayers 
to  utter  predictions  relating  to  the  life  of  any 
person  whatever.  Among  the  circumstances 
that  characterise  the  manners  of  the  times,  it  is 
said,  that  Roman  knights,  or  citizens  of  quality, 
had  permission  to  exhibit  themselves  as  gladia- 
tors.8 

Tiberius,  at  his  return  to  Rome, 
U.  C.  764.  after  the  noted  services  he  had  per- 
Ocrmanicus  formed  on  the  Save  and  the  Rhine, 
Cxsar,  had  a  triumphal  entry.    In  ascend- 

C.  Fontcius  }ng  the  capitol  he  dismounted  from 
erKai  Jul  n's  car"a?ei  an^  threw  himself  at 
C.  VeseUius  the  feet  of  the  emperor,  who  stood 
Varro.  in  the  way  to  receive  him.4  After 

Ang.  39no.  the  procession  was  over,  shows  were 
JEtat.  73.  exhibited  by  Germanicus,  in  which 
two  hundred  lions  were  hunted  down;  and  a 
portico  which  Livia  had  erected  to  the  memory 
of  Caius  and  Lucius  Csesar,  being  dedicated 
about  this  time,  served  to  increase  the  solem- 
nity. 

Of  the  Claudain  family,  on  whom  the  sove- 
reign power  seemed  already  to  devolve,  Germa- 
nicus, the  grandson  of  Livia  by  Drusus,  the 
younger  of  her  sons,  was  most  in  favour  with 
the  people.  He  was  recommended  by  an  ap- 
pearance of  openness  and  candour  in  his  man- 
ners, and  by  the  facility  with  which  he  engaged, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  ancient  republic, 
in  the  defence  of  his  clients,  and  in  pleading 
their  causes,  whether  before  the  emperor  himself, 
or  before  the  ordinary  judges.  Tiberius,  on  the 
contrary,  seemed  to  be  of  a  dark  and  suspicious 
temper,  and  was  supposed  to  cover,  under  the 
appearances  of  moderation,  which  he  studied  to 
preserve  in  public  and  in  presence  of  the  empe- 
ror, a  jealous  and  cruel  disposition.  But  Livia, 
who,  in  the  present  period  of  her  husband's  lili', 
had  the  entire  government  of  him,  preferred  her 
son  to  her  grandson,  and  employed  all  her  influ- 
ence to  make  the  choice  of  a  successor  fall  on 
Tiberius. 

The  emperor,  in  the  mean  time,  pleased  with 
the  respite  from  trouble  which  these  delegates 
of  his  power  endeavoured  to  procure  for  him, 
reposed  himself  much  on  their  care,  and  was 
pleased  to  be  supplied  with  every  change  of 
amusement  or  pleasure  for  which  it  was  known 
that  he  had  any  relish.5  He  was  attended  by 
agreeable  women,  musicians,  comedians,  and 
even  declaimers  on  favourite  topics  in  philosophy, 
who  made  a  part  of  the  scene  at  the  close  of  his 
ordinary  meals.  At  his  entertainments  he 
treated  the  guests  with  presents  of  dresses,  trin- 
kets, or  money,  and  amused  them  with  lotteries, 
in  which  they  had  chances  that  entitled  them  to 
prizes  of  different  values,  or  with  auctions  of 
pictures,  in  which  the  back  of  the  picture  being 
turned  to  the  company,  they  bid  upon  chance.6 


3  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  120.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvi.  c.  25. 

4  Sueton.  quoted  by  Piso. 

5  Sueton.  in  August,  c.  71.  6  Ibid.  c.  74,  75. 


Of  these  pastimes  some  were  probably  the 
amusements  of  the  emperor's  old  age,  and  mark- 
ed the  decline  of  life.  In  his  more  vigorous 
years,  we  may  suppose  him  to  have  been  suffi- 
ciently occupied  with  the  business  of  state,  and 
with  the  attention  which  he  gave  in  person  to 
every  question  that  arose  in  the  government  of 
so  extensive  an  empire.  Every  transaction  was 
still  communicated  to  him,  and  despatched  in  his 
name;  but  from  the  symptoms  which  he  gave 
of  an  inclination  to  retire  from  affairs,  it  is  pro- 
bable that  his  application  was  greatly  abated.  So 
long  as  he  was  accustomed  to  attend  the  senate 
in  person,  he  generally  received,  on  the  days  of 
their  meeting,  the  compliments  of  the  members 
at  his  own  house  or  in  the  forum  ;  from  thence 
was  conducted  by  them  to  the  place  of  assembly, 
and,  before  they  proceeded  to  business,  commonly 
went  round  a  circle  of  those  who  were  present, 
and  spoke  somewhat  obliging  to  each.  This 
particular  is  mentioned,  as  a  proof  of  his  affabi- 
lity and  condescension  ;  but  was  in  reality  the 
highest  circumstance  of  state  which  he  ever  as- 
sumed. As  a  private  person,  in  the  vigour  of 
life,  he  suffered  himself  to  be  treated  as  an  equal, 
and  made  one  at  the  entertainments  and  parties 
of  pleasure  that  were  made  by  his  friends;  but 
in  the  decline  of  life,  as  he  withdrew  from  the 
senate,  so  he  desired  to  be  excused  from  receiving 
the  visits  of  the  members,  or  even  of  his  private 
friends;  and,  under  pretence  of  being  much 
occupied  with  the  troubles  which  still  subsisted 
on  the  frontiers  of  the  empire,  he  declined  going 
into  company  upon  any  occasion  whatever.7 

While  the  emperor  thus,  in  a 
U.  C.  765.  great  measure,  withdrew  from  the 
C.  Silius,        public  view,  the  fourth  period  of 

Plfncvstm3  ten  years>  for  which  he  had  accePl- 
j3up-.  4Qmo.  e<'  °'  the  government,  being  about 
JEtat.  74.  to  expire,  he  again  resumed  his 
command  with  the  usual  forms, 
prolonged  the  tribunitian  power  in  the  person 
of  Tiberius  for  other  five  years,  and  permitted 
his  son  Drusus  from  being  quaestor,  to  be  enter- 
ed on  the  list  of  consuls  without  passing  through 
tlie  rank  of  praetor. 

Augustus,  in  entering  upon  this  new  period 
of  his  government,  in  which  he  was  no  longer 
to  attend  the  senate  in  person,  received  from  this 
body,  by  a  formal  act,  full  powers,  with  the  ad- 
vice of  his  ordinary  council,  to  determine  all 
questions  of  state,  and,  with  the  concurrence  of 
his  adopted  children,  to  enact  laws  of  equal 
authority  with  those  he  had  formerly  passed  in 
the  senate.  These  powers  he  had  already  ex- 
ercised ;  and  we  may  suppose  them  to  have  been 
thus  formally  conferred  upon  him,  chiefly  that 
it  might  be  made  to  appear  how  far  the  family 
of  Livia,  now  included  in  the  same  act,  were 
raised  to  an  avowed  participation  of  the  imperial 
authority. 

The  flrst  consultations  of  this  new  legislature 
were  employed  on  the  subject  of  the  penal  laws, 
which  having  remained  without  any  considerable 
change  from  the  times  of  the  republic,  were  still, 
in  respect  to  the  forms  of  trial,  better  calculated 
to  protect  the  subject  than  to  gratify  the  pas- 
sions of  the  sovereign.  Banishment,  by  which, 
under  the  republic,  criminals  were  at  liberty  to 
evade  any  sentence,  and  which,  in  reality,  had 

7  Dio.  Caw.  lib.  lvi.  c.  26. 


448 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VL 


nothing  grievous  besides  the  circumstance  of 
their  being  obliged  to  travel  from  Rome,  and  to 
forego  city  preferments  and  honours,  was,  by  a 
regulation  now  made,  rendered  more  severe,  and 
not  suffered  to  remain,  as  the  courtiers  termed 
them,  a  mere  elusion  of  justice.  Under  a  sen- 
tence of  banishment,  by  this  regulation,  the  exile 
was  no  longer  at  liberty  to  choose  the  place  of 
his  retreat,  nor  suffered  to  retain  his  effects.  He 
might  reside  in  any  island  surrounded  by  fifty 
miles  of  sea,  and  in  some  islands  which  were 
mentioned,  as  Cos,  Rhodes,  Lesbos,  and  Sar- 
dinia, though  less  remote ;  but  he  was  entirely 
debarred  from  the  continent.  He  was  allowed 
to  retain  of  his  estate,  if  it  amounted  to  so  much, 
five  hundred  thousand  sesterces,1  and  might 
have  a  ship  of  a  thousand  amphorae,2  and  two 
boats  with  twenty  servants  or  slaves ;  but  was 
not  at  liberty  to  pass  from  one  island  to  another, 
nor  to  change  the  place  of  his  abode. 

So  far  the  transition  from  the  jealousy  of  the 
citizen  against  the  severities  of  government, 
which  is  a  part  in  the  spirit  of  liberty,  to  the 
jealousy  of  the  prince  against  the  license  of  his 
subjects,  which  equally  belongs  to  monarchy, 
was  abundantly  mild  ;  but  even  this  law,  under 
the  prospect  of  its  immediate  application,  gave 
weight  to  the  chains  with  which  every  citizen 
already  felt  himself  loaded.  The  subjects  of 
prosecution  that  were  likely  to  draw  the  animad- 
version of  a  despotic  court,  were  not  injuries 
to  society  and  offences  to  human  nature,  which 
the  ingenuous  ever  wish  to  shun,  as  well  as  to 
restrain;  but  rather  want  of  submission  or  re- 
spect, libels,  petulant  freedoms,  and  even  merit 
itself,  if  such  as  to  excite  the  jealousy  of  supe- 
riors. The  new  law,  indeed,  by  the  directions 
contained  in  it  to  take  cognizance  of  libels  and 
defamatory  publications,  under  the  denomination 
of  treason,  seemed  to  point  chiefly  at  this  species 
of  guilt ;  but  it  was  not  the  law  itself,  so  much 
as  the  arbitrary  application  of  it,  that  was  likely 
to  deprive  every  Roman  of  that  degree  of  secu- 
rity or  personal  freedom  to  which  he  still  had 
pretensions.3 

In  the  same  year  mankind  had 
U.  C.  796.    still  more  reason  to  be  alarmed ; 

Tiberius  was  associated  with  Au- 
Sext.  Pom-  gustus  in  the  government,  and  de- 
peius,  Sext.  clared  to  have  equal  power  with 
Aug^mo.  tne  emPeror  himself  in  all  the  pro- 
JEtat.  75.       vinces  within  his  departments  On 

this  occasion  the  new  associate  in 
the  empire,  to  raise  his  consideration,  and  to 
amuse  the  people,  exhibited  no  less  than  three 
separate  triumphal  processions ;  at  the  end  of 
which,  there  being  some  disorders  subsisting  on 
the  side  of  Dalmatia  and  Illyricum,  which 
seemed  to  require  his  presence ;  and  he  being  to 
set  out  for  this  province,  Augustus  was  pleased 


1  About  4000^ 

2  The  amphora,  according  to  Arbuthnot,  contained 
about  seven  gallons. 

3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvi.  c.  27,  28.  Tacit.  Ann.  lib.  i.  c.  72. 

4  Veil.  Pater,  lib.  ii.  c.  121. 


to  accompany  him  on  the  road  to  Eeneventum. 
They  went  to  Astura  by  land ;  but  as  Augustus, 
when  the  wind  was  favourable,  always  preferred 
going  by  water,  they  embarked  at  this  place,  and 
steered  for  the  coast  of  Campania.  On  their 
passage,  Augustus  was  seized  with  a  dysenterv, 
but  continued,  as  on  a  party  of  pleasure,  to  visit 
the  different  islands  in  the  bay  of  Naples.  At 
Caprse  he  passed  some  days  with  uncommon 
gayety,  and  without  appearing  to  suffer  much 
from  his  distemper.  At  Naples  he  attended  the 
public  sports  which  were  given  upon  his  arrival. 
From  thence  he  continued  his  route  to  Eeneven- 
tum, where  Tiberius,  being  to  embark  at  Erun- 
dusium,  took  his  leave,  and  the  emperor  set  out 
on  his  return  to  Rome.  But  finding  his  strength 
decline  on  a  sudden,  he  halted  at  Nola,  a  place 
in  which  his  family  had  originally  seme  posses- 
sions, and  at  which  his  father  died.  From  the 
time  of  his  arrival  at  this  place  he  refused  to 
listen  to  any  business.*  On  the  morning  of  the 
18th  of  August,  he  asked  if  his  illness  had 
caused  any  tumults  or  insurrections,  called  for 
a  mirror,  and  desired  to  be  dressed.  He  said  to 
those  who  attended  him,  "What  think  you 
now?  Have  I  acted  my  part  properly?"  then 
repeated  the  form  with  which  actors  commonly 
end  the  representation  of  a  play,  desiring  the 
audience,  that  if  the  piece  was  to  their  liking 
they  should  applaud.6  "I  found,"  he  said,  "a 
city  of  brick,  and  changed  it  into  marble."  In 
this  he  alluded  to  his  policy  in  the  state,  as  well 
as  to  his  buildings  at  Rome. 

Augustus  died  at  three  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
eighteenth  of  August,  in  the  seventy-sixth  year 
of  his  age.  His  body  was  transported  from 
Nola  to  Bovilke,  carried  by  the  magistrates  of  the 
several  towns  on  the  route.  They  moved  in  the 
night,  and  halted  by  day,  to  avoid  the  heat  of 
the  season.  At  Bovillse  it  was  received  and  car- 
ried forward  to  Rome,  by  a  numerous  company 
of  the  equestrian  order. 

The  senate  met  to  deliberate  on  the  honours 
to  be  paid  at  the  funeral ;  and  the  members  vied 
with  each  other  in  the  proposals  they  made  to 
exalt  the  dead,  and  to  express  their  own  sorrow.7 
Some  proposed,  that  the  funeral  procession 
should  pass  through  a  triumphal  arch,  preceded 
by  the  statue  of  Victory  ;  and  that  the  ceremony 
should  conclude  with  a  solemn  dirge,  or  song  of 
grief,  to  be  performed  by  the  children  of  all  the 
principal  families  in  Rome.  Others  moved,  that 
on  the  day  of  his  funeral  the  noble  Romans 
should  exchange  the  gold  ring,  which  was  the 
badge  of  their  rank,  for  one  of  iron  ;  that  the 
ashes  should  be  collected  from  the  funeral  pile  by 
the  highest  order  of  priests. 

At  this  funeral,  in  whatever  form  it  was  exe- 
cuted, two  orations  were  pronounced ;  one  by 
Tyberius,  who  had  been  recalled  on  the  near  ap- 
proach of  the  emperor's  death ;  the  other  by 
Drusus,  the  son  of  Tiberius,  on  whom  the  name 
and  inheritance  of  Caesar  had  now  devolved. 


5  Suet,  in  Aug.  c.  100         6  Ibid.        7  Ibid 


Chap.  V.) 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


449 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Will  of  Augustus — Review  of  his  Reign — And  of  his  Character — Tiberius  returns  to  Nola 
— Issues  without  delay  his  orders  throughout  the  Empire — In  the  Senate  affects  Reluctance  to 
charge  himself  with  the  Government — Mutiny  in  Panonia — On  the  Rhine — Second  Mutiny  on 
the  Arrival  of  Deputies  from  the  Senate — Imposture  of  Clemens — Plot  of  Libo — Description  of 
Tiberius — Death  of  Germanicus — And  Trial  of  Piso. 


AUGUSTUS  hatl  made  his  will  about  six- 
teen months  before  he  died,  bequeathing  two 
thirds  of  his  estate  to  Tiberius,  the  other  third  to 
Livia,  with  an  injunction  to  take  the  names  of 
Julia  and  Augusta.  In  succession  to  Livia  and 
her  son  he  substituted  the  younger  Dfusus,  the 
son  of  Tiberius,  for  a  third  ;  and  overlooking 
Claudius,  one  of  the  sons  of  the  elder  Drusus,  and 
grandson  of  Livia,  he  bequeathed  the  remainder 
to  the  brother.  Germanicus  Cscsar,  and  his  off- 
spring, already  consisting  of  three  sons  and  as 
many  daughif  rs.8  To  this  numerous  list  of  heirs 
he  substituted  an  ostentatious  catalogue  of  prin- 
cipal citizens  and  senators,  But  persisted  so 
much  in  his  severity  to  the  unhappy  Julia,  as  to 
forbid  her  a  place  in  his  monument.  As  a  legacy 
to  be  distributed  to  the  Roman  people,  he  be- 
queathed four  millions  of  sesterces,  or  about 
thirty -three  thousand  pounds  sterling  ;  as  a  fund 
for  the  tribes  or  wards  of  the  city,  to  defray  their 
respective  corporation  expenses,  he  bequeathed 
three  millions  five  hundred  thousand  sesterces, 
or  about  twenty  nine  thousand  one  hundred  and 
sixty-six  pounds  sterling  5  to  the  prretorian  bands 
one.  thousand  sesterces,  or  about  eight  pounds 
sterling  a  man  ;  to  the  cohorts  of  the  city  five 
hundred,  or  about  four  pounds  sterling  a  man  ; 
to  the  legions  three  hundred,  or  about  two  pounds 
ten  shillings  a  man.9  These  sums  he  ordered 
to  be  paid  immediately ;  leaving  money  in  Ins 
coffers  sufficient  fortius  purpose.  Other  legacies, 
of  which  some  did  not  exeeed  a  hundred  and 
sixty,  or  a  hundred  and  seventy  pounds  Sterling, 
he  directed  to  be  paid  at  different  times,  ami 
alleged  the  scantiness  of  his  estate,  from  which 
his  heirs  were  not  likely  to  draw  above  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  Roman  money,  or  about 
one  million  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  ster- 
ling. The  sums  which  he  had  received  in  lega- 
cies, amounting  to  about  eleven  millions  sterling, 
he  had  expended  in  public  works. 

After  his  will  was  read,  four  separate  memo- 
rials were  produced.  The  first  contained  in- 
structions for  his  funeral ;  the  second,  a  list  of 
the  actions  which  he  wished  to  have  recorded  on 
his  tomb;  the  third,  a  state  of  the  republic,  in- 
cludingthe  military  establishment,  the  distribution 
of  the  legions,  the  revenue,  the  public  disburse- 
ments, the  money  actually  lodged  in  the  treasury, 
the  arrears  of  taxes  that  were  due,  with  a  refer- 
ence to  the  persons  in  whose  hands  the  vouchers 
were  to  be  found. 

The  fourth  memorial  contained  political  in- 
structions or  maxims,  in  which  he  dissuaded  the 
people  from  the  too  frequent  manumission  of 
slaves,  and  from  the  too  easy  admission  of  fo- 


8  Tfn  three  sons  were  Nero,  Dnisus,  and  Caius  01 
Caligula  ;  the  three  daughters  Agrippina,  Drusilla,  and 
Livia  or  Li  villa. 

9  Dio  Cass.  lib.  lvi.  c.  32.  Ta«it.  Annal.  lib  i.e.  & 


reigners  to  the  dignity  of  Roman  citizens ;  arid 
recommended  filling  offices  of  state,  with  persons 
of  experience  and  reputation.  The  public  ser- 
vice, he  observed,  never  should  be  entrusted  to  a 
single  officer,  nor  all  the  powers  of  the  common- 
wealth be  suffered  to  accumulate  in  the  hands 
of  any  one  person.  Such  exclusive  trusts,  he 
said,  must  lead  to  abuse,  and  end  in  a  scarcity  of 
persons  fit  to  be  employed.  Such  were  the 
arguments  of  Catulus  and  Cato,  when  they 
pleaded  against  the  exorbitant  powers  of  Pompey 
and  Ca?sar *  and  the  reasonings  now  ascribed  to 
Augustus  seems  to  be  borrowed  from  theirs,  and 
with  too  little  regard  to  the  difference  of  persons 
and  times. 

It  is  said,  that  in  this  memorial  the  emperor 
concluded  with  an  injunction  not  to  attempt  any 
farther  conquest  or  any  farther  extension  of  the 
empire.3 

Such  arc  the  principal  circumstances  upon  re- 
cord, from  which  we  are  able  to  collect  the  cha- 
racter of  this  celebrated  reign.  The  immediate 
effects  of  it,  in  many  parts,  appear  to  have  been 
splendid  and  salutary.  Among  these  we  are  to 
reckon  the  cessation  of  wars,  and  reformation  of 
government  in  the  Roman  provinces.  Under 
this  establishment,  instead  of  the  consuls,  who, 
being  annually  elected  by  the  people,  as  often  re- 
newed the  passion  of  their  country  for  war  and 
conquest,  there  began  a  succession  of  emperors 
who  were  addicted  to  sloth  and  sensuality,  more 
than  to  ambition;  or  if  disposed  to  war,  who  in 
youth,  or  in  some  particular  period  of  life,  ex- 
hausted their  passion  for  military  fame,  and  be- 
came from  thenceforward  a  powerful  restraint  on 
the  ambition  of  their  own  officers.  These  they 
considered  as  rivals  and  objects  of  jealousv,  or  as 
dangerous  instruments,  ever  ready  to  involve 
them  in  wars  abroad,  to  disturb  their  government 
at  home,  or  to  divert  their  revenue  from  those 
pleasurable  applications  in  which  they  wished 
to  employ  it. 

Whatever  was  lost  to  citizens  of  rank  or  high 
pretension  at  Rome,  by  the  establishment  of  the 
monarchy,  was  gained  to  the  other  subjects  of 
the  empire.  The  provinces,  from  being  the 
temporary  property  of  individuals,  and  stript  to 
enrich  a  succession  of  masters,  became  the  con- 
tinued subjects  of  a  sovereign,  who  as  often  as 
he  understood  his  own  interest,  protected  them 
against  the  oppression  of  his  officers,  and  spared 
or  nursed  them  as  a  continual  source  of  revenue 
and  of  power  to  himself. 

While  these  desirable  effects  naturallv  resulted 
from  the  new  establishment,  many  circumstances 
Of  great  lustre  in  the  history  of  the  age  were 
ascribed  to  the  sovereign.  The  seeds  of  inge- 
nuity and  of  liberal  arts,  which  had  been  sown, 
and  which  were  already  sprung  up  with  so  much 

3  Dio.  Cnss.  lib.  lvi.  c.  32.  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  i.  c.  9. 


ioO  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


▼igour  under  the  republic,  now  began  to  be 
reaped  in  a  plentiful  harvest. 

Literature,  and  all  the  more  agreeable  fruits 
of  ingenuity,  received  under  the  first  emperor  a 
peculiar  degree  of  attention  and  encouragement. 
Augustus  was  himself  a  proficient  in  letters, 
or,  willing  to  be  amused  with  the  pursuits  of  the 
earned,  read  his  own  productions  in  the  circle 
of  his  friends  ;  and,  what  is  more  difficult  for  an 
author,  heard  without  jealousy  the  compositions 
of  others,  by  which  his  own  were  probably  far 
excelled.  Fie  had  saved  from  the  wreck  of  his 
enemy's  party,  protected  from  the  oppression  of 
his  own,  and  selected,  as  his  favourites,  the  most 
ingenious  men  of  the  times.1  By  his  munificence 
to  these*,  his  own  name,  as  well  as  that  of  his 
minister,  has  become  proverbial  in  the  history  of 
letters,  and  is  deeply  inscribed  on  monuments 
which  can  never  perish,  except  by  some  calamity 
fatal  to  mankind. 

The  provinces  greatly  diversified  in  respect  to 
situation,  climate  and  soil,  as  well  as  in  respect 
to  the  arts  which  they  severally  possessed,  hav- 
ing the  benefit  of  general  peace,  and  the  protec- 
tion of  a  common  sovereign,  reaped  the  advan- 
tage of  an  easy  communication  and  a  flourishing 
trade.  All  the  surplus  wealth  of  the  more  cultivated 
parts  of  the  earth  being  drawn  to  the  capital,  and 
being  at  the  disposal  of  single  men,  was  expend- 
ed in  works  of  magnificence,  and  if  not  of 
utility,  at  least  of  splendid  caprice.  From  this 
fund,  were  erected  those  magnificent  fabrics,  of 
which  the  ruins,  still  mark  the  place  on  which 
stood  the  capital  of  the  western  world.  The 
empire,  at  the  same  time,  in  all  its  parts,  received 
those  improvements  which  are  the  ordinary  at- 
tendants of  opulence  and  peace.  The  lands 
were  cultivated  ;  cities  were  built,  adorned,  or  en- 
larged. 

The  rough  and  vigorous  hands  by  which  this 
great  empire  was  formed,  had  carried  the  balance 
and  the  sword  of  state  before  they  could  manage 
the  tools  of  the  more  ordinary  and  inferior  arts, 
and  had  given  empire  to  their  country,  before 
they  had  provided  for  themselves  the  ordinary 
means  of  accommodation  or  pleasure.  A  Roman 
citizen  was  not  an  artist,  but  he  was  a  man  fit  to 
command  every  artist.  He  was  possessed  of  cou- 
rage, penetration,  sagacity,  and  all  the  advan- 
tages which  constitute  the  personal  superiority 
of  one  man  over  another  As  a  warrior  and 
statesman,  he  was  the  reverse  of  those  ingenious 
and  feeble  subjects,  of  whom  each  professes  a 
particular  part  in  the  science  or  practice  of  hu- 
man affairs,  but  of  whom  none  is  qualified  t©  di- 
rect the  whole. 

In  proportion,  however,  as  this  nation  of  mas- 
ters forced  into  their  service  the  industrious  and 
the  learned  in  different  parts  of  the  earth,  the 
practitioners  of  every  art,  and  the  professors  of 
every  science  flocked  to  the  capital.  Their  pro- 
ductions, though  spurned  and  rejected  at  first, 
were  received  by  degrees,  and  in  the  reign  of 
Augustus  found  the  most  ample  rewards.  By 
these  means,  the  practice  of  every  art  was  intro- 
duced at  Rome,  even  Romans  were  taught  to  be- 
come artists  and  mechanics,  and,  by  following  a 


1  Horace  was  saved  from  the  rout  of  the  republican 
party  at  Philippi  ;  and  Virgil,  from  among  the  suffer- 
«rt  ejected  from  their  property,  to  make  way  for  the 
•rmy  of  Cawsar. 


[Book  VI. 

multiplicity  of  inferior  pursuits  and  occupations, 
were  taught  to  lower  the  haughty  spirit  of  thft 
conquerors  of  the  world,  to  the  level  of  the  nations 
they  had  subdued. 

In  the  times  immediately  prcrrdirg  the  civil 
wars,  foreign  letters,  though  fondly  received  by 
many  of  the  first  citizens  of  Rome,  w  ere  still  a 
novelty,  and  considered  by  the  people  as  a  fop- 
pish affectation.  But  the  leaders  in  this  fashion 
being  the  first  officers  and  greatest  men  of  the 
state,  as  Lucullus,  Cicero,  Cato,  and  Caesar; 
sueh  illustrious  examples  soon  removed  everv  pre- 
judice, and  engaged,  in  the  pursuit  of  learning, 
every  talent  that  could  be  diverted  from  the  more 
violent  pursuits  of  ambition  or  pleasure. 

The  civil  wars  for  some  time  retarded  the 
progress  of  letters;  but  when  brought  to  an  end, 
left  the  public  in  possession  of  the  bias  it  had 
received.  Octavius  himself  having,  in  his  youth, 
received  this  bias,  was  probably,  in  his  patronage 
of  the  learned,  more  led  by  inclination,  and  less 
by  mere  policy,  than  he  was  in  other  parts  of 
the  conduct  with  which  he  gained  the  favour- 
able opinion  of  the  world.  He  loved  correctness 
and  accuracy  in  all  his  compositions,  and  never 
delivered  his  mind  on  any  serious  matter,  even 
in  his  own  family,  without  memorials  or  written 
notes. 

A  lthough  the  effects  of  this  reign,  therefore, 
in  many  of  the  particulars  we  have  mentioned, 
were  the  sequel  of  mere  peace,  and  of  the  respite 
which  the  world  began  to  enjoy  from  the  disor- 
ders with  which  it  had  been  lately  afflicted,  much 
likewise  may  be  ascribed  to  the  personal  charac- 
ter of  the  prince.  After  the  secure  establish- 
ment of  his  power,  his  government  began  to  be 
distinguished  by  appearances  of  moderation  ant) 
justice,  supported,  in  this  part  of  his  life,  with  a 
regular  and  ordinary  tenor,  which  does  not  war- 
rant any  doubt  of  his  sincerity,  or  any  suspicion 
of  any  intention  to  impose  upon  the  world,  some 
purpose  different  from  that  which  he  proiessed  to 
have  in  view. 

In  his  character  of  legislator,  he  generally  sub- 
mitted his  intended  acts  to  public  inspection,  en- 
couraged persons  of  every  description  to  offer 
amendments,  and  sometimes  adopted  those  which 
were  offered  to  him.2  In  the  exercise  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power,  he  took  the  assistance  of  a  chosen 
council,  with  whom  he  deliberated  on  the  ordi- 
nary measures  of  state.  In  accei  ting  of  the  ho- 
nours which  were  offered  to  him,  he  checked 
instances  of  extreme  servility,  and  acquitted  him- 
self with  great  liberality  or  moderation  in  the  use 
of  the  powers,  which  the  flattery  of  dying  persons 
frequently  gave  him  over  their  families  and 
estates.  He  became  the  guardian,  rather  than 
the  co-heir,  of  the  orphans,  with  whom  he  was 
joined  in  the  father's  will.  Some  he  put.  in  the 
immediate  possession  of  the  whole  inheritance; 
others,  while  under  age,  he  treated  as  his  wards, 
and  brought  up  with  every  advantage  to  the  en- 
joyment of  their  fortunes,  which  they  often  re- 
ceived with  considerable  additions,  made  either 
by  his  care  or  by  his  bounty. 

But  what  is  of  all  other  circumstances  most 
peculiarly  characteristic  of  this  reign,  was  the 
judgment  and  address  with  which  the  emperor 
repressed  the  license  of  the  military,  to  whom  he 
owed  his  own  elevation ,  the  artful  policy  by 


3  Rift).  Cast.  lib.  liii.  c.  2L 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


451 


which  he  affected  to  restore  some  fragments  of 
the  civil  government  that  he  himself  had  broken 
down,  and  the  caution  with  which  he  retained 
the  character  and  profession  of  a  civil  magistrate 
and  of  a  citizen,  while  he  governed  as  master. 
Joined  to  these,  we  may  reckon  the  able  choice 
which  he  made  of  officers  fit  to  be  trusted  in  the 
dillerent  departments  of  the.  public  service;  the 
constancy  with  which  he  persevered  in  employ- 
ing them,  and  the  liberality  with  which  he  made 
them  feel  that  the  prosperity  of  his  fortunes  was 
their  own.  While  he  gave  these  indications  of  a 
great  mind,  anil  possessed  these  p>werful  sup- 
ports of  a  prosperous  life,  he  dispensed  with 
much  of  the  flattery  that  is  paid  to  princes,  and 
in  conversation  encouraged  the  manners  of  a  free 
and  equal  society.3 

How  then  are  we  to  decide  upon  his  character, 
marked  by  appearances  of  perfidy,  cruelty,  and 
even  of  cowardice  in  some  parts  of  his  life,  dis- 
tinguished by  moderation,  clemency,  and  steadi- 
ness in  other  parts  of  it?  Are  we  to  suppose 
what  the  emperor  Julian  insinuates,4  that  Octa- 
vius  received  in  the  later  period  of  his  life  new 
lights,  was  become  a  new  man ;  and  that,  by  the 
lessons  of  Zeno,  at  an  early  period,  this  Came- 
leon  might  have  fixed  his  colour,  and  been  from 
the  first,  what  he  appeared  to  be  in  the  last  state 
of  his  fortunes,  a  real  friend  to  mankind?  The 
authority  of  Julian,  no  doubt,  is  highly  respect- 
able ;  but  if  a  person  in  youth  carry  the  marks 
of  a  bad  disposition,  and  deliberately  commit  atro- 
cious actions  when  his  interest  required  them, 
we  are  still  warranted  to  question  the  sincerity 
of  his  conversion,  though,  in  a  different  state  of 
his  interest,  even  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  should 
change. 

Octavius  does  not  appear  to  have  had  from  na- 
ture, in  any  high  degree,  those  dispositions  to  bene- 
volence or  malice  which  are  the  great  distinguish- 
ing principles  of  virtue  and  vice.  He  seems  to 
have  been  indilferent.  to  mankind;  but  desirous 
of  consideration  and  power,  as  objects  of  interest 
to  himself.  His  ruling  passion  was  a  desire  to 
reign.  In  his  way  to  this  end,  he  committed 
many  crimes;  but  having  once  effected  his  pur- 
pose, he  had  no  other  criminal  dispositions  to  gra- 
tify :  or,  after  he  was  sovereign,  standing  in  awe 
«f  a  free  spirit  which  he  durst  not  insult,  he,  either 
from  inclination  or  policy,  and  probably  in  part 
from  both,  preferred,  as  it  is  surprising  that  every 
one  else  does  not  prefer,  the  proper  use  of  his 
power  to  the  abuse  of  it. 

Upon  this  principle,  in  a  life  so  varied  as  that 
of  Octavius,  appearances  of  cruelty  and  of  cle- 
mency, of  caution  and  of  enterprise,  of  violence 
and  of  moderation,  may  have  equally  found  a 
place  in  the  course  of  his  actions.  And  in  his 
person,  we  may  read  the  same  character  of  am- 
bitious design,  when  he  affected  to  join  the  se- 
nate in  restoring  the  republic,  or  when  he  signed 
a  warrant  for  the  murder  of  those  who  were  in- 
clined to  support  that  form  of  government;  when 
he  courted  the  protection  of  Cicero  against  An- 
tony, or  when  he  sacrificed  the  life  of  Cicero  to 
the  resentment  of  his  enemy  ;  when  he  made  or 
broke  off  his  treaties  of  marriage,  and  sought 
for  aids  to  his  ambition,  even  in  the  choice  of  his 
licentious  amours ;  when  he  pardoned,  and  when 


»  Dio.  Com.  lib  I*!,  e  43.    4  Vid.  Csaart  of  Jnlian. 


he  executed  those  who  were  detected  in  designs 
against  his  own  life. 

If  we  state  ourselves  therefore  as  judges  on  the 
solemn  appeal  which  Augustus  on  his  death-bed 
made  to  'the  sense  of  the  world,  it  is  probable, 
that  as  he  was  in  some  degree  able  to  redeem,  in 
the  administration  of  his  sovereignty,  the  enor- 
mities which  he  had  committed  in  obtaining  it, 
we  shall  bestow  upon  him  neither  the  epithets  of 
reproach  and  of  infamy,  which  he  appears  to 
have  deserved  in  the  early  period  of  his  life,  nor 
those  terms  of  encomium  and  praise,  which  he 
seems  to  have  merited  in  the  longer  and  more 
elevated  parts  of  his  reign.  Neither  the  friend 
nor  the  enemy  of  mankind,  he  was,  by  his  per- 
sonal and  interested  ambition,  the  cause  of  harm 
and  of  good ;  but  upon  the  whole,  if  the  history 
of  the  establishment  made  by  him  were  to  termi- 
nate with  his  own  life;  if  the  tranquillity  of  his 
reign  be  compared  with  the  troubles  of  the  pre- 
ceding period  ;  it  will  furnish,  to  those  who  con- 
tend for  the  preference  of  despotical  government, 
an  occasion  of  triumph. 

Justice  and  peace  are  at  all  times  the  great  ob- 
jects of  attention  and  care  to  mankind  ;  but  the 
degree  in  which  they  can  be  obtained,  and  the 
means  which  may  be  employed  to  obtain  them, 
are  different  in  different  circumstances;  different 
on  the  supposition  of  small  or  extensive  states,  of 
poor  or  of  rich  nations;  and,  in  some  circum- 
stances, they  mav  no  doubt  be  better  obtained  by 
the  wisdom  and  discretion  of  a  single  person,  than 
by  anv  system  of  public  councils  or  popular  as- 
semblies, which  the  people  to  be  governed  are 
themselves  fit  to  compose.  When  this  is  the  case, 
it  is  fortunate  that  single  men  are  found,  who, 
without  any  criminal  inclinations,  are  willing  to 
undertake  the  government  of  nations.  A  suc- 
cession of  such  characters,  indeed,  is  more  than 
human  nature,  by  any  known  rule  of  substitu- 
tion, whether  by  inheritance  or  by  election,  can 
continue  to  furnish.  It  is  well,  ifj  in  a  series  of 
ages,  where  the  government  of  the  world  is  com- 
mitted to  the  discretion  of  an  individual,  the  good 
in  any  degree  compensate  the  bad. 

As  Augustus  had,  to  the  last  moment  of  his 
reign,  affected  to  hold  the  sovereignty  by  a  mere 
temporary  appointment,  he  could  not,  in  consist- 
ence with  his  own  professions,  either  name  a 
successor,  or  dispose  of  the  empire  as  the  inherit- 
ance of  his  family.  At  his  death,  therefore,  some 
persons  might  hope  to  see  the  commonwealth  re- 
stored; others  might  wish  to  see  the  late  contest 
for  dominion  revived,  and  many  questions  might 
have  arisen,  that  would  have  involved  the  empire 
in  fresh  trouble.  These  questions,  however,  with 
the  projects  or  hoj>es  that  might  l>e  founded  u|>on 
them,  were  in  a  great  measure  prevented,  by  the 
precaution  which  Livia  had  taken  in  having  her 
son  Tiberius,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  late 
emperor,  associated  with  himself  in  the  govern- 
ment. 

When  Augustus  was  seized  with  his  last  ill- 
ness, Tiberius,  in  the  capacity  of  his  associate  in 
the  empire,  as  has  been  mentioned,  set  out  for 
the  armies  in  Dalmatia  ;  but  he  received  on  his 
way,  a  message  from  his  mother,  intimating  the 
last  symptoms  of  approaching  death  in  her  hus- 
band. Upon  this  intimation,  he  returned  to 
Nola,  and  arrived  either  before  Augustus  ex 
pired,  or  before  his  death  was  publicly  known  ; 
and  having  given  out,  that,  in  a  conference  with 


453 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


hat  experienced  prince,  he  had  received  his  last 
.nstructions  for  the  government  of  the  empire,1 
lie  took  hold  of  the  reins  the  moment  the  other 
was  supposed  to  have  dropped  them,  assumed 
his  usual  imperial  guards,  and,  by  sending  or- 
ders to  all  tjie  provinces  and  military  stations, 
took  upon  him  to  continue  the  same  model  of 
government,  without  any  cessation  or  interval 
whatever.2 

The  new  emperor,  with  the  usual  precaution 
to  stifle  competitors,  ordered  Affrippa,  the  sur- 
viving grandson  of  Augustus  to  he  put  to  death, 
and  took  every  other  effectual  measure  to  secure 
his  own  accession.  At  the  same  time,  either  in 
imitition  of  the  cautious  policy  of  the  late  em- 
peror, or  in  pursuance  of  that  hypocrisy  and 
dissimulation  to  which  he  himself  had  been  long 
accustomed,  and  to  which  he  was  naturally  in- 
clined, he  affected,  in  his  correspondence  with 
the  senate,  to  pay  the  utmost  deference  to  their 
authority,  and,  in  his  letters,  took  care  to  employ 
all  the  modest  expressions  of  a  private  citizen. 

Being  tribune  of  the  people,  he  ventured  only 
in  this  capacity,  he  said,  to  call  upon  the  senate 
to  give  their  orders  respecting  the  funeral  of 
Augustus.  For  his  own  part,  he  had  taken  his 
place  by  the  corpse  of  the  deceased,  and  in  no- 
thing else  could  take  any  public  function  upon 
him.  The  senate,  he  continued,  would  be  pleased 
to  order  the  guards  that  might  be  necessary  to 
preserve  the  peace,  and  they  would  take  every 
other  precaution  for  the  regular  performance  of 
this  solemn  duty. 

When  the  funeral  was  over,  and  the  senate 
was  assembled  for  the  opening  of  the  will  and 
memorials  of  the  late  emperor,  Tiberius  delivered 
himself  in  a  voice,  interrupted  with  sighs  and 
tears ;  he  observed,  that  a  heavy  burden,  by  the 
death  of  the  only  person  who  was  able  to  bear  it, 
had  now  devolved  upon  them  all ;  that  having 
himself  been  admitted  to  some  share  in  the  go- 
vernment, he  had  learned  how  arduous  a  task  it 
was  to  be  charged  with  the  whole  of  it,  and  had 
learned  to  make  a  proper  estimate  of  his  own 
abilities  ;3  but  that  in  a  state  which  could  boast 
of  so  many  illustrious  men,  they  could  not  be 
limited  in  their  choice,  nor  obliged  to  commit  to 
one,  what  was  sufficient  to  occupy  the  talents 
and  abilities  of  many. 

While  he  spoke  to  this  purpose,  and  observed 
the  aspect  of  his  audience,  frowning  particularly 
upon  those  who  gave  any  signs  of  assent,  his 
known  reputation  for  falsehood,  the  inconsistence 
of  his  actions  with  the  professions  which  he  now 
made,  the  murder  of  Agrippa,  and  the  military 
guard  which  attended  his  person,  effectually  pre- 
served the  members  who  were  present  from  be- 
coming the  dupes  of  a  dissimulation,  which  it 
was  equally  dangerous  to  reject  too  abruptly,  or 
to  mistake  for  sincerity. 

Most  of  the  members,  though  sufficiently 
trained  in  the  school  of  Augustus,  to  know  the 
part  they  were  to  act  on  such  occasions,  had  not 
yet  performed  this  part  upon  such  dangerous 
ground.  They  affected  to  believe  that  Tiberius 
was  sincere,  lamented  that  there  should  be  any 
reluctance  to  accept  of  the  government  in  the 


1  Sueton.  in  vit.  Tiber,  c.  21. 

2  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  i.  c.  3. 

3  Varie  dissorebat  da  magnitudine  imperii,  sua  mo- 
destia.— Tacit. 


only  person  who  was  qualified  to  undertake  if, 
and  thev  beseeched  him  not  to  desert  the  repub- 
lic in  this  extremity. 

As  the  senators  vied  with  each  other  in  these 
feigned  importunities,  Tiberias  seemed  to  be  dis- 
tressed, though  not  persuaded  ;  and  after  hp  had 
remained  some  time  undecided,  in  the  end,  as 
wearv  and  silenced,  though  not  convinced,  he 
withdrew  without  making  any  reply,  or  without 
waiting  for  any  formal  resolution  of  the  senate. 
In  passing  through  the  Crowd,  he  was  heard  to 
sav,  "  That  a  heavy  load  indeed  had  been  laid  on 
his  shoulders,  but  that  it  could  net  be  expected 
he  was  to  bear  it  for  ever;  that  old  age  at  least 
must  soort  entitle  him  to  respite."  At  the  same 
time,  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  most  in  his 
confidence,,  gave  out,  that  his  concern  for  the 
public,  and  the  intreaties  of  the  senate,  had  pre- 
vailed upon  him  to  accept  of  the  government; 
but  the  ridicule,  which  it  was  not  permitted  the 
senators  to  observe,  was  seized  by  the  people. 
"Few  men,"  it  was  said,  "can  perform  all  that 
they  undertake ;  but  this  man,  with  a  wonderful 
modestv,  refuses  to  undertake  even  what  he  per- 
forms."4 

While  Tiberius,  with  so  much  palpable  and 
even  unnecessary  craft,  acted  this  farce  in  the 
senate,  his  title  to  the  sovereignty  underwent  a 
more  serious  discussion  in  the  provinces.  The 
legions  which  were  posted  in  different  stations, 
though  long  confined  under  the  authority  of  an 
able  reign  to  the  strictest  duties  and  ordinary  ad- 
vantages of  their  profession,  still  retained  the  im- 
pression of  their  own  importance,  and  of  their 
power  to  dispose  of  the  empire.  They  recolleted 
what  some  of  them  might  have  seen,  and  all  of 
them  had  heard,  of  times  in  which  they  were 
courted  by  their  leaders,  retained  with  presents 
or  gratuities,  and  rewarded  at  the  expiration  of 
their  service  with  grants  of  land,  and  settlements 
in  the  richest  and  most  cultivated  districts  of 
Italy.  They  had  waited  with  impatience  for  an 
opportunity  to  give  a  new  master  to  the  world, 
and  hoped,  that,  in  performing  this  service,  they 
might  recover  their  consequence,  and  be  entitled 
to  rewards,  such  as  military  men  had  formerly 
received. 

It  cannot  be  doubted,  that  if  there  had  been 
any  officer  at  the  head  of  the  principal  armies  on 
the  Rhine  or  the  Danube,  prepared  to  avail  him- 
self of  this  disposition  in  the  army,  the  sword  in 
the  present,  as  in  many  other  instances,  must 
have  decided  who  was  to  succeed  in  the  throne 
of  Csesar;  but  Augustus  having,  in  the  choice 
of  provincial  and  military  commanders,  guarded 
against  any  danger  to  his  own  government,  had 
by  the  same  means  provided  for  the  security  of 
his  successor's.  The  persons  he  employed,  be- 
sides those  of  his  own  family,  who  depended  en- 
tirely upon  himself,  were,  for  the  most  part,  men 
of  moderate  ambition  or  mean  pretensions ;  so 
that  there  was  not  now  any  person  of  rank  pre- 
pared to  take  part  in  the  revolts  of  the  army. 

Germanicus,  the  nephew  and  adopted  son  of 
Tiberius,  might,  by  his  popularity  and  by  his 
pretensions,  have  become  a  formidable  rival  to  his 
uncle,  but  was  restrained  by  his  moderation  and 
the  sense  of  his  duty.  A  mutinous  spirit  never- 
theless broke  out  first  in  Panonia,  where  three 
legions  were  commanded  by  Junius  Blaesus  ;  and 


4  Sueton.  in  Tiber,  c.  24.    Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Ivii.  e.  l. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


453 


afterwards  on  the  Rhine,  where  a  great  division 
of  the  Roman  armies,  consisting  of  eight  legions, 
were  distributed  in  different  stations,  under  the 
chief  command  of  Germanicus  himself. 

The  troops  not  having  at  any  of  their  stations 
persons  who  were  qualified  to  direct  their  dis- 
contents against  the  succession  of  Tiberius,  cla- 
moured only  for  an  augmentation  of  pay,  and  an 
earlier  discharge  from  the  service,  than,  by  the 
regulations  of  the  former  reign,  they  were  allowed 
to  expect.  "Doomed,"  they  said,  "to  drag  out 
a  life  of  hard  service  for  thirty  or  forty  years,  and 
at  the  end,  as  their  reward,  to  be  banished  to 
some  barren  mountain  or  sickly  morass,  which, 
under  the  name  of  a  settlement  or  grant  of  land, 
they  were  required  to  cultivate  or  to  drain,  it  was 
time  that  some  regard  should  be  paid  to  their 
merits,  some  relief  provided  for  their  sufferings." 
They  contrasted  their  own  condition,  for  ever 
stationed  in  the  presence  of  ferocious  enemies, 
and  subsisting  on  ten  asses  a  day,  with  that  of 
the  praetorian  bands,  having  double  their  pay, 
and  placed  at  ease  amidst  all  the  comforts  and 
pleasures  of  the  capital. 

Excited  by  these  considerations,  the  legions  in 
Panonia  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  new  emperor,  until  their  grievances  should 
be  redressed.  They  secured  their  colours,  set  at 
liberty  all  those  who  were  confined  for  any  mili- 
tary crime,  and  ceased  to  obey  their  officers,  or  to 
pay  any  regard  to  the  ordinary  duties  and  forms 
ef  the  service. 

Tiberius,  though  greatly  alarmed,  and  sensible 
that  this  attack  on  his  authority  only  needed  a  fit 
leader  at  the  head  of  a  few  legions  to  reach  him 
in  the  capital,  and  to  supplant  him  in  the  empire, 
disguised  his  apprehensions,  and  proposing  to 
soothe  the  discontents  of  the  army,  deputed  to 
their  quarters  his  own  son  Drusus,  accompanied 
by  Elius  Sejanus,  a  young  man  already  associated 
with  his  father  Sejanus,  in  the  command  of  the 
praetorian  bands. 

These  young  men,  in  the  capacity  of  commis- 
sioners, attended  by  many  persons  of  rank  and 
.consideration  from  the  city,  escorted  by  two  co- 
horts of  chosen  men,  together  with  the  greater 
part  of  the  praetorian  cavalry  and  the  German 
horse,  which  usually  attended  the  person  of  the 
•emperor,  set  o^t  on  their  mission.  They  were 
furnished  with  a  letter  to  be  read  at  the  head  of 
the  troops,  but  were  empowered,  without  any 
specific  instructions,  to  take  such  measures  as  the 
occasion  might  suggest.  Having  effected  their 
march  into  Panonia,  and  approaching  the  station 
of  the  mutinous  legions,  they  were  received  in 
the  front  of  the  camp  by  the  whole  body,  but 
with  an  aspect  rather  of  contumacy,  than  of  re- 
spect or  of  duty. 

The  son  of  the  emperor  was  conducted  to  the 
platform,  from  which  it  was  usual  for  the  troops 
to  receive  the  commands,  and  to  hear  the  ad- 
dresses of  their  general.  Having  with  some  dif- 
ficulty procured  silence,  he  produced  the  letter 
which  he  had  brought  from  his  father,  and  which 
he  had  in  charge  to  be  communicated  to  the  le- 
gions. 

In  this  letter,  Tiberius  endeavoured  to  flatter 
and  to  soothe  the  discontents  of  the  army  ;  but 
to  avoid  committing  himself  too  far,  spoke  of  his 
intentions  in  general  and  ambiguous  terms.  "He 
might  assure  these  brave  legions,"  he  said,  "  with 
whom  he  himself  had  so  often  acted,  that  they 


were  the  principal  objects  of  his  care ;  that  as 
soon  as  be  should  recover  his  mind  from  his  pre- 
sent grief,  he  would  move  the  senate  to  take  their 
just  pretensions  under  consideration  ;  that  in  the 
mean  while  he  had  sent  his  own  son  in  order, 
without  loss  of  time,  to  accommodate  them  in 
every  thing  that  depended  on  himself;  that  many 
things  must  be  referred  to  the  senate,  a  wise  and 
experienced  council,  who  were  not  likely  to  with- 
hold the  proper  indulgence  from  those  who  re- 
mained in  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  or  to  fail 
in  the  necessary  rigour  to  those  who  ventured 
to  depart  from  it." 

After  this  letter  was  read,  a  centurion,  who 
had  undertaken  to  answer  for  the  legions,  made 
a  demand  in  their  name,  that  their  pay  should  be 
sixteen  asses  a  day  instead  of  ten,  and  that  they 
should  be  entitled  to  their  discharge  at  the  end  of 
sixteen  years,  without  being  obliged,  in  the  usual 
way,  after  they  were  supposed  disqualified  for 
the  ordinary  fatigues  of  the  service,  still  to  re 
main  with  their  colours. 

To  these  demands,  Drusus  declined  giving  any 
answer.  "  The  matter  should  be  reported  to  hi? 
father,"  he  said,  "and  referred  to  the  senate." 
Upon  this  reply,  a  general  clamour  arose. 
"  Wherefore  was  he  come,  if  not  entrush  d  to 
relieve  the  army  ?  He  had  no  powers  to  relieve, 
but  he  had  unlimited  powers  to  distress,  and  to 
punish.  So  the  father  himself  was  accustomed 
to  serve  them,  while  he  came  to  elude  the  prayers 
of  the  soldiers,  by  referring  them  to  some  one 
else,  who  was  at  a  distance.  Are  we  never," 
they  said,  "  to  see  the  face  of  the  emperor  ?  Is  he 
to  punish  at  discretion,  but  never  to  reward  with- 
out consent  of  the  senate?  Our  rewards,  it 
seems,  are  to  be  carefully  weighed  and  considered ; 
but  our  fatigues  and  our  punishments,  are  to  be 
dealt  without  balance  or  measure." 

In  this  disposition  the  assembly  broke  up,  and 
the  soldiers  went  roving  about  in  disorderly  par- 
ties, insulting  their  officers,  and  aflcclins  to  treat 
the  authority  of  the  emperor  himself  with  con- 
tempt. Their  presumption,  however,  was  sud- 
denly checked  at  night  by  an  eclipse  which  took 
place  in  the  moon,  and  which,  in  their  supersti- 
tious way  of  interpreting  naturil  appearances, 
formed  an  emblem  of  their  own  situation,  and  by 
its  event  was  to  prognosticate  the  sequel  of  their 
present  attempts.  Their  despondence,  during 
the  progress  of  the  eclipse,  kept  pace  with  the  di- 
minution of  the  moon's  light;  and,  as  at  the 
time  of  the  greatest  obscuration,  the  sky  itself 
was  overcast  with  clouds,  and  every  light  sup- 
pressed in  the  total  darkness  of  a  stormy  night, 
they  received  this  event  as  a  supernatural  presage 
of  their  own  fate,  and  in  despair  retired  to  their 
tents.  They  were  soon  afterwards  persuaded  to 
restore  the  colours  which  they  had  removed  from 
their  [Hace  ;  and  in  order  to  avert  the  evils  with 
which  they  were  threatened,  to  make  seasonable 
oilers  of  submission  to  the  prince. 

It  was  therefore  thought  proper,  that  Drusus 
should  instantly  avail  himself  of  this  favourable 
change,  and,  as  much  as  possible,  facilitate  the 
return  of  the  troops  to  their  duty.  For  this  pur- 
pose, he  called  them  again  to  the  place  of  au- 
dience, treated  their  mutiny  as  a  transient  fit  of 
humour  w  hich  was  past  and  ga\e  them  to  un- 
derstand, that  although  he  was  not  to  be  awed 
by  their  threats,  he  was  moved  by  the  ir  dutiful 
and  submissive  behaviour;  thai  lie  should  dc* 


m  THE  PROGRESS  A] 

patch  an  officer  with  their  requests  to  the  empe- 
ror, and  should  join  his  own  intreaties  to  procure 
them  immediate  attention,  and  to  obtain  every 
favour  that  might  be  consistent  with  the  order  of 
the  service. 

After  the  departure  of  this  messenger,  the  ex- 
pectations of  the  legions  were  fixed  entirely  upon 
the  return  he  should  bring,  and  on  the  effect  of 
the  young  Ctesar's  interposition  in  their  favours. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  officers  having  resumed 
their  command,  and  being  obeyed  in  all  the  ordi- 
nary duties  and  forms  of  the  camp,  proposed  to 
exert  their  authority  in  stifling  the  remains  of  a 
mutinous  spirit,  which  had  so  far  subsided.  They 
accordingly  gave  orders  to  seize,  and  to  punish 
the  principal  authors  of  the  late  disorders. 

Under  this  exertion  of  power,  the  troops  be- 
came as  tame  and  submissive,  as  they  had  lately 
been  refractory  and  ferocious.  To  signalize  their 
zeal,  some  of  the  most  guilty  became  the  in- 
formers and  instruments  of  justice  against  their 
own  accomplices ;  and  the  humour  from  which 
this  revok  proceeded,  having  sunk  as  it  rose, 
without  any  rational  plan,  the  mutiny  appeared 
to  be  so  entirely  suppressed,  and  the  discipline  of 
the  legions  so  effectually  restored,  that  Drusus, 
with  his  company  and  the  escort  which  attended 
them,  departed  for  Italy,  without  waiting  for  the 
return  of  the  officer  he  had  despatched  to  the 
emperor.1 

These  disorders,  however,  were  not  peculiar  to 
the  troops  in  Panonia ;  they  broke  out  with  more 
violence,  and  a  more  dangerous  tendency  among 
those  of  the  German  frontier.  On  this  side,  eight 
legions  were  placed  at  two  separate  stations ;  one 
division  under  Cecina,  on  the  borders  of  the  low 
countries;  the  other  under  Caius  Silius,  on  the 
Upper  Rhine,  both  under  the  orders  of  Germa- 
nieus, who  being  adopted  into  the  family  of 
Caesar,  had  been  vested  by  Augustus  with  the 
command  of  these  armies,  and  with  the  presi- 
dency of  Gaul.  This  young  man  had  married 
Agrippina,  the  daughter  of  Agrippa  and  of  Julia 
Augusta,  by  whom  he  had  a  numerous  issue,  a 
circumstance  generally  attended  with  great  popu- 
lar favour  among  the  Romans.  He  was  now 
attended  in  his  province  by  his  wife  Agrippina, 
with  Caius,  afterwards  better  known  by  the 
name  of  Caligula,  the  youngest  of  his  three  sons, 
now  carried  in  the  arms  of  the  mother.  He  him- 
self being  extremely  acceptable  to  the  army,  and 
to  the  people  of  the  provinces,  it  was  not  doubted, 
that  it  tiie  empire  were  to  be  disposed  of,  he 
would  have  had  the  wishes  of  mankind  in  his 
favour;  and  he  became  upon  this  account  a  prin- 
cipal object  of  jealousy  to  his  adoptive  father. 

The  troops  that  were  stationed  on  the  borders 
of  the  low  count  ries  under  Cecina,  comprehended 
the  legions  which  had  been  hastily  levied,  and 
which,  in  order  the  sooner  to  replace  the  army 
that  perished  with  Varus  in  the  unfortunate  ex- 
pedition beyond  the  Rhine,  had  been  formed 
without  the  usual  selection.  Being  in  a  great 
measure  composed  of  emancipated  slaves,  and 
other  persons  of  mean  condition,  they  had  not 
yet  imbibed  the  sentiments  of  national  and  mili- 
tary honour,  which  Augustus  endeavoured  to 
preserve  in  the  legions.  They  considered  them- 
selves, at  the  death  of  that  emperor,  as  discharged 
from  their  military  oath.    They  rose  against 


1  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  i.  c.  30. 


W  TERMINATION  [Book  VI. 

their  officers,  killed  most  of  the  centurions,  and. 
forced  Cecina,  with  the  tribunes,  to  withdraw 
from  their  rage. 

The  authors  of  this  revolt,  probably  flattered 
themselves  that  Germanieus,  although  he  did  not 
at.  first  o]»mly  countenance  their  mutinv,  might 
however  give  way  to  their  desires,  and  suffei 
himself  to  be  elevated  by  their  means  to  the 
throne  of  Cresar.  To  preserve  the  appearances 
of  order,  until  thev  should  receive  his  commands, 
they  appointed  officers  to  act  in  place  of  those 
they  had  killed,  performed  most  of  the  usual  mili- 
tary duties,  mounted  the  ordinary  guards,  and 
took  the  stated  precautions,  as  in  the  presence  of 
an  enemy,  for  the  safety  and  j>eaceof  their  camp. 

Germanieus,  when  the  accounts  of  this  alarm- 
ins  transaction  were  brought  to  him,  was  occu- 
pied in  the  affairs  of  the  province,  and  in  admi- 
nistering the  oaths  of  allegiance  on  the  accession 
of  Tiberius.  Sensible  that  his  own  hioh  preten- 
sions exposed  him  to  be  suspected  of  having  en- 
couraged these  disorders,  he  repaired  without 
delay  to  the  camp,  from  which  Cecina  had  been 
obliged  to  fly.  Upon  his  approach,  he  was  met 
by  the  legions ;  but  instead  of  the  respectful  si- 
lence that  was  usual  in  receiving  their  commander 
in  chief,  was  saluted  with  cries  of  discontent,  and 
a  mixture  of  expostulation  and  insult.  He  was 
followed  by  a  multitude  in  the  utmost  confusion, 
to  that  part  of  the  camp  at  which  it  was  usual  to 
harangue  the  army.  That  he  might  observe  the 
different  parts  of  his  audience,  or,  in  case  any 
insult  were  offered,  that  he  might  distinguish  the 
division  from  whence  it  came,  he  gave  the  sig- 
nal for  the  whole  to  draw  up  in  their  legions  and 
cohorts,  and  to  display  their  colours. 

So  long  as  he  spoke  of  the  veneration  due  to 
the  memory  of  Augustus,  and  of  the  glories  ac» 
quired  at  the  head  of  these  very  legions  by  the 
present  emperor  himself,  he  was  heard  with  re^ 
spect  and  attention  ;  but  when  he  touched  on 
their  want  of  duty,  his  voice  could  no  longer  be 
heard,  and  the  whole  presence  was  thrown  into 
tumult.  Some  uncovered  their  scars,  called  for 
the  rewards  that  were  due  to  their  services; 
others  complained  of  the  scantiness  of  their  pay, 
of  their  toilsome  marches,  of  their  hard  labour  in 
forming  entrenchments,  and  in  rearing  maga- 
zines of  wood  and  of  forage.  "  We  have  follow- 
ed our  colours,"  said  some  of  the  veterans,  "above 
thirty  years :  Is  death  the  only  termination  to  be 
hoped  for  our  labours?"  They  called  for  the 
legacy,  which  they  heard  was  bequeathed  to 
them  by  Augustus;  they  invited  the  prince  to 
declare  himself  sovereign  of  the  empire,  and 
offered  to  support  his  pretensions  with  their 
swords. 

On  this  proposal,  Germanieus,  as  if  seized  with 
horror,  came  down  from  the  platform  on  which 
he  stood,  and  was  hastening  to  retire,  when 
numbers  interposed  to  stop  him.  "My  duty  to 
the  emperor,"  he  said,  "is  more  precious  to  me 
than  my  life;"  and  at  these  words,  drawing  his 
sword,  he  turned  the  point  of  it  towards  his  own 
breast.  Some  of  those  who  were  near,  laid  hold 
of  his  arm;  others  called  out,  let  him  strike; 
and  one,  in  particular,  reaching  his  sword,  said, 
take  this ;  it  is  sharper  than  your  own. 

It  is  not  to  be  questioned,  that  Germanieus 
might  have  led  this  army  into  Italy,  and  with  a 
general  consent  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
empire;  but  he  seems  to  have  apprehended  the 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


455 


rights  of  succession  in  the  present  emperor,  with 
all  the  respect  and  fidelity  that  accompany  the 
Sentiments  of  lovalty  and  dutv,  under  monarchies 
already  establishel.  Being  desirous  to  withdraw 
from  the  tumult  and  a  way  being  made  for  hi  n 
by  the  officers  of  his  train,  he  retired  to  deliberate 
on"  the  present  alarming  state  of  affairs. 

The  leaders  of  this  mutiny  were  about  to 
ooen  a  correspondence  with  the  legions  on  the 
Upper  Rhine.  The  enemy  were  in  sight  on  the 
opposite  banks  of  the  river,  and  ready  to  take 
advantige  of  these  distractions.  Some  of  the 
officers  present  gave  it  as  their  opinion,  that  an 
arm/  should  be  formed  from  the,  provincial  co- 
horts to  overawe  the  legions ;  but  this  was  re- 
jected by  others,  as  likelv  to  end  in  a  civil  war. 
Severity,  it  was  observed  by  some,  might  exas- 
perate ;  concession,  it  was  said  by  others,  might 
breed  insolence;  and  the  service  was  equally 
exposed  to  suffer,  whether  the  troops  were  in- 
dulged in  all  their  demands,  or  in  none.  It  was 
suggested  at  last,  that  by  a  little  artifice,  without 
committing  the  authority  of  the  emperor,  the 
demands  of  the  army  might  be  satisfied.  For 
this  purpose,  it  was  proposed  that  a  letter  should 
be  feigned,  as  from  Tiberius,  so  dated,  that  in 
writing  it  he  could  not  be  supposed  to  know  of 
the  disorder  which  now  took  place ;  that  in  this 
letter,  he  should  be  personated,  as  declaring,  by 
a  voluntary  act  of  goodness,  his  intention  to 
double  the  legacy  bequeathed  by  Augustus;  to 
fix  the  entire  period  of  service  at  twenty  years, 
and  that  of  the  ordinary  duties  at  sixteen.2 

A  letter  to  this  purpose  being  accordingly  pro- 
duced, the  artifice  was  suspected,  but  the  terms 
were  agreed  to,  provided  that  the  legacies  were 
instantly  paid  ;  that  those  who  had  served  twenty 
years  should  be  discharged,  and  those  who  had 
served  sixteen  years,  should  be  exempted  as 
veterans  from  the  ordinary  duties  of  the  camp. 
Many  were  accordingly  discharged,  and  the 
more  clamorous  were  paid  up  their  share  of  the 
legacy,  with  such  money  as  could  be  collected 
among  the  attendants  of  the  prince.  Others 
were  persuaded  to  suffer  a  delay  of  payment, 
until  they  should  come  into  quarters  for  the 
winter. 

From  this  station,  Germanicus  repaired  to 
that  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  where  with  less  trou- 
ble, and  by  means  of  the  same  gratuities,  he  pre- 
vailed on  the  legions  of  that  division  to  with- 
draw into  quarters.  A  mutiny  of  the  troops  on  the 
Weser  had  broke  out  at  the  same  time  ;  but  was 
suppressed  by  the  courage  and  ability  of  the 
otfi  Jet  at  their  head. 

It  appears,  that  Tiberius,  on  hearing  of  these 
mutinies  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Weser,  had  re- 
cours°  to  the  senate,  and  wished  to  avail  him- 
self of  their  authority  in  restoring  the  discipline 
of  the  army.  He  probably  meant,  in  the  name 
of  this  body,  to  inflict  the  necessary  severities, 
while  he  reserved  to  himself  the  more  popular 
office  of  graruing  in  lulgencies,  or  of  making 
some  gracious  concessions. 

A  committee  of  the  senate,  of  whom  one 
Munatius  Plancus  is  mentioned  as  the  head,  was 
accordingly  sent  to  the  quarters  of  the  army, 
and  arrived  at  the  Ara  Ubhrum,3  where  Ger- 


2  A  Roman  soldier,  after  lie  was  exempted  from  the 
ordinary  duties  of  the  camp,  was  retained  at  his 
colours  to  encounter  the  enemy. 

3  In  the  Bishopric  of  Cologne. 


manicus,  with  two  legions,  after  quieting  the 
late  mutiny,  was  retired  for  the  winter.  As  soon 
as  it  was  known,  that  deputies  were  arrived  from 
the  senate,  to  take  cognizance  of  the  state  of  the 
army,  the  soldiers  apprehended  that  the  late 
agreement  was  to  beset,  aside;  that  the  indul- 
gences granted  to  them  were  to  be  recalled,  and 
that  something  ungracious  was  intended,  which 
the  emperor  chose  to  execute  in  some  other  name 
than  his  own ;  for  so  the  arts,  bv  which  the  em- 
pire had  been  governed  near  fifty  years,  now 
began  to  be  understood.  In  this  persuasion,  the 
soldiers,  in  a  riotous  manner,  assembled  round 
the,  quarters  of  thtir  general  ;  and  as  a  signal,  that 
they  were  not  any  longer  to  respect  his  authoritv, 
thev  tore  the  imperial  standard  from  thence ;  and 
to  deter  civil  officers,  for  the  future,  from  inter- 
posing in  their  affairs,  meant  to  have  murdered 
Munatius  Plancus,  and  the  other  deputies  of  the 
senate.  These  officers,  however,  took  refuge  at 
the  colours  of  one  of  the  legions,  where,  accord- 
ing to  the  practice  of  the  Roman  army,  they 
had  the  protection  of  a  sanctuary,  and  by  this 
means  escaped  the  fate  that  was  intended  for  them. 

Germanicus  being  still  accompanied  in  his 
quarters  by  his  wife  Agrippina  and  her  infant 
son,  the  youngest  of  his  children,  and  appre- 
hending that  they  could  not  be  safe  in  this  place 
of  disorder,  determined  to  remove  them  to  some 
other  station,  where  the  troops,  remaining  in  their 
dutv,  were  likelv  to  afford  them  protection.  At 
their  departure,  the  soldiers  seeing  the  wife  and 
the  infant  child  of  their  favourite  leader,  follow- 
ed by  a  numerous  train  of  female  attendants,  fly 
from  their  camp,  as  from  a  place  in  which  no 
respect  was  to  be  paid  to  sex,  age,  or  rank,  were 
struck  with  the  effect  of  their  own  violence. 
Some  crowded  in  the  way  of  this  melancholy 
train,  and  endeavoured  to  detain  them  ;  while 
others  ran  to  the  husband,  and  beseeched  him  to 
spare  the  legions  so  cruel  a  reproach,  as  was 
implied,  in  his  supposing  that  the  wife  of  Ger- 
manicus, the  daughter  of  Agrippa,  and  the 
grand-daughter  of  Caesar,  with  her  infant  child, 
were  obliged  to  fly  for  safety  from  their  quarters. 

The  prince,  observing  the  disposition  of  the 
soldiers,  seized  the  opportunity  of  regaining  his 
authority;  and  making  it  a  condition  that  they 
would  return  to  their  duty,  complied  with  their 
request. 

In  the  first  moment  of  zeal  to  signalize  their 
affection,  multitudes,  without  knowing  the  cause 
of  the  change,  passed  with  the  im|»etuosity  of 
popular  tumults,  by  a  rapid  transition,  from  one 
extreme  to  the  other,  called  out  for  justice  on 
those  who  had  been  leaders  in  the  late  mutiny  ; 
and  themselves  became  willing  instruments  in 
punishing  such  as  were  pointed  out  to  them  as 
authors  of  a  guilt,  in  which  the  whole  had  been 
concerned.  Germanicus  and  the  principal  offi- 
cers withdrew  from  the  scene,  leaving  a  centurion 
on  the  platform  to  preside  in  this  extraordinary 
course  of  justice.  The  prisoners  that  were 
brought  to  him,  were  hoisted  up  into  view,  and 
upon  the  verdict  of  the  multitude,  to  spare  or  to 
punish  them,  were  released,  or  thrown  down 
from  the  platform,  and  suffered  immediate  death 
from  the  hands  of  their  fellow-soldiers. 

The  same  disorders  had  broken  out,  and  still 
subsisted  at  Vetera,4  the  station  of  the  fifth  and 


4  Nearly  opposite  the  Cleve*. 


456 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  Vfi 


twenty-first  legions ;  but  Germanicus  being  now 
in  condition  to  enforce  his  authority,  advanced 
at  the  head  of  a  powerful  army,  sent  his  instruc- 
tions to  Cecina,  who  was  present  with  the  mu- 
tinous troops,  requiring  that  they  should,  of  their 
own  accord,  bring  the  guilty  to  justice;  and 
intimating,  that  if  this  were  not  done  before  his 
arrival,  he  was  determined,  without  distinction 
of  persons,  to  put  the  whole  to  the  sword. 

On  this  intimation,  a  considerable  number  of 
the  soldiers  entered  into  a  concert  for  executing 
the  vengeance  required  of  them,  and  at  a  time 
appointed,  began  the  slaughter  of  those  who  were 
most  forward  in  the  mutiny.  As  the  camp  was 
soon  thrown  into  confusion,  it  became  impossible 
to  make  any  distinction  of  persons,  and  the  mas- 
sacre extended  to  all  those  who  crowded  in  the 
way,  and  who  were  not  apprised  of  the  design. 
Germanicus,  at  his  arrival,  found  the  tents 
stained  with  blood,  the  passages  strewed  with 
heaps  of  the  slain,  and  all  the  appearances  of  a 
camp  surprised,  and  of  an  army  put  to  the 
sword.  Those  who  remained,  affected  for  the 
present  to  pay  respect  to  the  authority  of  their 
leaders;  but  had  shown  themselves  capable  of 
the  greatest  extremes  against  their  officers,  as 
well  as  against  their  fellow-soldiers. 

These  were  the  principal  difficulties  which 
Tiberius  encountered  in  effecting  his  succession  ; 
he  had  other  alarms  in  the  commencement  of 
his  reign,  but  of  inferior  moment.  Such  were 
the  troubles  occasioned  by  the  imposture  of 
Clemens,  who  had  been  a  slave  in  the  service  of 
the  posthumous  Agrippa,  and  the  conspiracy  of 
Scribonius  Libo,  who,  being  encouraged  by  his 
affinity  to  the  highest  names  in  the  republic,  had 
formed  some  visionary  design  on  the  empire. 

Clemens,  upon  the  death  of  the  late  emperor, 
had  gone  to  the  place  at  which  his  master  was 
detained  in  exile,  meant  to  have  conducted  him 
to  one  of  the  armies  in  Gaul,  where  he  made 
no  doubt  that  the  son  of  Agrippa,  and  the  lineal 
descendant  of  Caesar,  would  have  found  a  favour- 
able reception ;  but  his  design  being  prevented 
by  the  death  of  this  unfortunate  young  man, 
he  formed  a  project  still  more  wild  and  romantic, 
founded  in  some  resemblance  which  he  himself 
bore  to  his  deceased  master,  he  took  his  name, 
and  proposed  to  personate  him.  Pretending  to 
have  escaped  from  the  cruelty  of  the  usurper 
Tiberius,  he  frequently  changed  his  place,  and 
affected  concealment ;  but  sufiered  himself  to  be 
seen  by  those  who  were  likely  to  be  imposed 
upon,  and  to  afford  him  protection  or  support. 
He  was  accordingly  favoured  by  many  persons 
of  consequence,  who  were  either  deceived,  or 
willing  to  countenance  any  attempt  that  was 
made  to  disturb  the  present  succession.  Among 
his  supposed  abettors,  however,  he  had  unfor- 
tunateiy  one  person  employed  by  the  emperor 
himself,  to  seduce  and  to  circumvent  him.  By 
this  emissary  affecting  to  believe  his  story,  and 
to  aid  him  in  asserting  his  pretensions  to  the 
throne,  he  was  delivered  over  into  the  hands  of 
his  enemies,  and  was  put  to  death  by  order  of 
Tiberius,  who,  it  is  said,  had  the  barbarous 
curiosity  to  visit  him,  and  to  examine  his  like- 
ness to  Agrippa  before  he  was  executed. 

The  emperor  was  soon  after  rather  amused 
than  alarmed,  by  the  informations  he  received  of 
the  practices  of  Scribonius  Libo,  his  other  com- 
petitor for  the  throm  of  Csesar.    This  young 


man,  being  by  his  mother,  the  grandson  of  Pom- 
pey,  and  by  his  father,  the  nephew  of  Scribonia, 
who  was  the  first  wife  of  Augustus,  was  conse- 
quently the  cousin  of  Julia,  and  of  her  children. 
His  affinity  to  the  sovereigns  of  the  world  in- 
spired him  with  thoughts  and  expectations  above 
the  condition  of  a  subject,  and  laid  him  open  to 
the  arts  of  false  and  designing  men,  whom  the 
fashion  of  the  times  encouraged  with  the  pros- 
pect of  impunitv,  and  even  of  rewards. 

Such  men  affecting  zeal  for  the  safety  of  the 
emperor,  enticed  the  unwary  to  engage  them- 
selves in  some  supposed  treasonable  practice,  in 
order  to  have  the  merit  of  informing  against 
them.  In  this  odious  character,  a  senator  of  the 
name  of  Firmius  Catus,  practised  upon  the 
weakness  of  Libo,  made  him  acquainted  with 
professed  magicians,  astrologers,  and  interpreters 
of  dreams,  who  flattered  him  with  the  hopes  of 
empire  ;  and  after  he  was  engaged  in  this  idle  or 
criminal  correspondence,  contrived,  by  means  of 
one  Flaccus  Vesculanius,  who  frequented  the 
court,  to  give  secret  information  of  the  whole  to 
the  emperor. 

Tiberius,  employing  all  his  artifice  against 
this  feeble  antagonist,  refused  to  see  the  informer, 
but  directed  him  to  continue  his  intrigue,  and  to 
report  the  progress  of  it  by  the  same  channel. 
While  he  concurred  in  laying  this  snare  for  the 
unhappy  young  man,  he  raised  him  to  the  dignity 
of  prcetor,  treated  him,,  at  the  feasts  and  enter- 
tainments of  the  palace,  with  uncommon  marks 
of  distinction,  and  took  the  malicious  pleasure  of 
observing  how  far  these  flatterers  joined  to  the 
hopes  of  empire  that  were  given  him,  contributed 
to  swell  his  presumption. 

In  the  mean  time,  and  possibly  before  the  design 
of  the  emperor,  and  of  his  informers,  was  ripe 
for  execution,  Fulcinius  Trio,  another  noted  irir 
former,  having  intimation  of  the  matter  from 
one  of  the  astrologers,  who  had  been  consulted 
by  Libo,  proposing  to  snatch  the  prey  from  his 
original  accuser,  and  to  have  a  preferable  claim 
to  the  reward,  carried  his  discovery  directly  be- 
fore the  senate ;  but  the  emperor  being  present 
when  this  information  was  delivered,  did  justice 
to  the  first  informer,  confirmed  the  charge,  and 
with  an  odious  accuracy,  enumerated  the  piteou3 
follies  of  which  Libo  had  been  guilty.  The 
senators,  pretending  to  be  alarmed  at  such  a 
treason,  vied  with  each  other  in  expressions  of 
abhorrence,  and  many  of  them  contended  for  the 
honour  of  conducting  the  prosecution  which  was 
to  be  formed  against  the  criminal. 

The  slaves  of  the  accused,  agreeably  to  a  late 
innovation  in  the  law,  were  transferred  in  pro- 
perty to  the  emperor,  that  they  might  be  put  to 
the  question,  or  that  they  might  be  received  in 
evidence  against  their  master. 

Libo  had  .  the  first  intimation  of  what  had 
passed,  by  a  party  of  armed  men,  who,  with 
orders  to  seize  his  person,  broke  into  his  house. 
Terrified  by  this  appearance,  he  pleaded  for 
mercy;  or  if  this  could  not  be  obtained,  im- 
plored that  one  of  his  own  servants  might  bo 
allowed  to  put  an  end  to  his  life ;  and  being  dis- 
appointed in  both  these  requests,  he  took  poison 
or  wounded  himself,  and  was  in  the  agonies  of 
death,  when  according  to  Dion  Cassius,  he  was, 
in  order  to  secure  the  confiscation  of  his  estate, 
carried  before  the  senate  to  receive  his  sentence. 
By  the  decree  which  was  given,  the  name  and 


Chap.  V.J 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


457 


family  of  Libo  were  consigned  to  infamy,  and 
the  astrologers,  his  accomplices}  were  expelled 
from  Italy,  or  put  to  death. 

The  emperor,  when  this  sentence  passed,  af- 
fected regret  for  the  unhappy  young  man,  com- 
plained of  his  precipitancy  in  preventing  the  effects 
•*f  mercv,  and  professed  an  intention  to  have 
spared  his  life 

From  the  time  at.  which  the  mutinies  on  the 
Rhine  and  Danube  were  suppressed,  and  from 
the  conclusion  of  this  formal  proceeding  against 
Scribnnius,  as  a  traitor  to  the  lawful  sovereign  of 
the  empire;  we  may  date  the  accession  of  Tibe- 
rius to  the  throne  of  Caesar.  He  was  now  in 
the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his  age  ;  is  described  in  his 
person  as  tall,  robust,  and  healthy  ;  erect  in  his 
walk ;  of  a  fair  complexion,  handsome  counte- 
nance, large  eye,  but  frowning;  of  few  words, 
and  slow  of  utterance ;  without  any  action  or 
gesture  while  he  spoke,  besides  a  kind  of  involun- 
tary motion  with  his  fingers.  His  manner,  not- 
withstanding his  figure,  was  so  ungracious,  that 
Augustus,  in  recommending  him  to  the  public 
favour,  thought  proper  to  make  an  apology  for 
this  defect  in  his  appearance,  observing  that  his 
ungracious  looks  were  mere  accidents  in  the  out- 
ward form  of  his  person,  not  expressions  of  vice 
in  his  temper.2  In  his  youth,  he  was  addicted 
to  debauchery ;  but  as  he  advanced  to  manhood, 
being  in  awe  of  the  emperor,  he  learned  in  many 
things  to  disguise  his  inclinations,  and  acquired 
a  habit  of  reserve  and  hypocrisy. 

Augustus  on  all  accasions  seemed  to  receive 
Tiberius  with  some  degree  of  repugnance;  so 
that  when  he  came  into  company,  the  emperor, 
if  engaged  in  any  pleasurable  conversation, 
changed  the  subject,  and  altered  his  countenance. 
Though  in  some  degree  reconciled  to  him,  or 
obliged  from  necessity  to  employ  him  in  the  con- 
duct of  his  affairs,  and  though  observed  some- 
times to  speak  of  him  even  in  terms  of  affection 
and  confidence,  yet  he  gave  more  frequently, 
with  respect  to  him,  signs  of  aversion  and  dis- 
trust;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he  fluctuated 
to  the  last  in  his  opinion  concerning  him.  De- 
termined, however,  by  the  influence  and  in- 
trigues of  Livia,  or  by  the  relation  subsisting 
between  them,  he  left  him  in  possession  of  the 
empire,  which  he  had  long  intended  for  persons 
more  nearly  related  in  blood,  and  more  in  his  fa- 
vour ;  but  whatever  were  the  motives  of  his  choice, 
such  was  the  belief  of  a  deliberate  and  selfish  de- 
sign in  all  the  actions  of  Augustus,  that  he  was  by 
miny  supposed  to  have  chosen  Tiberius,  merely, 
that  in  the  comparison  of  his  own  character  with 
that  of  his  successor,  the  preference  might  be 
given  to  himself. 

Before  the  events  which  have  been  mentioned 
had  put  Tiberius  in  full  possession  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  while  he  yet  affected  to  decline  it,  the 
consuls,  the  senate,  and  all  the  principal  citizens 
at  Rome,  had  taken  the  oath  of  submission  and 
allegiance.  The  whole  army,  and  all  the  pro- 
vinces soon  after  followed  their  example,  and  the 
world  looked  with  anxious  expectation  for  the 
full  display  of  a  character,  hitherto  for  the  most 
part  wrapped  up  in  reserve,  and  justly  suspected 
of  cruelty.  Among  the  first  discoveries  that 
were  made  of  his  temper,  it  appeared  that  even 
bis  mother  Livia  had  mistaken  his  disposition, 


3  Sueton.  in  Tiber,  c.  31.   Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  i. 
3  M 


or  overrated  her  own  ascendant  over  him.  In 
procuring  the  empire  to  her  son,  she  had  joined 
to  the  zeal  of  a  mother,  a  high  degree  of  ambi- 
tion, and  a  desire  to  emerge  from  a  species  of 
obscurity,  in  which  she  had  lived  in  the  reign  „f 
her  husband.  She  flattered  herself,  that  upon 
the  accession  of  Tiberius,  she  was  to  possess  a 
great  part  of  the  imperial  power,  or  to  exercise 
the  whole  in  his  name.  Trusting  to  the  defer- 
ence, which  he  had  hitherto  affected  for  all  her 
opinions,  or  to  the  gratitude  which  he  owed  to 
her  for  the  high  obligations  she  had  conferred 
upon  him,  she  instantly  assumed  all  the  conse- 
quence she  expected  to  reap  from  his  greatness, 
laid  aside  the  caution  and  reserve  which  she  had 
ever  preserved  in  the  reign  of  Augustus,  ad- 
vanced into  public  view,  and,  as  if  she  had  taken 
possession  of  the  empire  for  herself,  under  pre- 
tence of  bestowing  it  upon  her  son,  took  a  princi- 
pal part  in  all  matters  of  state,  and  appeared  on 
solemn  occasions  with  her  lictors,  and  all  the 
other  ensigns  or  formalities  of  a  public  station.' 

The  senate  trusting  to  the  mother's  supposed 
knowledge  of  her  son's  inclinations,  yielded  to 
her  in  all  the  prerogatives  she  was  pleased  to  as- 
sume, inserted  her  name  with  that  of  the  empe- 
ror in  all  public  acts,  and,  in  the  titles  of  Tibe- 
rius, styled  him  the  son  of  Augustus  as  well  as 
of  Cresar.  They  were  not  however  suffered  long 
to  remain  in  this  error.  They  were  told  by  the 
emperor  with  an  alarming  coldness  of  manner, 
which  left  no  doubt  of  his  sincerity,  "  That  the 
ambition  of  women  should  be  kept  within  proj>er 
bounds,  and  that  he  should  always  endeavour  to 
prescribe  such  bounds  to  his  own."* 

From  the  time  in  which  this  declaration  was 
made  by  the  emperor,  it  appears  that  Livia  en- 
tirely dropt  her  pretensions  to  any  part  in  the 
government,  and  became  no  less  reserved  in  the 
reign  of  her  son,  than  she  had  been  in  that  of 
her  husband. 

As  Augustus,  in  assuming  the  sovereignty, 
and  in  the  whole  of  his  reign  was  kept  in  awe 
by  the  republican  spirit,  which  he  supposed  still 
to  lurk  with  a  dangerous  violence  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  ;  so  Tiberius,  to  the  affectation  of 
treading  in  the  steps  of  his  predecessors,  joined  a 
great  measure  of  distrust  in  the  dispositions  of 
the  people  towards  himself,  and  in  their  predilec- 
tion for  others,  who  might  be  supposed  more 
worthy  to  reign.  Among  these,  he  looked  upon 
Germanicus  as  the  first  or  principal  object  of  his 
jealousy.  He  had  adopted  this  young  man, 
merely  in  compliance  with  the  late  emperor's 
will,  and  considered  him  not  only,  as  fie  was  be- 
come by  this  act  of  adoption,  a  rival  to  his  own 
son,  but  as  he  was,  by  the  affection  of  the  people, 
by  the  attachment  of  the  army,  and  the  high 
pretensions  of  his  wife  Agrippina,  a  most  dange- 
rous rival  to  himself.  He  could  not  forgive  a 
person  to  whom  the  legions  had  made  otkrs  of 
the  empire ;  and  who,  for  having  declined  the 
offer,  was  deemed  the  more  worthy  of  it.  Al- 
though he  endeavoured,  under  professions  of  the 
highest  regard,  to  dissemble  his  feelings,  and  in 
making  his  report  to  the  senate  of  the  disorders 
which  had  lately  taken  place  in  the  army,  spoke  of 
the  conduct  of  his  two  sons,  Germanicus  and 
Drusus,  with  equal  tenderness  and  applause  ;  he 


3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lvii.  c.  12.    [bid.  lib.  Ivi.  fine. 

4  Tacit.  Annal  lib.  i.  c  14. 


458  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


had  nevertheless  suffered  the  retainers  of  his 
court  to  see  through  this  disguise,  encouraged 
them  to  charge  Germanicus  with  want  of  capa- 
city or  courage  on  that  occasion  ;  and  had  taken 
his  own  resolution  to  remove  him  from  a  situation 
in  which  his  popularity,  the  ambition  of  Agrip- 
pina,  or  the  presumption  of  the  troops-  under 
his  command,  might,  in  a  moment,  engage  him 
in  some  dangerous  design  on  the  empire. 

Upon  these  motives,  therefore,  it  was  pro- 
posed to  remove  Germanicus  from  the  German 
station,  and  from  the  command  of  troops,  by 
whom  he  was  beloved,  to  the  command  of  an 
army,  inferior  in  point  of  character,,  and  to  which 
he  was  less  known,  or  less  an  object  of  favour. 

While  this  resolution  was  taken  at  home,  Ger- 
manicus, after  the  suppression  of  the  late  muti- 
nies, that  he  might  not  suffer  the  soldiers  to  brood 
over  their  grievances,  gave  them  leisure  to  re- 
new their  complaints,  or  leave  them  to  languish 
for  want  of  employment,,  projected"  an  expedition 
beyond  the  Rhine,  and  passed  this  river  with 
twelve  thousand  men  of  the  legions,  twenty  co- 
horts of  the  provinces,  and  eight  alae,  or  regiments 
of  horse.  By  this  sudden  irruption,  made  before 
it  was  known  that  his  troops  were  willing  to 
obey  him,  he  surprised  a  great  body  of  barbarians 
assembled  to  take  advantage  of  the  disorder 
which  they  supposed  to  subsist  in  the  Roman 
army,  dispersed  them  with  great  slaughter,  con- 
tinued his  march  to  the  famous  ground  on  which 
Varus  had  been  cut  off  with  his  legions ;  and 
finding  the  field  still  covered  with  the  unburied 
bones  of  the  slain,  gave  directions  to  have  them 
collected  and  interred.  In  this  pious  office  the 
prince  himself  mixed  with  the  private  men,  and 
put  his  hand  to  the  work  ;  a  circumstance  which, 
when  reported  at  Rome,  considerably  increased 
the  jealousy  of  the  emperor.  From  thence  he 
proposed  to  invade  the  territory  of  Arminius,  and 
to  punish  that  barbarian  for  his  treachery  to 
those  unfortunate  legions.  In  execution  of  this 
design,  being  provided  with  a  thousand  vessels, 
he  embarked  on  the  Ems,  fell  down  this  river  to 
a  considerable  distance ;  and  having  landed  on 
its  eastern  banks,  and  overrun  the  country  from 
thence  to  the  Weser,  in  his  encounter  with  the 
natives  obtained  two  considerable  victories. 

After  these  operations,  Germanicus  again  re- 
turned to  his  ships  in  the  Ems,  and  continued  his 
navigation  to  the  sea.  Supposing  that  the  mouth 
of  the  Rhine  was  contiguous  to  that  of  the  Ems, 
he  proposed,  by  a  short  voyage  on  the  coast,  to 
pass  from  the  one  to  the  other ;  and  without  ex- 
posing himself  to  be  harassed  in  a  march  by 
land',  to  recover  his  former  station  on  the  frontier 
of  Gaul.  On  this  stormy  coast,  however,  having 
met  with  difficulties  with  which  neither  his  ves- 
sels nor  his  mariners  were  fit  to  contend,  his  fleet 
was  dispersed  ;  many  of  his  ships  were  cast  away 
on  the  continent,  others  wrecked  on  the  conti- 
guous islands,  and  some  drove  quite  into  Britain. 
He  himself  got  on  shore  on  the  coast  which  is 
now  called  East  Friezland,  and  saw  with  des- 
pair the  apparent  wreck  of  many  vessels  of  his 
fleet,  which  seemed  to  be  lost  irrecoverably  on 
the  banks  which  were  left  by  the  sea  at  low 
water.  From  this  disaster,  however,  he  recover- 
ed the  greater  part  of  his  forces.  The  vessels 
that  were  in  company  with  his  own,  got  afloat 
on  the  return  of  the  flood,  and  the  troops  from 
on  l>oard  of  them  were  landed  without  any  con- 


[Book  VI. 

siderable  loss.  By  this  escape  of  his  army,  he 
was  still  in  condition  to  make  head  against  the 
natives  of  the  country,  who,  intending  to  profiC 
by  the  losses  he  had  recently  sustained',  were  as- 
sembled  on  the  Weser ;  but  being  surprised  by 
his  sudden  re-appearance,  they  fled  before  him, 
and  separated  to  their  different  quarters. 

Germanicus,  upon  his  return  from  this  expe- 
dition, and  while  he  was  meditating  a  renewal 
of  such  operations  on  the  following  year,  had 
intimation  of  the  emperor's  intention  to  remove 
him  from  his  station  on  the  Rhine.  This  inti- 
mation was  accompanied  with  a  message  full  of 
the  most  flattering  commendation  of  his  services. 
He  was  invited  to  Rome  under  pretence  of  cele- 
brating a  triumph,  which  had  been  decreed  to 
him  for  his  late  victories  ;  and  for  the  purpose  of 
assuming  the  consulate,  to  which  he  was  destinecF 
on  the  approaching  year  as  colleague  to  the  empe- 
ror himself.  As  it  was  supposed,  however,  that,, 
under  an  appearance  of  modesty,  or  unwilling  to 
withdraw  from  a  hazardous  war  in  which  °the 
troops  he  commanded  were  still  engaged,  he 
might  decline  accepting  of  a  mere  honorary  invi- 
tation, it  was  subjoined  to  these  reasons  of  recall, 
that  the  remains  of  glory,  if  there  were  still  any 
to  be  reaped  in  that  quarter,  ought  to  be  reserved 
for  his  brother  Drusus,  there  being  no  other  ene- 
my left  from  whom  to  collect  his  laurels. 

An  invitation  to  court,  accompanied  with  the 
last  of  these  considerations,  though  veiled  under 
so  many  flattering  pretences,  was  sufficiently  un- 
derstood to  be  a  peremptory  command,  which 
Germanicus  accordingly  obeyed.  On  his  arrival 
in  Italy,  only  two  cohorts  or  battalions  were  sent 
from  Rome  to  receive  him.  But  every  circum- 
stance tended  to  augment  the  jealousy  of  the  em- 
peror; the  greater  part  of  the  praetorian  bands, 
mingled  with  multitudes  of  the  people  of  every 
sex,  condition,  and  age,  advanced  of  their  own 
accord  some  miles  from  the  city,  and  received 
him  with  uncommon  acclamations  of  joy.1  Hav- 
ing made  his  entry,  as  had  been  proposed,  in 
triumph,  he  was,  with  the  emperor  himself,  put  in 
nomination  for  the  consulate  of  the  following  year. 

The  popularity  of  which  Germanicus  now 
appeared  to  be  possessed  in  the  city,  was  no  less 
mortifying  to  the  emperor,  than  his  power  in  the 
army  was  supposed  to  be  dangerous.  His  pre- 
sence, if  it  did  not  obscure  the  lustre  of  the 
emperor  himself,  seemed  to  place  him  in  a  con- 
tinual state  of  competition  with  the  other  son  of 
Tiberius ;  and  the  interests  of  these  two  princes, 
the  one  by  adoption,  the  other  by  birth,  the  son 
of  the  emperor,  though  supposed  to  be  on  the  best 
terms  with  each  other,  had  divided  the  court. 

Agrippina,  the  wife  of  Germanicus,  inheriting 
the  blood  of  Augustus,  and  ever  carrying  in  her 
haughty  looks  the  pretension*  of  the  Caesarian 
family,  was  become  to  Livia,  whom  she  consider- 
ed as  a  step-mother^  no  less  an  object  of  animo- 
sity, than  she  was  to  the  emperor  himself.  Un- 
der these  circumstances,  the  resolution  to  separate 
Germanicus  from  the  German  armies,  and  to 
place  him  in  the  command  of  the  eastern  pro- 
vinces, a  situation  apparently  honourable,  but  in 
which  he  should  be  surrounded  with  persons- 
who  might  serve  as  a  restraint,  or  as  spies  on  his 
conduct,  was  now  carried  into  execution.  He 
was  vested  with  a  commission  to  restore  the  tran- 


1  Suetoii.  in  Vita  Caii. 


Chap.  V.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


459 


quillity  of  Asia,  that  was  disturbed  by  some  dis- 

tmtes  which  had  arisen  on  the  succession  to  the 
kingdoms  of  Cappadocia  and  Armenia. 

Gerrnanicus,  in  the  end  of  the  third  year  of 
the  present  reign,  set  out  upon  this  apparently 
honourable  commission.  Having  a  supreme 
authority  in  the  several  provinces  through  which 
he  was  to  pass,  from  the  sea  of  Ionia  to  the  ex- 
tremities of  Egypt  and  of  Syria,  he  visited,  as 
chief  in  command,  the  cities  of  Greece,  still  re- 
vered as  the  principal  seminaries  of  philosophy 
and  literature;  and  upon  his  entry  into  Asia,  pro- 
ceeded to  execute  the  commission  on  which  he 
was  sent  He  reduced  Cappadocia  and  Com- 
magene  to  the  form  of  Roman  provinces,  making 
some  abatement  of  the  taxes  formerly  paid  to 
their  own  princes,2  and  settled  Zeno,  son  to  the 
king  of  Pontus,  on  the  throne  of  Armenia.  He 
afterwards  ventured  to  continue  his  progress  into 
Egypt,  though  contrary  to  an  edict  of  the  late 
emperor,  which  was  still  in  force.  On  his  return 
from  thence  he  was  taken  ill,  and  died  at  An- 
tioch  in  the  thirty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  with 
some  suspicions  of  having  been  poisoned  by  Cn. 
Piso,  the  praefect  of  Syria,  not  without  the  con- 
nivance or  the  direction  of  Tiberius  himself.8 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  that  the  emperor  looked 
upon  Gerrnanicus  with  great  distrust,  and  might 
have  sought  for  opportunities  to  sacrifice  him  to 
liis  own  safety,  or  to  that  of  his  son  Drusus;  but 
it  does  not  appear  that  he  proceeded  any  farther 
on  this  occasion,  than  to  remove  him  from  a  situ- 
ation in  which  he  furnished  the  court  with  con- 
tinual occasions  of  mortification  or  jealousy,  into 
one  that  was  equally  splendid  in  appearance,  but 
tending  to  lessen  his  consequence  in  the  empire; 
and  that  he  meant  only  to  place  him  in  the  com- 
mand of  armies  over  whom  he  had  no  personal 
influence,  and  who,  if  disposed  to  revolt,  were 
less  to  be  feared  than  the  legions  which  were 
formed  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube. 

In  sending  Gerrnanicus  into  Asia,  great  at- 
tention indeed  was  paid  to  place  in  his  way,  as 
governor  of  Syria,  the  province  which  contained 
in  itself  the  principal  resources  of  the  east,  a  per- 
son more  likely  to  thwart  and  counteract  him  in 
every  measure,  than  to  become  subservient  to  his 
ambition,  or  to  promote  his  greatness.  This  in- 
tention was  rendered  extremely  evident  by  the 
removal  of  Creticus  Silanus,  with  whom  Germ  i- 
nicus  was  about  to  contract  an  alliance  by  ti  e 
intermarriage  of  two  of  their  children,  to  mak  i 
way  for  Piso,  a  man  already  unacceptable  to 
Gerrnanicus,  and,  iu  general,  distinguished  by  a 
temper  harsh  and  intractable,  or  likely  to  disa- 
gree with  every  superior. 

It  is  likewise  extremely  probable,  that  Piso,  as 
well  as  his  wife  Plancina,  might  ha*e  learned  by 
their  own  penetration,  that  Gerrnanicus  and 
Agrippina  had  incurred  the  displeasure  of  Tibe- 
rius and  Li  via;  and  that  they  would  not  meet 
with  any  cordial  support  at  the  court  of  the  em- 
peror, in  case  of  a  disagreement  with  the  officers 
who  stood  in  their  way  in  the  provinces. 

Some  effects  of  an  insolence,  founded  upon 
this  supposition,  appeared  in  the  behaviour  of 
Piso  and  Plancina,  while  Gerrnanicus  was  yet 
on  his  way  to  Asia.  Piso,  having  overtaken  the 
prince,  and  passing  him  on  the  route,  without 
the  customary  marks  of  respect  or  attention,  from 


9  Tac.  An  lib.  ii.  c.  58.      3  Suet,  in  Vit.  G.  ii.  c.  1. 


thenceforward  seemed  to  set  him  at  defiance. 
At  their  first  interview  in  Syria,  both  were  ex- 
tremely guarded,  and  showed  no  signs  of  cordi- 
ality or  confidence.  Piso  afterwards  endeavoured 
to  pre-occupy  the  affections  of  the  army  in  oppo- 
sition to  Gerrnanicus ;  and  had  the  boldness  to 
march  in  contempt  of  his  orders,  with  a  body  of 
troops  into  Armenia.  When  the  prince  was 
taken  ill,  it  was  said,  that  Piso  had  spies  to  ob- 
serve the  progress  of  his  disease,  and  seemed  to 
await  the  event,  as  likely  to  place  himself  at  the 
head  of  all  the  forces  in  Asia.  Gerrnanicus  hav- 
ing recovered  from  his  first  fit  of  illness,  had  the 
conduct  of  Piso  represented  to  him  in  such  terms, 
that  he  ordered  him  into  his  presence,  declared 
open  enmity  against  him,  and  dismissed  him  the 
province.  But,  as  he  soon  after  relapsed,  he  ac- 
cused Piso  of  having  practised  against  his  life, 
and  charged  all  his  friends,  who  were  present  at 
his  death,  to  bring  the  author  of  it  to  a  severe  and 
just  retribution. 

Piso,  hearing  of  the  death  of  Gerrnanicus, 
while  he  was  yet  on  the  coast  of  Asia,  betrayed 
his  animosity  to  the  dead  by  public  and  indecent 
demonstrations  of  joy.  He  afterwards  attempted, 
by  force,  to  reinstate  himself  in  the  province  of 
Syria,  from  which  he  had  been  ordered  by  Ger- 
rnanicus to  depart ;  but  was  repulsed  by  Sentius, 
who  had  been  chosen  by  the  officers  of  the  prince's 
train  to  keep  the  possession  of  the  province  till 
the  pleasure  of  the  emperor  should  be  known. 

Upon  this  event,  Piso  sent  forward  his  own 
son  to  Rome,  in  order  to  prevent,  as  much  as 
possible,  the  aspersions  which  were  likely  to  be 
propagated  against  him  in  the  city.  He  himself 
passed  by  Illyricum,  to  pay  his  court  to  Drusus, 
who  was  th«n  in  that  province,  and  to  implore 
his  protection.  Being  received  by  this  prince 
with  coldness,  though  without  prepossession,  he 
from  thence  continued  his  voyage  into  Italy. 

Agrippina,  arriving  soon  after  at  Brundusium 
with  the  ashes  of  her  deceased  husband,  was,  by 
order  of  the  emperor,  received  by  a  great  military 
escort  and  the  honours  of  war.  She  passed  in  a 
kind  of  funeral  procession  through  multitudes 
that  were  collected  from  every  part  of  the  country 
to  gaze  upon  her;  and  coming  to  Rome  suffi- 
ciently impressed  with  the  idea  that  her  husband 
was  poisoned,  called  for  revenge  upon  the  sup- 
posed authors  of  his  death.  Numbers  contended 
for  the  honour  of  carrying  her  complaints  before 
the  tribunals  of  justice,  and  of  being  the  accusers 
of  her  husband's  murderers. 

A  prosecution  soon  after  commenced  against 
Piso;  in  which  all  that  was  known  to  be  excep- 
tionable in  the  preceding  life  and  behaviour  of 
the  accused,  was  stated  against  him  by  Fulcidiua 
Trio,  the  person  already  mentioned  as  having 
exercised  the  trade  of  informer  in  the  case  of 
Libo.  The  conduct  of  the  accusation  of  j>oison- 
ing,  and  the  other  crimes  imputed  to  Piso  in  his 
late  command,  was  committed  to  Vitellius  and 
Veranus,  persons  peculiarly  attached  to  Gerrna- 
nicus. The  trial  having  begun  before  the  empe- 
ror himself,  was  afterwards  transferred  to  the 
senate.  Two  days  were  allowed  to  the  accusers 
to  enforce  their  charge,  and  three  to  the  accused 
to  make  his  defence.  The  prosecutors  brought 
sufficient  evidence  of  Piso's  arrogance  and  extor- 
tion ;  of  much  undutiful  behaviour  to  Gerrnani- 
cus himself  in  Asia :  of  disobeying  his  orders ; 
of  having  made  war  beyond  the  limits  of  bis  pro- 


i60  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VI. 


vince,  but  no  sufficient  evidence  of  his  having 
made  any  attempts  by  poison  on  the  life  of  the 
prince.  The  charge  indeed,  as  stated,  or  laid, 
was  extremely  incredible,  that  Piso  should,  at 
the  table  of  Germanicus,  and  in  the  midst  of  ser- 
vants, attendants,  and  friends,  venture  to  mix 
poison  in  a  dish  from  which  numbers  were  to 
eat.  To  render  this  imputation  still  more  im- 
robable,  it  was  observed,  that  the  dead  body  had 
een  exposed  to  public  view  in  the  market-place 
at  Antioch,  and  that  no  external  marks  or  indi- 
cations of  poison  were  found. 

The  principal  evidence  that  was  produced  of 
any  criminal  practice  against  the  prince's  life 
consisted  of  a  collection  of  human  bones,  some 
verses,  pieces  of  lead  marked  with  the  name  of 
Germanicus,  and  other  supposed  charms,  which 
were  found  in  his  quarters,  and  which  were 
considered  as  implements  of  sorcery,  employed 
against  the  life  of  the  person  whose  name  was 


inscribed,  and  against  whom  they  were  supposed 
to  take  effect  if  the  poison  should  fail, 

The  charge  of  murder,  therefore,  supported  by 
such  evidence,  will  appear  to  the  modern  reader 
entirely  groundless,  and  must  have  been  rejected 
even  by  the  trihunal  to  which  it  was  referred; 
hut  the  accused,  seeing  that  the  torrent  ran  high 
against  him,  and  probably  to  prevent  the  conse- 
quences of  a  formal  sentence  in  the  confiscation 
of  his  family  estate,  cut  short  the  proceedings  by 
a  voluntary  death  ;  or,  as  was  supposed  by  many, 
was  secretly  put  to  death  by  an  order  from  the 
court,  lest  his  public  confession  should  appear  to 
involve  the  emperor  himself  in  the  guilt. 

On  either  supposition,  the  death  of  Piso  being 
considered  as  an  act  of  self-condemnation,  or  as 
a  precaution  in  Tiberius  to  prevent  a  discovery, 
confirmed  the  people  in  their  suspicion,  that  they 
were  jointly  concerned  in  the  murder  of  the  fa- 
vourite prince. 


1 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Review  of  the  first  Period  in  the  Reign  of  Tiberius — Applications  of  Penal  Law — Disposition 
of  Tiberius  to  a  recluse  Life — Place  and  Character  of  Sej anus— Death  of  Drusus,  Son  of  the 
Emperor — Retirement  of  Tiberius  to  the  Island  of  Capreae, — Jealousy  of  the  Emperor  against 
Agrippina  and  her  Children — Death  of  Livia  Augusta — Design  formed  against  Sejanus — 
His  Death — Prosecution  of  his  supposed  Accomplices — Artifices—  Old  Age — and  Death  of  Ti- 
berius. 


THE  death  of  Germanicus  is  considered  by 
some  historians  as  a  remarkable  epoch  in  the 
present  reign.1  Before  this  event,  Tiberius,  as 
if  conscious  that  he  held  the  empire  by  his  good 
behaviour,  was  popular  in  his  manners,  and 
guarded  in  his  administration ;  declined  the  ex- 
travagant honours  which  were  offered  to  him ; 
was  easy  of  access  ;  affected  to  live  like  a  private 
citizen ;  returned  visits,  and  accepted  invitations 
to  entertainments  and  feasts  ;  visited  the  sick,  at- 
tended funerals,  and  delivered  orations  in  praise 
of  the  dead.2  He  treated  the  titular  magistrates 
of  Rome  with  the  same  ceremonious  respect  that 
used  to  be  observed  in  times  of  the  republic  ;  rose, 
and  stood,  in  the  presence  of  the  consul ;  took 
his  place  in  the  senate  as  a  private  member;  was 
frequently  seen  in  the  courts  of  justice  as  an  as- 
sessor, as  an  advocate,  as  an  evidence,  or  as  a 
spectator.  To  a  person  who  saluted  him  with 
the  title  of  master,  "Insult  me  not,"  he  said, 
"  with  that  odious  appellation.  I  am  the  master 
of  my  slaves,  general  of  the  army,  and  no  more 
than  prince,  or  first  in  the  rolls  of  the  senate  and 
people."  He  took  the  title  of  Augustus  only  in 
his  correspondence  with  foreign  powers.  Ip  all 
his  addresses,  whether  to  particular  members  of 
the  senate,  or  to  this  body  at  large,  he  was  in  the 
highest  degree  respectful  and  courteous.  When 
engaged  in  dehate,  he  endeavoured  to  quality 
contradiction  or  difference  of  opinion  with  respect 
and  regret.  To  a  senator,  named  Haterips,  on 
some  such  occasion,  he  said,  "  I  hope  you  will 
forgive  me,  if,  in  my  duty  as  a  senator,  I  differ 
from  you  somewhat  too  freely."  At  a  meeting 
of  the  senate,  in  referring  some  matter  to  their 


decision,  he  concluded  with  these  words :  "  I  have 
formerly  said,  and  now  say,  that  it  becomes  the 
person  you  have  intrusted  with  so  large  a  share 
of  the  public  affairs,  to  consider  himself  as  the 
servant  of  this  assembly,  as  the  servant  of  the 
people,  and  of  every  individual ;  nor  do  1  repent 
me  of  this  saying  ;  for  1  have  found  you,  and  still 
find  you,  candid,  indulgent,  and  kind  masters."3 
He  affected  a  continual  deference  to  ther  judg* 
merit  on  every  subject,  whether  of  policy,  reve- 
nue, or  foreign  correspondence ;  even  seemed  to 
wait  for  their  orders  in  what  concerned  the  com- 
mand of  the  army,  and  pretended  to  be  displeased, 
when  officers,  employed  in  the  provinces,  made 
tfv  ir  report  directly  to  himself,  without  commu- 
ni  ating  the  subject  of  their  despatches  first  to 
tf  ;  senate. 

With  these  popular  arts,  which  the  senators 
indeed  did  not  mistake  for  a  real  acknowledg- 
ment of  their  authority,  he  joined  an  administra- 
tion in  many  things  worthy  of  a  wise  and  exem- 
plary prince,  indulged  the  people  in  the  freedom 
of  speech  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed, 
saying,  that  "  in  a  free  country,  the  mind  and 
the  tongue  should  be  free."  To  those  who 
brought  him  information  of  any  slander  spoken 
of  himself,  he  affected  indifference.  "  If  you 
mind  such  accusations  as  these,"  he  would  say, 
"there  will  be  no  end  of  them."  He  gave  a 
ready  hearing  and  redress  to  all  the  complaints 
that  were  made  to  him  from  the  provinces,  and 
carefully  limited  the  exactions  of  his  officers 
within  the  bounds  of  established  and  ordinary 
fees.4  To  persons  suffering  by  fire,  earthquakes, 
or  other  public  calamities,  to  the  families  of  de- 


1  Dio.  Case.  lib.  Ivii.  c.  13. 


3  Ibid. 


3  Sueton.  in  Tiber,  c.  29. 

4  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  iv.  e.  6,  7. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


461 


cayed  senators,  to  the  children  of  those  who  had 
bequeathed  him  their  estates  by  will,  he  was  mu- 
nificent and  liberal ;  took  effectual  measures  to 
suppress  the  banditti,  which,  from  the  time  of  the 
civil  wars,  still  infested  the  country;  and  endea- 
voured to  diminish  that  constant  source  of  cor- 
ruption, the  idleness  which  the  people  contracted 
in  the  too  frequent  repetition  of  shows  and  of 
public  entertainments.  He  gave  an  abatement  of 
some  taxes  which  had  been  imposed  by  the  late 
emperor,  and  in  particular,  mitigated  the  penalties 
which  had  been  erroneously  inflicted  on  celibacy. 

Tiberius  seemed  to  have  perceived  that  the  se- 
verities employed  by  his  predecessor,  to  enforce 
marriag  •,  served  only  to  multiply  the  evils  of  the 
times,  without  administering  anyeffectual  remedy - 
to  that  which  was  complained  of.  But  what,  in 
this  enumeration  of  examples  of  his  political  con- 
duct, would  have  done  him  most  honour,  had  he 
continued  to  support  it  in  the  subsequent  part  of 
his  reign,  was  the  equanimity  with  which  he 
rejected  many  frivolous  accusations  which  were 
brought  against  the  unwary  by  his  own  flatter- 
ers, or  by  the  mercenary  informers  who  began  to 
swarm  in  his  time. 

In  respect  to  criminal  prosecutions,  the  change 
of  government,  which  took  place  at  Rome,  had, 
without  altering  the  legal  forms,  made  a  fatal 
change  in  the  effect  of  the  laws,  and  served  to 
show,  that  the  seeds  of  despotism  may  be  laid  in 
the  freest  establishments  j  and  that  when  the  cha- 
racters of  men  are  changed,  the  worst  abuse  may 
proceed  from  the  best  institutions.5 

The  securities  of  majesty,  or  the  restraints  pro- 
vided against » reasonable  practices,  were  principal 
objects  in  the  laws  of  the  republic.  The  crimes6 
against  which  those  restraints  were  provided, 
were,  in  reality,  a  trespass  on  the  majesty  of  the 
commonwealth,  including  rebellion,  breach  of 
public  trust,  betraying  the  forces  of  the  state  to 
its  enemies,  or  violating  the  person  of  the  magis- 
trate in  the  discharge  of  his  office.  These  were 
justly  reputed  an  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the 
people,  were  public  crimes,  and  might  be  prose 
cuted  by  any  citizen,  though  not  particularly  in- 
terested in  the  issue  of  the  trial. 

In  the  time  of  the  republic  the  prosecution  of 
public  crimes  was  considered  as  a  duty  ;  and  the 
character  of  an  informer,  bringing  to  light  what 
offended  the  commonwealth,  though  in  some  in- 
stances invidious,  was  not  reckoned  dishonour- 
able.7 In  this  character  the  most  respectable  and 
popular  citizens  sometimes  braved  the  resentment 
of  the  most  powerful  offenders,  or,  when  engaged 
in  private  enmities,  sought  their  revenge,  with- 
out incurring  any  dishonour  as  informers,  by 
raising  prosecutions  on  a  public  account.8 

The  mere  permission,  however,  to  become  a 
public  accuser,  and  the  credit  annexed  to  this 
character,  were  not,  in  all  cases,  sufficient  to  ob- 
tain prosecutions,  or  to  prevail  upon  persons,  not 
called  upon  by  some  material  interest,  to  engage 
in  so  arduous  and  often  so  dangerous  a  task,  as 
that  of  urging  to  justice  offenders,  who  were 
powerfully  supported  by  their  fortunes,  their 


5  Lex  Majestatis.—  Majestasest  amplitudocl  digni- 
*as  civitatis.   Cicero  de  Orat.  lib.  ii.  c.  39. 

6  Public  crimes. 

7  Private  crimes  or  offences  could  not  be  prosecuted 
by  any  person  besides  the  party  aggrieved  or  some 
person  having  an  interest  in  the  case. 

6  Plutarch,  in  Litcullo,  initio. 


rank,  or  the  number  of  their  adherents  and  friends. 
In  the  latter  times  of  the  republic,  therefore,  as 
the  ardour  of  zeal  for  the  commonwealth  was 
supposed  to  wax  cold,  and  motives  of  ambition 
and  interest  were  required  in  aid  of  public  virtue, 
it  was  enacted,  that  whoever  convicted  a  person 
of  any  public  crime  incurring  degradation  or  for- 
feiture, should  be  entitled  to  succeed  to  the  dig- 
nitv,  whether  of  citizen,  knight,  or  senator,  from 
which  the  criminal  was  degraded.  And  lest  even 
this  consideration  should  not  be  sufficient  to  ex- 
cite prosecutors,  it  was  enacted,  that  a  fourth  }>art 
of  the  estate  of  the  person  convicted  should  be 
joined  to  the  reward. 

The  office  of  an  accuser,  supported  by  a  pure 
concern  for  the  public  safety,  was  commendable  ; 
but  proceeding,  in  any  degree,  upon  mercenary 
motives,  even  under  the  republic,  when  the  cause 
to  be  supported  was  the  majesty  of  the  state  it- 
self, must  have  become,  in  a  high  degree,  odioua 
and  contemptible;  but  under  the  present  govern- 
ment, when  the  object  of  the  law,  as  well  as  the 
motive  for  the  application  of  it,  were  so  much 
changed,  the  character  of  a  prosecutor,  though 
disguised  under  the  ancient  forms  and  titles,  was, 
in  the  higliest  degree,  vile  and  detestable. 

Under  the  establishment  of  Augustus,  the  idea 
of  majesty  was  transferred  from  the  state  itself 
to  the  emperor;  and  the  principal  object  of  the 
law  being  to  guard  his  person,  not  only  his  safety 
and  the  authority  of  his  government,  but  his 
most  private  concerns,  made  a  part  in  the  majes- 
ty which  was  to  be  preserved.  Whatever  implied 
disrespect,  whatever  alarmed  his  jealousy,  or  in- 
terfered with  his  caprice,  even  intrigues  of  de- 
bauch with  women  of  his  family,  were  constructed 
as  treason.  Under  a  continuation  of  this  govern- 
ment, the  evil  was  inflamed  by  the  pretended 
zeal  of  spies  and  informers,  who,  partly  to  pay 
their  court,  and  partly  to  merit  the  rewards  which 
were  promised  from  the  confiscation  of  estates, 
endeavoured  to  keep  on  foot  a  continual  inquisi- 
tion, in  which  they  brought  to  trial  the  most  tri- 
vial indiscretions,  as  well  as  more  real  offences, 
against  the  person,  authority,  or  dignity  of  the 
prince.  The  swarms  of  such  persons  who  haunt- 
ed the  steps  of  the  unwary,  and  filled  the  senate 
and  the  courts  of  justice  with  cruel  or  frivolous 
prosecutions;  in  which,  by  interesting  the  pas- 
sions of  the  emperor,  they  endeavoured  to  make 
him  a  party,  was  one  of  the  most  grievous  cir- 
cumstances attending  the  late  revolution  of  go- 
vernment. 

Tiberius,  notwithstanding  this  tendency  of  the 
establishment  to  which  he  succeeded,  and  hu» 
own  temper,  which  was  sufficiently  prompt  and 
sanguinary  in  preventing  attempts  on  his  person, 
or  on  his  government,  had  the  honour,  during 
the  first  years  of  his  reign,  in  some  measure,  to 
withstand  this  torrent,  and  to  treat  many  frivo- 
lous accusations  with  a  proper  degree  of  con- 
tempt. A  senator  of  the  name  of  Falenius,  being 
accused  of  having  included,  with  other  furniture 
in  the  sale  of  his  house,  a  statue  of  Augustus;9 
another,  of  the  name  of  Rubrius,  being  accused 


9  It  is  sufficiently  known,  that,  in  the  heathen  my- 
thology, a  place  among  the  gods  was  sometimes  con- 
ferred on  mortal  men;  that  an  apotheosis  was  little 
more  than  canonization  is  in  later  times;  am  that 
this  honour  ha  vine  been  conferred  ran  Augustus;  his 
name  an.l  bis  statu.':  wore  ranked  among  those  of  live 
gods. 


469 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VI. 


of  having  taken  a  false  oath  by  the  name  of  Au- 
gustus; and  Granius  Marcellus  being  accused 
of  having  taken  the  head  from  a  statue  of  that 
price,  in  order  to  substitute  a  head  of  Tiberius 
in  piaceof  it,  a  manner  of  paying  his  court  rather 
ridiculous  than  criminal ;  in  these  and  other  in- 
stances of  the  same  kind,  Tiberius  either  took 
no  part,  or  gave  his  instructions  to  the  senate  in 
very  liberal  and  manly  terms.  On  the  subject 
of  the  prosecution  that  was  raised  against  Fale- 
nius,  "  My  father,"  he  said,  "  was  deified,  that 
his  divinity  might,  be  a  safeguard  and  a  protec- 
tion, not  a  snare  to  the  people.  His  image  may, 
no  doubt,  be  included,  with  those  of  the  other 
gods,  as  part  in  the  furniture  of  a  house  that  is 
sold."  With  respect  to  the  supposed  perjury  of 
Rubrius,  he  observed,  that  "  if  any  one  swear, 
and  is  perjured,  the  crime  is  the  same,  whoever 
be  the  god  whose  name  is  profaned.  Augustus 
is  no  more  to  be  regarded,  in  this  matter,  than 
Jupiter;  and  either  of  these  gods,  if  offended, 
can  avenge  himself."1  The  third  offence,  or  the 
shifting  of  heads  from  one  statue  to  another,2 
being  considered  as  a  mockery  of  that  adulation 
which  was  so  easily  transferred  from  one  to  an- 
other in  the  succession  of  princes,  and  as  some 
degree  of  ridicule  on  the  prince  himself,  was  not 
so  easily  forgiven ;  though,  for  the  present,  over- 
looked, it  was  reserved  as  a  subject  of  future  re- 
sentment. 

To  whatever  motive  we  ascribe  a  conduct  so 
popular,  and  in  many  particulars  so  worthy  of 
empire,  it  is  observed,  that  its  effects  on  the  minds 
of  the  people  were  not  such  as  might,  have  been 
expected,  and  did  not  procure  to  the  emperor  the 
favourable  opinion  or  credit  to  which  he  aspired. 
His  manner,  even  when  he  affected  humanity 
and  condescension,  was  ungracious  and  alarm- 
ing ;  and,  notwithstanding  any  appearances  to 
the  contrary,  his  real  character  was  supposed  to 
be  malicious  and  cruel.  It  is  said,  that  in  the 
midst  of  the  hypocrisy  and  dissimulation  by  which 
he  had  endeavoured  to  disguise  himself  before  his 
accession,  he  made  some  slips  which  betrayed  the 
reality  of  this  disposition ;  and  that  he  had  been 
surprised  into  acts  of  insolence  and  severity,  in 
which,  by  mixing  derision  and  sarcasm  with 
cruelty,  he  had  given  the  strongest  proofs  of  a 
merciless  nature.  For  the  present  it  was  ob- 
served, that  his  overacting  the  part  of  popularity, 
the  ridiculous  tyranny  he  exercised  over  the  se- 
nate in  requiring  at  once  the  affectation  of  freedom 
and  the  grossest  servility;  that  the  farce  of  affect- 
ing reluctance  in  accepting  of  a  government 
which  he  had  previously  secured  with  the  great- 
est care ;  the  ridicule  of  dividing  in  the  senate, 
or  giving  his  vote  with  the  minority,  when  a  re- 
solution was  to  be  taken  in  favour  of  himself, 
served  to  join  mockery  and  insult  to  the  weight 
of  his  usurpation ;  that  even  his  affectation  of 
popularity,  for  the  most  part,  increased  the  ter- 
rors of  his  government ;  that  his  presence  in  the 
courts  of  justice  took  away  all  freedom  of  judg- 
ment; and  that  the  discretionary  power  which 
he  assumed,  of  mitigating  or  reverting  sentences, 
and  cf  dispensing  with  laws,  under  pretence  of 
correcting  their  general  tendency  by  seasonable 
exceptions,  only  served  to  frustrate  the  preten- 
sions to  civil  government,  which,  in  imitation  of 
Augustus,  he  still  affected  to  preserve. 


But  in  whatever  sense  the  favourable  appear- 
ances, which  presented  themselves  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  reign,  were  to  be  interpreted,  they 
were  no  more  than  temporary,  and,  in  the  man- 
ners of  this  prince,  gave  way  to  the  growing  as- 
perity of  age,  or  to  the  presumption  which  took 
place  in  his  mind,  upon  the  removal  of  a  person 
whom  he  considered  as  a  dangerous  rival,  and 
who,  in  case  of  any  public  discontent,  might  have 
been  made  the  instrument  of  overturning  his  go- 
vernment. 

Soon  after  the  death  of  Germanicus,  the  temper 
of  Tiberius,  which  had  probably  gained  strength 
from  restraint,  broke  forth  in  many  cruel  and 
alarming  efiects.  His  vigilance,  hitherto  limited 
to  one  object,  and  his  jealousy,  directed  against 
a  single  person,  now  found  a  multiplicity  of  sub- 
jects on  which,  with  less  disguise  or  reserve,  to 
exert  their  force. 

Among  the  particulars  in  which  the  emperor, 
in  the  first  period  of  his  reign,  imposed  the  great- 
est violence  on  his  own  disposition,  we  may  reckon 
the  openness  and  accessibility  which,  with  a 
temper  naturally  dark  and  reserved,  he  affected 
to  maintain  with  the  people  ;  and  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal circumstances,  probably,  in  which  he  pro- 
posed to  indulge  himself,  on  his  being  relieved 
from  his  fears  of  Germanicus,  was  in  retiring 
from  the  public  view,  and  in  eluding  the  observa- 
tion of  persons  whom  he  considered  as  spies  on  his 
actions.  In  the  eighth  year  of  his  reign,  and  in  the 
second  year  after  the  death  of  Germanicus,  having 
associated  his  son  Drusus  with  himself  in  the 
consulate,  and  leaving  him  in  the  administration 
of  affairs  in  the  city,  he  withdrew  for  some  time 
into  Campania,  meditating,  as  Tacitus  observes, 
a  more  entire  and  continued  retreat.  During  the 
two  first  years  after  his  accession  he  had  confined 
himself  to  the  walls  of  Rome,  and  remained  in 
the  city,  as  in  the  watch-tower,  from  whence  he 
was  to  observe  and  prevent  all  designs  that  might 
be  formed  on  his  government.  After  those  years 
were  passed,  he  made  some  excursions  to  Anti- 
um,3  and  other  towns  or  villages  on  the  same 
coast,  but  never  to  any  greater  distance.  In  or- 
der, however,  that  the  provincial  officers  might 
not  think  themselves  altogether  secure  from  his 
personal  inspection,  he  frequently,  even  during 
this  period,  affected  a  purpose  to  visit  the  more 
distant  parts  of  the  empire ;  ordered  his  equi- 
pages, placed  changes  of  horses  and  carriages, 
and  permitted  the  usual  sacrifices  to  be  offered 
up  for  his  safe  return ;  but  always,  for  some  spe- 
cious reason,  delayed  the  execution  of  his  pre- 
tended design.  After  having,  in  this  manner,  for 
some  time  amused  the  world,  and,  by  the  repeti- 
tion of  these  and  other  artifices,  furnished  a  key 
to  the  secret  of  his  own  conduct;  his  mysteries, 
for  the  most  part,  became  extremely  plain,  and 
his  true  intentions  easily  perceived,  merely  be- 
cause he  never  spoke  truth. 

But  while  the  emperor  thus  endeavoured  to 
debar  the  people  from  all  access  to  his  person,  and 
to  seclude  himself  from  public  view,  he  selected, 
as  a  proper  instrument  of  his  power,  and,  in  ap- 
pearance, as  an  object  of  his  most,  implicit  confi- 
dence, iElius  Sejanus,  who  has  been  already 
mentioned,  as  accompanying  his  son  Drusus  on 
his  mission  to  the  mutinous  legions  in  Panonia. 
This  person,  supposed  to  have  no  dangerous  pre- 


1  Deorum  mjurice  Diis  curcB.        2  Tacit.  I.  i.  c  73 


3  About  thirty  miles  from  Borne. 


CftAP.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


tensions,  or  though  false  to  others,  supposed  true 
to  his  master,  he  had  placed  at  the  head  of  his 
guards  or  praetorian  bands,  and  distinguished  him 
with  a  degree  of  affection  and  confidence  hitherto 
without  example  in  any  former  part  of  his  life. 
This  being  the  first  of  his  intimate  connexions, 
whatever  may  have  been  its  motive,  it  did  not  ad- 
mit of  competition  or  participation,  and  rendered 
a  person,  who  was  dark  and  impenetrable  to 
every  one  else,  open  and  communicative  to  this 
favourite  alone. 

Sejanus  is  described  by  Tacitus  as  of  a  hardy 
and  indefatigable  constitution  of  body  ;  of  a  bold 
spirit  and  an  insatiable  ambition,  which  he  dis- 
guised under  an  affectation  of  modesty.  He  is 
described  as  a  person  possessed  of  great  art  in 
concealing  his  own  vices,  and  of  an  insidious 
penetration  in  prying  into  those  of  others ;  versa- 
tile in  his  manners,  and  either  careless  and  pro- 
fuse, or  vigilant  and  severe,  as  suited  the  occasion ; 
insolent  to  those  over  whom  he  had  any  advan- 
tage, but  fawning  where  he  was  the  interior,  or 
had  an  interest  to  gain,  [n  his  youth  he  had 
attached  himself  to  Caius  Csesar,  the  adopted  son 
of  Augustus  ;  and  afterwards  succeeding  his  own 
father,  in  the  station  which  he  now  occupied  at 
the  head  of  the  praetorian  bands,  seemed  to  im- 
prove the  access  which  this  situation  gave  him  to 
the  person  of  the  emperor,  into  an  ascendant  over 
his  mind. 

One  of  the  first  or  most  observable  signs  of  the 
great  elevation  of  Sejanus,  was  the  proposed 
marriage  of  his  daughter  with  the  son  of  Clau- 
dius, the  brother  of  Germanicus ;  a  person, 
though  at  this  time  in  a  great  measure  neglected 
at  court,  yet  nearly  related  to  the  emperor;  and, 
in  the  sequel  of  events,  himself  destined  to  ascend 
the  imperial  throne. 

Sejanus  being  thus  pointed  out  as  favourite, 
by  a  mark  of  honour  which  tended  to  gratify  his 
vanity,  he  took  measures,  at  the  same  time,  the 
most  efficacious,  to  establish  his  power.  For  this 

Eurpose  he  employed  his  credit  in  filling  up  with 
is  own  creatures,  as  fast  as  vacancies  happened, 
the  praetorian  bands,  the  legions,  and  every  civil 
as  well  as  military  department  in  the  state ; 
knowing  that  where  government  rests  its  autho- 
rity on  principles  of  reason  and  justice,  the  ci- 
vilian, the  senator,  and  the  statesman  are  its 
principal  instruments ;  but  where  it  is  founded 
entirely  on  force,  its  ministers  are  soldiers  of  for- 
tune, and  its  powers  rest  chiefly  with  those  mili- 
tary bodies  who  are  in  possession  of  the  capital, 
or  who  surround  the  person  of  the  prince.  This 
adventurer,  therefore,  being  already  at  the  head 
of  this  powerful  department,  studied  every  method 
to  concentrate  its  force,  and  to  secure  in  his  own 
person  the  direction  of  it.  To  this  motive  is  im- 
puted the  change  which  he  now  made  in  the 
manner  of  disposing  of  the  praetorian  bands. 
These  troops  were  hitherto  quartered  on  the 
citizens,  or  distributed  in  the  villages  round  the 
walls  of  the  city,  apprehending,  it  is  alleged,  that 
they  might,  in  that  way  of  lite,  imbibe  the  preju- 
dices of  the  people,  and  become  part  of  the  fami- 
lies with  whom  they  were  mixed,  he  persuaded 
the  emperor  to  detach  them  from  that  society; 
and,  under  the  ordinary  pretence  of  having  the 
cohorts  together,  and  more  under  the  eye  of  their 
officers,  erected  a  citadel  and  barracks  for  their 
reception  ;  in  this  manner  establishing  in  Rome  j 
itself,  or  contiguous  to  its  walls,  a  fortress  from  [ 


which  he  could  command  the  city,  and  employ 
the  professional  prejudices  of  those  who  occupied 
this  garrison,  most  effectually  against  every  per- 
son that  was  supposed  disaffected  to  his  person. 
In  this  disposition,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
object  of  it,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  praetorian 
bands  became  more  detached  from  the  people, 
and  that  the  force  and  presumption  of  this  for- 
midable body  became  more  tremendous  to  the 
other  parts  of  the  empire,  and  even  to  the  emperor 
himself. 

As  Tiberius  seemed  to  set  no  bounds  to  his 
confidence  in  the  minister,  and  enabled  him  to 
employ  all  the  powers  of  the  empire  in  support 
of  his  own  elevation,  the  jealousies  or  resentments 
of  the  favourite  became  equally  fatal  with  those 
of  his  master,  and  being  more  numerous,  involved 
the  government  of  the  emperor  in  perpetual  ani- 
mosities, prosecutions,  and  cruelties,  which  may 
have,  for  the  present,  gratified  his  severe  and 
jealous  temper,  but  which  were  in  no  way  con- 
ducive to  his  interest. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  connexion,  joined 
to  his  own  disposition.  Tiberius  gave  a  ready  ear 
to  that  numerous  tribe  of  informers,  who  brought 
accusations  against  persons  in  any  degree  ob- 
noxious or  unacceptable  to  himself  or  to  his  fa- 
vourite. In  this  predicament,  the  descendants  of 
the  ancient  nobility,  persons  eminent  by  their 
birth,  popular  favour,  or  personal  qualities,  and 
considered  as  rivals  in  the  apprehension  of  either, 
were  the  principal  sufferers.  The  perpetual  in- 
quisition to  which  they  were  exposed,  and  which 
makes  a  principal  article  in  the  history  of  thi» 
and  some  of  the  succeeding  reigns,  must,  by  the 
frequent  repetition  of  similar  examples,  become 
an  object  of  disgust,  as  well  as  of  indignation  or 
pity.  And  it  may  perhaps  have  been  true  of 
this  emperor,  that  even  his  character,  though  in 
itself  sufficiently  odious,  may,  for  some  time  at 
least,  have  incurred  additional  detestation,  from 
his  having  committed  his  administration  into  the 
hands  of  a  servant,  who  multiplied  the  errors  of 
his  government,  or  gave  them  the  directions  of 
passions  more  numerous  or  less  liberal  than  even 
those  of  the  master. 

As  Sejanus  was  mrst  vigilant  and  jealous  in 
exacting  observances,  it  became  more  dangerous 
to  neglect  the  attention  he  required,  than  even 
that  which  was  due  to  the  prince.  A  courtship 
was  accordingly  paid  to  him  by  the  retainers  of 
the  palace,  by  the  senate,  by  the  army,  and  by 
the  jjeople,  more  assiduous  than  even  that  which 
they  paid  to  the  emperor.  In  private,  every  spe 
cies  of  flattery  ;  in  public,  honorary  decrees,  were 
invented  to  gratify  ins  vanity.  The  annivcrsarv 
of  his  birth  was  joined  to  the  festivals  of  the  year. 
His  name  was  inserted  in  the  public  prayers  ; 
and  when  any  deputation  was  sent  with  ad- 
dresses of  respect  to  the  emperor  from  the  senate, 
from  the  equestrian  order,  or  from  any  other 
public  description  of  men,  compliments  were  at 
the  same  time  sent  to  his  favourite.  The  effigies 
of  both  were  carried  together  among  the  ensigns 
of  the  legions,  and  their  statues  were  grouped  to- 
gether in  the  streets.  Women  of  every  rank 
thought  themselves  honoured  by  the  addresses  of 
this  fortunate  man,  and  became  the  tools  of  his 
ambition,  or  the  prostitutes  of  his  pleasure.  By 
debauching  the  wife,  he  sometimes  obtained  in- 
telligence what  were  the  designs  or  ordinary  pur- 
suits of  the  husband;  and  by  encouraging  the 


464 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Booir  VI. 


teal  of  spies  and  informers,  who  were  now  be- 
come the  favourite  retainers  of  the  court,  he  was 
enabled  to  pry  into  the  actions  of  every  citizen, 
and  to  watch  all  the  symptoms  of  disaffection  to 
the  emperor  or  to  himself.  Intoxicated  with  the 
extraordinary  circumstances  of  his  fortune,  it  is 
probable  that  he  thought  himself  placed  within 
reach  of  the  e  npire,  and  measured  his  conse- 
quence with  that  of  the  persons  who  apparently 
stood  before  him  in  their  pretensions  to  this  ele- 
vation. The  present  emperor  himself  bad  suc- 
ceeded to  the  government,  not  by  his  birth,  but 
merely  by  having  survived  every  person  on  whom 
his  predecessor  could  rely  for  support,  or"  through 
whom,  by  any  line  of  inheritance,  he  could  trans- 
mit his  power.  Pointed  out  by  mere  accident  to 
the  choice  of  Augustus,  he  had  been  first  adopted 
into  the  family  of  Caesar,  and  afterwards  asso- 
ciated in  the  empire. 

Sejanus  computed  that  he  himself  was  already 
possessed  of  more  favour  with  the  reigning  em- 
peror than  Tiberius  ever  had  enjoyed  with  the 
person  to  whom  he  succeeded ;  and  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  farther  progress  of  his  fortune 
too  arduous  or  difficult  for  him  to  undertake. 
The  conduct  of  the  young  princes  towards  him 
had  been  provoking,  and  seemed  to  justify  his  re- 
sentment. They  bore  with  impatience  the  in- 
trusion of  a  rival  into  the  emperor's  favour. 
Drusus  in  particular  was  frequently  heard  to 
complain,  that  his  father  had  chosen  "a  favourite 
to  supplant  his  own  son,  and  had  made  a  stranger 
little  less  than  a  colleague  in  the  empire;  that 
the  steps  which  remained  for  Sejanus  to  make  to 
this  elevation  were  not  so  many,  nor  so  difficult, 
as  those  he  had  already  made.  "  And  we  must 
rely,"  he  said,  "on  the  modesty  of  this  man  for 
the  bounds  he  may  think  proper  to  set  to  his  far- 
ther pretensions." 

This  favourite  had  already  formed  an  intrigue 
with  Livia,  or  Livilla,  the  sister  of  Germanicus, 
married  to  Drusus.  By  this  intelligence  with  the 
wife,  he  had  notice  of  what  passed  in  the  conver- 
sations of  the  husband ;  and,  in  concert  with  this 
abandoned  woman,  determined  to  remove  a  per- 
son from  whom  he  had  so  much  to  fear.  They 
took  into  their  confidence,  for  this  purpose,  Eude- 
mus,  a  physician,  who,  under  pretence  of  his 
profession,  had  a  frequent  and  a  secret  access  to 
Livilla ;  and,  after  some  hesitation,  and  frequent 
change  of  their  counsels,  they  found  means,  by 
the  hands  of  one  Ligdus,  a  eunuch,  to  administer 
poison  to  the  prince,  of  which  he  died.  The 
cause  of  his  death,  and  the  circumstances  of  this 
daring  crime,  were  not  known  till  about  eight 
years  afterwards. 

In  the  mean  time  Sejanus,  encouraged  by  the 
success  of  his  first  attempt,  flattered  himself  that 
he  might  step  into  the  place  of  the  prince  whom 
he  had  thus  removed  out  of  his  way ;  and,  in  con- 
cert with  Livilla,  with  whom  he  had  already 
lived  in  habits  of  adultery,  he  waited  for  a  decent 
interval  to  propose  himself  to  the  emperor  as  a 
husband  for  the  widow  of  his  son. 

Tiberius,  although  he  had,  by  his  deceased  son, 
a  grandson  of  his  own  name;  yet  this  young 
man  being  still  under  age,  he  thought  proper, 
upon  the  breach  which  had  recently  been  made 
in  his  family,  to  bring  forward  the  two  elder  sons 
of  Germanicus,  Nero  and  Drusus,  whom  he  pre- 
sented to  the  senate,  as  the  great-grand-children 
of  Augustus,  and  the  future  supports  of  the  com- 


monwealth. "  These,"  he  said,  addressing  him- 
self to  the  young  men,  "are  your  fathers.  Such 
is  the  condition  of  your  birth,  that  whatever  con- 
cerns you,  whether  good  or  evil,  must  affect  the 
empire."  It  is  however  singular,  that  this  speech, 
made  in  behalf  of  the  sons  ol  Germanicus,  ap- 
pears to  have  awakened  the  jealousy  of  the  per- 
son who  made  it.  Observing  that  the  audience 
were  moved  with  these  expressions,  and  sup- 
posing that  the  tenderness  which  was  shown  to 
the  sons,  was  a  remainder  of  that  popular  esteem 
which,  in  the  father,  had  given  him  so  much  un- 
easiness, he  appeared  to  be  suddenly  embarrassed ; 
and,  as  if  he  had  been  reproached  with  intruding 
himself  into  a  station  which  the  world  wished  to 
have  reserved  for  the  parent  of  these  young  men, 
he  proceeded  to  counteract  his  own  apprehensions 
with  his  usual  affectation  of  humility  and  mode- 
ration. "  I  beseech  you,"  he  said  to  the  senate, 
"  that  I  may  be  allowed,  at  a  proper  time,  to  re- 
sign the  empire."  And  as  he  was  always  dis- 
trusted, and  had  the  worst  construction  put  on 
his  words,  these  were  supposed  to  be  the  expres- 
sions of  mere  embarrassment,  and  that  he  was  in 
reality  mortified  with  the  demonstrations  of  joy 
which  were  given  on  this  apparent  restoration  of 
the  family  of  a  favourite  prince. 

Sejanus,  who  bore  with  great  impatience  the 
admission  of  new  rivals  in  the  way  of  his  ambi- 
tion, improved  these  circumstances  in  the  man- 
ner which  he  knew  to  be  most  effectual  to 
awaken  the  emperor's  jealousy,  and  to  inflame 
the  animosity  already  subsisting  betwixt  the  em- 
press Livia  and  Agrippina,  the  widow  of  Ger- 
manicus, and  the  mother  of  these  young  men. 
The  effect  of  his  artifices  and  insinuations  ope- 
rating on  the  distrustful  mind  of  the  emperor 
first  appeared  in  the  destruction  of  many  persona 
who  had  been  attached  to  Germanicus,  and  who 
still  adhered  to  his  family ;  and  afterwards  in  the 
ruin  of  Agrippina  herself,  and  in  the  death  of 
the  two  elder  of  her  sons. 

The  passions  of  jealousy  and  distrust,  by  which 
the  mind  of  Tiberius  was  secretly  devoured,  but 
which  he  had  endeavoured  to  conceal  in  the  for- 
mer part  of  his  life,  instead  of  abating  in  propor- 
tion as  he  became  secure,  only  became  less 
disguised  and  more  violent  in  their  effects  against 
those  who  happened  to  be  the  objects  of  them. 
He  listened  without  reserve  to  every  spy  or  in- 
former, and,  under  the  pretence  of  treason,  di- 
rected prosecutions  against  every  person  in  any 
degree  exposed  to  suspicion. 

Under  such  prosecutions  the  accused,  having 
no  hopes  to  escape  from  a  charge  in  which  the 
passions  of  the  sovereign  were  engaged  against 
them,  endeavoured,  for  the  most  part,  to  prevent 
by  a  voluntary  death  the  confiscation  of  their 
estates.  And  this  direful  necessity,  frequently 
repeated,  being  imputed  to  the  merciless  policy 
or  suggestion  of  Sejanus,  instead  of  drawing 
upon  him  public  marks  of  indignation  or  hatred, 
greatly  increased  the  court  which  was  paid  to  him, 
and  multiplied  the  professions  of  public  regard. 

The  emperor,  in  the  mean  time,  as  he  sought 
for  security  and  peace  of  mind  in  a  quarter  in 
which  they  surely  are  not  to  be  found,  in  the 
destruction  of  the  most  innocent  objects  of  his 
suspicion,  felt  his  odious  passion  of  jealousy  ripen 
into  a  general  hatred  of  mankind,  with  a  dislike, 
in  particular,  to  those  persons  who  had  been  tlw 
instruments  of  his  distrust,  and  with  an  aversion 


UHAP.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


1G5 


to  the  very  place  at  which  he  had  multiplied  its 
cruel  effects*  Conscious  of  what  he  endeavoured 
to  conceal,  and  of  what  men  were  able  to  pene- 
trate, he  was  jealous  of  every  prying  look,  and 
detested  every  person  whom  he  thought  qualified 
to  distinguish  truth  from  appearances.  At  one 
time,  he  received  the  crowd  of  informers  who 
haunted  his  court,  as  the  most  acceptable  mem- 
bers of  it ;  at  other  times,  he  abhorred  them  as 
persons  who  penetrated  his  character,  and  who, 
to  their  own  advantage,  and  to  the  disgrace  of  his 
government,  were  practising  upon  his  weakness. 
After  having  resided  constantly  in  the  city  for 
many  years,  he  began  to  multiply  and  to  prolong 
his  visits  to  some  of  his  favourite  retreats  in  the 
country,  placed  guards  wherever  he  went,  to  keep 
the  curious  multitude  at  a  distance,  declined  the 
attendance  of  those  who  wished  to  ,:pay  their 
court,  and  was  accessible  only  to  his  favourite 
minister. 

Sejanus,  still  appearing  to  rise  in  the  confidence 
of  his  master  on  the  ruin  of  every  one  else,  ven- 
tured according  to  the  agreement  long  since 
made  with  Livilla,  to  propose  himself  to  the  em- 
peror as  second  husband  to  the  widow  of  his  son. 
It  was  the  practice  of  Tiberius  to  require,  even 
from  persons  who  had  daily  access  to  him,  that 
every  proposal  they  made  should  be  put  in  writ- 
ing; and  it  was  his  practice  likewise  to  give  an- 
swers in  the  same  form.  Sejanus  accordingly 
presented  a  memorial  to  the  following  purpose : 
"  That  he  had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  look 
up  to  Augustus  for  protection,  and  to  Tiberius 
for  every  effect  of  munificence  and  goodness, 
that  his  wishes  and  his  prayers  were  carried  to 
them  more  directly  than  even  to  the  gods  them- 
selves; that  the  splendour  of  high  fortune  had 
no  charms  for  him ;  that  his  delights  were  in  the 
cares  and  toils  of  a  soldier  stationed  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  emperor's  person  ;  that  he  had  never- 
theless already  attained  to  the  highest  honours  in 
the  alliance  of  his  family  with  that  of  Caesar;1 
and  from  thence  probably  arose  the  farther  hopes 
which  he  ventured  to  conceive.  Augustus,  when 
he  deliberated  on  the  marriage  of  his  daughter, 
had  condescended  to  think  of  a  Roman  knight. 
If  a  husband,  therefore,  should  be  thought  of  for 
Livilla,  might  he  not  presume  to  hope  that  the 
emperor  would  not  overlook  a  person  so  pro- 
foundly attached  to  him,  who  coveted  nothing, 
on  this  occasion,  besides  the  honour  of  being  cho- 
sen into  this  high  connexion,  and  who  had  no 
ambition  beyond  the  duties  of  his  trust  as  a  guard 
to  the  sacred  person  of  his  master.  For  himself 
he  was  willing  to  perish  whenever  the  emperor 
should  cease  to  protect  him;  but  his  family  had 
many  enemies,  and  needed  to  be  raised  into  some 
such  place  of  advantage,  where  they  might  be 
less  exposed  to  the  haughty  and  imperious  insults 
of  Agrippina  and  her  offspring."2 

In  answer  to  this  memorial,  the  emperor  ac- 
knowledged the  merits  of  his  favourite  ;  but  did 
not  give  him  any  encouragement  on  the  subject 
of  his  request.  "Princes,"  he  said,  "  were  not, 
like  private  men,  at  liberty  to  follow  their  own  in- 
clinations, but  must  consult  the  opinion  of  the 
world ;  and  observed,  that,  under  this  restraint, 
he  must,  for  the  present,  suppress  what  he  was 


1  The  marriage  of  his  son  with  the  daughter  of 
Claudius, 
a  Tacit  Annal.  lib.  iv.  c.39. 

3N 


most  inclined  to  reply.  That  Livilla  might  de- 
termine for  herself,  whether,  having  been  th<» 
wife  of  Drusus,  she  was  to  accept  of  a  second 
husband  ;  or  if  she  had  any  doubts  in  the  matter, 
she  might  consult  her  mother  and  her  grand- 
mother^ fitter  counsellors  on  that  occasion  than 
he  could  pretend  to  be ;  that  the  marriage  which 
Sejanus  proposed  for  himself  would  not  allay  the 
malice  of  Agrippina,  but  rather  inflame  it,  and  di- 
vide the  family  of  Caesar  into  parties;  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  him,  if  he  should  form 
this  alliance,  to  remain  in  his  present  condition  : 
that  Augustus,  in  deliberating  on  the  choice  of 
a  husband  for  his  own  daughter,  because  he 
wished  for  a  son-in-law  whose  pretensions  were 
not  likely  to  disturb  the  public  peace,  had  turned 
his  thoughts  on  some  persons  of  equestrian  rank  ; 
but  that  the  example,  nevertheless,  was  against 
Sejanus;  for  Augustus  did  not  actually  marry 
his  daughter  to  a  Roman  knight,  but  first  to 
Agrippa,  and  afterwards  to  himself."  He  con- 
cluded with  insinuating  that  he  had  other  views 
for  his  friend;  owned  that  there  was  nothing  too 
high  for  his  merits;  and  his  opinion  in  this  mat- 
ter, he  said,  he  should  in  a  proper  time  make 
known  to  the  senate  and  to  the  people.* 

Sejanus  was  alarmed  by  this  intricate  and  am- 
biguous answer,  and  dreaded  a  change  of  his 
master's  disposition.  He  had  hitherto  excluded 
every  competitor  from  the  emperor's  favour;  but 
a  temper  so  prone  to  suspicion,  he  knew  could 
be  easily  turned  against  him,  and  would  receive 
encouragement  from  numbers,  as  soon  as  they 
should  see  the  first  signs  of  distrust.  For  these 
reasons,  he  is  said  at  this  time  to  have  formed  the 
design  of  persuading  Tiberius  to  remove  from 
the  city.  When  at  a  distance,  he  trusted  that, 
by  means  of  the  guards,  who  were  the  bearers 
of  all  expresses  and  messages,  he  might  be  mas- 
ter of  the  emperor's  correspondence,  and  prevent 
the  access  of  every  suspicious  person.  With  this 
view  he  exaggerated  the  troubles  to  which  the 
sovereign  was  exposed  at  Rome;  molested  with 
trifles,  and  crowded,  wherever  he  went,  with 
multitudes  of  idle  or  importunate  people  ;  magni- 
fying, at  the  same  time,  the  pleasures  of  retirement, 
where  free  from  the  disgust  and  the  avocation  of 
inferior  objects,  he  might  bestow  his  attention  on 
the  conduct  and  result  of  alfairs  that  were  worthy 
of  his  notice. 

Whatever  effect  we  may  suppose  the  repre- 
sentations of  Sejanus  to  have  had  in  persuading 
the  emperor  to  retire  from  Rome,  it  is  probable 
that,  in  forming  this  resolution,  still  more  was 
owing  to  his  own  temper.  Though  deeply  tinc- 
tured with  pride,  the  inherent  vice  of  his  family,* 
Tiberius  had  not  any  share  of  that  vanity  which 
leads  men  to  display  their  fortunes  and  persons 
in  the  view  of  the  world.  Content  with  the  gra- 
tification of  his  appetites,  and  joining  hypocrisy 
with  the  worst  species  of  sensuality,  lie  could 
submit  to  obscurity ;  and,  although  the  resources 
of  solitude  were  now  diminished  by  the  effects 
of  age,  yet  a  temper  become  more  jealous  of  the 
world,  and  more  averse  to  its  notice,  inclined  him 
more  to  withdraw  from  the  city,  and  to  maintain 
from  a  distance  that  watch  which  he  had  hitherto 
kept  over  the  actions,  words,  and  even  thoughts 
of  its  inhabitants.  He  accordingly,  in  the  twelfth 


3  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  iv.  c  40. 

4  fnsira  Claudia*  familir  rapwbia.  -Tacit. 


4f>G 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


year  of  his  reign,  under  pretence  of  dedicating 
m  Campania  a  temple  to  Jupiter  and  another  to 
Augustus,  withdrew  from  Rome,  and  after  this 
time,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  under  va- 
rious pretences,  but  with  continual  intimations 
of  his  intention  to  return,  absented  himself  from 
the  city.    Having  performed  the  ceremonies  for 
which  he  had  gone  to  Campania,  he  passed  from 
thence  to  Capreae,  a  small  island  under  a  head- 
land, which  was  called  the  promontory  of  Mi- 
nerva, making  one  side  of  the  bay  of  Naples.  It 
is  probable  that,  after  mature  deliberation,  he  had 
fixed  on  this  spot  as  a  place  of  security  and  an 
agreeable  retreat.    It  was  covered  by  the  hio-h 
lands  of  Minerva  from  the  northeast  winds,  and 
was  open  to  breezes  from  the  sea  on  the  south- 
west.   It  was  accessible  only  to  very  small  ves- 
sels, and  this  only  at  a  single  place.    The  seas 
were  open  to  his  scouts,  and  no  sail  could  ap- 
proach without  his  knowledge  and  permission. 
In  this  secession  it  appears,  that  he  divided  the 
guards,  haying  one  part  in  the  island  for  the  de- 
fence of  his  person,  and  the  other  at  Rome  to 
enforce  the  mandates  of  his  government. 

Among  the  Romans  who  were  admitted  into 
this  retreat  are  mentioned  Sejanus,  from  whom 
the  emperor  was  still  inseparable,  Curtius  Atti- 
cus,  a  Roman  knight,  and  Cocceius  Nerva,1  a 
senator  of  great  dignity,  who,  possessing  much 
knowledge  in  the  laws  and  constitutions  of  the 
commonwealth,  was  still  acceptable,  or  even  ne- 
cessary in  the  councils  of  a  prince,  who,  except 
where  his  own  passions  were  concerned,  still 
wished  to  be  reasonable  and  just.  This  person, 
however,  from  whatever  cause,  soon  after  ended 
his  days  on  this  island  by  a  voluntary  death. 

Tiberius,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  admitted 
likewise  into  his  privacy  at  Capreae,  Caius,  the 
third  son  of  Germanicus,  better  known  by  the 
name  of  Caligula.    The  society,  however,  in 
which  he  delighted  most,  was  made  up  chiefly  of 
Greeks,  professed  men  of  letters,  but  more  emi- 
nent as  flatterers  and  ministers  of  pleasure.  For 
such  men  he  had  no  respect,  but  suffered  them 
to  amuse  him  with  their  speculations,  or  rather  i 
with  a  kind  of  literary  buffoonery,  in  discussing 
ludicrous  questions  which  he  was  pleased  to  pro- 
pose ;  such  as,  who  was  the  mother  of  Hecuba, 
and  what  species  of  music  was  sung  by  the 
Syrens  ?2    These  literary  buffoons,  however,  no 
less  than  the  objects  of  his  political  jealousy,  ex-  : 
perienced  occasionally  the  effects  of  his  capricious 
disgusts..  One  of  them  was  banished  to  the  island  i 
Cynaria  for  hinting  a  joke  on  the  Doric  accent,  I 
which  the  emperor  had  acquired  at  Rhodes  in  . 
his  pronunciation  of  Greek.    Another,  having  1 
found  out  that  the  emperor  read  books  every  j 
morning,  out  of  which  he  proposed  his  questions  at  I 
night ;  and  observing  the  book  which  the  emperor  1 
had  been  reading,  came  so  well  prepared  to  answer  1 
every  question,  that  his  trick  was  suspected.  He  < 
was  banished  from  the  emperor's  company,  and  1 
afterwards,  by  cruel  usage,  induced  to  lay  violent  1 
hands  on  himself. 

Were  it  established  that  ignominy  could  have  < 
no  effect,  nor  the  odious  aspect  of  vice  deter  man- 
kind from  yielding  to  the  vile  considerations  that 
lead  to  the  practice  of  it,  there  would  be  no  apo-  j 
logy  for  molesting  the  world  with  many  particu-  1 


1  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  iv.  e.  58, 
$  Sueton.  in  Tiber,  c.  70 


[  lars,  either  of  the  past  or  subsequent  part  of  this 
i  detestable  reign.  But  it  is  likely  that  ingenuous 
i  minds  may  arrive  at  what  is  just,  by  desiring  tc 
shun  what  is  odious  and  vile,  no  less  than  by  "ad- 
miring and  aiming  at  what  is  noble  and  worthy. 
Certain  follies  and  vices  sometimes  gain  strength 
from  the  fashion  and  the  example  of  persons  in 
high  station.  But  it  is  established  by  the  feel- 
ings of  mankind  through  every  age,  that  malicer 
jealousy,  and  cruelty,  can  receive  no  lustre  even 
from  the  purple  and  the  throne  of  Caesar,  and 
Tiberius  himself,  considered  as  the  monument 
of  an  infamy  to  be  shunned,  may  be  a  teacher  of 
humanity  and  of  wisdom  not  inferior  to  Trajan 
or  Aurelius. 

This  tyrant,  though  now  withdrawn  from  the 
resentment  of  those  he  injured,  did  not  suffer  his 
vigilant  jealousy  to  sleep  over  the  rumours  and 
reports  of  his  informers  and  spies,  but  rather, 
with  a  more  open  and  unguarded  severity,  watch- 
ed over  crimes  which  had  no  existence  but  in  his 
own  imagination,  or  in  his  remembrance  of  the- 
countenance  and  aspect  of  the  persons  he  disliked.. 
In  his  present  retreat,  he  seemed  to  multiply  the 
objects  of  his  hatred,  in  proportion  as  he  himself 
was  secure ;  and  in  order  to  compensate  the  dis- 
tance to  which  he  was  removed,  employed  a  pro- 
portional speed  and  decision  to  surprise,  and  to 
prevent  those  who  were  suspected  of  any  designs 
against  him.  From  Capreae,  his  mandates,  for 
the  most  part,  were  carried  to  the  senate,  and  to 
the  military  officers  at  Rome,  not  as  complaints 
against  the  supposed  offender,  or  as  instructions 
to  the  magistrate  to  make  trial  or  inquiry  into 
the  guilt  of  the  accused,  but  as  warrants  for  their 
immediate  execution. 

Agrippina  and  her  sons,  with  their  adherents, 
and  those  of  Germanicus,  were  principal  objects 
of  the  present  emperor's  animosity  and  cruel  dis- 
like. This  family  being  high  in  the  favour  of  the 
people,  he  fancied  that  the  young  men  might  not 
be  disposed  to  defer  the  completion  of  their  hopes, 
until  a  natural  event  had  bestowed  a  succession, 
which  a  daring  attempt  might  accelerate.  Nero 
and  Drusus,  the  two  elder  sons  of  this  family, 
having  without  any  authority  from  the  emperor, 
been  included  by  the  senate  in  the  forms  of  pub- 
lic prayer,  their  names  were  again  expunged  by 
his  order,  and  with  an  admonition  to  the  senate, 
not  to  inflame  the  ambition  of  youth  with  pre- 
mature and  exorbitant  honours. 

This  forward  attempt  to  place  the  sons  of  Ger- 
manicus on  the  steps  of  the  throne,  was  supposed 
to  proceed  from  the  ambition  of  their  mother 
Agrippina,  who  appearing  to  carry  in  her  high 
looks  and  vehement  temper  the  pretensions  of  the 
grand-daughter  of  Augustus,  and  the  mother  of 
future  emperors,,  ever  seemed  to  reproach  Tibe- 
rius with  having  usurped,,  and  with  continuing 
to  possess,  what  was  due  to  herself  and  to  her 
children.  Sejanus  did  not  neglect  to  cultivate 
the  animosity  of  either  party.  He  had  informa- 
tions conveyed  to  Agrippina,  of  a  design  that 
was  hatching  at  Capreae  against  her  life,  and  ex- 
cited her  by  these  means  to  give  the  emperor  pro- 
voking marks  of  her  caution  and  distrust,  which 
were  easily  interpreted  as  the  symptoms  of  a 
guilty  mind  in  herself,  and  hastened  the  preven- 
tions on  his  part,  which  he  thought  proper  to 
employ  against  her. 

As  mutual  provocations  had  passed  between 
Agrippina  and  the  emperor  before  his  departure 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


4G7 


from  Rome,  arid  as  she  was  become  a  principal 
object  of  his  dislike,  it  is  extremely  probable  that 
he  had  then  resolved  upon  the  ruin  of  her  family, 
at  least  upon  her  own ;  and  that  he  took  his  sta- 
tion at  Capreae  for  the  more  safe  execution  of  an 
unpopular  act,  which  might  occasion  some  tumult 
in  the  city,  or  even  a  defection  of  the  army.  He 
proceeded,  however,  by  degrees,  in  the  execution 
of  his  purpose,  and  before  his  departure  from 
Rome,  had  made  a  trial  of  his  power  against 
some  of  her  relations  and  friends.  Under  this 
•description,  he  had  ordered  the  execution  of  Sosia 
Ga!la  and  Claudia  Pulchra,  two  women  of  noble 
birth,  who  were  related  to  her  by  blood,  and  much 
in  her  confidence. 

Upon  occasion  of  the  last  of  these  executions, 
Agrippina,  who  considered  herself  as  aimed  at  in 
this  cruel  action,  ventured,  with  a  vehemence  and 
impetuosity  which  made  part  of  her  character,  to 
reproach  the  emperor  with  his  tyranny,  accosting 
him  to  this  purpose,  as  he  was  engaged  in  his  de- 
votions at  the  shrine  of  Augustus  ;  "  It  ill  becomes 
a  person,"  she  said,  "  who  affects  to  worship  the 
parent,  to  practise  the  ruin  of  his  offspring.  The 
spirit  of  him  you  adore,  is  not  transferred  into  the 
inanimate  marble  which  you  worship,  but  into 
his  living  posterity  whom  you  oppress,  and  whom 
you  cause  to  live  in  continual  mourning,  and  in 
sorrow.  Pulchra  must  perish  now  for  the  same 
reason  that  was  formerly  fatal  to  So6ia,  for  her 
being  the  unhappy  relation  and  friend  of  those 
you  are  determined  to  ruin."  Tiberius  replied 
in  a  Greek  quotation,  implying  that  she  was  hurt, 
because  she  was  not  allowed  to  reign;3  and  in 
these  words,  contrary  to  his  usual  dissimulation, 
betrayed  the  rancour  of  his  mind.4 

After  the  retreat  of  Tiberius  to  Capreaj,  Se- 
janus,  to  gratify  the  passions  of  his  master,  and 
to  make  way  for  his  own  ambition,  continued 
his  practices  against  the  family  of  Germanicus. 
He  had  spies  placed  about  them,  and  received 
frequent  informations,  in  writing,  of  what  passed 
in  their  company.  He  had  an  account  of  all 
the  actions  and  words  of  Nero,  the  eldest  of  the 
two  sons,  from  Julia  Drusilta,  the  wife  of  this 
young  man,  who  was  engaged  by  her  mother 
Livilla  to  betray  her  husband.  He  took  measures 
to  provoke  both  the  brothers  to  angry  and  un- 
guarded expressions,  and  had  these  effects  of 
his  own  provocations  carefully  reported  to  the 
emperor.  He  had  emissaries,  who  insinuating 
themselves  into  the  favour  and  confidence  of 
these  young  men,  urged  them  to  rash  and  despe- 
rate resolutions;  such  as  that  of  calling  upon 
the  armies  in  Germany  to  support  their  rights, 
of  taking  refuge  at  the  shrine  of  Augustus,  and 
of  appealing  to  the  people.  When  these  emis- 
saries could  Rot  actually  engage  the  persons 
against  whom  they  were  employed  in  the  crimes 
they  suggested,  they  had  instructions  to  accuse 
them  to  the  emperor  of  having  deliberated  on 
such  dangerous  projects. 

While  the  sons  of  Agrippina  were  thus  sur- 
rounded with  snares,  their  most  faithful  retainers 
and  friends  were  exposed  to  the  same  dangers, 
or  actually  fell,  under  the  hands  of  the  execu- 
tioner. Among  these,  Titius  Sabinus  had  been 
distinguished  by  his  affection  to  Germanicus, 
and  remained  still  attached  to  his  family.  He 


3  Ideo  kedi,  quia  non  regnaret. 

4  Tacit.  Annul,  lib.  iv.  c.  52. 


had  been,  upon  this  account,  an  object  of  the 
emperor's  aversion,  and  likely  to  suffer  under 
the  first  plausible  pretence  that  could  be  found 
against  him.  Being  selected,  soon  after  the  re- 
treat of  Tiberius,  by  the  sagacity  of  those  who 
wished  to  pay  their  court,  as  a  proper  object  on 
whom  to  display  their  zeal,  he  was  attacked  at 
once  by  four  persons  of  senatorian  rank,  Latinius 
Latiaris,  Porcius  Cato,  Politius  Rufus,  and  M. 
Oppius,  all  of  them  already  promoted  to  the  dig- 
nity of  praetor,  and  now  aspiring  to  that  of 
consul.  They  agreed  to  pay  their  court,  by  some 
notable  service,  to  the  prince  and  his  favourite. 
The  first  undertook,  by  insinuating  himself  into 
the  confidence  of  Sabinus,  to  betray  him  into 
some  criminal  action  or  expression.  The  other 
three  were  to  be  placed  within  hearing  of  what 
should  pass,  in  order  to  be  cited  as  witnesses. 

A  snare  so  artfully  laid  could  scarcely  be 
avoided.  The  injured,  wherever  they  think 
themselves  safe,  are  ant  to  complain :  and  Sa- 
binus, finding  that  his  faithful  attachment  to  the 
family  of  his  late  friend  was  warmly  applauded 
by  Latiaris,  unwarily  joined  with  the  traitor  in 
lamenting  the  iniquity  of  the  times,  and  the 
cruelty  ot  Sejanus  and  Tiberius.  Conversations 
to  this  purpose  being  repeated  at  some  supposed 
confidential  interviews  ;  but  in  the  hearing  of  the 
other  three,  who  were  posted  as  witnesses,  it 
soon  appeared,  that  there  was  sufficient  matter 
against  Sabinus ;  and  tlie  information  was  con- 
veyed to  the  emjx'ror. 

The  informers,  as  a  specimen  both  of  their 
zeal  and  of  their  ability,  gave  a  particular  account 
of  their  conduct  in  bringing  the  treasonable 
thoughts  of  Sabinus  to  light.  The  information 
was  applauded  by  the  emperor,  transmitted  to 
the  senate,  and  by  them  considered  as  a  warrant 
for  the  immediate  death  of  the  accused.  Beimr 
found  by  the  officers,  commissioned  to  seize  him, 
paying  his  devotion  at  some  public  altar,  he  was 
dragged  from  thence  to  immediate  execution. 
The  particulars  of  the  detection  were  published, 
in  order  to  show  with  what  zeal  the  empercr 
was  served,  and  in  order  to  restrain  the  disaf- 
fected, by  a  mutual  distrust  of  each  other,  from 
entering  into  any  such  dangerous  counsels. 

The  tragical  death  of  Sabinus,  a  person  ge- 
nerally loved  and  respected ;  his  being  dragged 
by  the  executioner  through  the  streets  at  noon- 
day in  sight  of  the  people,  spread  a  general  con- 
sternation in  the  city.  All  orders  of  men,  under 
their  first  impressions,  deserted  the  public  places; 
but  presently  recollecting  that  their  flight  might 
be  imputed  to  a  participation  of  guilt,  or  at  least 
to  some  de  gree  of  sympathy  with  the  person  who 
suffered,  they  immediately  returned  to  the  places 
of  public  resort,  and  affected  their  usual  east? 
and  tranquillity.  But  from  thenceforward,  for 
some  time,  it  was  observed,  that  a  melancholy 
silence  took  place,  even  in  the  most  secret  con- 
versations of  relations  and  intimate  companions, 
who,  from  this  example,  had  learned  to  distrust 
each  other. 

Tiberius,  upon  receiving  the  report  of  Sa- 
binus's  execution,  thanked  the  senate  for  the 
justice  they  had  done  on  this  enemy  of  the  com- 
monwealth, and  mentioned  a  danger  to  which 
his  person  was  still  exposed  from  other  enemies, 
more  formidable  than  those  they  had  already  de- 
stroyed. In  this  ominous  insinuation,  he  was 
supposed  to  point  at  Agrippina  and  her  sons. 


468 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


Asinius  Gallus  ventured  to  call  for  an  explana- 
tion, by  moving  the  senate  to  address  the  emperor, 
that  he  would  be  graciously  pleased  to  make 
known  the  object  of  his  apprehensions,  and  that 
he  would  accept  of  their  services  in  the  defence 
of  his  person. 

Gallus  had  married  Vipsania,  from  whom  Ti- 
berius was  separated,  when  his  marriage  with 
Julia  was  determined.  By  this  alliance,  he  be- 
came the  relation  of  Agrippina and,  what  was 
still  more  dangerous,  had  presumed  to  succeed 
the  emperor  himself  in  a  connexion,  of  which 
he  still  was  envious  and  jealous.  This  circum- 
stance rendered  him,  to  the  dark  and  vindictive 
mind  of  Tiberius,  an  object  of  deliberate  malace. 
When  his  motion  to  address  the  emperor  for  an 
explanation  of  his  fears  was  reported  at  court,  it 
was  considered  as  a  saucy  attempt  to  penetrate 
the  secrets  of  government,  as  a  contempt  of 
authority,  and  a  dangerous  attack  upon  the  ma- 
jesty of  the  prince. 

Tiberius  would  have  seized  this  opportunity 
to  execute  his  revenge  against  Gallus,  if  he  had 
not  been  diverted  from  it  by  Sejanus  himself, 
who  wished  rather  to  keep  his  mind  intent  on 
the  destruction  of  Agrippina  and  her  two  eldest 
sons,  who  were  equally  objects  of  jealousy  to  the 
minister  as  to  the  emperor. 

Such  were  the  affairs  which  succeeded  in  the 
state,  to  the  great  political  questions  that  formerly 
used  to  divide  the  senate  and  the  people  ;  and  as 
the  event  of  these  affairs  turned  upon  the  caprice 
of  individuals,  they  were  very  much  affected  by 
any  alterations  which  happened  at  court.  It 
being  now  the  fourth  year  after  the  retreat  of 
the  emperor  to  Capreae,  a  considerable  change 
took  place  in  the  death  of  Livia  Augusta,  who, 
by  her  first  marriage,  was  the  mother  of  Tibe- 
rius, and  by  her  second,  the  widow  of  Augustus, 
by  whom  she  had  no  children.  She  appears  to 
have  been  a  woman  of  consummate  address.  Ac- 
cording to  Tacitus,  a  fond  and  partial  mother, 
an  obsequious  wife,  and  uniting,  in  her  own 
character,  the  abilities  of  her  husband,  with  the 
duplicity  of  her  son.  Being  asked,  by  what  arts 
she  had  kept  her  place  so  long  in  the  confidence 
of  Augustus  7  "  By  the  most  scrupulous  virtue," 
she  said  ;  "  by  implicit  obedience ;  by  not  med- 
dling in  affairs  of  state;  by  overlooking  his  in- 
trigues with  other  women."2 

The  authority  of  Livia  had  been  a  consider- 
able restraint  on  the  temper  of  her  son ;  and 
being  exerted  to  thwart  him  on  some  occasions, 
had  contributed  to  the  resolution  he  took  of  re- 
tiring from  Rome,  Both  the  mother  and  the 
son  had  their  jealousies  and  their  resentments; 
but  as  they  seldom  fixed  on  the  same  objects, 
such  as  were  persecuted  by  the  one,  sometimes 
found  a  refuge  with  the  other.  They  concurred 
in  their  aversion  to  Agrippina,  but  might  have 
been  divided  in  their  inclinations  towards  her 
children.  Livia,  tainted  with  the  rancour  of  a 
stepmother,3  and  incited  by  personal  jealousies, 
ever  saw  in  the  person  of  Agrippina  an  air  of 
superiority  which  seemed  to  reproach  her  as  the 
wife  of  Nero,  and  but  an  intruder  into  the  family 
of  Caesar.    With  respect  to  the  widow  of  Ger- 


1  Vipsania  was  the  daughter  of  Agrippa  by  a  for- 
mer marriage,  and  consequently  the  half  sister  of 
Agrippina. 

a  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lviii.  c.  2. 

H  Novsrcalibus  odiis.— Tacit. 


manicus,  therefore,  she  was  probably  more  im- 
placable even  than  the  emperor ;  but  with  respect 
to  his  children,  these  being  descended  of  herself, 
it  may  be  supposed  that  she  could  not  possibly 
adopt  the  passions  of  Sejanus  to  their  prejudice 
nor  wish  to  renrfove  them,  in  order  to  make  way 
for  the  ambition  of  a  stranger.  The  death  of 
Livia  was  accordingly  to  those  young  men  a 
fatal  circumstance,  and  facilitated  the  execution 
of  the  designs,  which  the  emperor  or  his  favourite 
had  formed  against  them.  Soon  after  the  funeral 
rites  were  performed,  the  storm  which  had  been 
long  impending  over  them  accordingly  broke  out. 
A  letter  from  the  emperor  was  present  d  to  the 
senate,  accusing  Agrippina.  and  Nero  the  eldest 
of  her  sons,  not  of  any  plot  or  conspiracy  against 
the  state,  or  of  any  breach  of  the  public  peace, 
but  charging  the  young  man  with  lewdness,  and 
the  mother  with  haughty  looks,  and  a  stubborn 
heart. 

This  letter  was  received  in  the  senate  with 
surprise.  After  some  interval  of  consternation 
and  silence,  a  motion  was  made  to  proceed  in  the 
matter  to  which  it  referred  ;  hut  there  being  no 
specific  charge,  and  no  instructions  to  form  a  pro- 
secution, it  was  observed,  that  the  emperor  might 
have  given  way  to  his  displeasure  in  angry  ex- 
pressions, without  intending  any  farther  censure 
or  judicial  severities.  Junius  Rusticus,  who  had 
been  appointed  by  Tiberius  clerk  or  secretary  of 
the  senate,  ventured  to  advise  a  delay,  in  order 
that  the  emperor  might  have  time  to  reconsider 
the  subject,  and  to  make  the  senate  acquainted 
with  his  real  intentions. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  purport  of  this  letter 
was  rumoured  ahroad,  and  the  senate  was  heset 
with  multitudes  of  the  people,  who,  carrying  the 
effigies  of  Agrippina  and  her  son,  exclaimed 
that  the  letter  in  question  must  have  been  forged, 
that  it  was  impossible  the  emperor  could  intend 
the  destruction  of  his  own  family ;  and,  after  the 
senate  broke  up,  there  continued  to  be  handed 
about  in  the  streets  invectives  against  Sejanus, 
alleged  to  be  the  speeches  of  members  in  that 
assembly.  * 

When  these  particulars  came  to  be  known  at 
Caprese,  they  were  represented  by  Sejanus  as  an 
insult  upon  the  senate,  and  as  a  contempt  of  the 
emperor's  authority.  Libels,  he  said,  were  dar- 
ingly published ;  the  people  were  assembled  in 
disorderly  tumults,  and  nothing  was  wanting  to 
complete  the  rebellion,  but  arms,  and  the  personal 
presence  of  those  leaders  who  were  already  fol- 
lowed in  effigy. 

Tiberius  accordingly  renewed  his  complaint 
to  the  senate,  reprimanding  them  for  not  having 
proceeded  on  his  former  letter ;  but  insinuated, 
that  he  did  not  aim  at  the  life  of  Agrippina,  nor 
at  that  of  her  son.  In  this,  he  seemed  to  require 
a  sentence  of  exile  or  imprisonment ;  and  the 
members,  now  as  much  decided  as  they  had  been 
lately  perplexed  and  irresolute,  were  eager  to 
distinguish  their  zeal.  After  four-and-forty  ela- 
borate speeches  had  been  delivered,  all  tending 
to  prove  the  necessity  of  immediate  severities,  it 
was  resolved  that  Agrippina,  with  the  eldest  of 
her  sons,  should  be  banished  ;  the  first  into  the 
island  of  Pandateria,  the  place  where  her  mother, 
the  unhappy  Julia,  had  been  confined ;  and  the 
other  to  Pontia,  another  island  on  the  same  coast.4 


4  Sucton.  in  Tiber,  c.  33,  34. 


Ciiap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


469 


The  younger  brothers  were  overlooked  on  the 
present  occasion.  Drusus,  the  second,  being 
persuaded  by  Sejanus  that  the  removal  of  his 
elder  brother  tended  to  his  own  advantage,  by 
opening  his  way  to  the  empire,  took  no  part  in 
the  distresses  of  his  family.  He  himself,  however, 
was  soon  after  put  in  confinement,  and  for  some 
years  kept  a  prisoner  at  Rome,  in  a  secret  recess 
of  the  emperor's  palace. 

Tiberius,  in  some  instances,  endeavoured  to 
compensate  the  injustice  which  he  practised 
against  one  set  of  persons,  by  acts  of  munifi- 
cence to  others,  whom  he  selected  as  objects  of 
his  bountv,  or  who  were  of  too  little  consequence 
to  incur  his  jealousy.  He  seized  an  opportunity 
of  this  kind  about  the  time  that  Agrippina  and 
her  son  experienced  his  vengeance,  by  relieving 
numbers  who  had  suffered  by  a  fire  which  had 
recently  consumed  some  part  of  the  city,  and 
others,  who  had  suffered  by  the  fall  of  a  theatre 
erected  at  Fidenae ;  a  disaster,  by  which,  accord- 
ing to  Tacitus,  about  fifty  thousand  persons 
were  killed  or  hurt.  Continuing,  however,  with 
respect  to  those  who  incurred  his  aversion  or  his 
distrust,  to  exercise  a  cruelty  which  seemed  to 
increase  with  age,  or  with  the  consciousness  of 
his  own  demerit  towards  mankind,  he  proceeded 
against  Asinius  Gall  us  with  singular  marks  of 
deliberate  malice ;  took  measures  to  prolong  the 
sufferings  of  this  favourite  victim;  wished  to 
witness  their  effects,  and  to  enforce  the  impres- 
sion of  them  with  peculiar  circumstances  of 
insult  and  mockery.  For  this  purpose,  he  pro- 
cured a  deputation  from  the  senate  to  be  sent  to 
Capreae,  and  took  care  that  Asinius  Gallus  should 
be  one  of  the  deputies.  Upon  their  arrival,  he 
received  Gallus  in  a  manner  peculiarly  gracious, 
admitted  him  as  a  party  in  all  his  entertainments, 
and  as  an  ordinary  guest  at  his  table ;  but  having 
in  the  mean  time  sent  a  complaint  of  treason 
against  him  to  Rome,  and  directed  that  a  war- 
rant from  the  senate  should  be  sent  to  seize  his 
person,  he  continued  his  former  behaviour,  and 
detained  him  at  Caprea?,  under  various  pretences 
of  kindness,  until  the  warrant  of  the  senate  to 
seize  him  should  arrive.  He  took  care  to  be  pre- 
sent when  this  warrant  was  executed,  affected 
surprise,  even  pretended  to  be  distressed,  and, 
when  the  prisoner  was  removed,  gave  strict 
injunctions 4 hat  no  violence  should  be  offered  to 
him,  nor  any  sentence  passed  against  him,  until 
he  himself  should  return  to  Rome. 

In  this  ambiguous  injunction,  Gallus  was  con- 
demned to  a  lingering  state  of  suspense,  and  of 
suffering  without  the  knowledge  of  his  crime,  or 
of  the  person  by  whom  he  was  accused  ;  a  species 
of  refinement  on  cruelty  which  Tiberius  had  lately 
adopted,  and,  which  he  sometimes  expressed. 
Having  a  petition  presented  to  him,  that  one  of 
his  prisoners  might  be  allowed  to  die :  "  I  am 
not,"  he  said,  "sufficiently  reconciled  to  him  for 
that." 

While  Sejanus  was  considered  as  the  author 
of  most  of  these  cruel  acts,  and  was  accordingly 
the  general  object  of  flattery  as  well  as  of  terror,  he 
was  in  reality  the  dupe  of  his  master's  cunning, 
and  at  this  very  time  was  already  doomed  to  de- 
struction. 

Tiberius  either  moved  by  a  mere  change  of 
caprice  incident  to  unhappy  men,  or  warned  of 
some  danger  to  his  own  person,  from  the  height 
and  from  the  views  to  which  he  had  raised  this 


favourite,  had  for  some  time  secretly  resolved  on 
his  ruin;  but  while  he  revolved  this  purpose  in 
his  own  mind,  and  weighed  the  dangers  to 
which  he  might  be  exposed  in  the  execution  of 
it,  he  redoubled  the  usual  marks  of  his  favour, 
and  in  all  his  despatches,  in  which  he  mentioned 
Sejanus  to  the  senate,  designed  him,  "  My  Se- 
janus, and  the  partner  of  my  cares  and  my  la- 
bours." 

The  public,  as  well  as  Sejanus  himself,  were 
imposed  upon  by  these  appearances.  No  honour 
was  moved  for  the  emperor,  in  which  Sejanus 
was  not  included.  Their  statues  still  continued 
to  be  erected  together,  and  were  multiplied  in 
every  street ;  and  when  the  emperor  signified  his 
pleasure  that  Sejanus  should  be  named  to  the 
consulate,  together  with  himself,  the  senate  re- 
plied, by  an  act,  vesting  the  prince  and  his  fa- 
vourite with  this  dignity  for  five  years. 

Hitherto,  it  is  probable  that  Tiberius,  well 
aware  of  the  vigilance  and  penetration  of  his  fa- 
vourite, and  of  the  numerous  spies  he  had  em- 
ployed, had  not  confided  his  secret  to  any  person 
whatever,  and  wished  to  remove  him  from  his 
person,  before  he  ventured  to  proceed  any  farther 
in  his  design.  For  this  purpose  he  had  chosen 
him  for  his  own  colleague  in  the  consulate  of  the 
ensuing  year  ;  and,  under  pretence  of  delegating 
to  him  the  whole  functions  of  an  office,  which 
the  emperor  himself  could  not  attend,  he  sent 
him  to  Rome. 

For  some  time  after  the  arrival  of  Sejanus  in 
the  city,  the  usual  executions  for  treason  were 
continued,  and  persons  who  had  incurred  the 
suspicion  either  of  the  prince  or  his  minister, 
perished  with  their  wives,  and  their  children. 
Many  of  them,  as  usual,  to  prevent  the  effects  of 
a  formal  sentence,  laid  violent  hands  on  them- 
selves, and  some  exhibited  this  horrid  spe  ctacle 
even  at  the  bar  of  the  senate.5 

While  Sejanus  thus  seemed  to  wield  the  im- 
perial power,  and  to  hold  the  lives  of  the  people 
at  his  mercy,  he  was  attended  by  multitudes,  who 
pressed  to  his  gate  in  such  numbers,  that  the 
court  of  his  palace  could  scarcely  receive  them. 
He  slighted  the  attentions  that  were  paid  to  him; 
but  with  unwearied  jealousy  remarked  every  ap- 
pearance of  neglect,  and  doomed  to  destruction 
|>ersons  who  gave  any  signs  of  impatience,  under 
the  state  of  servility  and  -debasement  to  which 
they  were  reduced. 

In  the  mean  time,  Tiberius  proceeded  with 
great  circumspection.  He  had  accepted  of  the 
consulate  merely  to  flatter  his  minister,  and  to 
increase  his  security,  in  being  placed  as  the  col- 
league of  the  emperor  in  that  station.  Being  to 
destroy  him,  it  was  necessary  that  some  one 
should  be  present,  on  whom  the  dignity  of  con- 
sul might  devolve.  For  this  reason,  he  divested 
himself  of  the  office,  and  substituted  in  his  own 
place  C.  Memtnius  Regulus,  who  on  the  first  of 
May,  was  admitted  as  the  colleague  of  Sejanus. 
From  thenceforward,  the  conduct  of  the  emperor 
threw  the  favourite  himself  and  the  public  in  ge- 
neral, into  great  perplexity.  In  some  of  his  letters 
to  the  senate,  he  spoke  of  his  health  as  declining, 
and  of  himself  as  a  dying  person.  In  his  next, 
he  announced  his  recovery,  and  a  design  of 
speedily  visiting  the  metropolis.  He  commended 
Sejanus  in  one  letter,  he  censured  him  in  another 


5  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Iviii  c.  4- 


470 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VL 


sometimes  favoured  none  but  his  partizans  and 
adherents,  at  other  times  affected  to  prefer  his 
rivals.  It  is  possible  that  in  these  inconsistencies, 
he  himself  actually  wavered  between  hatred  and 
fear ;  and  apprehending  the  great  influence  of 
Sejanus  over  the  praetorian  guards,  hesitated  in 
the  execution  of  his  purpose.  It  is  likewise  ex- 
tremely agreeable  to  his  character,  to  suppose  that 
he  meant,  by  holding  forth  some  signs  of  dis- 
pleasure, to  urge  the  object  of  it  to  some  act  of 
indiscretion  or  insolence,  which  could  be  made 
the  foundation  of  a  plausible  charge  against  him, 
and  that  he  had  spies  on  his  conduct  to  lay  hold 
of  any  pretence  he  should  furnish  for  an  im- 
peachment; but  that,  fearing  to  drive  him  to 
some  dangerous  act  of  despair,  he  retracted  in 
one  message  the  provocation  he  had  given  in  a 
former. 

While  Sejanus  appeared,  from  some  circum- 
stances in  the  conduct  of  the  emperor  towards 
him,  to  be  out  of  favour,  he  was  suddenly  raised 
to  the  dignity  of  pontiff",  together  with  Caius 
Caesar  Caligula  ;  and  thinking  this  a  favourable 
opportunity  to  recover  his  place  about  the  per- 
son of  his  master,  he  desired  leave  to  offer  his 
thanks  at  Caprese  ;  but  was  told  that  he  might 
sp%re  himself  the  trouble,  for  that  the  emperor 
was  soon  to  be  at  Rome. 

To  try  the  effect  of  a  fresh  mortification  on 
the  temper  of  this  devoted  favourite,  Caius  Caesar 
Caligula  was  declared  successor  in  the  empire. 
The  popularity  of  the  family  of  Germanicus, 
made  this  declaration  be  received  with  universal 
joy;  and  being  joined  to  other  indications,  that 
Sejanus  no  longer  had  the  exclusive  possession 
of  the  emperor's  favour,  greatly  diminished  the 
court  that  was  paid  to  him. 

From  this  time,  it  is  probable  that  Tiberius 
took  into  his  confidence  Macro,  an  officer  already 
of  high  rank  in  the  praetorian  bands,  and  whom 
he  destined  to  succeed  Sejanus  in  the  command 
of  that  body.  With  Macro,  he  concerted  the  man- 
ner of  removing  this  dangerous  man,  and  formed 
a  plan,  which  was  to  be  intrusted  to  his  execution. 
Sejanus  was  to  be  flattered  with  new  hopes  ;  he 
was  to  be  surprised  in  the  senate,  while  the 
guards  were  to  be  amused  with,  what  was  a  new 
circumstance  in  this  reign,  the  distribution  of  a 
donative  from  the  emperor. 

In  proceeding  to  execute  this  design,  in  a 
manner  which  the  emperor  chose  from  his  love 
of  duplicity,  or  which,  from  his  fear  of  the  troops 
that  were  under  the  command  of  Sejanus,  he 
thought  himself  obliged  to  contrive  with  so  much 
circumspection,  he  intimated  to  the  senate,  and 
to  Sejanus  himself,  that  he  speedily  meant  to 
vest  him  with  the  character  of  tribune,  a  dignity 
which  rendered  the  person  sacred,  and  which 
the  Caesars  had  in  some  measure  appropriated 
to  themselves.  While  this  intimation  was  sup- 
posed to  lull  Sejanus  in  perfect  security,  Macro 
was  despatched  to  Rome,  and  took  care  to  arrive 
at  an  hour,  when  the  senate  had  been,  by  order 
Df  the  emperor,  appointed  to  assemble.  He  met 
Arith  Sejanus,  just  as  he  had  posted  his  guard, 
and  was  entering  at  the  door  of  the  senate-house ; 
and  being  asked,  what  commands  he  had  from 
♦he  emperor,  and  what  letters  for  himself?  an- 
owered,  that  he  had  brought  his  appointment  to 
the  tribunitian  power,  and  was  to  lay  it  before  the 
senate. 

Sejanus  took  his  place,  with  the  usual  attend-  j 


ance  of  persons  who  had  accompanied  him  from 
his  own  house,  and  had  the  members  of  the  se- 
nate still  crowding  around  him  as  usual,  when, 
Macro  presented  the  mandate  of  the  emperor, 
and  retired. 

This  paper  was  artfully  drawn  up,  to  gain 
time  in  the  reading,  and  to  keep  all  parties  in 
suspense,  while  Macro  should  take  his  measures 
to  secure  the  guards.  In  the  preample,  the  name 
of  Sejanus  was  not  at  all  mentioned  ;  in  the  sub- 
sequent parts  of  the  paper,  he  was  sometimes  ex- 
tolled, and  sometimes  censured.  Other  affairs 
were  intermixed  with  this,  and  the  suspense 
which  so  long  and  so  strange  a  performance  oc- 
casioned in  the  minds  of  those  who  were  present, 
amounted  to  some  degree  of  stupefaction.  But 
it  concluded  at  last  with  a  peremptory  charge 
of  treason  against  Sejanus;  and  the  crowd  of 
attendants  instantly  withdrew  from  the  consul's 
chair  on  which  he  was  seated.  His  colleague 
in  office,  Regulus,  called  upon  him  by  name  to 
stand  up ;  but  so  much  was  he  distracted,  and  so 
little  accustomed  to  this  tone  of  voice,  that  upon 
a  second  call,  he  started  from  his  seat,  and  asked, 
if  the  words  were  addressed  to  him?  Surprise 
had  qualified  him  to  take  any  vigorous  resolution; 
and  when  he  began  to  recollect  himself,  the  pre- 
cautions which  had  been  taken  by  his  enemies, 
rendered  all  his  endeavours  too  late. 

Macro,  as  soon  as  he  had  delivered  the  empe- 
ror's letter  to  be  read  in  the  senate,  went  to  the 
guard  which  was  posted  at  the  doors,  informed 
them  that  he  brought  a  donative  from  the  empe- 
ror, which  they  were  then  to  share  with  their  fel- 
low-soldiers in  the  barracks ;  that  for  this  purpose, 
they  were  immediately  to  be  relieved  by  a  party 
of  the  city  watch.  This  being  done,  he  led  them 
to  the  citadel,  or  what  was  called  the  camp  of 
the  praetorian  bands,1  distributed  the  emperor's 
bounty,  and  at  the  same  time  taxed  their  com- 
mander with  ingratitude  to  so  kind  a  master ; 
intimated  his  removal,  produced  his  own  commis- 
sion to  succeed  in  that  important  station,  and  by 
his  authority,  as  well  as  by  these  precautions, 
prevented  any  disturbance  among  that  formidable 
body  of  men. 

Sejanus  being  deserted  in  the  senate  by  those 
who  had  attended  him  into  the  house,  and  who 
a  few  moments  before  pressed  to  be  first  in  his 
observation,  was  taken  into  custody  of  the  party 
which  had  relieved  his  own  guard,  and  was 
treated  as  a  person  accused  of  the  highest  crimes. 
On  the  first  motion  for  a  commitment,  he  wa9 
ordered  to  prison,  and  persons  of  every  descrip- 
tion began  to  give  unfeigned  or  affected  demon- 
strations of  joy.  From  many  who  were  present, 
the  fear  that  was  lately  expressed  in  adulation 
and  courtship,  now  burst  forth  in  reproaches 
and  insults.  In  others,  who  were  more  nearly 
connected  with  the  prisoner,  or  more  likely  to 
be  involved  in  his  fate,  the  terror  with  which 
they  were  seized,  was  disguised  under  the  affec- 
tation of  joy.  The  populace  as  he  passed  through 
the  streets,  took  their  parts  as  usual  in  the  storm 
which  burst  on  this  unfortunate  man,  and,  that 
he  might  not  have  the  consolation  of  passing  un- 
seen, tore  away  the  lappet  of  his  gown,  with 
which  he  endeavoured  to  cover  his  face. 

On  the  same  day,  the  senate  met  again  in  a 
temple  contiguous  to  the  prison  in  which  Se- 


1  Castrum  Prsetorium. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


471 


janus  was  confined,  and,  without  any  specific 
charge  or  evidence  of  guilt,  gave  sentence  of 
death  against  him,  which  was  accordingly  ex- 
ecuted. The  dead  body,  as  usual  in  the  case  of 
treason,  being  made  fast  on  a  hook,  was  dragged 
through  the  streets,  and  cast  into  the  river,  where 
it  was  thrown  up,  or  continued  afloat  during  some 
days,  under  the  continual  insults  of  a  multitude 
of  people. 

It  is  not  easy  to  determine  how  far  this  minis- 
ter was  accountable  for  a  tyranny,  which  occa- 
sioned so  vehement  and  so  general  a  resentment. 
His  crimes  were  undoubtedly  great,  and  the  envy 
of  his  fortune  was  not  to  be  assuaged  by  com- 
mon sufferings.  But  as  human  nature  is  liable 
to  error  in  the  manner  of-  punishing  crimes,  as 
well  as  in  the  commission  of  them,  the  rage  which 
now  animated  the  populace  against  Sejanus, 
mixed  with  a  servile  intention  to  pay  their  court 
to  the  emperor,  led  to  an  action  as  criminal  and 
more  odious  than  any  of  which  he  himself  had 
been  accused  or  suspected.  The  children  of 
this  unhappy  man,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  though  too 
young  to  partake  in  his  guilt,  or  to  furnish  any 
subject  of  distrust  or  of  jealousy  to  his  enemies, 
were  included  in  the  same  fate  with  the  father  ; 
the  girl  with  so  much  innocence,  that  she  often 
asked  the  persons  by  whom  she  was  seized,  what 
she  had  done?  assured  them,  with  an  infantine 
simplicity,  that  she  never  would  do  it  again  ; 
begged  that  they  would  not  carry  her  to  prison  ; 
said  that  she  never  was  obstinate,  and  that  a  few 
strokes  of  the  rod  were  enough  to  correct  her. 

It  is  subjoined  to  this  piteous  detail,  that,  in 
compliance  with  a  vile  superstition,  which  the 
consideration  of  innocence  could  not  restrain, 
she  was  ordered  to  be  ravished  previous  to  her 
execution,  because  it  was  ominous  of  misfortune 
to  inflict  the  punishment  of  death  on  a  virgin.2 
The  bodies  of  these  innocents,  in  the  same  man- 
ner with  that  of  their  father,  were  dragged 
through  the  streets,  and  cast  into  the  river. 

It  is  difficult  to  account,  from  any  principles  of 
human  nature,  for  acts  of  such  amazing  depravity. 
Tyrants  seldom  exceed  the  bounds  of  resentment, 
jealousy,  or  fear ;  but  the  vile  tools  that  are  pro- 
cured by  servility  to  execute  their  purpose,  in 
order  to  ingratiate  themselves,  often  outrun,  in 
their  affectation  of  zeal,  what  tyranny  or  cow- 
ardice itself  could  not  suggest  or  perpetrate. 

Apicata,  the  widow  of  Sejanus,  and  the  mo- 
ther of  these  unhappy  children,  having  first  dis- 
closed the  conspiracy,  by  which  Drusus,  the  son 
of  Tiberius,  had  been  poisoned,  laid  violent  hands 
on  herself,  and,  by  the  discovery  she  made,  soon 
after  brought  on  the  ruin  of  the  widow  Livilla, 
with  that  of  the  other  accomplices  in  that  daring 
crime. 

It  was  reported,  that  the  anxiety  of  Tiberius, 
whether  real  or  affected,  was  such,  during  the 
dependence  of  his  design  on  Sejanus,  that  he  in- 
structed Macro,  in  case  of  any  resistance  from 
the  guards,  to  bring  forth  Drusus,  the  son  of 
Germanieus,  then  a  prisoner  in  the  palace,  to 
assemble  the  citizens  against  them ;  that  he  had 
prepared  shipping  at  Capreae  to  wait  himself,  in 
case  of  necessity,  to  some  of  the  military  stations 
on  the  frontier;  that  he  had  formed  a  chain  of 
posts  from  Rome  to  the  nearest  promontory  of 
Campania,  with  orders  to  light  fires,  and  to  make 


2  Dio  Cass.  lib.  lviii.  c  If.  Tacit.  Annal.  lib  v.  c.  5. 


other  concerted  signals,  in  case  it  should  be  ne- 
cessary for  him  to  consult  his  safety  by  flight.  In 
his  letter  to  the  senate,  in  order  to  make  a  suitable 
impression  of  the  danger  to  which  he  wished  the 
public  to  believe  he  was  ex  posed  from  the  designs 
of  Sejanus,  he  concluded,  with  expressing  his 
wishes  to  be  again  at  Rome  ;  but  desired  that  the 
consul,  who  remained  at  the  head  of  the  com- 
monwealth, might  come  forth  with  the  powers 
of  the  republic  to  conduct  him  in  safety .3  His 
design  however  having  succeeded  to  his  wishes, 
Drusus  was  still  retained  a  prisoner  in  the  palace, 
and  the  consul  being  arrived  in  Campania,  with 
his  lictors,  to  give  the  emperor  a  safe  conduct  to 
Rome,  was  every  where  considered  as  an  object 
of  ridicule. 

After  the  execution  of  Sejanus,  the  city  con- 
tinued in  a  ferment  during  many  days.  The 
people  having  been  disposed,  for  some  time,  to 
impute  to  the  minister  the  system  of  tyranny 
wbich  had  been  lately  pursued,  rejoiced  in  his 
fall,  applauded  the  severities  which  were  executed 
on  the  partners  of  his  guilt,  and  willingly  pointed 
out,  as  accomplices  in  his  crimes,  his  relations 
and  friends,  and  all  who  had  ever  moved  for  any 
of  the  extravagant  honours  that  were  lately  be- 
stowed upon  himself;  but,  as  in  imputing  the 
guilt  of  many  cruel  measures  to  Sejanus,  they 
were  too  favourable  to  the  emperor,  so  they  pro- 
bably over-rated  the  influence  of  the  minister, 
who  was  in  fact  more  the  dupe,  than  the  director, 
of  his  master's  designs. 

As  it  soon  after  appeared,  that  the  cruel 
jealousies  of  this  reign  did  not  terminate  with  the 
death  of  the  favourite,  the  people,  as  usual,  ran  to 
the  opposite  extreme,  considered  him  as  a  mere 
instrument  of  his  master's  tyranny,  as  a  person 
employed  while  his  services  were  convenient,  but 
in  the  end  betrayed  with  a  degree  of  perfidy, 
which  rendered  the  cruelty  of  the  tyrant,  in  that 
case,  more  odious  than  even  when  it  was  prac- 
tised against  the  most  innocent  subjects.4  So 
prone  are  mankind,  in  particular  instances,  to 
suspect  the  falsehood,  or  to  exaggerate  the  wick- 
edness of  those,  who,  by  general  duplicity  and 
malice,  have  incurred  their  detestation. 

The  death  of  Sejanus  was  so  far  from  intro- 
ducing any  mitigation  of  the  former  tyranny, 
that  it  rather  furnisbed  a  new  set  of  pretences, 
under  which  to  exert  its  force.  Intimacy  with 
the  fallen  minister,  or  a  supposed  participation  of 
his  guilt,  involved  greater  numbers,  than  had 
been  formerly  questioned  on  account  of  any  other 
species  of  treason.  Persons  of  every  sex  and  of 
every  condition,  were  cast  indiscriminately  into 
the  same  prisons  ;  and  the  time  of  the  senate  was 
divided  between  the  ordering  of  executions,  and 
the  appointment  of  honours,  which  were  decreed 
to  the  prince  for  his  vigilance  in  this  matter.  The 
title  of  father  of  his  country  was  again  oflcred  to 
him;  additional  rejoicings  were  devised  for  the 
anniversary  of  his  birth;  a  general  thanksgiving 
was  appointed  to  the  gods;  and  a  new  statue 
was  to  be  erected  to  liberty.  All  persons  were 
forbidden  to  wear  mourning  for  Sejanus ;  the 
anniversary  of  his  death  was  to  be  kept  as  a  fes- 
tival, or  celebrated  with  public  entertainments 
and  sports;  and  it  was  resolved  in  the  senate, 
that  the  extravagant  honours  so  profusely  lavish- 


3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lviii.  c.  13. 

4  Rueton.  in  Tiber,  c.  55. 


472  THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION  [Book  VI. 


ed  on  that  minister,  should  not  be  repeated  in  the 
case  of  any  subject  whatever. 

These  decrees,  Tiberius,  so  far  as  they  were 
intended  to  confer  honours  on  himself,  rejected 
with  disdain,  and  even  refused  to  see  the  deputies 
who  were  separately  sent  from  the  senate,  from 
the  equestrian  order,  and  from  the  people,  to  con- 
gratulate him  on  this  occasion.  He  despised  the 
givers  too  much  to  be  flattered  with  the  gift,  and 
was  aware  of  their  duplicity  in  pretending  to 
offer  him  praise.  Under  this  impression,  at  one 
of  the  last  times  he  had  attended  the  senate  in 
person,  he  was  observed  to  leave  the  assembly 
with  scorn.  "  What  a  collection,"  he  said,  "of 
willing  slaves."1  There  is,  it  seems,  a  degree  of 
good  nature  as  well  as  of  weakness,  in  wishing 
to  be  flattered.  This  prince  was  equally  ex- 
empted from  both. 

The  senate,  however,  the  more  they  were 
spurned,  became  the  more  sensible  of  their  own 
degradation,  and  only  endeavoured  to  vary  the 
mode  of  their  flattery.  As  Tiberius  ever  talked 
of  his  approaching  return  to  Rome,  and  of  his  in- 
tended appearance  in  the  senate,  they  passed  a 
decree,  that  twenty  of  their  own  number,  to  be 
named  by  the  emperor  himself,  should  be  armed 
with  swords,  and  should  have  charge  of  his  safety 
as  often  as  he  took  his  seat  in  their  meetings. 
When  this  resolution  was  intimated  to  him,  he 
returned  thanks  for  their  zeal,  and  with  some  de- 
rision desired  to  know,  whether  this  senatorial 
guard  should  be  young  men  or  old  men  ?  whe- 
ther they  should  continue  for  life,  or  be  taken  in 
rotation?  and  whether  they  should  arm  only  at 
the  door  of  the  senate-house,  or  pass  in  arms 
through  the  streets?2  and  concluded  with  saying, 
that,  if  his  life  was  worth  preserving,  he  should 
think  himself  sufficiently  safe,  when  attended  by 
Macro  and  some  tribunes  of  his  guards,  whom 
he  would  take  the  liberty  to  bring  into  the  senate. 

This  reference  to  the  guards  had  the  effect  of 
an  admonition,  and  drew  from  the  senate  an  at- 
tempt to  pay  their  court  likewise  to  this  formidable 
body  of  men.  Bounties  in  money  and  honorary 
distinctions  were  decreed  to  them  ;  such  as,  that 
the  prstorian  soldier,  at  the  expiration  of  the 
time  for  which  he  enlisted,  should  be  allowed  a 
place  at  the  theatre  on  the  bench  of  the  eques- 
trian order.  In  this,  however,  the  compliment 
was  not  more  successful  than  it  had  been  in  other 
instances.  It  was  even  resented  by  the  emperor 
as  an  attempt  to  share  the  affection  of  the  troops 
with  himself.  Junius  Gallio,  who  had  made  the 
motion,  was  ordered  into  exile,  and  afterwards  com- 
mitted to  prison  in  the  city.  And  the  senate,  as 
a  last  effort  to  please  this  froward  prince,  seeing 
that  the  project  to  arm  a  part  of  their  own  num- 
ber in  his  defence  was  not  acceptable,  resolved, 
that  every  member,  in  entering  the  house,  should 
be  searched  for  concealed  weapons,  as  a  precau- 
tion for  the  safety  of  a  person  who  probably  never 
meant  to  intrust  himself  in  their  hands. 

In  the  midst  of  these  servilities,  the  emperor 
met  with  some  instances  of  a  daring  petulance, 
and  with  some  even  of  a  noble  freedom,  which 
he  had  the  discretion  to  overlook,  or  to  treat  with 
affected  respect.  The  defects  of  his  person,  he 
being  bald,  foul-faced,  and  bent  with  age,  were 
exhibited  by  actors  on  the  stage ;  and  the  mon- 


ster, so  represented,  it  was  said,  practised  in 
secret  the  most  dctestuble  vices  ;  alluding  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  emperor  passed  his  time  a* 
Capreae.  But  with  respect  to  such  buffooneries, 
he  had  the  discernment  to  know,  that  a  serious 
attempt  to  punish  the  authors,  would  only  tend 
to  confirm  the  application,  and  to  increase  its 
effects. 

Among  the  numbers  that  were  questioned  as 
partners  in  the  guilt  of  the  late  minister,  and  of 
whom  many  perished  by  their  own  hands,  or  by 
that  of  the  executioner,  Marcus  Terentius,  a 
Roman  knight,  had  the  courage  to  acknowledge 
his  guilt,  and  pleaded  his  cause  in  a  manner  that 
suspended  the  proceedings  of  the  senate  against 
him.3  "  It  were  safer,  perhaps,  for  me,"  he  said, 
"  to  deny,  than  to  confess,  my  connexion  with 
Sejanus.  But  whatever  may  be  the  event,  I 
must  own  that  I  attached  myself  to  that  minister; 
that  I  desired  to  be  reckoned  among  his  friends, 
and  was  proud  of  this  title.  In  him  I  saw  the 
first  officer  of  the  army,  the  first  minister  of  the 
state,  and  the  colleague  of  Csesar;  a  powerful 
patron,  and  an  irresistible  enemy ;  one  whose 
favour  was  preferment  and  honour,  whose  dis- 
pleasure was  ruin  and  disgrace.  It  was  not  for 
me  to  penetrate  the  councils  of  my  prince,  nor  to 
decide  on  the  reason  of  his  conduct.  It  Was  my 
duty  to  honour  whom  he  honoured  ;  and  in  this, 
as  well  as  in  every  thing  else,  to  acquit  myself 
as  a  faithful  subject,  by  a  perfect  compliance 
with  my  sovereign's  will.  Please  to  recollect  the 
period  of  this  minister's  favour,  as  well  as  of  his 
disgrace.  My  conduct  in  both,  and  my  defence, 
is  the  same  with  those  of  many  others.  We 
adhered  to  him,  while  the  sovereign  commanded 
us  to  do  so  ;  we  left  him  the  moment  he  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  enemy  of  our  prince,"  Upon 
this  defence,  the  absurdity  of  punishing  in  others 
an  error  of  which  the  emperor  himself  had  set 
the  example,  suspended,  for  a  moment,  the  rage 
of  prosecution  ;  and  the  prisoner,  with  consent, 
of  Tiberius,  was  acquitted. 

An  officer,  named  Lentulus  Gentulicus,  then 
at  the  head  of  the  legions  on  the  Upper  Rhine, 
being  some  time  afterwards  accused  as  an  ac- 
complice with  Sejanus,  had  the  boldness  to  write, 
that  his  connexion  with  that  minister  was  pointed 
out  to  him  by  the  emperor  himself ;  that  the 
mistake  was  common  to  both,  and  that  what  was 
deemed  innocent  in  one  person,  ought  not  to  be 
imputed  as  a  crime  to  another.  "  I  have  hitherto," 
he  said,  "  been  faithful  in  the  discharge  of  my 
trust,  and  mean  to  continue  so;  but  the  first  at- 
tempt to  supersede  me,  I  shall  consider  as  a 
warning  to  defend  myself.  Matters,  however, 
may  remain  in  quiet;  I  am  willing  to  acknow 
ledge  the  emperor  so  long  as  I  remain  unmo- 
lested." Tiberius,  now  far  advanced  in  years, 
governing  by  his  reputation,  and  by  the  influence 
of  forms  established  in  the  reign  of  his  prede- 
cessor and  his  own,  did  not  choose  to  risk  his 
authority  against  a  person,  who,  being  at  the 
head  of  an  army,  had  the  courage  to  hold  such 
language;  and  affected,  from  this  time  forward, 
to  treat  Gentulicus  with  particular  marks  ot 
favour  and  respect.4 

Others  were  imprisoned,  and  carried  to  execu- 
tion in  troops  and  companies ;  and  the  emperor 


3  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  lviii.  c.  18. 

4  Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  vi.  c.  30. 


Chap.  VI.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


473 


at  last,  as  if  tired  with  the  pursuit  of  offenders 
in  detail,  or  in  separate  divisions,  ordered  the 
jails  to  be  cleared  by  a  general  execution  of  all 
persons  confined  as  accomplices  in  the  treason  of 
Sejanus.  In  consequence  of  this  order,  numbers 
of  dead  bodies  of  every  sex,  age,  and  condition, 
were  cast  forth  into  the  streets,  and  lying  scat- 
tered about,  or  collected  in  heaps,  until  they 
began  to  corrupt,  were  thrown  into  the  river.5 

Mystery  and  concealment  being  the  favourite 
arts  of  Tiberius,  as  often  as  he  believed  himself 
to  be  observed,  he  became  jealous  of  every  pry 
ing  look,  and  detested  such  persons  as  seemed 
to  be  qualified  to  distinguish  truth  from  appear- 
ances. At  one  time  he  received  informers  as 
the  most  acceptable  members  of  his  court;  at 
other  times,  he  appeared  to  detest  them  as  per 
sons  who  had  detected  his  vices,  and  were  has 
tening  to  make  them  known  to  the  world.  Dur 
ing  the  prosecution  of  his  design  against  Sejanus, 
he  encouraged  his  spies  with  additional  rewards, 
and  even  with  public  honours.  But  after  he  had 
assuaged  his  passion  in  the  blood  of  so  man 
victims,  he  turned  his  disgust  and  aversion 
against  the  instruments  of  his  cruelties,  and 
ordered  the  city  to  be  cleared  of  informers  by  a 
general  slaughter. 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  the  senate,  under  the 
effects  of  disgust  and  aversion  to  measures  which 
he  had  pursued  for  his  own  safety,  but  which 
he  found  to  involve  him  in  growing  danger  and 
guilt,  he  betrayed  the  distraction  and  anguish  of 
his  mind.  "May  I  perish,"  he  said,  "under 
evils  still  worse  than  those  I  endure,  if  I  know 
what  to  write,  or  what  I  should  not  write.': 
These  were  probably  the  boils,  ulcers,  and  sores, 
on  the  body  of  Tiberius,  to  which  Julian  alludes?6 
in  presenting  him  among  his  Caesars. 

In  the  memoirs  which  this  emperor  kept  of  the 
transactions  of  his  reign,  he  stated  the  disgrace 
and  execution  of  Sejanus,  as  a  punishment  in- 
flicted on  him  for  his  cruelties  to  the  family  of 
Germanicus ;  and  yet  these  cruelties,  which 
were  afterwards  carried  to  much  greater  heights 
by  the  emperor  himself,  had  been  only  begun 
under  the  influence  of  that  minister. 

Agrippina,  with  two  of  her  sons,  Nero  and 
Drusus,  had,  during  the  administration  of  Se- 
janus, been  taken  into  custody,  or  banished  to 
some  of  the  islands  contiguous  to  the  coast  of 
Italy ;  but  all  of  them  perished  after  the  death 
of  Sejanus,  either  by  the  executioner,  or  by  their 
own  hands,  urged  to  despair  by  the  indignities 
they  were  made  to  suffer. 

The  mother  perished  in  one  or  other  of  these 
ways  in  the  island  Pandateria,  the  place  of  her 
exile  ;  and  the  eldest  of  her  two  sons  was  starved 
to  death  in  one  of  the  small  islands  called  Pontiae, 
to  which  he  was  confined. 

The  second  son  perished  in  the  same  manner, 
some  time  afterwards,  in  a  prison  to  which  he 
had  been  committed  in  the  palace.  A  diary  had 
been  kept  of  all  the  expressions  of  impatience 
which,  under  this  confinement,  had  dropt  from 
him  during  some  years ;  and  the  reproaches 
which  were  extorted  from  him,  by  his  sufferings, 
were  stated  as  the  crimes  for  which  he  suffered. 

A  third  son  of  Germanicus  and  Agrippina, 
Caius,  better  known  by  the  name  of  Caligula. 


yet  remained,  to  convince  the  Roman  people, 
that  the  fond  expectations  which  are  formed  of 
princes  who  die  prematurely,  are  not  always  well 
founded.  This  young  man.  whether  recommend- 
ed to  Tiberius  by  an  early  sympathy  of  their 
characters,  or  merely  overlooked  by  him  on  ac- 
count of  his  youth,  not  only  escaped  the  perse- 
cutions in  which  his  family  was  involved,  but 
was  at  last  embraced  by  the  emperor  as  a  support 
to  his  age;  and  making  a  part  of  his  court  at 
Capreae,  next  to  Macro,  enjoyed  the  second 
place  in  his  favour. 

The  emperor  had  a  grandson  by  birth  of  the 
name  of  Tiberius;  but  Caius,  who  was  his 
grandson  by  adoption,  being  elder,  Was  pointed 
out  by  this  circumstance  of  seniority,  and  by  the 
favour  which  the  people  still  bore  to  the  family 
of  Germanicus,  as  heir  apparent  to  the  empire. 

Caius  was  encouraged  by  the  grandfather,  to 
whom  falsehood  appeared  to  be  a  necessary  in- 
gredient in  every  transaction,  to  expect  the  suc- 
cession, while  it  was  really  intended  for  Tiberius. 
The  first,  though  not  qualified  by  address  to 
extricate  himself  from  any  difficulties,  acted, 
perhaps  from  mere  insensibility  or  fear,  the  part 
which  was  fittest  in  his  place,  and  which  con- 
tinued to  render  him  sufferable  at  the  court  of 
Tiberius.  He  acquiesced  in  the  fate  of  his 
mother  and  of  his  brothers,  without  uttering  a 
single  word  of  impatience  or  regret,  regulated 
his  own  behaviour  by  the  emperor's  looks ;  and 
whether  his  countenance  were  gloomy  or  gay, 
formed  his  own  upon  the  same  model,  carrying, 
under  the  aspect  of  extreme  servility,  while  a 
subject,  that  detestable  profligacy  whic  h  rendered 
him  afterwards  so  cruel  a  tyrant,  and  which 
gave  occasion  to  the  famous  saving,  "  That  his 
accession  to  the  empire  spoilt  a  good  slave  to 
make  a  detestable  master."7 

The  accounts  which  are  given  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  have  more  the  ap 
pearancc  of  invective  than  of  history.  Even 
this  hateful  monster,  it  is  said,  was  addicted  to 
pleasure ;  but  of  so  vile  a  kind,  as  to  excite  de- 
testation and  loathing,  more  than  to  increase  the 
indignation  which  is  felt  at  his  cruelties  and 
other  crimes.  His  procurers  had  authority  to 
employ  seduction,  money,  and  force ;  and,  in 
their  endeavours  to  supply  his  caprice,  spared 
neither  condition  nor  sex.  It  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive, that  a  world,  enlightened  by  the  reason 
and  experience  of  so  many  ages;  that  citizens, 
acquainted  with  the  character  and  the  rights 
transmitted  to  them  from  their  ancestors ;  that 
military  men,  yet  rivalling  the  reputation  of  the 
ancient  Romans,  and  having  no  interest  in  the 
horrid  use  that  was  made  in  the  capital  of  the 
imperial  and  military  power  which  they  them- 
selves bestowed  and  supported;  should  submit 
to  be  commanded  for  so  many  years  by  a  super- 
annuated monster,  retired  from  the  world,  and 
supposed  to  practise  every  species  of  private 
abomination,  as  well  as  of  public  oppression. 

In  accounting  for  the  patience  of  the  Romans 
under  this  odious  reign,  we  may  observe,  that,  in 
the  sense  of  a  people  who  still  retained  the  fero- 
city of  their  ancestors,  though  possessed  of  few 
of  their  good  qualities,  the  cruelties  which  are 
mentioned  had  less  effect  than  thev  have  on  our 
feelings.    They  were  practised  chiefly  against 


5  Tacit  Annal.  lib.  vi.  c.  19. 

6  Via.  Cesars  of  Julian. 

3  O 


7  Tacit.  Annal.  c. 


474 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


persons,  who,  being  of  the  emperor's  family,  or 
raised  by  himself  to  be  objects  of  general  envy, 
were  easily  abandoned  by  the  public  to  his  will. 

Senators  of  distinction  at  Rome,  having  no 
protection  to  expect  from  the  populace,  by  whom 
they  were  hated,  from  the  troops  who  were 
jealous  of  them,  or  from  their  own  order,  who 
were  long  since  stript  of  every  remnant  of  real 
power,  were  abandoned  to  the  mercy  of  the  tyrant. 
The  followers  of  his  own  court  at  Caprese, 
amongst  whom  the  executioner  made  a  principal 
personage,  were  still  more  in  his  power.  They 
were  commonly  executed  in  presence  of  the  em- 
peror himself,  who  assisted  in  the  refinements 
of  cruelty  which  were  practised  against  them. 
It  was  a  favourite  sport  to  throw  those,  whom  he 
doomed  to  destruction,  from  a  precipice  into  the 
sea,  where  they  were  received  by  a  party  from  the 
galleys,  who.  with  boat-hooks  and  oars,  despatch- 
ed such  as  were  otherwise  likely  to  escape. 

After  such  an  account  of  the  character  of  this 
emperor,  it  is  painful,  in  accounting  for  the 
success  of  his  government,  to  acknowledge  that 
he  was  a  man  of  considerable  ability  ;  and  that, 
while  he  indulged  his  passions  in  the  capital,  or 
at  his  own  court,  yet  in  the  provinces,  where  the 
consequences  of  an  error  might  have  been  fatal 
or  dangerous  to  his  power,  he  held  the  reins 
with  a  steady  and  a  well-directed  hand.  Having 

{>ossession  tif  the  empire  by  means  of  the  army, 
le  maintained  his  authority  over  this  order  of 
men  by  a  well-placed  application  of  discipline ; 
not  by  any  extraordinary  indulgence,  or  bounty, 
which  often  corrupt,  and  render  ungovernable, 
those  whom  they  are  intended  to  gain.  On  this 
subject,  it  is  observed  that  he  never  made  any 
general  donation  beside  that  of  doubling  the 
legacy  which  Augustus  had  bequeathed  to  the 
troops  ;  and  no  particular  one  besides  those  which 
he  made  to  the  praetorian  bands  to  secure  their 
acquiescence  in  the  fate  of  Sejanus  ;  and  to  the 
legions  of  the  east,  as  a  reward  for  their  not 
having  paid,  to  this  favourite,  in  the  height  of 
his  power,  the  honours  which  were  done  to  him 
by  all  the  other  armies  of  the  empire.1  He  pre- 
served his  authority  in  the  provinces  by  a  jealous 
inspection  of  those  who  were  entrusted  with  the 
administration  of  his  affairs;  and  in  this  was, 
no  doubt,  greatly  assisted  by  his  indifference  to 
personal  friendships,  which,  in  princes  better  dis- 
posed than  himself,  have  often  the  effect  of  per- 
nicious predilections  and  partialities.  He  checked 
all  attempts  at  conspiracies,  by  the  impression  he 
gave  of  his  vigilance,  and  by  the  mutual  distrust 
with  which  he  inspired  his  enemies,  making 
their  treachery  to  each  other  the  road  to  pre- 
ferments, honours,  and  wealth. 

The  ordinary  rotation  and  succession  to  office 
and  command,  which  Augustus,  in  continuation 
of  the  republican  forms,  had  still  maintained, 
Tiberius,  by  a  very  natural  tendency  of  the 
monarchical  spirit,  in  a  great  measure,  or  entirely, 
abolished.  Such  officers  as  were  successful  in 
keeping  the  peace  of  their  provinces,  he  generally 
continued  for  many  years,  and  sometimes  for  life. 
He  avoided,  as  much  as  possible,  the  necessity 
of  employing,  at  the  head  of  armies,  men  of 
enterprise,  forward  ambition,  or  even  superior 
capacity.    He  left  the  disorders,  or  troubles,  that 


1  In  the  armies  of  the  west,  the  effigy  of  Sejanus 
was  carried  with  the  colours  or  ensign-:  of  the  legion. 


arose  in  any  distant  province,  to  the  effect  of 
time,  rather  than  be  obliged  to  employ,  in  re- 
pressing them,  men  who  were  likely  to  eclipse 
his  own  glory,  or  to  awaken  his  jealousy.  But 
as  such  men  were  likely  ill  to  endure  the  state 
of  obscurity  in  which  they  were  kept,  he  soothed 
their  discontents,  sometimes,  by  flattering  them 
with  extraordinary  honours.  He  named  them 
for  stations  of  high  command  ;  but  still  under 
various  pretences  detained  them  at  Rome,  where 
they  were  allowed  to  appear  with  the  ensigns  of 
their  public  character,  but  never  to  enter  on  the 
possession  of  its  powers. 

To  these  particulars  we  may  join  the  advan- 
tages which  Tiberius  enjoyed  by  succeeding  to 
Augustus,  whose  long  and  well-regulated  govern- 
ment had  left,  throughout  the  empire,  habits  of 
submission  and  obedience,  which  could  not  be 
shaken  by  offences  committed  within  the  verge 
of  the  court,  or  in  the  capital,  and  against  par- 
ticular descriptions  of  men,  in  whom  the  empire 
at  large  took  little  concern. 

The  ordinary  residence  of  this  emperor,  dur- 
ing eleven  years  in  the  later  period  of  his  reign, 
was  in  the  island  of  Capreae.  This  he  had  chosen 
as  a  place  of  security  against  any  sudden  attempts 
which  might  be  made  on  his  life.  He  neverthe- 
less paid  occasional  visits  to  the  continent  of 
Italy,  and  made  some  stay  at  his  villas  situated 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.  In  changing 
his  abode,  he  kept  the  city  of  Rome  in  continual 
dread  of  his  approach,  sometimes  presented  him- 
self in  the  neighbouring  villages,  and  in  the 
suburbs,  but  never  entered  the  gates.  At  one 
time,  he  came  by  water  to  the  gardens  of  the 
Naumachia,  ami,  feeling  himself  incommoded  by 
the  concourse  of  people,  placed  guards  to  keep 
them  at  a  distance,  and  soon  after  withdrew  ;  at 
another  time,  in  the  last  years  of  his  reign,  he 
advanced  to  the  seventh  mile-stone,  and  was  in 
the  sight  of  the  battlements,  but  proceeded  no 
farther.  Being  sensible  of  his  decline  and  ap- 
proaching dissolution,  he  undertook  these  jour- 
neys to  keep  the  Romans  in  awe,  and  to  check 
the  hopes  they  were  apt  to  entertain  of  an  ap- 
proaching deliverance  from  his  tyranny,  From 
the  same  motives,  he  prohibited  the  resort  of  the 
people  to  supposed  oracles  which  he  knew  to  be 
consulted  with  respect  to  the  prospect  of  his  own 
decease,  and  forbade  all  intercourse  with  astro- 
logers and  magicians,  a  class  of  men  in  whose 
skill  he  himself,  though  a  contemner  of  th 
established  superstition,  had  much  faith. 

On  the  approach  of  death,  Tiberius,  feeling 
his  strength  rapidly  decline,  strove  to  amuse  the 
people  with  another  voyage,  in  which  he  once 
more  pretended  an  intention  to  visit  Rome;  and 
being  attended  by  Caius,  by  Macro,  and  by  his 
usual  retinue  of  guards  and  parasites,  he  crossed 
the  bay  of  Baise,  to  the  head-land  of  Misenum, 
where  he  possessed  a  villa  which  had  formerly 
belonged  to  Lucullus.  At  this  place  one  of  his 
physicians,  under  pretence  of  taking  his  leave 
for  some  days,  pressed  his  hand,  and  took  an  op- 
portunity to  feel  his  pulse.  From  this  stolen 
observation,  it  is  said,  that  he  ventured  to  inform 
Caius  and  Macro,  that  the  emperor  could  not 
survive  many  days. 

Tiberius  being  led  by  some  appearances  to 
penetrate  their  thoughts,  or  wishing  to  conceal 
the  real  state  of  his  health,  took  his  place,  as 
usual,  at  table,  affected  to  prolong  the  entertain- 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


475 


tnent,  and  addressed  himself,  at  parting,  with 
■some  particular  words  of  attention  to  every  guest : 
but  after  an  effort  of  this  sort,  being  retired  to  his 
apartment,  he  fainted  away,  and  lay  on  his  bed 
for  dead  The  report  immediately  ran  from  one 
end  of  the  villa  to  the  other.  All  the  officers  of 
the  guards  in  attendance,  and  all  the  members 
and  followers  of  the  court,  repaired  to  Caius 
with  congratulations  on  his  supposed  accession 
to  the  empire.  But  while  they  were  thus  em- 
ployed in  paying  their  addresses  to  the  successor, 


a  servant  arrived,  and,  in  great  consternation, 
announced  that  the  emperor  was  revived,  and 
called  for  assistance.  The  company,  in  a  mo- 
ment, was  dispersed ;  and  Caius,  with  extreme 
terror,  saw  the  ruin  which  threatened  him  for 
his  premature  acceptance  of  the  court  that  was 
paid  to  him.  But  Macro  retained  his  presence 
of  mind,  and  put  a  sudden  stop  to  the  feeble 
efforts  of  returning  life  in  Tiberius,  by  gathering 
up  the  coverlet  of  his  bed,  so  as  to  stop  his 
breath  until  he  was  suffocated. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Succession  of  Caius  to  the  Empire — The  first  Appearances  of  his  Reign — Conclusion  of  the 
History — Observations  on  the  Sequel — Accession  of  the  Flavian  Family — Vicissitudes  of  Cha- 
racter in  the  Emperors — Sources  of  Degradationin  the  Imperial  Establishment — Its  Preserva- 
tives— Its  real  and  continual,  though  almost  insensible,  Decline. 


TIBERIUS  died  in  the  seventy-eighth  year 
of  his  age,  and  in  the  twenty -third  year  of  his 
reign.  By  this  event  the  imperial  throne,  for  the 
first  time  since  its  establishment,  became  actually 
vacant.  Men  were  left  to  form  their  conjectures 
of  what  was  likely  to  happen,  or,  without  any 
established  rule  of  succession,  to  form  their  judg- 
ment of  what  was  proper  to  be  done  on  this 
emergency.  Every  question  relating  to  the  suc- 
cession had  been  prevented  at  the  demise  of  Au- 
gustus, by  his  having  associated  Tiberius  in  the 
government,  a  precaution  by  which  the  success- 
or, instead  of  being  left  to  rely  on  a  controvert- 
ible title,  was  put  in  actual  possession  of  the 
sovereignty.  It  is  likely  that  Tiberius  would 
have  followed  this  example,  if  his  grandson  by 
birth,  for  whom  he  intended  the  empire,  had 
been  of  a  proper  age  to  assume  the  government ; 
but  this  young  man  was  no  more  than  seventeen 
years  of  age,  while  Caius,  the  grandson  by  adop- 
tion, was  already  five-and  twenty,  had  the  better 
pretension,  and  was  supported  by  the  favour  of 
the  Roman  people. 

In  these  circumstances,  the  dying  emperor 
thought  it  dangerous  to  declare  for  his  grandson  ; 
but  secretly  drew  up  a  will  in  his  favour,  of 
which  he  carefully  lodged  many  copies,  while  he 
made  the  world  believe,  that  he  intended  the 
succession  for  Caius.  In  this  act  of  duplicity  he 
had  concealed  his  real  intentions,  even  from 
Macro,  the  commander  of  the  pnetorian  bands, 
on  whom  the  execution  of  his  purpose  chiefly 
depended ;  and  by  these  means  rendered  it  en- 
tirely abortive. 

Macro,  having  been  for  some  time  past  in  ac- 
tual concert  with  Caius  on  the  measures  that  | 
were  necessary  to  secure  the  succession ;  and 
both  being  equally  surprised  to  find,  at  the  de- 
mise of  Tiberius,  a  formal  conveyance  of  the 
sovereignty  in  a  different  channel,  their  first  in- 
tention was  to  cancel  this  deed  ;  but  they  soon 
found,  that  the  testator  had  made  so  many  copies 
of  his  will,  and  lodged  them  so  securely,  as  to 
render  their  design  impracticable.  It  was  deter- 
mined, therefore,  as  more  advisable,  to  refer  the 
xnalter  to  the  senate,  and  to  obtain  an  act,  found- 


ed on  a  supposed  right  of  seniority,  preferring 
Caius  to  the  throne  of  Caesar. 

By  such  an  acknowledgment  of  right,  the 
monarchy  gained  a  new  advantage,  and  perhaps 
one  of  the  greatest  of  which  it  was  then  suscepti- 
ble, that  some  rule  of  inheritance  should  be  fol- 
lowed to  prevent  the  ruinous  contests  which 
arise  from  an  elective  or  disputed  succession,  and 
to  give,  if  possible,  together  with  a  permanent 
right  of  the  sovereign  to  his  high  estate,  a  corres- 
ponding right  of  every  citizen  to  his  rank,  to  his 
privilege,  and  to  his  property. 

By  this  declaration  in  favour  of  Caius,  it 
seemed  to  be  admitted,  that  men  were  to  look  for 
a  successor  to  the  empire  in  the  person  who  stood 
foremost,  by  birth  or  adoption,  in  the  family  of 
Caesar;  and  the  establishment  of  the  monarchy 
appeared  to  be  complete.  The  titles  of  emperor 
and  prince,2  or  head  of  the  army  and  of  the  se- 
nate, under  which  Augustus  endeavoured  to  con- 
ceal the  extent  of  his  usurpation,  came,  in  the 
course  of  his  own  and  the  succeeding  reign,  to 
signify  what,  among  the  designations  of  sove- 
reignty and  imperial  power,  they  now  actually 
import,  and  what,  through  a  race  of  men,  bless- 
ed widi  virtuous  or  moderate  dispositions,  might, 
as  in  other  instances,  have  passed  by  hereditary 
succession  to  a  very  distant  posterity  ;  but  in  the 
persons  who  immediately  succeeded  to  the  go- 
vernment, the  transmission  of  this  inheritance 
was  accompanied  with  much  violence  and  fre- 
quent interruption. 

Notwithstanding  the  acknowledgment  now 
made  in  favour  of  hereditary  right,  the  example 
of  a  formal  resignation  and  resumption  of  the  so- 
vereignty, set  by  Augustus,  and  repeated  by 
Tiberius,  had  entailed  a  kind  of  farce  on  the  em- 
pire, to  be  acted,  not  only  at  the  accession  of  suc- 
cessive masters,  but  in  the  same  reign,  at  every 
period  of  ten  years.  At  every  such  period  the 
appointment  of  an  emperor  was  supposed  to  be 
renewed  :  the  occasion  was  attended  with  much 
solemnity,  and  the  celebration  of  a  great  festival 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  people.3 


2  I  Migrator  ct  Trincejis.  'A  The  Decennali*. 


176 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


Caius,  therefore,  while  he  was  far  from  admit- 
ting any  doubt  of  his  right  to  the  sovereignty, 
nevertheless,  mimicked  the  caution  or  artifice 
with  which  Augustus  and  Tiberius  proceeded  to 
assume  the  reins  of  government.  He  repeated 
the  same  professions  of  respect  and  of  zeal  for  the 
commonwealth,  the  same  expressions  of  personal 
modesty,  the  same  unwillingness  to  undertake 
the  government,  the  same  reluctant  compliance 
with  the  pressing  requests  of  the  senate  and  peo- 
ple, the  same  affectation  of  filial  piety  to  his  pre- 
decessor, and  of  indulgence  or  candour  to  those 
who  had,  in  any  way,  obstructed  his  own  ad- 
vancement. It  was  become  the  fashion  to  affect 
destroying  all  papers  and  records,  from  which 
any  one  could  fear  to  have  matter  of  accusation 
brought  against  him ;  but  it  was  become  the 
practice  to  preserve  them  with  great  care. 

While  the  new  emperor  passed  from  Misenum 
to  Rome,  he  was  attended  on  the  highways  by 
incredible  numbers  of  people,  who,  animated  by 
the  affection  which  they  bore  to  his  father  Ger- 
manics, and  by  the  hopes  of  exchanging  a  cruel 
and  jealous  tyrant  for  a  youth  of  a  noble  and  vir- 
tuous extraction,  received  him  with  acclamations 
of  joy,  calling  him  their  propitious  star,  the  child 
and  the  nursling  of  the  Roman  people,  and 
bestowing  upon  him  every  other  appellation 
of  fondness  and  respect.  It  is  scarcely  to  be 
doubted,  as  his  mind  was  then  elated  with  joy, 
for  his  deliverance  from  the  insidious  and  cruel 
jealousy  of  his  predecessor,  and  moved  by  the 
affection  and  cordiality  with  which  his  succes- 
sion was  acknowledged  by  all  orders  of  men, 
that  he  must  have  felt  a  real,  however  tempo- 
rary, gleam  of  good-will  and  affection  of  man- 
kind. When  officiously  told  of  some  offences 
which  had  been  committed  against  his  person  or 
his  pretensions,  he  said,  "  That  he  had  done 
nothing  to  merit  the  hatred  of  any  one,  and 
should  be  deaf  to  the  whispers  of  informers  or 
spies."  Affecting  to  follow  the  impulse  of  his 
own  filial  piety,  and  to  be  moved  by  the  affec- 
tionate sympathy  of  the  Roman  people,  he 
hastened  to  the  island  of  Pandateria,  where  his 
mother  Agrippina  had  suffered  so  long  a  confine- 
ment under  the  tyranny  of  Tiberius,  raked  up 
the  ashes  of  her  funeral  pile,  embraced  her  re- 
mains, and  ordered  them  to  be  carried  with  great 
ostentation  to  Rome,  Although  decency  re- 
quired him  to  observe  the  forms,  and  to  carry  the 
aspect  of  mourning  for  his  late  adoptive  father 
and  predecessor,  he  complied  with  what  he  knew 
to  be  the  wishes  of  the  Roman  people,  affecting 
to  reverse  many  orders  that  were  established  in 
the  administration  and  policy  of  the  preceding 
reign. 

Here  then,  if  not  before,  we  may  date  the 
final  and  irretrievable  extinction  of  the  Roman 
republic,  not  only  in  the  subversion  of  its  own 
institutions,  and  in  the  actual  substitution  of 
different  forms,  but  in  the  acknowledgment  of  a 
right  which  made  the  succession  to  imperial 
power  hereditary,  as  well  as  the  extent  of  it  far 
beyond  what  was  consistent  with  the  preroga- 
tives formerly  enjoyed  by  the  senate  and  people 
of  Rome.  At  this  termination,  therefore,  of  the 
Roman  republic,  agreeably  to  the  design  of  this 
history,  the  narration  must  cease  or  conclude, 
with  a  very  general  view  of  what  befel  the  em- 
pire in  the  succession  of  masters,  and  in  the  re- 
sult of  its  own  greatness. 


Notwithstanding  the  favourable  appearances 
which  presented  themselves  at  the  accession  of 
Caius,  he  not  having,  either  in  his  understanding 
or  dispositions,  the  permanent  foundation  of  any 
good  character,  his  personal  vices  soon  broke  cut 
in  one  of  the  most  brutal  and  sanguinary  tyran- 
nies of  which  ther°  is  any  example  in  the  history 
of  mankind.  Having  no  choice  of  amusemem 
above  that  of  the  lowest  people,  he  soon  plunged, 
together  with  them,  into  every  species  of  dissi 
pation  and  debauchery  ;  remained  whole  days 
and  nights  in  the  theatres  and  in  the  circus,  en- 
tertained with  the  fights  of  gladiators,  the  baiting 
of  wild  beasts,  and  all  the  other  species  of  shows, 
of  which  the  Romans,  once  a  warlike  people, 
now  a  corrupted  populace,  were  so  immoderately 
fond, 

Ambitious  citizens  under  the  republic,  and 
even  the  late  emperors,  with  their  court,  had  oc- 
casionally given  their  attendance  at  such  enter- 
tainments, more  to  please  the  humour  of  the 
populace  than  to  gratify  their  own :  but  this  em 
peror  himself,  in  respect  to  the  qualities  of  his 
mind,  was  to  be  ranked  with  the  lowest  of  the 
vulgar.  He  considered  the  circus  as  the  princi- 
pal scene  of  his  glory,  and  the  num.ber  of  shows 
he  could  procure  as  the  measure  of  his  greatness. 
That  the  scenes  might  not  be  interrupted,  or  the 
spectators  be  obliged  to  retire  to  their  meals,  he 
fed  them  in  the  theatre.  He  promoted  persons 
to  office  of  state,  or  marked  them  out  for  disgrace 
or  ruin,  according  to  the  ardour  or  indifference 
which  they  seemed  to  have  for  these  entertain- 
ments. In  the  degree  of  extravagance  to  which 
he  carried  this  matter,  he  incurred  an  immode- 
rate expense  ;  and,  besides  applying  to  this  pur- 
pose the  ordinary  revenue  of  the  empire,  squan- 
dered, within  the  year,  a  saving  of  about  two-and- 
twenty  millions  sterling,  left  in  the  treasury  by 
his  predecessor. 

In  the  sequel  of  these  vile  misapplications  of 
time,  the  satiety  he  experienced  led  him  to  indulge 
himself  in  the  most  scandalous  and  offensive  de- 
bauch. A  sense  of  the  public  hatred  or  contempt 
which  he  incurred,  galled  him  with  jealousy 
and  disgust ;  and  these  passions  soon  ripened 
into  a  general  enmity  to  mankind..  Every  species 
of  brutal  indulgence,  qualified  with  the  name  of 
pleasure;  deliberate  murders,  under  the  pretence 
of  the  execution  of  justice,  ordered  without  any 
formalities  of  trial,  perpetrated  in  his  own  pre- 
sence, and  attended  with  expressions  of  insult 
and  scorn  from  himself,  make  up  the  sequel  of  a 
reign  which  began  with  some  professions  and 
propitious  appearances  of  moderation  and  regard 
to  the  opinion  of  the  world.  But  the  degree  to 
which  human  nature  itself  was  disgraced  and 
insulted,  in  these  detestable  abuses  of  power, 
hastened  an  attempt  to  relieve  the  empire  from 
the  dominion  of  this  monster.  He  fell  in  about 
three  years  after  he  began  to  reign,  in  one  of 
the  passages  of  his  own  palace,  by  the  hands 
of  Chaerea,  an  officer  of  his  guard,  who,  with- 
out any  intention  to  supplant  or  to  succeed  him 
in  the  empire,  formed  a  conspiracy  against  his 
life. 

The  senate,  for  a  few  hours  after  this  event, 
flattered  themselves  in  the  belief  that  the  govern- 
ment had  devolved  on  themselves;  and  Chserea, 
by  whose  hands  the  tyrant  had  fallen,  fondly 
wished  for  the  restoration  of  the  republic ;  but  the 
praetorian  bands  thought  themselves  entitled  to 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC 


477 


dispose  of  the  empire.  Before  their  officers  had 
taken  anv  measures  for  this  purpose,  a  few  strag- 
gling soldiers  pervading  the  courts  and  recesses 
oi'the  palace,  seized  upon  Claudius,  the  brother 
of  Germanicus,  and  uncle  of  Caligula,  who,  as 
a  changeling  devoid  of  ordinary  understanding, 
had  been  long  neglected  or  overlooked  in  the  pa- 
lace. This  being  the  person  who  seemed  by  his 
relation  to  the  late  emperors,  to  have  the  best 
claim  to  the  name  and  succession  of  the  Caesarian 
or  Claudian  families,  they  raised  him  on  their 
shoulders,  yet  trembling  with  fear,  lest  he  should 
be  involved  in  the  fate  of  his  kinsman  Caligula, 
and  hastening  with  their  burden  to  the  fortress 
or  barrack,  were  received  by  their  companions 
with  shouts  and  acclamations,  which  announced 
to  the  senate  and  the  people  that  a  successor  was 
given  to  the  throne  of  Caesar. 

The  inactivity  of  this  new  sovereign  might 
have  furnished  the  world  with  at  least  an  inno- 
cent master,  if  his  want  of  capacity  could  have 
been  supplied  without  committing  his  power  into 
hands  equally  disposed  to  abuse  it  with  the  worst 
of  his  predecessors.  Fit  only  to  be  a  pageant  in 
the,  ceremonies  of  a  court,  or  a  tool  to  be  employ- 
ed bv  those  who  got  possession  of  him,  he  came 
at  last  into  the  hands  of  the  second  Agrippina, 
the  daughter  of  Germanicus,  and  sister  of  Cali- 
gula, who,  though  his  niece,  became  his  wife, 
and  prevailed  upon  him  to  adopt  the  young  Do- 
mitius  Ahenobirbus,  her  son  by  a  former  hus- 
band ;  and  by  these  means  made  way  for  his  suc- 
cession to  the  empire  under  the  appellation  of 
Nero. 

This  impetuous,  severe,  and  profligate  woman, 
equally  ardent  in  the  acquisition  as  in  the  abuse 
of  power,  mistook,  for  parental  affection,  the 
earnest  passion  with  which  she  wished  to  govern 
in  the  name  of  her  son.  Having  ability  enough, 
however,  where  she  was  not  misled  by  her  pas- 
sions, to  distinguish  the  proper  instruments  of 
government,  she  endeavoured  to  procure  for  him 
in  the  tutory  of  Burhus,  who  was  placed  by  her 
means  at  the  head  of  the  praetorian  bands,  and  of 
Seneca,  who  was  by  her  means  likewise  recalled 
from  banishment  to  his  place  in  the  senate,  the 
most  able  or  specious  direction  which  the  times 
could  afford. 

Nero  acting  for  some  time  what  Burhus  sug- 
gested, and  speaking  what  Seneca  dictated,  ap- 

g eared  to  be  a  prodigy  of  wisdom  and  ingenuity. 
»ut  his  own  personal  disposition,  making  its 
way  in  a  little  time  through  the  mask  of  sayings 
and  of  actions  which  were  not  his  own,  gave  suf- 
ficient evidence,  that  the  circumstance  ot  having 
been  the  mere  puppet,  though  actuated  by  the 
most  able  and  ingenious  hands,  does  not  bestow 
ingenuity  or  ability,  and  that  a  direction,  how- 
ever wise,  received  from  others  without  discern- 
ment or  knowledge  of  its  value,  cannot  carry  to 
the  mind  of  those  who  submit  to  it  the  character 
of  wisdom. 

The  name  of  Nero,  after  the  person  who  bore 
it.  had,  during  a  few  years  in  the  beginning  of 
his  reign,  been  supposed  the  model  of  royal  and 
philosophic  virtue,1  has  become  proverbial  for 
caprice,  folly,  brutality,  insolence,  and  cruelty. 
To  the  contempt  of  his  subjects  he  at  last  joined 


1  The  quinquennium  Neronis,  was  a  proverbial  ex- 
pression for  what  promised  well,  but  turned  out  other- 

Wis*, 


a  contempt  of  that  very  dignity  to  which  he  him- 
self was  raised  as  sovereign  of  so  great  an  empire. 
Having  a  talent  for  music,  he  became,  or  believed 
himself  to  be,  a  distinguished  performer,  exhibit- 
ed his  skill  on  the  public  theatres,  and  travelled 
through  Greece  in  the  character  of  an  artist,  to 
receive  the  applauses  of  a  people  supposed  to  ex- 
cel in  discernment  and  taste. 

The  contempt  which  Nero  incurred  in  quitting 
the  character  of  sovereign  for  that  of  musician, 
became  more  fatal  to  him  than  the  general  de- 
testation which  he  had  formerly  excited.  A  re- 
volt which  took  place  at  first  in  Gaul,  was  follow- 
ed by  a  defection  of  all  the  armies  of  the  empire, 
and  reduced  him  to  the  necessity  of  quitting, 
together  with  his  life,  a  situation  of  which  he 
proved  so  unworthy.  Next  to  the  fears  which 
assailed  him  on  the  prospect  of  death,  he  was 
most  affected,  it  is  said,  with  surprise,  that  the 
world  could  submit  to  lose  the  hand  of  so  great 
a  performer. 

Such  then,  in  the  first  period  of  this  monarchy, 
was  the  progress  of  a  sovereignty  erected  by  the 
Caesars  with  so  much  violence,  bloodshed,  and 
criminal  address.  According  to  our  ideas  of  in- 
heritance, the  succession  did  not  once  take  place 
in  the  family  of  the  first  founder,  but  was  pieced 
out  by  continual  adoptions  from  the  Octavian, 
the  Claudian,  and,  last  of  all,  from  the  Domitian 
family. 

The  reign  of  Augustus  has  been  generally  ap- 
plauded, and  may  be  considered  as  a  model  for 
those,  who  wish  to  govern  with  the  least  possible 
opposition  or  obstruction  to  their  power.  It  may 
serve  likewise  as  a  caution  to  those,  who  need  to 
be  told  under  what  disguise  the  most  detestable 
tyranny  will  sometimes  approach  mankind.  The 
wary  design  which  marked  the  character  of  Au- 
gustus, was  followed  by  worse  principles  in  the 
breasts  of  those  who  succeeded  him  ;  and  the  do- 
minion he  established,  merely  to  subject  the  em- 
pire to  his  own  power,  without  any  disposition  to 
abuse  it,  became,  in  the  sequel,  an  instrument  of 
the  vilest  tyrannv,  and  brought,  upon  the  public 
stage  of  the  world  actors,  whom  their  dispositions 
and  characters  must  otherwise  have  condemned 
to  obscurity,  or  exposed  as  a  disgrace  and  a  ble- 
mish to  human  nature. 

The  manners  of  the  imperial  court,  and  the 
conduct  of  succeeding  emperors,  will  scarcely 
gain  credit  with  those  who  estimate  probabilities 
from  the  standard  of  modern  times.  But  the 
Romans  were  capable  of  much  greater  extremes 
than  we  are  acquainted  with.  They  retained, 
through  all  the  steps  of  the  revolution  which 
they  had  undergone,  their  ferocity  entire,  with- 
out possessing,  along  with  it,  any  of  those  better 
qualities,  which,  under  the  republic,  had  directed 
their  courage  to  noble,  at  least  to  great  and  na- 
tional, purposes. 

Augustus  had  established  the  military  govern- 
ment with  great  caution,  and  even  affected  the 
appearances  of  a  citizen,  while  he  secured  all  the 
powers  of  a  master.  His  successors  retained  in 
public  the  same  familiarity  of  manners,  without 
the  same  guard  against  its  abuses,  and  afiected 
to  be  popular  in  the  city  and  in  the  camp,  with- 
out the  circumspection  which  preserved  the  first 
emperor  from  the  contagion  ef  mean  and  degrad- 
ing examples.  The  state  itself  was  just  emerged 
from  democracy,  in  which  the  pretensions  to 
equality  checked  the  ordinary  uses  which,  under 


478 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


[Book  VI. 


monarchies,  are  made  of  fortune  and  superior 
condition.  The  distinctions  of  royalty,  and  with 
these  the  proprieties  of  behaviour,  in  high  rank, 
were  unknown.  An  attempt  at  elegant  magni- 
ficence and  courtly  reserve,  which,  in  established 
monarchies,  makes  a  part  of  the  royal  state,  and 
a  considerable  support  of  its  dignitv,  were  avoid- 
ed in  this  fallen  republic,  as  more  likely  to  excite 
envy  and  hatred,  than  deference  or  respect. 

The  Roman  emperors,  perhaps,  in  point  of  ex- 
pense, both  public  and  private,  exceeded  every 
other  sovereign  of  the  world ;  but  their  public 
expenses  consisted  in  the  exhibition  of  shows 
and  entertainments,  in  which  they  admitted  the 
meanest  of  the  people  to  partake  with  themselves. 
Their  personal  expenses  consisted  not  so  much 
in  the  ostentation  of  elegance  or  refined  pleasure, 
as  in  a  serious  attempt  to  improve  sensuality  into 
a  continual  source  of  enjoyment;  and  their  plea- 
sures consisted,  of  consequence,  in  the  excesses 
of  a  brutal  and  retired  debauch.  This  debauch 
was  supported  by  continual  endeavours  to  excite 
satiated  appetite,  to  prolong  its  gratifications,  and 
to  supply  the  defects  of  mere  animal  pleasure, 
with  conceits  of  fancy  and  efforts  of  buffoonery 
or  low  humour. 

The  manners  of  imperial  Rome  are  thus  de- 
scribed in  the  remains  of  a  satire,1  as  elegant  in 
the  style,  as  it  is  gross  and  disgusting  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  which  we  may  suppose  to  be  just  in  the 
general  representation,  whatever  we  may  think  of 
its  application  to  any  of  the  princes  whose  names 
and  succession  have  been  mentioned.2 

Although  it  would  be  absurd  to  imagine  such 
a  satire  levelled  at  the  corruptions  of  a  modern 
court,  whose  principal  weakness  is  vanity,  and 
whose  luxury  consists  in  ostentation;  we  must 
not,  therefore,  reject  every  supposed  application 
of  it  to  the  pollutions  of  a  Roman  barrack,  or, 
what  nearly  resembled  a  birrack,  the  recesses  of 
a  Roman  palace,  where  the  human  blood  that 
was  shed  in  sport,  was  sometimes  mixed  with 
the  wine  that  was  spilt  in  debauch.3  The  re- 
presentations of  Petronius  may  be  applied,  in 
some  parts,  to  the  court  of  Tiberius  and  Clau- 
dius, more  properly  than  to  that  of  Caligula  or 
Nero,  or  may  have  been  a  general  satire  levelled 
at  the  corruptions  of  the  times,  without  any  such 
application.  But  with  respect  to  one  or  other  of 
those  emperors,  every  part  in  the  feast  of  Tremal- 
chio  miy  have  been  a  genuine  though  disguised 
picture. 

Even  in  the  court  of  the  sober  Augustus,  plea- 
sure was  but  another  name  for  debauch.  Love 
was  no  more  thin  the  ebullition  of  temperament, 
without  the  allurements  of  elegance,  or  the  se- 
duction of  affection  or  passion.  In  the  license 
of  the  sexes,  both  of  them  alike  resorted  to  the 
places  of  public  debauch.  Women  of  the  highest 
rank  affected  the  manners  of  prostitutes,  and,  to 
realize  the  evidence  of  their  victories,  collected 
the  ordinary  rewards  of  prostitution.  Such  was 
the  debauch  for  which  Julia,  the  daughter  of 
Augustus,  was  infamous,  and  in  which  she  ex- 
hibited, as  has  been  observed,  not  the  weakness 
of  a  mind  misled  by  passion,  or  seduced  by  some 


1  That  of  Petronius. 

2  Mr.  Voltaire  has  with  contempt  rejected  its  sup- 
posed application  to  the  manners  of  a  court. 

3  The  Romans  had  combats  of  gladiators  exhibited 
while  they  w«re  at  table-. 


partial  affection,  hut  the  gross  excess  of  an  ap- 
petite unacquainted  with  decency  and  above  re- 
straint. 

In  this  state  of  manners  the  first  successors  of 
Caesar,  not  having  the  habits  of  a  courtly  deco- 
rum to  preserve  them  from  the  contagion  of  mean 
and  degrading  vices,  and  not  considering  their 
own  elevation  as  any  other  than  a  mere  post  of 
advantage,  from  which  they  could  indulge  every 
caprice  with  impunity,  after  a  few  attempts  in 
the  beginning  of  a  reign  to  prejudice  the  world 
in  their  favour,  plunged  into  every  species  of  ex- 
cess, that  a  vile  disposition,  set  free  from  restraint, 
and  exasperated  by  the  sense  of  general  aversion, 
could  incur.  Persons  inclined  to  this  course  ge- 
nerally proceed  in  their  vices,  until  they  meet 
with  some  obstacle  which  necessity  or  fear  pre- 
sents to  them,  and  where  they  meet  with  no  such 
obstacle,  they  preserve  no  bounds. 

A  perfect  freedom  from  all  external  restraint 
would  be  sufficiently  dangerous  for  persons  of 
the  best  dispositions ;  but  to  those  who  are  cursed 
with  the  worst,  such  a  freedom  from  restraint 
would  be  accompanied  with  certain  ruin.  It  is 
indeed  nowhere  to  be  found ;  but  the  first  suc- 
cessors of  Caesar  flattered  themselves  that  they 
had  found  it ;  and  as  they  supported  the  first  of- 
fences which  they  committed  against  the  rules 
of  propriety,  by  setting  reason  itself  and  the  sense 
of  mankind  at  defiance,  they  came  to  apprehend 
a  species  of  pleasure  in  braving  the  detestation 
which  they  incurred  by  their  infamies  4  'I  hey 
pursued  the  first  strokes  of  injustice  and  malice 
by  a  continual  warfare  of  distrust,  prevention, 
and  revenge  against  those  to  whom  they  sup- 
posed that  their  persons  or  government  were 
odious ;  and  they  persisted  in  this  course  until 
the  extreme  itself,  being  what  nothing  less  than 
the  possession  of  sovereign  power  could  support, 
appeared  characteristic  ot  empire,  and  worthy  of 
the  descendants  of  Cffisar. 

During  this  unhappy  succession  of  Caesars, 
the  supreme  power  had  been,  for  the  most  part, 
held  or  disposed  of  by  the  praetorian  bands. 
These  troops  being  posted  in  the  capital,  over- 
awed the  senate  and  people,  and  though  not  fit 
to  contend  with  the  legions  who  were  still  em- 
ployed in  actual  service,  they  gave  possession  of 
the  empire,  at  every  vacancy,  before  the  armies 
of  the  frontier  had  time  to  deliberate  or  to  take 
part  in  the  choice. 

This  pre-eminence,  however,  of  the  prsetorian 
bands  had  been  impatiently  suffered  by  the  legions 
of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube.  They  wished,  at 
the  death  of  Augustus,  to  have  given  a  specimen 
of  their  consequence  in  naming  a  successor  to 
the  empire;  but  being  then  overruled  by  the 
dutiful  spirit  or  moderation  of  Germanicus,  they 
acquiesced  in  the  government  of  Tiberius,  and 
remained  in  quiet  under  all  the  successions 
which  followed ;  until,  being  excited  by  the  de- 
fection of  Gaul,  which  happened  under  Nero, 
and  impatient  of  the  mockery  of  sovereignty  ex- 
hibited in  the  infamies  of  that  unhappy  person, 
they  entertained,  almost  in  every  quarter  of  the 
empire  at  once,  the  project  of  giving  a  better  and 
more  respectable  sovereign  to  the  world. 

Within  the  compass  of  one  year  and  a  few 
months,  after  it  was  known  that  the  province 


4  Magnitudoinfaraiaecujusapud  prod  gosnovisaima 
voluptas. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


479 


of  Gaul  had  revolted  from  Nero,  all  the  armies 
from  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  from  Gaul, 
Syria,  S:>ain,  and  Britain,  were  for  their  march 
towards  ftalv,  for  the  important  purpose  of  giv- 
ing a  sovereign  to  the  empire.  Arid  it  is  remark- 
able, that  this  project  did  nut  originate  with  the 
le  iders,  or  appear  to  be  suggested  by  the  ambition 
of  general,  but  arose  from  a  spirit  of  commotion 
which  pervaded  the  troops. 

Every  legionary  soldier,  excited  by  the  desire 
of  rapine,  by  the  prospect  of  possessing  the  capi- 
tal, and  of  rioting  in  the  riches  and  pleasures  of 
Italy,  conceived  the  design  of  pushing  forward 
his  general  to  the  head  of  the  empire.  They 
burst  at  once  from  their  quarters,  and,  consider- 
ing themselves  as  set  free  from  every  species  of 
government,  whether  civil  or  military,  set  no 
bounds  to  their  violence.  Augmenting  their 
fury  by  the  consideration  of  the  punishments 
they  incurred,  in  case  they  should  fail  in  their 
attempt,  they  passed  through  every  city  and  pro- 
vince in  their  wav,  like  a  storm  that  wastes  and 
destroys  whatever  is  opposed  to  its  course.  With- 
in the  short  period  we  have  mentioned,  a  motley 
assemblage  of  provincial  troops,  dressed  in  the 
gar!>of  their  different  countries,  with  different 
arms  and  different  languages,  mixed  with  the 
Roman  legions,  who,  now  for  many  years  stran- 
gers to  each  other,  met  on  the  Po  and  the  Tiber 
to  dispose  of  the  empire.  And,  in  the  sequel  of 
their  contest,  whether  as  victors  or  vanquished, 
whether  moved  by  insolence  or  despair,  did  equal 
execution  on  the  pacific  inhabitants. 

These  troubles,  however,  ended  in  the  eleva- 
tion of  a  great  and  respectable  officer5  to  the 
throne  of  Caesar,  and  in  the  substitution  of  the 
Flavian  family  to  that  of  Claudius  and  of  Julius. 
At  the  accession  of  Vespasian  every  army  had 
tried  its  strength,  and  competitors  from  the  court, 
the  senate,  and  the  camp  had  made  trial  of  their 
fortune.  The  victors  in  this  contest  received  a 
willing  submission  from  the  pacific  inhabitants 
of  the  provinces,  who  were  ready  to  congratulate 
themselves  on  the  return  of  public  tranquillity. 

Fortunately  the  first  emperors  of  the  new 
family,  Vespasian  himself,  anil  the  eldest  of  his 
two  sons,6  come  from  the  school  of  experience, 
had  learned  the  value  of  reason,  humanity,  and 
justice  in  the  government  of  mankind  ;  and  they 
accordingly  exhibited  a  character  which,  in  some 
of  its  part-;,  was  still  new  on  the  throne  of 
Csesar :  the  character  of  wisdom,  propriety,  and 
humanity,  assumed,  for  its  own  sake,  and  with- 
out any  intention  to  circumvent  the  people,  or  to 
impose  upon  the  world.  But  the  fortunes  of 
this  second  imperial  family,  like  those  of  the 
first,  soon  devolved  on  a7  person  equally  unfit  to 
sustain  them,  and  equally  unfit  to  be  suffered  by 
the  patience  of  an  abject  court  or  a  submissive 
world. 

As  mankind  are  known  to  run,  occasionally, 
from  one  extreme  to  another,  the  evils  which  had 
been  experienced  in  the  characters  of  some  of 
the  preceding  emperors,  perhaps  helped  to  direct 
the  armies  of  the  empire,  at  times,  to  think  of 
the  opposite  extreme ;  and  they  made  a  compen- 
sation, in  some  of  their  elections,  for  the  mis- 
chiefs which  they  had  brought  upon  the  world  in 
others. 

Amidst  the  variety  of  examples  that  were  set 


5  Vespasian*        6  Titus.        7  JJoniitian. 


on  the  imperial  throne,  different  emperors  paid 
unequal  degrees  of  respect  to  the  civil  forms 
which  were  handed  down  to  them  from  the  re- 
public, and  which  were  still  retained  at  least  in 
name.  But  the  characters  of  sovereign  in  the 
empire,  and  head  of  the  army,  were  necessarily 
united  in  the  same  person ;  and,  in  proportion  as 
the  army  itself  came  to  he  corrupted,  the  imperial 
establishment  suffered,  not  an  occasional  and 
temporarv  abuse,  hut  a  radical  and  irrecoverable 
decline  of  its  character  and  force. 

The  praetorian  bands  were  early  debauched 
by  their  residence  in  the  capital,  the  principal 
seat  of  licentiousness ;  they  were  inspired  with 
presumption  from  the  access  which  they  had  to 
practise  on  the  vices  of  their  sovereign,  and  they 
outran  all  the  armies  of  the  empire  in  profligacy 
insolence,  and  venality.  They  were,  upon  this 
account,  broke  or  disbanded  with  indignation  by 
Galba,  the  first  provincial  officer  who  was  ad- 
vanced to  the  purple;  but  this  reformation  only 
made  wav  for  others,  who  being  placed  in  the 
same  school  of  disorder  and  vice,  soon  equalled 
their  predecessors  in  all  the  evils  which  they  had 
brought  on  the  capital,  and  on  the  empire. 

The  contagion  of  military  arrogance  gradually 
spread  from  the  barrack  or  camp  of  the  pratorian 
bands,  to  the  legions  of  the  frontier,  and,  teg<  ther 
with  the  hopes  of  raising  a  favourite  leader  to 
the  head  of  the  enq  ire,  promised  indulgence  of 
crimes  and  exemption  from  every  painful  re- 
straint. The  practice  of  disposing  of  the  empire 
was  followed  by  that  of  selling  it  for  pecuniary 
bounties,  and  formally  capitulating  with  every 
new  master  for  a  relaxation  of  discipline  and  the 
impunity  of  crimes. 

In  proportion  as  the  character  of  Roman 
citizen  lost  its  consideration  and  its  conse  quence, 
the  name  was  easily  communicated  to  all  the 
subjects  or  natives  of  any  province.  Eut  this 
promiscuous  admission  of  every  subject,  under 
the  same  predicament  of  a  Roman  citizen,  in- 
stead of  raising  the  provincials  to  the  dignity  of 
Romans,  sunk  the  latter  to  the  level  of  provincial 
subjects ;  extinguished  all  the  sentiments  on 
which  the  legions  of  old  were  wont  to  value 
themselves,  and,  with  their  loss  of  self-estima- 
tion as  Romans,  probably  diminished  the  interest 
they  had  in  the  preservation  of  the  Roman  name. 
They  became  bv  degrees,  and  at  every  succes- 
sion, more  mercenary  and  venal  in  the  choice  of 
their  masters,  more  brutal  in  the  exercise  of  their 
force  against  their  fellow-subjects ;  and  with  a 
continual  degradation  from  bad  to  worse,  substi- 
tuted for  the  order,  courage,  and  discipline  of 
Roman  legions,  mere  ferocity,  and  a  disposition 
to  rapine  and  mutiny. 

In  composing  such  armies,  the  natives  of  the 
more  rude  and  uncultivated  provinces  took  the 
ascendant  over  those  of  the  more  civilized  and 
pacific;  and  the  empire  itself  sometimes  received 
its  master  from  its  most  barbarous  extremities, 
and  from  the  nurseries  of  brutality,  ignorance, 
and  violence. 

From  such  a  general  tendency  to  corruption, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  an  empire,  though  once 
of  such  mighty  power,  should,  in  process  of  time, 
verge  to  its  ruin ;  it  is  rather  surprising,  that  a 
fabric,  mouldering  so  fast  within,  should  have 

;  so  long  withstood  the  storm  with  which  it  was 
naturally  assailed  from  abroad.    From  the  ac- 

!  cession  of  Caligula  to  the  admission  of  Alaric 


480 


THE  PROGRESS  AND  TERMINATION 


IBook  VI. 


into  Rome,  was  a  period  of  no  more  than  about 
four  hundred  years;  but  from  the  same  epoch  to 
the  reduction  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks 
was  a  period  of  one  thousand  four  bundred  and 
sixteen  years.  So  long  was  it  before  the  lights 
of  civil,  political,  and  military  wisdom,  erected 
by  the  Roman  commonwealth,  though  struck 
out  by  the  Goths  and  Vandals  in  the  west,  and 
continually  sinking  in  the  east,  were  entirely  ex- 
tinguished. 

The  fabric  of  the  empire  had  many  advantages 
to  account  for  so  long  a  duration,  both  in  the 
nature  of  its  materials  and  in  the  disposition  of 
its  parts.  The  provinces  were  conveniently 
situated  for  mutual  intercourse  and  for  mutual 
support;  and  there  was  an  easy  access  from  the 
seat  of  dominion,  to  the  farthest  bounds  of  the 
empire.  The  order  established  by  Augustus, 
and  confirmed  by  Tiberius,  remained  unaltered, 
even  by  many  of  their  successors.  The  worst 
of  the  Caesars  suffered  that  order  to  subsist  in 
the  provinces,  and  never  looked  beyond  the  court 
and  capital  for  the  objects  of  their  jealousy,  and 
fit  subj-scts  of  tyranny.  Even  in  such  hands  the 
engine  of  empire  continued  to  work,  because  the 
master  neither  pretended  to  understand,  nor  at- 
tempted to  interpose  in  the  operation  of  its  dis- 
tant parts.  And  the  authority  of  government 
continued  high  in  the  extremities  of  this  vast 
dominion,  while  it  sunk  or  was  abused  in  the 
centre. 

Valour  and  discipline,  the  best  preservatives 
of  many  other  valuable  qualities,  being  long  in 
request,  though  sometimes  impaired  in  the  Ro- 
man legions,  still  formed  examples  of  a  noble  and 
heroic  virtue,  which  qualified  some  of  those,  who 
attained  to  the  more  high  and  respectable  stations 
in  the  military  profession,  to  fill  with  advantage 
the  imperial  throne. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  empire  in  general 
were  corrected  of  that  ferocity,  or  reduced  from 
that  national  spirit  which  renders  subjects  re- 
fractory. They  were  addicted  to  pacific  arts, 
tractable,  and  easily  retained  within  the  bounds 
of  their  duty ;  and  they  acquiesced  in  any  go- 
vernment, however  negligent  or  incapable.  Some 
of  the  emperors  promoted  this  orderly  and  pacific 
disposition,  by  the  confidence  which  they  taught 
the  subject  to  have  in  the  security  of  his  person 
and  of  his  property,  and  by  the  encouragement 
which  they  gave  to  pursuits  ami  applications 
which  inspire  the  love  of  peace  and  tranquillity.1 

It  may  appear  strange,  but  it  is  true,  that  even 
under  the  government  of  mere  soldiers  of  fortune, 
the  principles  of  law,  founded  in  the  maxims  of 
the  republic,  though  in  some  things  perverted  to 
the  purposes  of  despotic  power,  was  made  the 
object  of  a  select  profession,  and  was  studied  as 
a  rule  of  peace  and  of  property.  The  civil  law 
was  thus  not  only  suffered  to  remain  in  force, 
but  received,  from  the  pleadings  of  advocates,  the 
decisions  of  judges,  and  the  edicts  of  princes, 
continual  accessions  of  light  and  authority,  which 
has  rendered  it  the  great  basis  of  justice  to  all 
the  modern  nations  of  Europe. 

Philosophy  continued  in  repute  from  the  times 


1  Vespasian  gave  salaries  of  about  800/.  a  year  to 
masters  of  rhetoric  at  Rome.  Marcus  AureJiiis  gave 
salaries  to  many  teachers  of  philosophy  at  Athens. 
Hadrian  established  the  school  of  liberal  arts,  called 
the  Athenamm.  Dio.  Cass.  lib.  Ixxi.  c37.  Sextus  Au- 
leiiufe  Victor  de  Cassaribus. 


of  the  republic  far  down  in  the  empire,  and  the 
doctrines  of  Epicurus,  which  had  prevailed 
in  the  later  times  of  the  commonwealth,  now 
gave  way  to  those  of  Zeno  and  the  Stoics. 
While  men  had  rights  to  preserve,  and  hazard- 
ous duties  to  perform  on  the  public  scene,  they 
had  affected  to  believe,  with  Epicurus,  that  plea- 
sure was  the  standard  of  good  and  of  evil.  But 
now,  when  the  public  occupations  of  state  were 
withheld  from  them,  and  when  personal  safety 
was  the  highest  object  in  their  view,  they  return- 
ed to  the  idea,  which  seemed  to  have  inspired 
the  virtue  of  ancient  times,  that  men  were  made 
happy  by  what  they  themselves  were  and  per- 
formed, not  by  what  they  possessed.  Under  the 
discouragements  of  many  a  cruel  and  oppressive 
reign,  men  of  education  and  of  high  descent 
accordingly  had  recourse  to  the  philosophy  of 
Zeno,  as  to  a  consolation  and  support :  "and 
although  they  were  deprived  of  the  opportunity 
to  act  upon  their  own  ideas  in  any  distinguished 
situation,  they  gave  sufficient  evidence  of  their 
sincerity,  in  the  manly  indifference  with  which 
they  sometimes  incurred  the  consequences  of 
their  independence  and  freedom  of  mind. 

From  these  materials,  the  law  was  sometimes 
furnished  with  practitioners,  the  senate  with  its 
members,  the  army  with  commanders,  and  the 
empire  itself  with  its  head  ;  and  the  throne  of 
Caesar,  in  the  vicissitudes  to  which  it  was  exposed, 
presented  examples  as  honourable  to  human 
nature  in  some  instances,  as  they  were  degrad- 
ing and  shameful  in  others.  In  these  varieties,, 
however,  it  is  no  disparagement  to  the  good,  to 
suppose  that  they  were  not  able  to  compensate 
the  bad,  or  to  produce  effects,  to  which  the 
greatest  abilities  in  a  few  individuals  cannot 
extend. 

The  wisdom  of  Nerva  gave  rise  to  a  succes- 
sion, which,  in  the  persons  of  Trajan  and  the 
Antonines,  formed  a  counterpart  to  the  race  of 
Tiberius,  Caligula,  Claudius,  and  Nero ;  and  it 
must  be  admitted,  that  if  a  people  could  be  happy 
by  any  other  virtue  than  their  own,  there  was  a- 
period  in  the  history  of  this  empire,  during  which 
the  happiness  of  mankind  may  have  been  sup- 
posed complete.  This  however  is  but  a  fond 
and  mistaken  apprehension.  A  people  may  re- 
ceive protection  from  the  justice  and  humanity 
of  single  men ;  but  can  receive  independence, 
vigour,  and  peace  of  mind  only  from  their  own. 
Even  the  virtues  of  this  happy  succession  could 
do  no  more  than  discontinue,  for  a  while,  the 
former  abuses  of  power,  administrate  justice, 
restrain  the  guilty,  and  protect  the  innocent. 
Many  of  the  evils  under  which  human  nature 
was  labouring,  still  remained  without  a  curej 
and  the  empire,  after  having  in  the  highest  de- 
gree experienced  the  effects  of  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, was  assailed  anew  with  all  the  abuses  of 
the  opposite  extreme.5 

2  These  extremes  scarcely  gain  credit  with  the  mo- 
dern reader,  as  they  are  so  much  beyond  what  his 
own  experience  or  observation  can  parallel.  Nero 
seems  to  have  been  a  Demon,  and  Aurelius  a  Divi- 
nity; and  these  prodigies,  wh  ither  in  the  extreme  of 
good  or  of  evil,  exhibited,  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  Ro- 
man republic,  are  no  longer  to  be  found.  Individuals 
were  then  formed  on  their  specific  dispositions  to  wis- 
dom or  folly.  In  later  times,  they  are  more  cast  in  a 
general  mould,  which  gives  a  certain  form  independ- 
ent of  the  materials.  Religion,  fashion,  and  manners 
prescribe  more  of  the  actions  of  men,  or  mark  a  deeper 
tract  in  which  men  are  constrained  to  move. 


Chap.  VII.] 


OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC. 


481 


For  many  ages,  nevertheless,  the  frontier  con- 
tinued to  be  defended,  and  the  internal  peace  of 
the  empire  to  be  tolerably  sfcure.  Commerce 
flourished,  and  the  land  "was  cultivated;  but 
these  were  but  poor  compensations  for  the  want 
of  that  vigour,  elevation,  and  freedom,  which 
perished  with  the  Roman  republic  itself,  or  with 
the  political  character  of  the  other  nations  which 
had  been  absorbed  in  this  ruinous  abyss. 

The  military  and  political  virtues,  which  had 
been  exerted  in  forming  this  empire,  having 
finished  their  course,  a  general  relaxation  ensued, 
un;ler  which,  the  very  firms  that  were  necessary 

The  maxim?  of  a  christian  and  a  gentleman,  the 
remains  of  what  men  were  taught  by  those  maxims 
in  the  days  of  chivalry,  pprvade  every  rank,  have 
some  effect  in  places  of  the  least  restraint;  and  if 
they  do  not  inspire  decency  of  character,  at  least  awe 
the  profligate  with  the  fear  of  contempt,  from  which 
even  the  most  powerful  are  not  secure.  Insomuch, 
that  if  human  nature  wants  the  force  to  produce  an 
>  »relius  or  a  Trajan,  it  is  not  so  much  exposed  to  the 
infamies  of  a  Domitian  or  a  Nero. 

3  P 


for  its  preservation  were  in  process  of  time  neg- 
lected. As  the  spirit  which  gave  rise  to  those 
forms  was  gradually  spent,  human  nature  fell 
into  a  retrograde  motion,  which  the  virtues  of  in- 
ityntduals  could  not  suspend  ;  and  men,  in  the  ap- 
plication of  their  faculties  even  to  the  most  ordi- 
nary purposes  of  life,  suffered  a  slow  and  insen- 
sible, but  almost  continual  decline. 

In  this  great  empire,  the  fortunes  of  nations 
over  the  more  cultivated  parts  of  the  earth,  being 
embarked  on  a  single  bottom,  were  exposed  to 
one  common  and  general  wreck.  Human  nature 
languished  for  some  time  under  a  suspension  of 
national  exertions,  and  the  monuments  of  former 
times  were,  at.  last,  overwhelmed  by  one  general 
irruption  of  barbarism,  superstition,  and  igno- 
rance. The  effects  of  this  irruption  constitute  a 
mighty  chasm  in  the  transition  from  ancient  to 
modern  history,  and  make  it  difficult  to  state 
the  transactions  and  manners  of  the  one,  in  a 
way  to  be  read  and  understood  by  those  whose 
habits  and  ideas  are  taken  entirely  from  the  other 


INDEX. 


A 

Achtran  League,  35. 

Actium,  naval  battle  of,  397,  398. 

Ad  herbal  attacked  by  Juguriha,  108.  Flies  to  the 
Romans,  ib.    Put  to  deaih  by  Juguriha,  ib. 

Aidile  of  ibe  People,  office  of,  instituted,  17.  Su- 
perseded by  Patricks  ^Edile,  28.  The  office 
revived  by  Agrippa,  393. 

jSSmilius.    See  Emilius. 

JF/va,  eruption  of,  ICO. 

Afranius,  appointed  one  of  Pompey's  lieutenants 
in  Spain,  266.  Compelled  to  submit  to  Caesar, 
272. 

Africa.  See  Carthaginians  Massinissa.  Jugur- 
tha,  &c. 

Agrarian  Law,  first  proposed  18.  Lex  Licinia 
adopted,  27.    Agrarif.n  Law  of  Caesar.  193. 

Agrippa  becomes  the  counsellor  of  Octavius,  370. 
fits  operaiions  in  Caul,  382.  Is  appointed  to 
conduct  the  war  against  SextU3  Pompeius,  383. 
Defea's  the  fleet  of  Pompeius,  385.  Undertakes 
the  office  of  fedile,  393.  Presides  in  the  military 
department  of  Home,  399.  Encourages  Octavius 
to  resign  the  sovereignty,  41 1  Retires  from  pub- 
lic service,  425.  Is  recalled,  ib.  Marries  the 
daughter  of  Octavius,  427.  Death  and  character, 
434. 

Agrippa  Posthumus,  434.  Comes  of  age,  443.  Is 
degraded  and  banished,  444. 

Agnppina,  the  daughter  of  Agrippa,  is  married  to 
"Germanicus,  454.  Perishes,  with  two  of  her 
sons,  under  the  tyranny  of  Tiberius,  473. 

Ahenoharbus,  Domitius,  defends  Marseilles  against 
Caesar's  army,  but  is  at  last  obliged  to  sub- 
mit, 273—275. 

Aleva  in  Gaul,  blockade  and  reduction  of,  241 — 
244. 

Alexandria,  in  Egypt,  contest  tbere,  between  Julius 
Caesar  and  the  government  of  Ptolomy,  391—393. 

Alps,  passage  of  the,  by  Huunibal,  45. 

Ambinrix  ensnares  ana  cuts  off  part  of  Caesar's  ar- 
my, 227,  228.  Is  afterwards  punished  by  Caesar, 
229. 

Ambrones.    See  Cimbri. 

Andrisnts  claims  the  crown  of  Macedonia,  84.  Is 
suppressed  by  the  Romans,  ib. 

An'ioehus,  king  of  Syria,  arrives  in  Greece  with  an 
army,  64.  Returns  home,  ib.  Meditates  the 
invasion  of  Greece  and  Italy,  65.  The  Romans 
prepare  to  repel  him,  66.  He  arrives  with  an 
army  at  Demetrias,  ib.  Spends  the  winter  at 
Chalcis,  67.  His  army  routed  near  Thermopylae, 
ib.  His  fleet  defeated  by  the  Romans,  68.  An- 
tiochus  himself  defeated  by  Lucius  iJcipio,  ib. 
Makes  peace  with  the  Romans,  ib. 

Antonius,  Marcus,  put  to  death  by  Marius,  136. 

 Cains,  is  elected  to  the  consulate,  along 

with  Cicero,  171. 
— —  Lucius,  opposes  the  pretensions  of  Octa- 
vius at  Rome,  371.    Is  shut  up  in  Perusia,  and 
obliged  to  capitulate,  373. 

Antony,  Mark,  serves  in  Gaul  under  Julius  Cn-sar. 
248.  Is  sent  thence  by  Caesar,  to  Rome,  249.  Is 
appointed  commander  of  Oesar's  forces  in  Italy, 
255.  Follows  Ca?6ar  to  Epirus  with  additional 
troops,  280.    Lands  in  the  Boy  of  Nvmphseus,  ib. 

483 


Effects  a  junction  with  Caesar,  2R1 .  Is  appointed 
second  in  command  by  Caesar,  292.  Holds  the 
government  of  Italy,  ib.  Is  named  consul  by 
Caesar,  in  conjunction  with  himself,  317.  His 
speeches  in  the  senate  on  the  death  of  Caesar, 
326,  327.  Presides  at  the  obsequies  oi  Carsar,  328. 
Pronounces  the  funeral  oration,  329.  Moderate 
administration  for  seme  time,  330.  He  becomes 
arbitrary.  331.  His  f.'rst  conference  with  Octavius 
Caesar,  334  ;  and  dissension  with  him,  335.  His 
journey  to  Brundusium,  337.  Dissatisfaction  of 
the  troops  there,  and  severities  of  Antony,  338 
He  returns  to  Rome,  339.  Two  of  his  1<  giors 
desert  to  Octavius,  ib.  He  proceeds  to  expel 
Decimus  Brutus  from  Cisalpine  Gaul,  340  His 
message  to  Decimt.s,  ib.  Lays  siege  to  Mutma, 
341.  Is  ordered  to  desist  by  the  senate,  342.  Af- 
fects to  treat,  343.  Is  declared  a  rebel,  ib.  Con- 
tinues, notwithstanding,  the  siege,  346.  Repels 
the  army  of  Pansa,  347.  Is  worsted  by  Hirtius 
and  Octavius,  ib.  Necessitated  to  pass-  the  Alps, 
ib.  Joined  by  Lepidus  and  his  army,  348.  The 
act  of  attainder  against  him  reversed,  354.  Forms 
a  confederacy  with  Octavius  and  Lepidns,  ib. 
Horrors  of  their  proscriptions,  355.  Antony  re- 
ceives with  joy  the  head  and  right  hand  of  the 
murdered  Cicero,  359.  Transports  part  of  his 
army  into  Greece  against  Brutus  and  Cassius, 

363.  Pitches  his  camp  in  view  of  the  enemy, 

364.  Is  joined  by  Octavius,  3t,5.  Various  opera- 
tions and  skirmishes,  ib.,  366.  His  speech  to  the 
army  after  the  death  of  Cassius,  ib.  Defeats  the 
republican  army,  367.  Makes  a  new  partition 
of  the  empire  with  Octavius,  369.  Sets  out  for 
Asia,  ib.  Raises  contributions  in  Ephesus,  &c. 
374.  Meets  Cleopatra  in  Cilicia,  and  ac  compa- 
nies her  into  Egypt,  ib.  Hastens  to  Athens,  375. 
Sails  with  20U  galleys  to  Brundusium,  and  in- 
vests it,  376.  Gets  possession  of  it,  ib.  Is  reconciled 
to  Octavius,  ib.  Marries  Octavia,  ib.  Concludes 
a  treaty  of  peace  with  Sextus  Pompeius,  378. 
Sets  out  for  the  East,  379.  His  residence  at 
Athens,  ib.  Arrives  at  Tarentum,  3^-2.  Re- 
solves with  Octavius  to  hold  the  consulate  for 
five  years  longer,  383.  Sets  out  for  Syria,  ib. 
Cleopatra  visits  him,  3R9.  His  stores  and  hay- 
gage  seized  by  the  Parthians,  ib.  He  treats  with 
the  king  of  Parthia  for  peace,  390;  who  declines 
it,  and  harasses  him  on  his  retreat,  ib.  Eml.ark3 
with  Cleopa'ra  for  Egvpt,  ib.  Declines  an  inter- 
view with  his  wife,  391.  Passes  into  Armenia, 
and  is  victorious  there,  393.  Returns  to  Alex- 
andria in  triumph,  ih.  His  extravagant  boha%iour 
there,  ib.  He  declares  war  atrainst  Octavius, 
395.  Is  suspended  in  the  consulship  by  the 
Senate,  ib.  Posts  his  army  at  the  entrance  of 
the  gulph  of  Ambracia,  39(5.  Addresses  his  offi- 
cers, in  view  of  a  battle,  397.  Battle  of  Actiurn, 
in  which  he  is  defeated,  and  flies  with  Cleopatra 
towards  Egypt,  398.  Attempts  to  join  the  Ro- 
man legions,  400.  Rejected  by  them,  ib.  His 
strange  conduct  at  Alexandria,  ib.  His  fleet  sur- 
renders to  Octavius,  and  his  army  is  routed,  401. 
Wounds  himself';  has  an  interview  with  Cleo- 
patra, and  dies,  ib.    His  character,  ib. 

\ppius  Claudius  attempts  to  procure  Virginia,  21 
'ipuleius.    See  Safurninus. 


464 


INDEX. 


Arabia,  expedition  into,  under  ^Elius  Gallus,  425. 

Unsuccessful,  ib. 
irchelaus.   See  Mithridales. 

Ariovistus  involved  in  a  war  with  Caesar,  201. 
Holdsa  conference  with  him,  202.  Is  defend  'b. 

Aristobulus  usurps  the  Jewish  throne,  167.  Is  un- 
possessed by  Pompey,  168. 

Armenia.    See  Tigranes. 

Asdrubal.  See  Hasdrubal. 

Asia,  first  expedition  of  the  Romans  into,  68.  They 
interest  themselves  in  it<*  concerns,  99.  See  An- 
ton y,  Bilh ynia,  Crassus,  Lvcullus,  Mithridales,  &c. 

Athens,  siege  and  blockade  of,  by  Sylla,  133. 

Attualici  reduced  by  Caesar,  206: 

Augustus,  title  of.  first  bestowed  onOctavius  Caesar, 
417    See  Octavius. 

Aufefes,  Ptolomy,  the  dethroned  king  of  Egypt  ar- 
rives in  Rome,  210.  Disputes  about  his  restora- 
tion, ib.    He  is  restored  by  Cabinius,  217. 

Avaricum,  in  Gaul,  siege  and  reduction  of,  by  Cae- 
sar, 238,  239. 

B 

Bacchanals,  society  of,  77 

Ballot,  secret,  introduction  of,  in  elections,  &c.  89. 

Bankruptcy  treated  as  a  crime  by  the  laws  of  the 
twelve  tables,  20. 

Ba'hs,  public,  established  at  Rome  by  Agrippa,  394. 

Bel  gee,  red  uced  by  Caesar,  205. 

Beltutus,  Sicinius,  heads  the  Plebeian  Mutiny  at 
the  Mons  Sacer,  15. 

Bibulus,  elected  Consul  along  with  Caesar,  193.  Op- 
poses the  agrarian  law,  194.  Is  made  Proconsul 
of  Syria,  250.  Commands  the  fleet  of  Pompey,  277. 
Blocks  up  the  harbour  of  Oricum,  279.    Dies,  ib. 

Bithynia,  bequeathed  to  the  Romans,  151.  Over- 
run by  Mithridates,  ib. 

Bacchus,  King  of  Mauritania,  at  first  assists  Jugurtha, 

113.  Afterwards  delivers  him  up  to  the  Romans, 

114.  Sends  to  Rome  a  present  of  golden  images, 
125. 

!>  j  ibery  in  tl  o  elections  at  Rome,  226. 

Britain,  Caesar  projects  the  invasion  of,  219.  Lands 
at  the  Downs,  220.  His  fleet  shattered  by  a 
storm,  ib.  He  re-embarks  for  the  Continent,  ib. 
Second  invasion  of  Britain,  222.  Landing-place 
probably  Pigwell  Bay,  ib.  The  Roman  fleet 
again  shattered  by  a  storm,  223.  Cassivelaunus, 
a  British  chieftain,  harasses  Caesar,  ib. ;  but  is  de- 
feated, ib.  Caesar's  account  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Britain,  ib.    They  submit  to  him,  224. 

^•riltany,  inhabitants  of,  defeated  by  Caesar  at  sea, 

F  -undusium ,  port  of,  becom  es  the  retreat  of  Pompey, 
261  Caesar  arrives  there,  and  takes  possession 
of  the  port,  262.  Brundusium  is  besieged  and 
taken  by  Antony,  376. 

B  utus,  Marcus,  forms  a  conspiracy  against  Caesar, 
321.  Reveals  the  secret  to  his  wife,  323.  Death 
of  Caesar,  324.  Brutus  retires  to  the  Capitol,  325. 
Appears  in  the  Forum,  ib.  His  speech  to  the 
people,  327,  328.  Appointed  to  the  government 
of  Macedonia,  331.  Superseded  by  the  Senate, 
332.  Persists  in  setting  out  for  his  province,  336. 
Arrives  in  Greece,  344.  Is  well  received  in 
Macedonia,  ib.  Is  condemned,  in  absence,  for 
the  murder  of  Julius  Caesar,  353.  Prepares  for 
war  with  Octavius,  Antony,  and  Lepidus,  361. 
Reduces  Xanthus  in  Lycia,  362.  Joins  Cassius, 
363.  Marches  westward,  364.  Ts  interrupted 
by  Antony's  army,  ib.  Encamps,  with  Cassius, 
near  Philippi,  ib.  Operations  and  skirmishes, 
365.  Death  of  Cassius,  ib.  Endeavours  to  pro- 
tract the  war,  ib.  Is  totally  routed,  367.  His 
death  and  character,  368. 

 ► — ,  Decimus,  is  besieged  in  Mutina,  347.  Rais- 
ing of  the  siege,  ib.    Is  vested  by  the  Senate  | 


with  the  command  of  all  their  forces,  348.  Is 
abandoned  by  his  army,  354 ;  seized  at  Aquileia 
and  put  to  death  by  orders  of  Antony,  355. 

C 

Cce-pio,  Q.  Serv.  opposes  the  tribune  Saturninus, 
121.    Is  condemned,  124. 

Ctpsar,  Caius  Julius,  birth  of,  123.  Is  saved  from 
proscription  by  Sylla.  146.  Is  taken  by  pirates, 
whom  he  afterwards  pursues  and  punishes,  150. 
Is  suspected  of  a  hand  in  the  conspiracy  of  Cati- 
line, 170.  Is  elected  Edile,  ib.  Opposes  the  exe- 
cution of  Lentul  us,  176.  Character  compared  with 
that  of  Cato,  180,  181.  His  policy  in  supporting 
the  pretensions  of  Pompey,  183.  Is  appointed  to 
the  government  of  Lusitania,  185.  Returns  to 
Rome,  188.  Is  refused  a  triumph,  ib.  Is  elected 
Consul,  189  His  violence  in  carrying  through 
his  agragrian  law,  190,  191.  Reforms  introduced 
by  him,  192.  Appointed  Proconsul  in  Gaul  for 
five  years,  193.  His  marriage  to  Calpurnia,  195. 
Arrives  in  his  province,  199.  Hinders  the  Hel- 
velii  from  passing  the  Rhone,  200.  Defeats  them 
on  the  Soane,  201.  Resolves  to  make  war  upon 
Ariovistus,  ib.  Holds  a  conference  with  him,  202. 
Defeats  him,  ib.  Marches  against  the  Belgic 
nations,  204,  205.  Defeats  the  iNervii,  206.  Re- 
duces the  Altuatici,  ib.  Influences  the  transac- 
tions at  Rome,  210.  Is  visited  at  Lucca  by  Pom- 
pey and  Crassus,  211.  Sets  out  for  Brittany, 
and  destroys  a  fleet  there,  212.  His  command  in 
Gaul  renewed  for  other  five  years,  215.  Cuts 
off  two  German  hordes,  218,  219.  Projects  the 
invasion  of  Britain,  ib.  Lands  at  the  Downs,  220. 
Re-embarks  for  the  Continent,  ib.  Second  inva- 
sion of  Britain,  222.  Defeats  Cassivelaunus,  223. 
Passes  the  Thames,  ib.  Receives  the  submission 
of  Britain,  and  returns  to  Gaul,  224  Routs  the 
Gauls,  228.  Punishes  Ambiorix,  229.  Endea- 
vours to  hold  the  consulate  without  resigning  his 
province,  235,  236.  Again  advances  against  the 
Gauls,  237.  Besieges  and  reduces  Avaricum 
238.  Crosses  the  river  Allier,  239.  Retreats,  240 
Is  joined  by  Labienus,  ib.  Defeats  the  cavalry 
of  Vereingetorix,  241 ;  and  finally  routs  him,  243, 
244.  Operations  in  Gaul,  in  his  eighth  campaign 
246 — 248.  Extends  his  influence  in  Rome,  249 
— 252.  Detaches  one  legion  from  his  army,  by 
desire  of  the  Senate,  254 ;  and  restores  to  Pom- 
pey a  borrowed  legion,  ib.  Recalled  by  the  Se- 
nate, and  ordered  to  dismiss  his  army,  257.  Re- 
solves to  march  towards  Rome,  258.  Seizes  on 
Ariminum,  ib.  Corfinium  is  delivered  up  to  him, 
261.  Proceeds  to  Brundusium,  ib.  Gets  pos- 
session of  it,  262.  Prepares  to  march  to  Spain, 
ib.  Has  an  interview  wirh  Cicero,  263.  Visits 
Rome,  ib.  Seizes  the  public  treasure,  264.  Sets 
out  for  Spain,  266.  Invests  Marseilles,  267.  Ar- 
rives in  Spain,  ib.  Worsted  in  a  skirmish  with 
the  enemy,  268.    Throws  a  bridge  over  the  Se- 

,  gra,  ib.  Pursues  the  army  of  Pompey,  269.  He 
turns  their  flank,  ib.  Harasses  them  in  their  re- 
treat to  Ilerda,  270.  Receives  their  submission, 
272.  Accession  of  Varro  and  his  legions  to  Cae- 
sar, 273.  Takes  possession  of  Marseilles,  275.  Is 
named  Dictator  by  the  Senate  at  Rome,  ib.  Quells- 
a  mutiny  in  his  army,  276.  Arrives  at  Rome, 
and  assumes  the  title  of  Dictator,  ib.  Is  chosen 
Consul,  ib.  Sets  sail  for  the  coast  of  Greece,  277. 
Proposes  peace  to  Pompey,  278 ;  but  continues 
his  hostile  exertions,  ib.  Is  joined  by  a  great  re- 
inforcement under  mark  Antony,  281.  Inter- 
cepts the  direct  communication  of  Pompey  with 
Dyrrachium,  282.  Repeals  his  propositions  for 
peace,  ib.  Forms  the  project  of  investing  Pom- 
pey in  his  station,  283.    Is  surprised  by  Pompey 

and  suffers  a  partial  defeat,  ib.    Attacks  a  detach 


IXDEX. 


48^ 


men!  of  Pompey's  army  with  success,  284 ;  but 
at  last  is  obliged  to  abandon  his  lines,  ib.  Con- 
tinues  to  retreat,  235.  Directs  his  march  towards 
Thessaly,  ib.  Encamps  near  the  village  of  Phar- 
salus,  237.  Gains  the  battle  of  Pharsalia,  288, 
289.  Pursues  Pompey,  290.  Arrives  in  Egypt, 
and  is  presented  wiih  the  head  of  his  rival,  ib. 
Is  decreed  Consul  for  five  years,  Dictator  for  one 
year,  and  Tribune  for  life,  292.  Remains  in 
Egypt,  2 J 4.  His  passion  lor  Cleopatra,  ib.  Is 
invested  in  Alexandria,  ib.  Twice  defeats  the 
Egyptian  fleet,  2.15.  Routs  the  Egyptians,  ib. 
Marches  against  Pharnaces,  and  gains  a  victory, 
297.  Arrives  in  Italy,  ib.  Proceeds  to  Rome,  ib. 
Quells  a  mutiny  in  his  army,  298,  299.  Sets  sail 
for  Afnica,  whither  the  republicans  had  retired, 
ib.  Lands  near  Adrumentum,  300.  Advances 
from  Ruspina,  and  encounters  Labienus  and  Pe- 
treius,  301.  Falls  back  upon  Ruspina,  and  forti- 
fies himself  there,  302.  Lays  siege  to  the  town 
of  Uzita,  303.  Raises  the  siege,  304.  Surprises 
the  town  of  Zeta,  305.  Invests  Thapsus,  306. 
Defeats  Metellus  Scipio,  ib.  Takes  possession  of 
Utica,  310 ;  whence  he  embarks  for  Sardinia,  ib. ; 
and  soon  afier  proceeds  to  Rome,  ib.  Is  declared 
Dictator  for  ten  years,  and  Censor,  under  the 
title  of  Praefectus  Morum,  &rc,  311.  His  speech 
to  the  Senate  and  People,  ib.  His  four  succes- 
sive triumphs,  312.  Amuses  the  populace  with 
shows  and  feasts,  ib.  His  plan  of  government, 
313,  314.  Sets  out  for  Spain,  where  the  sons  of 
Pompey  are  in  arms,  ib.  Totally  defeats  them 
near  Munda,  315.  Names  himself  Consul  along 
with  Mark  Antony,  317.  Enforces  sumptuary 
regulations,  ib.  His  plans  and  policy,  318.  His 
character  contrasted  with  that  of  Sylla,  ib.  He 
aspires  to  the  title  of  King,  319.  A  conspiracy 
formed  against  him,  320.  He  receives,  at  Rome, 
a  visit  from  Cleopatra,  321.  (IVo'e.)  He  plans  a 
6eries  of  wars,  322.  Fixes  the  succession  of  office 
for  two  years,  ib.  Progress  of  the  conspiracy 
against  him,  322 — 324.  tie  is  killed  in  the  Senate 
house,  ib.  His  will,  328.  His  funeral,  ib.,  329. 
Comparison  of  his  character  with  that  of  Octa- 
vius,  407. 

i  asar,  Augustus.    See  Octavius. 

-  — ■ —  Germanicus.    See  Gerrnnniais. 

 Caius,  born,  428.    Admitted  into  the  order 

of  manhood,  and  declared  chief  of  the  Roman 
youth,  439.  Appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
army  in  Syria,  441.  Wounded,  ib.  Dies  on  his 
way  home,  ib. 

 Lucius  is  refused  the  consulate,  but  ad- 
mitted into  the  priesthood,  439.  Admitted  to 
the  order  of  manhood,  ib.  Dies  at  Marseilles, 
441. 

Ccesarion  is  proclaimed  by  Mark  Antony  heir  to 
his  father,  400.  Killed  by  order  of  Octavius, 
402. 

Valerius,  Fusius,  defends  Antony  in  the  Senate,  341, 
342. 

Daligula,  Caius  Caesar,  admitted  into  the  confi- 
dence of  the  Emperor  Tiberius,  466.  Declared 
successor  in  the  empire,  470.  Succeeds  Tibe- 
rius accordingly,  475.  His  government,  476.  Is 
killed  by  Clverea,  ib. 

Calviwis,  Domitius,  defeated  at  sea  by  the  fleet  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius,  366. 

Camillas  defeats  the  invading  Gauls,  and  relieves 
the  Capitol,  25. 

Caiviaf,  battle  of,  49,  50. 

Canuleius,  the  Tribune,  proposes  the  repeal  of  the 
prohibition  againstthe  intermarriage  of  Patricians 
and  Plebeians,  22.    The  repeal  agreed  to,  ib. 

Capitol,  the,  besieged  by  the  Gauls,  25.  Held  out 
by  Manlius,  hence  named  Capilolinus,  ib.  Re- 
lieved by  Camillus,  ib. 

Cappadocia,  murder  of  the  king  of,  104. 


Caprece,  island  of,  becomes  the  residence  of  th« 
Emperor  Tiberius,  466. 

Capua,  and  its  district  of  Campania,  the  first  pro- 
vincial government  established  by  the  Romans, 

34.  {Note.) 

Carbo,  Papirius.  elected  Consul,  107.    Defeated  by 

the  Cimbri,  1C9.    His  death,  107. 
 Cneius  Papirius,  Consul,  opposes  Sylla  in 

Italy,  138.    Is  afterwards  killed  by  Pompey  in 

Sicily,  14L 

Carriage,  city  of,  its  antiquity,  35.  Description  of 
its  local  situation,  82.  The  city  besieged,  ib. ; 
reduced  and  burnt,  83;  ordered  to  be  rebuilt  for 
a  Roman  colony,  105. 

Carthaginian  Republic,  rise  and  progress  of  the 

35.  The  Carthaginians  unite  with  the  Romans, 
against  Pyrrhus,  36,  37.  The  Romans  forcibly 
dispossess  them  of  Messina,  which  gives  rise  to 
the  first  Punic  war,  ib.  The  Romans  defeat 
their  fleet,  38.  Land  in  Africa,  and  defeat  their 
army;  but  are  routed  in  their  turn,  by  Xaiitippus, 
ib.  Great  naval  engagements,  ib.  Carthagi- 
nians make  concessions  to  obtain  peace ;  which 
ends  the  first  Punic  war,  ib.  Mutiny  and  in- 
vasion of  the  mercenaries  at  Carthage,  39. 
Carthaginians  surrender  the  island  of  Sar- 
dinia to  the  Romans,  40.  Second  Punic  war 
breaks  out,  43.  (See  Harmibal.  Scipio  Africa- 
nus.)  Battle  of  Zama,  and  end  of  this  war,  58. 
The  Carthaginians  resolve  to  re-take  Emporia, 
80.  Are  defeated  by  Massinissa,  ib.  Make  a 
formal  surrender  of  the  city  of  Carthage,  ib. 
Give  up  all  naval  and  military  stores,  81.  Are 
required  to  abandon  Carthage,  ib.  Prepare  to 
repel  the  commands  of  the  Romans,  ib.  Gain  a 
partial  ad  vantage,  82 ;  but  are  finally  su'xlued  Dy 
Scipio,  83. 

Casra,  one  of  the  conspirators  against  Cirsar,  321, 
324.    Elected  tribune,  333. 

Cassius,  Sp  Consul,  courts  popularity,  18.  Con- 
demned on  suspicion  of  treason,  ib. 

 Caius,  under  Pompey,  burns  and  de- 
stroys Caesars  shipping  at  Messina,  292.  Submits 
to  Capsar,  ib.  Begins  a  conspiracy  against  Cae- 
sar, 321.  Appointed  to  the  government  ofSyna, 
331.  Superseded  in  favour  of  Dolabella,"  ib. 
Persists  in  taking  possession  of  the  province,  336. 
Is  supported  by  the  Senate,  344.  Is  condemned, 
in  absence,  for  the  murder  of  Julius  CVsar,  353. 
Blockades  Dolabella  in  Laodicaea,  ib.,  354.  Be- 
comes master  of  Laodica'a,  ib.  Acquires  the 
possession  of  Syria,  361.  Marc  hes  with  his  army 
to  Smyrna,  and  joins  Brutus,  ib.  Reduces  the 
island  of  Rhodes,  352.  Returns,  and  again  forma 
a  junction  w  ith  Brutus,  363.  His  speech  to  the 
united  army,  ib.  His  division  is  defeated  by 
Antony,  365.  Causes  a  slave  to  put  an  end  to 
his  life,  ib. 

Catiline,  Lucius  Serous,  first  appearance  of  140 
His  conspiracy,  173, 174.  His  designs  frustrated, 
ib..  175.  Takes  the  field.  178.  Is  defeated  and 
killed  by  Petreius.  ib. 

Cato,  the  Censor,  characteristic  manners  of,  76.  His 
speech  against  the  luxury  of  the  times,  78.  Ilia 
eagerness  for  the  destruction  of  Carthage,  80. 
Obtains  a  triumph  at  Rome,  86. 

 of  Utica.  anecdote  of.  while  a  boy,  146, 147. 

He  urges  the  necessity  of  punishing  capitally  the 
Catiline  conspirators,  177.  Character,  compared 
with  that  of  Carsar,  180,  181.  He  opposes  the 
agrarian  law,  190.  Is  sent  on  a  commission  to 
Cyprus,  195.  His  return  from  Cvprus.  209,  210. 
His  repulse  at  the  election  of  Psetors,  ib.  He 
opposes  Pompey  and  Crassus,  214.  Is  unsuc- 
cessful as  a  candidate  for  the  Consulship,  245. 
Is  appointed  to  the  command  of  Sicily,  265;  but 
ie  necessitated  to  withdraw  from  it,  ib.  Sailj 
into  the  African  seas,  291.    Lands  at  Berenice 


rNDEX. 


and  inarches  to  the  Roman  province,  ib.  Takes 
his  station  at  Utica,  293.  Continues  to  encourage 
the  Patriots  against  Caesar,  307,  308.  Kills  him- 
self, ib.    His  character,  ib. ;  also,  405. 

Cato,  Cains,  the  tribune,  interposes  his  negative  to 
suspend  the  usual  election  of  magistrates,  214. 

Catulus,  L.  Luctatius,  Consul,  obliged  to  fly  before 
the  barbarous  nations,  119.  Returns  and  routs 
them,  120.  Partakes  in  the  triumph  at  Rome 
with  Marius,  ib.    His  death,  136. 

 Luctatius,  opposes  Pompey's  pretensions, 

162,  163.    His  character  and  death,  189. 

Censor,  office  of,  separated  from  that  of  Consul,  21. 
The  office  revived,  164.  Becomes  almost  obso- 
lete, 244.  Is  revived  in  the  person  of  Julius  Cae- 
sar, under  the  title  of  Praefectus  Morum,  311. 
Held  by  Augustus,  429. 

Census,  state  of  the  classes  and  centuries  at  its 
establishment,  11.  (Note.)  Account  of  the  Cen- 
sus, 12.  Numbers  of  the  Roman  people  at  the 
time  of  the  Gracchi,  and  during  the  consulate  of 
Pompey,  99, 157. 

Cenlumvirs,  appointed  to  assist  the  praetor,  39. 

Centuries,  account  of  this  division  of  the  citizens, 
11.  State  of  the  centuries  at  the  establishment 
of  the  census,  ib.  (Note.) 

Chceronea,  battle  of,  133. 

Christ,  birth  of,  440. 

Cicero,  Marcus  Tullius,  birth  of  118.  Begins  to 
be  distinguished  at  the  bar,  146.  Lends  his  aid 
to  the  advancement  of  Pompey,  164.  Stands 
candidate  for  the  consulate,  171.  Is  elected,  ib. 
Pleads  the  cause  of  Rabirius,  172,  173.  De- 
nounces Catiline,  174.  Is  warned  of  the  conspi- 
racy of  Lentul  us,  and  detects  it,  176,  177.  Sup- 
ports the  pretensions  of  Pompey  and  Caesar,  188, 
189.  Is  persecuted  by  the  tribune  Clodius,  195. 
Is  abandoned  by  Pompey,  197.  Leaves  Rome, 
ib.  Frailties  in  his  character,  198.  Recalled 
from  exile,  203,  205.  Arrives  at  Rome,  ib. 
Pleads  the  cause  of  Milo,  234,  235.  Appointed 
to  the  province  of  Cilicia,  245.  His  operations 
there,  250,  251.  His  return  to  Rome,  255.  His 
irresolution  upon  the  flight  of  Pompey,  263.  Has 
an  interview  with  Caesar,  ib.  Retires  for  a  time 
from  Rome,  332.  Upon  his  return,  delivers  his 
first  philippic  against  Antony,  333.  Is  courted 
by  Octavius,  335.  Encourages  Brutus  and  Cas- 
sius,  and  declares  against  Antony,  337.  Has  the 
chief  direction  of  affairs  at  Rome,  343.  Is  in- 
cluded in  the  list  of  the  proscribed,  355.  Flies 
from  Rome,  358.  His  death  and  character,  ib., 
359. 

Cicero,  Quintus  Tullius,  is  besieged  in  his  camp  by 
Ambiorix,  228.    Relieved  by  Caesar,  229. 

Cilicia,  province  of,  committed  to  Cicero,  245.  Ope- 
rations there,  250,  251. 

Cimbri,  (various  barbarous  nations  under  this 
name)  defeat  the  Romans  under  Papirius  Carbo, 
109.  Again  defeat  them  under  the  Consul  Sila- 
nus,  111.  Overcome  two  Roman  armies  on  the 
Rhone,  115.  One  division  routed  by  Marius,  119. 
The  other  division  cut  offby  Catulus  and  Marius, 
ib.,  120. 

China,  Cornelius,  elected  Consul,  132.  Withdraws 
from  Rome,  135.  Is  again  reinstated  in  the  con- 
sulship, ib.  Massacre  which  follows,  ib.,  136; 
at  last  stopped  by  Cinna,  ib.  Prepares  to  oppose 
Sylla,  137, 138.    Is  killed  in  a  mutiny,  ib. 

 son  of  the  former,  joins  himself  to  the  party 

of  Brutus,  325. 

Cippi,  in  the  Roman  outworks,  what,  241. 

Cisalpine  Gaul.    See  Gaul. 

Claudius,  brorher  to  Germanicus,  his  supposed  im- 
becility, 437.    Is  raised  to  the  sovereignty,  477. 

Clemens  personates  Agrippa  Posthumus,  and  sets 
up  a  claim  to  the  imperial  throne,  456.  Is  put  to 
death,  ib. 


Cleopatra  is  excluded  from  her  share  of  the  throne, 

289.    She  engages  the  affections  of  Julius  Caesar, 

294.  Is  placed,  by  Caesar,  on  the  throne  of  Kgypt, 

295.  Pays  a  visit  to  Caesar  at  Rome,  321.  (Note.) 
Meets  Mark  An  ony  in  Cilicia,  374.  Pays  him 
a  visit  in  Syria,  369.  Conveys  him  to  Alexan- 
dria, 390.  Accompanies  him  to  Greece  with  her 
fleet,  395.  Is  defeated  in  the  battle  of  Actium, 
and  flies  to  Kgypt,  398.  Her  policy  on  arriving 
there,  400.  Her  last  interview  with  Antony 
401.  Receives  a  visit  from  Octavius,  402.  She 
puts  herself  to  deaih,  ib. 

Clients  and  patrons,  original  Romans  divided  into 
11. 

Clodius,  Publius,  profanes  the  sacred  rites.  186.  lit 
tried  and  acquitted,  ib.  Elected  a  tribune  of  the 
people,  195.  Projects  the  ruin  ofCicero,  ib.  His 
policy,  ib.,  196.  Opposes  a  proposal  to  recall 
Cicero,  2C3.  Procures  his  own  election  as  aeaile 
209.  Stands  candidate  for  the  office  of  praetor 
231.    Is  killed  in  a  fray  with  Milo,  232. 

Coin,  Roman,  operation  on,  39. 

Colonies,  Roman,  number  of,  in  Italy,  39. 

Column,  or  line  of  a  Roman  army,  "ten  men  deep- 
288. 

Comitia,  account  of  the,  28. 

Commons  and  nobles,  distinction  of,  91. 

Constitution,  Roman,  review  of  the,  28. 

Consul,  office  of,  first  established,  14.  Extensive 
nature  of,  ib.  Claimed  by  the  Plebeians,  22  ;• 
yielded  to  them,  under  the  title  of  Military  Tri- 
bune, ib.  Censor  separated  from  the  office  of 
Consul,  23.  Title  of  Consul  claimed  by  the  ple- 
beian order,  27.  Yielded  to  them,  28.  Power  of 
the  Consuls,  29. 

Corinth,  reduced  and  burned  by  the  Romans,  85. 

Coriolanus,  Cains  Marcius,  proposes  to  abolish  the 
office  of  tribune,  17.  Is  obliged  to  fly,  ib. 
Joins  the  enemies  of  Rome,  ib. 

Corn,  gratuitous  distribution  of,  first  proposed,  18. 

Cornelia,  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  her  address  to 
Cains  her  son,  102,  103. 

 daughter  of  Metellus  Scipio,  married  to 

Pompey  the  Great,  231. 

Cornelius,  Dolabella.    See  Dolabella. 

 Lentulus.    See  Lentulus. 

 Merula.    See  Merula. 

 Scipio.    See  Sctpio. 

Cornijicius  maintains  the  province  of  Africa,  360.' 
Is  (defeated  and  killed,  361. 

Crassus,  Marcus,  marches  against  the  revolted 
gladiators,  155 ;  routs  them,  ib.  Elected  to  the  con- 
sulate, 156.  His  great  private  riches,  157.  Se- 
cretly unites  himself  to  Pompey  and  Caesar,  188.' 
Renews  his  confederacy  with  these  leaders,  211. 
Again  elected  Consul,  214.  Secures  to  himself 
the  province  of  Syria  for  five  years,  215.  Sets 
out  for  his  province,  ib.  His  progress  there,  221. 
Invades  Mesopotamia,  222.  Is  partially  defeated 
by  the  Parthians.  230.  Is  betrayed  by  Surena  at 
a  conference,  and  slain,  231. 

 Publius,  son  of  Marcus,  serves  in  Gaul. 

206.  Is  detached  to  the  assistance  of  his  father 
in  Syria,  222.  Is  cut  off'  by  the  Parthians,  230, 
231. 

Crete,  inhabitants  of,  war  with  the  Romans,  157. 

Are  reduced  by  Metellus,  164. 
CritognaUis,  a  Gaulish  warrior,  his  speech  to  his 

army,  242. 

CuricB,  Centuries,  and  Tribes,  Roman  citizens  di 
vided  into,  11. 

Curile  JEdiles,  (directors  of  the  public  amusements,} 
office  instituted,  28. 

Curio,  the  tribune,  supports  Caesar's  cause  at  Rome, 
252.  Sent  by  him  to  Sicily,  265 ;  of  which  he 
acquires  possession,  ib.  Follows  the  party  of 
Pomnev  into  Africa,  276.  Is  overwhelmed  by 
the  Numidian  allies,  277 


INDEX. 


487 


CynocephaJce,  battle  of,  62, 63. 
Cyrcne,  kingdom  of,  becomes  a  Roman  province, 
124. 

D 

Decemvirs  vested  with  a  temporary  sovereignty,  19. 
Do  not  resign  at  the  period  of  their  commission, 
20.  Are  overturned,  on  occasion  of  the  death  of 
Virginia,  21. 

Denlalus,  his  many  hazardous  services,  24. 
 Curius,  the  consul,  reduces  Tarentum,  33. 

Dictator,  first  nominated,  14.  His  powers,  15.  Du- 
ration of  his  office,  ib. 

Dolabelln  stirs  up  tumults  in  Rome, 293.  Assumes 
the  office  of  Consul,  325.  Is  appointed  to  super- 
sede Cassius  in  Syria,  332.  Surprises  Smyrna, 
345.  Proceeds  to  Laodicoea,  353.  Is  there  blocked 
up  by  Cassius,  354.  Dies  by  the  hand  of  a  con- 
fidential follower,  ib. 

Drama,  progress  of  the,  at  Rome,  89. 

Drusilla.    See  Livia. 

Drusus,  Livius,  the  tribune,  proposes  several  im- 
portant laws,  125.    Is  assassinated,  ib. 

■  (Germanicus,)  explores  the  coasts  of  the 

Norihern  Ocean,  435.  Is  saluted  by  the  army 
Imperator,  ib.  Defeats  the  German  nations,  436. 
Penetrates  to  the  Elbe,  437.    His  death,  ib. 

 ,  son  of  Tiberius,  acts  as  Quaestor,  446.  Is 

entered  on  the  list  of  Consuls,  447.  Sent  to 
quell  a  mutiny  in  the  army,  453.  Poisoned  by 
Sejanus,  464. 

Dyrrachium,  armies  of  Pompey  and  Caesar  encamp 
in  the  neighbourhood  of,  279.  Lines  thrown  up 
by  Cassar  at  this  place,  283,  284. 

E 

Edile.    See  JF.dile. 

Egypt,  state  of,  in  the  first  ages  of  Rome,  35. 
State  of  Parties  in,  289,  290.  (See  Ccesar.  Cleo- 
patra.)   Becomes  a  Roman  province,  308. 

Emilius  Paul  us.    See  Paulus. 

Epicureans,  sketch  of  their  principles.  179. 

Equestrian  order  at  Rome  notice  of  the,  28. 

Etolians  invite  Antiochus  to  come  into  Greece,  65. 
Are  necessitated  to  sue  for  terms  from  the  Ro- 
mans, 69 ;  which  they  obtain,  ib. 

F 

Falrius  Maximus,  named  Pro-dictator,  48.  Saves 

the  Roman  army,  49. 
Fimbria  assassinates  Flaccus,  and  takes  command 

of  the  army,  136.    Puts  an  end  to  his  life,  137. 
Flaccus,  Fulvius,  raised  to  the  consulate,  101.  Is 

put  to  death  for  sedition,  106. 
 Valerius,  assassinated  by  his  lieutenant 

Fimbria,  136. 
 Valerius,  appointed  lieutenant  to  Sylla 

the  Dictator,  141. 
Flamen  Dialis,  or  Priest  of  Jupiter,  one  of  the 

titles  of  Augustus,  436. 
Flaminius,  the  Roman  Consul,  takes  the  command 

in  Greece  against  Philip,  62.    Defeats  Philip,  ib. 

Returns  to  Rome,  and  holds  a  triumph,  65. 
 ,  Caius,  named  Consul,  47.  Engages 

Hannibal,  and  perishes,  with  great  part  of  his 

army,  ib. 

Fleet,  Roman,  first  equipment  of  a,  37.  Defeats  the 
Carthas  inian  fleet,  38.  Overcomes  the  navy  of 
Asia,  68.  Three  large  fleets,  part  of  the  esta- 
blishment in  the  time  of  Augustus,  421. 

Fregellcb,  conspiracy  at,  suppressed,  102. 

Furius,  Publius,  the  tribune,  violent  death  of, 
123. 

Fu&via,  wife  of  Antony,  raises  an  army  against  Oc- 


tavius,  371.  Flies  to  Brundusium,  and  embarkt 
fur  Greece,  374.   Her  death,  376. 

G 

Gabimus,  the  tribune,  his  speech  in  favour  of  Pom 
pey's  pretensions,  161,  162.  Is  involved  in  Cati- 
line's conspiracy,  176.  Holds  the  government 
of  Syria,  217.  Restores  Auletes  to  the  throne  of 
Egypt,  ib.  Tried  for  extortion,  and  forced  into 
exile,  225. 

Galatians,  the,  reduced  by  the  Romans,  69. 

Gallus,  Asinius,  persecuted  by  Tiberius,  468. 

Gaul,  Cisalpine,  first  conquered,  41.  Inhabitants 
of,  admitted  to  the  roll  of  Roman  citizens,  276. 

Gauls,  defeat  the  Roman  army  on  the  Allia,  25. 
Burn  the  city  of  Rome,  ib.  Are  routed  and  dis- 
persed by  Camillus,  ib.  Are  again  defeated,  41. 
Are  routed  by  Hannibal, 44.  Further  wars  with 
the  Romans,  61.  (See  Ccesar,  Caius  Julius.) 
Gaul  divided  into  four  separate  governments, 
424.    See  Brittany,  Helvetii,  &c. 

Gennanicus,  Csesar,  birth  of,  437.  His  marriage  to 
Agrippina,  453.  The  army  of  Gaul  ofler  to 
place  him  on  the  throne,  ib.  He  rejects  their 
proposal,  ib. ;  and  quells  the  Mutiny,  455.  His 
operations  in  Germany,  458.  Is  sent  to  tranquil- 
lize the  provinces  of  Asia,  459.  Passes  into 
Egypt,  ib.    Dies  at  Antioch.  ib. 

Germans.  (See  Ariovistus.  Ccesar.)  Two  hordes 
invade  Gaul,  217.  Are  cut  off  by  Ceesar,  218. 
The  Germans  defeat  the  Romans,  446. 

Gladiators,  first  exhibition  of,  39.  Escape  and  re- 
volt of  those  at  Capua,  154.  They  defeat  the 
Roman  Consuls,  ib.  Are  finally  suppressed  by 
Crassus,  155. 

Gracchus,  Tiberius,  endeavours  to  revive  the 
agrarian  law,  93.  Opposed  by  the  tribune  Octa- 
vius,  94.  The  law  passed,  95.  Attempts  to  pro- 
cure his  re-election  into  the  tribunate.  96.  Is 
slain  in  the  capitol,  97. 

  Caius,  espouses  the  cause  of  the  Italian 

allies,  101.  Is  elected  a  tribune,  102.  Revives  the 
agrarian  law,  103.  Is  re-elected  tribune,  104. 
Urges  the  admission  of  the  Italian  allies  to  the 
roll  of  citizens,  105.  Endeavours  to  get  elected 
tribune,  but  is  rejected,  ib.  Is  killed  in  a  fray, 
106. 

Greece.  (See  Purrhits.  Achcran  League.)  State 
of  Greece,  (U.  C.  421.)  34,  35.  Philip  aspires  to 
the  sovereignty  of,  61.  The  Romans  expel  him, 
63.  The  Greeks  make  an  ineffectual  strugglo 
for  liberty,  84,  85. 

II 

Hamilcar  forms  a  settlement  in  Spain.  42. 

Hannihal  succeeds  Ilasdrubal  in  commanding  the 
Carthaginians  in  Spain,  42.  Reduces  Saguntum, 
43.  Begins  his  march  towards  Italy,  44.  Crosses 
the  Pyrennees,  ib.  Passes  the  Rhone,  45.  Crosses 
the  Alps,  ib.  Defeats  the  Roman  cavalry,  46. 
Defeats  the  Romans  in  a  general  engagement, 
47.  Marches  towards  Arreuum,  ib. ;  and  defeats 
the  Roman  army  under  Flaminius,  ib.  Proceeds 
towards  Apulia,  48.  Gains  the  great  battle  of 
Canna?,  50.  Solicits  his  country  in  vain  for  sup- 
plies, 52.  Is  recalled  from  Italy,  56.  Arrives 
with  his  army  at  Hadrumetum  in  Africa,  57. 
Holds  a  personal  conference  with  Scipio,  ib.,  58. 
Is  routed  in  the  battle  of  Zama,  ib.  His  great 
fidelity  and  ability,  65.  He  flies  to  Antiochus  at 
Syracuse,  ib.  Endeavours  to  persuade  Antio- 
chus to  invade  Italy,  66.  Dies  by  taking  poison, 
71. 

Hasdrubal,  son-in-law  of  Hamilcar,  succeeds  him 
in  the  command  of  the  Carthaginian  settlement 
!    in  Spain,  42. 


488 


INDEX. 


Hasdrubal,  the  brother  of  Hannibal.  See  Hannibal. 

 the  son  of  Gisgo,  opposes  Scipio  in  Africa, 

56.  Is  surprised  and  defeated,  ib.  Withdraws 
from  the  Carthaginian  service,  ib.  Is  recalled  by 
the  Oarlhaginians,  81.    Defeats  the  Romans,  82. 

Has'a'i,  firs!  order  in  the  original  Roman  legion,  31. 

Helvelii,  propose  to  migrate  to  the  plains  of  Gaul, 
199.  Are  hindered  by  Caesar  from  passing  the 
Rhone,  200.  Partially  defeated  by  him,  ib. ;  and 
finally  routed,  201. 

Hiero,  king  of  Syracuse,  attaches  himself  to  the 
Romans,  37. 

Hirtius,  C.  enters  on  the  consulate,  341.  Carries 
on  the  war  against  Antony,  346.    Is  killed,  347. 

Hyrcanus,  high-priest  of  the  Jews  restored  by  Pom- 
pey,  167,  168. 

I 

Ilerda,  town  of,  the  armies  of  Caesar  and  Pompey 

encamp  at,  267,  268. 
Illyrians,  guilty  of  piratical  depredations,  40.  The 

Romans  make  war  on  them,  ib.   The  Illyrians 

are  subdued,  75. 
Imperafor,  title  of,  bestowed  upon  Octavius,  424. 
Insubres,  Gaulish  nation  of  the,  attack  the  Roman 

colonies  of  Cremona  and  Placentia,  61. 
Interest  of  money,  1  per  cent  only  allowed,  20. 
Isola  Farnese,  probably  the  site  of  the  capital  of 

ancient  Veiae,  24. 
Italian  allies,  state  of  the,(  U.  C.  627.)  100.  Claim  to 

be  enrolled  as  Roman  citizens,  126, 127. 
Italy,  how  possessed  during  the  first  ages  of  the 

Roman  State,  9.    Its  limits  in  those  times,  34. 

Romans  become  entire  masters  of,  60. 

J 

Janus,  temple  of,  shut,  40, 407,  424. 

Jerusalem,  city  of,  arrival  of  Pompey  at,  167.  Siege 
of  the  temple,  ib.  Its  reduction,  ib.  Pompey 
enters  the  Holy  of  Holies,  168. 

Juba,  king  of  Numidia,  puts  an  end  to  his  life,  310. 

Judea,  Hyrcanus  and  Anstobulus  contend  for  the 
sovereignty  of,  167.  Pompey  subdues  Judea, 
and  restores  Hyrcanus,  ib.,  168.    See  Jerusalem. 

Jugurtha  joins  the  Romans  against  the  Numantians, 
87.  Aspires  to  the  kingdom  of  Numidia,  108. 
Cuts  offhis  brothers  Hiempsal  and  Adherbal,  ib. 
Is  supposed  to  bribe  the  Roman  Senate,  1^)9. 
He  endeavours  to  treat  with  them,  ib.  Appears 
as  a  suppliant  at  Rome,  110.  Is  dismissed  from 
the  city,  ib.  Surprises  Aulus  Albinus,  ib.  Is 
defeated  byMetellus,  111.  Flies  to  Mauritania. 
112.  Is  overcome  by  Marius,  114.  Seized  by 
Bocchus,  and  delivered  up  to  the  Romans,  ib. 
Is  brought  to  Rome,  and  left  to  perish  in  a  dun- 
geon, 115. 

Jidia,  daughter  of  Julius  Caesar,  is  married  to  Pom- 
pey, 195.    Her  death,  224. 

 daughter  of  Octavius,  is  married,  1st,  to  Mar- 

cellus.  422;  2dly,  to  Agrippa,  427;  and  Zdly,  to 
Tiberius,  434.   Her  debaucheries  and  exile,  440. 

K 

Kalendar,  Roman,  reformed,  by  direction  of  Julius 
Caesar,  and  hence  called  Julian  Kalendar,  313. 

L 

Latins,  or  small  states  of  Latium,  account  of  the,  9. 

Laws  of  Ten  Tables.    See  Decemvirs. 

Legion,  Roman,  account  of  the  arrangement  of  the, 
31.  Difference  between  the  legion  described  by 
Polybius,  and  that  of  Caesar,  ib.  (Note.)  Com- 
pared with  the  Grecian  Phalanx,  62.  Augment- 
ed. 73. 


Lentulus,  Publius  Cornelius,  praetor,  his  conspiracy 
in  favour  of  Catiline,  175.  Detected,  ib.,  176. 
Put  to  death,  177. 

Lepidus,  M.  ^milius,  elected  consul,  147.  Sets 
out  for  his  province  of  Transalpine  Gaul,  ib.  Ar- 
rives in  Italy  with  his  army;  but  is  routed,  148. 
Flies  to  Sardinia,  where  he  dies,  ib. 

 ■          Marcus  .-Emilius,  names  Caesar  dictator 

275.  Shares  the  fortunes  of  Antony,  331.  Forms 
a  coalition  with  him,  349.  Is  denounced  as  an 
enemy  by  the  Senate,  ib.  The  sentence  revers- 
ed, 354.  Forms  a  confederacy  with  Antony  and 
Octavius,  355.  Becomes  the  tool  of  these  leaders, 
ib.,  355.  Is  overlooked  in  a  new  partition  of  the 
empire,  369.  Adheres  to  Octavius,  373.  Is  sent 
to  Africa,  as  governor,  376.  Claims  Sicily,  386. 
Is  supplanted  in  the  command  of  the  army,  ib. 
Retires  to  Italy,  387.    His  death,  434. 

Lex  Canuleia  passed,  22. 

— —  Licinia,  first  proposed,  27.  Revived  by  Ti- 
berius Gracchus,  93.  Carried  into  execution,  99. 

 Tribonia  adopted,  77. 

  Sempronia  passed,  95.    Revived,  103. 

  Sempronia  judiciaria,  104. 

 Caecilia  Didia,  123. 

—  Falcidia,  380. 

Libo,  Scribonius,  entertains  pretensions  to  the 
throne  of  Caesar,  456. 

Licinian  law.    See  Lex  Licinia. 

Licinius,  the  consul,  sails  to  Epirus,  to  attack  the 
Macedonians,  73.    Is  partially  defeated,  ib. 

Liguria,  conquered  by  the  Romans,  70. 

Lilies,  in  the  Roman  outworks,  what,  241,  242. 

Line  of  the  Roman  army,  288. 

Literature,  first  dawning  of,  among  the  Romans,  77. 
Patronized  by  Maecenas.  370. 

Licia  Drusilla,  is  married  by  the  Emperor  Augus 
tus,  381.  Her  zeal  for  the  advancement  of  he 
son  Tiberius,  435,  444.    Her  death,  468. 

Livilla  is  married  to  Drusus,  464.  Unites  with 
janus  in  poisoning  her  husband,  ib.  The  cri 
discovered,  470. 

Lollius  is  defeated  by  the  German  nations,  431. 

LucuUus,  consul,  is  opposed  to  Mithridates,  152. 
Defeats  his  army,  ib.  Totally  routs  him,  153. 
Marches  into  Armenia,  and  defeats  Tigranes, 
158.  Invests  Tigranocerta,  ib.  Routs  the  Ar- 
menian army,  ib.  Takes  the  city,  ib.  A  mutiny 
breaks  out  in  the  Roman  army,  159.  Lucullu's 
superseded  by  Pompey,  164.  Obtains  a  triumph 
at  Rome,  181. 

M 

Macedonia,  conquered  by  the  Romans,  75.  The 
crown  claimed  by  Andriscus,  84.  Macedonia 
reduced  to  a  Roman  province,  ib.    See  Perseus. 

Philip. 

Maecenas,  Caius  Cilnius,  becomes  of  the  council  of 
Octavius,  370.  Grants  his  protection  to  Virgil, 
ib.  (Note.)  Presides  in  the  administration  at 
Rome,  399.  Dissuades  Octavius  from  resigning 
the  sovereignty,  413.    Death  and  character,  438. 

Melius,  Sp.  is  put  to  death,  23. 

Manlius  (Capitolinus)  defends  the  capitol  against 
the  Gauls,  25.  Accused  of  aspiring  to  regal  dig- 
nity, 26 ;  and  put  to  death,  27. 

 —  the  consul,  reduces  the  Galatians,  69. 

Marcellus,  Marcus  Claudius,  consul,  defeats  Han 
nibal  at  Nola,  51. 

 Marcus  Claudius,  proposes  to  recall  Caesar 

from  Gaul,  245.    Again  urges  the  recall,  251, 254 

 Caius  Claudius,  elected  to  the  consul- 
ship, 251.  Delivers  his  sword,  as  consul,  into 
the  hands  of  Pompey,  255. 

 sues  for  the  consulate  ten  years  before 

the  legal  age,  424.  Holds  the  office  of  aedile,  ib. 
His  death.  425. 


INDEX. 


Marina,  Caius,  his  first  appearance,  107.  Is  elected 
consul,  112.  Admits  necessitous  citizens  into 
thft  legions,  ib.  Prosecutes  the  war  against  Ju- 
gurtha,  ib.  Defeats  him,  114.  Is  re-elected  con- 
sul, 115.  Returns  in  triumph  to  Rome,  ib.  Sets 
out  for  Gaul,  116.  Is  elected  consul  a  third 
lime,  118;  and  a  fourth  time.ib.  Routs  one  di- 
vision of  the  barbarians,  119.  Is  elected  consul 
for  the  fifth  time,  ib.  Assists  Catulus  in  routing 
the  barbarians,  ib.  Has  a  triumph  along  with 
Catulus,  120.  Elected  consul  lor  the  sixth  time, 
ib.  Unites  his  interest  to  that  of  the  tribune  Sa- 
turninus, ib.    Acts  in  concert  with  Publius  Sul- 

gicius,  130.  Leaves  Rome  upon  the  arrival  of 
ylla,  ib.,  131.  Returns,  and  joins  himself  to 
Cinna,  135.  Is  admitted  into  Rome,  ib.,  136. 
Horrid  scenes  of  murder  which  follow,  ib.  He 
assumes  the  office  of  consul,  ib.    His  death,  136. 

.,  the  younger,  opposes  Sylla,  138,  139.  Is 
defeated  at  Preeneste,  lb.    Kills  himself,  140. 
Ma.ro,  Publius  Virgilius.    See  Virgilius. 
Marseilles,  city  of  invested  by  Caesar,  245.  Defeat 
of  the  Marseillian  fleet,  269,  273.    Progress  of 
the  siege  of  Marseilles,  374.    Second  naval  de- 
feat, ib.    The  city  yielded  up  to  Caesar,  275. 
Massinissa  joins  the  Roman  army  in  Africa  against 
the  Carthaginians,  55.    Dispossesses  Syphax,  and 
ascends  the  Numidian  throne,  56.  Afterwards 
withdraws  from  the  Roman  interest.  82. 
Massacre  ordered  by  Sylla,  140.    By  Octavius, 

Antony,  and  Lepidus,  356,  357. 
Memmius',  Caius,  forges  an  edict  of  senate,  226. 

Exposes  the  transaction,  ib. 
Merula,  L.  Cornelius,  elected  consul,  135. 
■  ■        priest  of  Jupiter,  his  boldness  in  death,  136 ; 

also,  436. 
Mesopotamia.    See  Crassus. 

Messina,  possession  of,  disputed  between  the  Car- 
thaginians and  Romans,  37. 

Metellus  Macedonitus,  Quintus  Caecilius,  ordered 
by  Labeo  to  be  thrown  from  the  Tarpeian  rock, 
99.  Saved  by  the  interposition  of  another  tri- 
bune, ib. 

«— — —  Numidicus,  Q.  Caecilius,  is  elected  consul, 
111.  Defeats  Jugurtha  in  Africa,  ib.  Opposes  the 
faction  of  Marius  and  Saturninus,  and  is  forced 
into  exile,  122.  Recalled  by  the  Roman  peo- 
ple, 123;  and  again  elected  to  the  consulate,  ib. 

— . —  Pius,  Q.  Caecilius,  joins  Sylla,  138.  Defeats 
the  army  of  Carbo,  139.  Is  elected  consul,  143. 
Conducts  the  War  against  Sertorius,  149.  The 
war  successfully  terminated,  ib.  Obtains  a  tri- 
umph, 156. 

-  .  Creticus,  Q.  Caecilius,  is  raised  to  the  con- 
sulate, 157.  Sets  out  for  the  island  of  Crete,  ib. 
Reduces  the  Cretans,  164.  Obtains  a  triumph 
at  Rome,  181. 

 Nepos,  the  tribune,  proposes  to  invite  Pom- 

pey  and  his  army  to  Rome,  181.  His  motion 
overruled,  182.  Flies  to  the  camp  of  Pompey,  ib. 
  Cornelius  Scipio.    See  Scipio,  Metellus. 

Milo,  tribune,  prosecutes  Clodius  for  his  crimes, 
204.  Opposes  the  election  of  Clodius  as  oedile, 
209.  Is  accused  by  Clodius,  but  acquitted,  ib. 
Is  tried  for  trie  murder  of  Clodius,  234.  Is  con- 
demned, and  retires  to  Marseilles,  235.  At- 
tempts to  take  possession  of  Capua,  291. 

Minulins  Rufus  opposes  Hannibal,  49. 

Milhrida'es,  king  of  Pontus,  involves  himself  in  a 
war  with  the  Romans,  129,  130.  Orders  a  ge- 
neral massacre  of  the  Roman  citizens  in  Asia, 
133.  His  army  defeated  by  Sylla,  near  Chaero- 
nea,  ib. ;  and  afterwards  at  Orchomenos,  1 34.  He 
treats  with  Sylla,  136,  137.  Joins  Sertorius,  and 
prepares  to  make  war  on  the  Romans,  148.  De- 
clares war,  and  takes  possession  of  Cappadocia 
and  Phrygia,  151.  Overruns  Bithynia,  152.  Lays 
•icge  to  the  town  of  Cyzieu*.  ib.   His  army  is 


destroyed  or  dispersed,  ib.  Collects  a  new  ar- 
my, ib.  Is  totally  routed  by  Lucullus,  153.  Or- 
ders his  women  to  be  put  to  death,  ib.  His  flight 
to  Armenia,  ib.  Again  makes  head  against  the 
Romans,  1C0.  Is  routed  by  Pompey,  165.  Forms 
plans  to  renew  the  war,  168.  Puts  a  period  to 
his  life,  ib.    His  character,  1C9. 

Moris  Sacer,  secession  of  a  great  body  of  Ple- 
beians to  the,  15. 

Mvmmius,  the  Roman  consul,  reduces  Corinth,  £5. 

Munda,  battle  of,  315. 

Mu/ina,  siege  of,  by  Antony,  336.  Battle  at,  347. 
Abandonment  of  the  siege  by  Antony,  ib. 

N 

Nabis,  tyrant  of  Lacedamion,  curbed  by  the  Ro- 
mans, 64. 

Nasica,  Scipio,  overthrows  the  faction  of  Tiberius 

Gracchus,  97. 
Navy,  Roman,  origin  of  the,  38. 
Nero,  Tiberius  Claudius,  retires  into  Sicily,  374. 

Livia  is  separated  from  him,  381. 

 —  Tiberius  Claudius.    See  Tiberius. 

 —  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  succeeds  to  the  so- 
vereignty, 477.    His  weakness  and  folly,  lb. , 

and  death,  ib. 
Nervii,  the,  one  of  the  Belgic  nations,  resolve  to  op- 

pose  Caesar,  2C5.    Are  routed  by  him,  206. 
NMes  and  Commons,  distinction  of,  91. 
Nonius,  Sufenas,  elected  tribune,  but  slain  by  the 

faction  of  Saturninus,  121. 
Norhanus,  C.  Junius,  consul,  defeated  by  Sylla,  139. 

Kills  himself,  141. 
Numanlia,  in  Spain,  obstinate  resistance  made  by 

the  inhabitants  against  the  Romans,  86.  Siege 

of  this  stronghold,  87.   Its  reduction  by  famine, 

ib.,  88. 

Numidia.  (See  Si/phax.)  Contest  for  the  crown 
of,  108.  (See  Jupvriha.)  Numidia  becomes  a 
Roman  province,  310. 

O 

Oaths,  sacredness  of  among  the  Romans,  77. 

Ocfavia,  is  married  to  Mark  Antony.  377.  She  goes 
to  Greece  to  meet  her  husband,  391.  Antony 
forbids  her  advance,  ib.  Her  prudent  conduct, 
392.    Her  death.  436. 

Octavius,  M.  the  tribune,  opposes  the  Licinian  law 
94.   Is  degraded  from  die  tribunate,  95. 

 Caius,  (Caesar  Augustus/i  grand-nephew 

of  Julius  Caesar,  his  first  public  appearance,  333. 
Sets  out  from  Apollonia  for  Italy,  334.  Assumes 
Caesar's  name  and  designation,  ib.  Arrives  at 
Rome,  ib.  Holds  a  conference  with  Antony,  ib., 
335.  Declares  against  him,  337.  Advances  to 
Rome,  ib.  His  situation  and  address,  338.  Named 
proprwtor,  343.  Marches  against  Antony.  34^ 
Antony  is  defeated,  347.  Sues  for  the  office  of 
consul,  350.  A  deputation  of  soldiers  demand 
the  consulate  for  him.  351.  It  is  granted,  ib.  He 
enters  Rome  with  his  army.  352.  Enters  on 
office,  353.  Repeals  the  acts  of  attainder  against 
Antony  and  Lepidus,  354.  Has  an  interview 
with  these  leaders,  and  forms  a  coalition  with 
them,  355.  They  concert  a  list  of  proscriptions,  ib. 
He  passes  into  Greece  against  Brutus  and  Cas- 
6ius.  364.  Tries  lo  provoke  a  general  engage- 
ment, ib.,  367.  Totally  defeats  the  republican 
army,  ib.  Makes  a  new  partition  of  the  empire 
with  Antony,  369.  Sets  out  for  Rome,  ib.  His 
arrival.  370.  Connives  at  the  excesses  of  his  sol- 
diery, ib.,  371.  Takes  the  field  against  Antoniua 
the  consul,  and  Fulvia  the  wife  of  Antony,  ib. 
Shuts  up  Antonius  in  Perusia,  373.  Dreadful 
executions  which  follow,  ib.  Forms  with  Anto- 
ny a  new  partition  of  the  empire,  376.  Con 


490 


INDEX. 


eludes  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Sextus  Pompeius, 
377 — 379.  Repudiates  his  wife  Scribonia,  and 
marries  Livia  Drusilla,  381.  Renews  the  war 
«  with  Sextus,  ib.  Is  defeated  by  him,  382. 
Lands  in  Sicily  with  a  part  of  his  army,  383. 
His  transports  defeated  and  dispersed,  384.  He 
takes  Mylae,  385.  His  fleet  defeats  that  of 
Pompeius,  it>-  He  becomes  master  of  Sicily, 
jb.  Strips  Lepidus  of  his  share  of  the  sove- 
reignty, ib.  Amount  of  his  forces,  387.  Mutin- 
ous spirit  among  them  quelled,  ib.,  388.  He 
returns  to  Italy,  ib.  His  masterly  policy  there, 
ib.  Rupture  with  Antony,  394.  Prepares  for 
war,  ib.  Embarks  for  Greece  with  an  army,  396. 
Takes  his'  station  in  Epirus,  ib.  Prepares  his 
fleet  for  action,  397.  Totally  defeats  Antony, 
398.  Continues  to  reside  some  time  in  Asia,  399. 
Is  met  at  Brundusium  by  the  senate  and  magis- 
trates, ib.  Sets  out  for  Egypt,  ib.  Defeats  the 
enemy,  401.  Has  an  interview  with  Cleopatra, 
402.  Returns  to  Rome,  409.  His  three  tri- 
umphs, ib.  Appropriates  exclusively  to  himself 
the  title  of  Imperator,  411.  Holds  a  consultation 
with  Agrippa  and  Maecenas  about  resigning  the 
sovereignty,  ib.,  412.  Purges  the  senate  of  ob- 
noxious members,  ib.  His  pretended  resignation 
of  the  sovereignty,  413 — 415.  Agrees  to  con- 
tinue to  hold  a  share  of  the  government,  416. 
The  senate  bestow  on  him  the  title  of  Augustus, 

417.  His  political  establishment  as  emperor,  ib., 

418.  His  domestic  establishment,  419.  Extent 
of  his  empire,  ib.,  420.  His  family  and  court, 
422.  Passes  into  Gaul,  and  afterwards  resides 
some  time  in  Spain,  423.  His  illness  and  reco- 
very, 425.  Sets  out  for  Egypt,  427.  Returns  to 
Rome,  429.    Reforms  the  list  of  senators,  ib.  Re- 

f»eats  the  farce  of  a  resignation,  ib.  Revives  the 
aw  for  encouraging  marriage,  430,  431.  Spends 
two  years  in  Gaul,  432.  Returns  to  Rome,  433. 
Acts  as  principal  mourner  at  the  funeral  of 
Agrippa,  434.  Assumes  the  title  of  Flamen  Di- 
alis,  or  Priest  of  Jupiter,  436.  Resumes  the  go- 
vernment for  ten  years  more,  437.  Makes  inno- 
vations respecting  criminal  trials,  ib.,  438.  Re- 
assumes  the  office  of  ordinary  consul,  440. 
Banishes  his  daughter  Julia,  ib.  Again  resumes 
the  government  for  ten  years  longer,  441.  Begins 
to  languish  and  decay,  442.  Builds  an  imperial 
mansion  on  the  Palatine  hill,  ib.  Is  thrown  into 
alarm  and  dejection,  445,  446.  His  amusements 
in  his  old  age,  447.  Enters  on  a  fifth  period  of 
ten  years,  ib.  Assumes  Tiberius  as  his  associate 
in  the  empire,  448,  Dies,  ib.  His  will,  449. 
His  character,  450,  451. 
Orchomenos,  battle  of,  134. 

P 

Palatium,  the  height  on  which  the  Romans  first 

took  post,  11. 
Pansa,  C.  Vibius,  named  to  the  consulate,  341. 

Marches  towards  Gaul,  347.    Is  wounded,  ib. 

Dies,  348. 

Parthians,  are  invaded  by  the  Romans  under  Cras- 
sus,  222.  Partially  defeat  Crassus,  230.  Pass 
the  Euphrates,  to  expel  the  Romans  from  Syria, 
252.  Are  routed  by  Caius  Cassius,  ib.  Again 
invade  and  overrun  Syria,  379.  Are  defeated 
by  Ventidius,  ib.  Cut  off  a  part  of  the  army  of 
Antony,  389.  Their  uncommon  method  of  car- 
rying on  war,  ib.,  390.  (Note.)  They  send  a  re- 
ference to  the  Romans  respecting  the  succession 
to  the  throne  of  Parthia,  423. 

Patricians  and  Plebeians,  division  of  the  Roman 
people  into,  11.  The  Patricians  become  possess- 
ed of  a  complete  aristocracy,  14.  Patricians  and 
Plebeians  frequently  stood  in  the  relation  of  cre- 
ditor and  debtor,  as  well  as  of  patron  and  client,  | 


ib.  (Note.)  The  Patricians  necessitated  to  ad 
mit  the  Plebeians  into  several  of  their  rights  and 
privileges,  until  the  distinction  of  Patrician  and 
Plebeian  becomes  merely  nominal,  16, 21, 22,23, 
27,28.  See  Plebeians. 
Patrons  and  Clients,  distinctions  among  the  origina' 
Romans,  11. 

Paulas,  L.  Emilius,  elected  to  the  consulship,  49 
Takes  the  field  against  Hannibal,  ib.  Is  slain  at 
the  battle  of  Cannae,  50. 

 Emilius,  son  of  the  former,  elected  consul, 

74.    Prosecutes  the  war  against  Perseus,  ib.  De- 
feats him  at  Pydna,  ib. 
Pedius,  Q.  named  consul,  353.   Moves  and  carries 
a  repeal  of  the  act  of  attainder  against  Antony 
and  Lepidus,  354.   Dies,  356. 
Peneus,  action  on  the,  73. 

Perseus,  son  of  Philip,  ascends  the  throne  of  Mace- 
donia, 71.    Prepares  to  assert  the  independence 
of  his  kingdom,  72.    Partially  defeats  the  Ro- 
mans, 73.    Offers  to  treat  with  them  ;  but  his  ad- 
vances are  rejected,  ib.   Is  routed  at  Pydna,  75 ; 
and  taken  prisoner,  ib. 
Perusia,  in  Italy,  siege  of,  373. 
Petreius,  appointed  one  of  Pompey's  lieutenants  in 
Spain,  266.    His  fidelity  and  attachment,  271. 
He  is  obliged  to  capitulate  to  Caesar,  272. 
Petronins,  his  satire  applicable  to  the  court  of  the 

Roman  Emperors,  478. 
Phalanx,  Grecian,  compared  with  the  Roman  le- 
gion, 62. 

Pharnaces  invades  Armenia,  296.  Defeats  Domi- 
tius  Calvinus,  ib.  Attacks  Caesar,  but  is  routed, 
297. 

Pharsalia,  great  battle  of,  288.   Comparative  loss 

on  the  different  sides  in  the  action,  289. 
Philip,  King  of  Macedonia,  unites  with  the  Cartha- 
ginians against  the  Romans,  51.    Makes  peace 
with  the  Romans,  55;  but  furnishes  assistance  to 
the  Carthaginians,  ib.   Attacks  Athens,  61.  Ia 
defeated  near  Pherae  in  Thessaly,  62.  Obliged 
to  accept  of  the  terms  of  the  Romans,  63.  Joins 
the  Romans,  67.    His  death,  71. 
Philippi,  battle  of,  368. 
Pidna.    See  Pydna. 

Pirates,  their  numbers  and  audacity  in  the  Italian 
seas,  160.  Are  dispersed  and  ruined  by  Pora- 
pey,  164. 

Piso,  Calpurnius,  the  consul,  his  campaign  against 
Jugurtha,  109.  His  treaty  with  that  prince,  ib. 
His  success  in  Macedonia,  118. 

  appointed  governor  of  Syria,  459.    Is  tried 

for  the  murder  of  Germanicus,  ib.    Puts  himself 
to  death,  461. 
Plancus  marches  to  the  support  of  Lepidus  against 
Antony,  346.    Retreats,  349.   Joins  the  party  of 
the  Triumvirate,  354.    Is  named  consul,  360. 
Plautius,  the  tribune,  obtains  the  enactment  of  se- 
veral useful  laws,  128. 
Plebeians  held  in  abject  degradation  by  the  Patri- 
cians, 14.   They  retire,  in  a  body,  to  the  Mons 
Sacer,  15.    A  treaty  concluded,  by  which  the 
tribunitian  power  is  established,  16.   They  ex- 
tend their  powers,  21.    Are  found  entitled  to 
enact  laws,  ib.    Procure  the  abrogation  of  the 
law  against  their  intermarriage  with  the  nobles, 
22.   Obtain  a  right  to  be  elected  Military  Tri 
bunes  with  consular  power,  ib. ;  afterwards,  to 
be  elected  consuls,  27;  and,  at  last,  fill  all  the 
offices  of  Slate  along  with  the  Patricians,  28.  See 
Patricians. 

Pleminius,  his  great  abuse  of  power  at  Locri,  54. 

Is  ordered  prisoner  to  Rome,  55. 
Policy  of  the  Romans,  70,  85. 
Polybius,  the  historian,  a  prisoner  in  Ilaly  for  se- 
venteen years,  84. 
Pompey,  Cneius,  (surnamed  the  Great,)  birth  of, 
118.   Joins  himself  to  Sylla,  138.   Quells  the 


FNDEX 


491 


disturbances  In  Sicily,  141.  Finishes  the  war  in 
Africa,  143.  Returns  to  Rome,  and  obtains  a 
triumph,  144.  Is  pronounced  the  Great  by  Sylla, 
lb.  His  desire  of  personal  consideration,  ib.  Is 
sent  to  Spain,  149.  Is  partially  defeated,  ib.  But 
afterwards  successfully  finishes  the  war,  ib.  Ob- 
tains a  triumph  at  Rome,  156.  Procures  his 
election  as  consul  along  with  Crassus,  ib.  His 
deportment  as  a  private  citizen,  157.  His  dis- 
simulation, 161.  (See  Catulus,  Lutatius,  Gabi- 
nius.)  Is  invested  with  the  supreme  command 
over  all  the  fleets  and  armies  of  the  Republic  for 
three  years,  163.  Appointed  to  supersede  Lu- 
cullus  in  Pontus,  &c.  164,  Routs  the  army  of 
Mithridales,  165.  Marches  into  Syria,  167. 
Takes  possession  of  Jerusalem,  ib.,  168.  Be- 
sieges and  reduces  the  Temple,  ib.  Enters  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  ib.  Sets  out  for  Europe,  169. 
Arrives  at  Rome,  183.  His  splendid  triumph, 
184.  Political  manoeuvres,  187,  188.  Unites 
his  interest  to  that  of  Caesar  and  Crassus,  ib.  His 
marriage  to  Julia,  195  Is  vested  with  procon- 
sular power,  207.  Visits  Caesar  at  Lucca,  where 
these  leaders  renew  their  confederacy,  211. 
Elected  to  the  consulate  the  second  time,  214. 
Secures  to  himself  the  province  of  Spain  for  five 
years,  215.  But  remains  in  Italy,  ib.  His  in- 
trigues at  Rome,  220.  Death  of  Julia.  224.  Pro- 
posal to  name  him  Dictator,  228.  He  marries 
Cornelia,  231.  Is  named  sole  consul,  233.  His 
conduct,  235.  Renewal  of  his  government  in 
Spain  for  other  five  years,  ib.  Assumes  Melel- 
lus  Scipio  for  his  colleague  in  the  consulate,  244. 
His  jealousy  of  Caesar,  249.  Is  invested,  by  the 
Senate,  with  the  supreme  command  over  the 
treasury  and  forces  of  the  Republic,  257.  Re- 
tires to  Capua  on  the  approach  of  Caesar  to  Rome, 
259.  Falls  back  to  Brundusium,  261.  Embarks 
for  E pirus,  262.  The  army  of  Pompey  in  Spain 
is  subdued  by  Caesar,  272,273.  Pompey  gathers 
a  large  force  in  the  East,  277;  and  collects  a 
fleet,  ib.    Chooses  a  dilatory  war,  281.  Sur- 

Erisea  and  carries  one  of  Caesar's  stations,  284. 
defeats  him,  286.  Directs  his  march  towards 
Thessaly,  ib.  Encamps  near  the  village  of  Phar- 
salus,  287.  Is  routed  in  the  battle  of  Pharsalia, 
289,  289.  Flies  to  Egypt,  290.  Is  murdered  by 
order  of  Ptoloiny  the  king,  ib. 
Pompey,  Cnoeus,  eldest  son  of  Pompey  the  Great, 
heads  an  army  in  Spain,  in  opposition  to  Caesar, 
314.    Is  defeated  and  slain,  315. 

—  Sextus,  younger  son  of  Pompey  the  Great, 

holds  out,  in  the  province  of  Sicily,  against  the 
usurpations  of  the  second  triumvirate,  361.  Cal- 
culates on  securing  the  possessions  of  Sicily  and 
Sardinia,  373.  Joins  himself  to  Antony,  375. 
Blocks  up  the  ports  of  Italy,  377.  Is  invited  to  a 
personal  conference  with  Oclavius  and  Antony, 
lb. ;  which  ends  in  a  treaty  of  peace,  378.  He 
returns  to  Sicily,  ib.  Prepares  for  war  against 
Octavius,  381.  Defeats  him  at  sea,  382.  Is  de- 
feated in  his  turn  by  Agrippa,  384.  Destroys  the 
transports  of  Octavius,  ib.  His  own  fleet  is  to- 
tally defeated  by  Agrippa,  385.  His  flight  to 
Lesbos,  ib.  He  sues  for  protection  from  Antony, 
390.  Is  refused,  and  put  to  death,  391. 
Pontus,  kingdom  of.  See  Milhridates.  N 
Portia,  the  daughter  of  Cato,  and  wife  of  Brutus, 
her  resolution  and  constancy,  323.  Her  death,  369. 
Prafect,  or  governor  of  a  province,  first  appointed, 
33. 

Prcefectus  Annonse,  duties  of  this  occasional  officer, 
23. 

Prcetor,  institution  of  the  office  of,  28.  Confined 
to  the  Patrician  order,  ib.  A  second  praetor  ap- 
pointed, 39.  The  number  of  praetors  augmented 
to  six,  89.  Persons  pass  through  the  office,  in 
order  to  acquire  the  hereditary  title,  383 


Prmtorian  bands,  first  appointed,  421.  Assume 
the  disposal  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  empire, 
478.  Are  broke  by  Galba,  but  succeeded  by 
others,  479. 

Principles,  second  order  in  the  original  Roman  le 
gion,  31. 

Proscription,  origin  of  this  name  and  practice,  141. 
Proscriptions  of  Sylla,  ib.  Of  the  second  Trium- 
virate, Octavius,  Antony,  and  Lepidus,  356 — 358. 

Publius  Sextius,  is  the  first  plebeian  consul,  28. 

Punic  war,  origin  of  the  first,  37.  Termination,  38. 
Origin  of  the  second,  42.  (See  Hannibal.  Scipio 
Africanus.)  Termination,  59.  Commencement 
of  the  third,  80.    Its  conclusion,  83. 

Pydna,  battle  of,  75. 

Pyrrhus,  king  of  Epirus,  marches  an  army  into 
Italy,  32.  Gains  some  partial  victories  over  the 
Romans,  ib.,  33.  Leaves  Italy,  and  returns 
home,  ib. 

Q 

Qucesitor,  president  of  the  criminal  court  at  Romo, 
89. 

Quceslor,  account  of  the  office  of,  23. 

R 

Rabirius,  Caius,  is  achVe  in  suppressing  the  faction 
of  Saturninus,  122.  Brought  to  trial  as  an  ac- 
complice in  the  death  of  Saturninus,  172.  The 
trial  put  off  and  the  prosecution  dropt,  173. 

Regvlus,  Atilius,  the  consul,  is  made  a  captive  in 
Africa,  38. 

Religion,  state  of,  among  the  original  Romans,  12. 

Revolutions  in  the  Roman  state :  change  from  a  mo- 
narchy to  a  republic,  13.  From  a  republic  to  an 
empire,  311—318. 

Rhodes,  island  of,  is  reduced  by  Cassius,  362. 

Rhone,  passage  of  the,  by  Hannibal,  44,  45. 

Rome,  city  of. — Extent  of  the  city  under  the  mo- 
narchy, 13.  Immensity  of  the  common  sewers, 
ib.  (A'o/e.)  City  burned  by  the  Gauls,  25.  Re- 
building of  the  city,  26.  Streets  firs':  paved  with 
stone,  76.  Rome  taken  by  Sylla,  131.  The  city 
invested  by  Cinna  and  Marias,  135;  capitulates, 
ib.  The  Capitol  accidentally  burned  down.  139. 
Julius  Caesar  ornaments  the  city  with  various 
public  works,  225.  The  aqueducts  begun  by 
Caesar,  completed  by  Antony  and  Octavius,  378. 
The  great  common  sewers  cleansed,  and  public 
baths  established,  393.  394.  The  city  adorned 
by  many  public  buildings,  424.  Is  overflowed 
by  inundation  of  the  Tiber,  443. 

Riilhts,  Servilius,  tribune,  proposes  his  agrarian 
law,  171.    Rejected,  172. 

Rulilius,  P.  retires  in  exile  to  Smyrna,  125. 

S 

Sabinns,  Titus,  his  death,  467. 

Sasrunt urn,  s\ege  of,  by  Hannibal,  43. 

SaUustius,  Crispus,  made  praetor.  298.  Acts  under 
Caesar  in  a  military  capacity,  301.  Is  made  go- 
vernor of  Numidia,  3!0. 

Sam.ni.tes,  their  character.  32.  They  maintain  an 
arduous  struggle  against  the  Romans,  ib. 

Sardinia,  sovereignty  of,  is  acquired  by  the  Ro- 
mans, 40. 

Saturnini/s  Apnleius,  the  tribune,  is  elected  to  the 
office  of  tribune,  121.  Proposes  several  popular 
acts,  ib.  Is  elected  tribune  a  third  time,  122. 
His  death,  ib. 

Scipio,  Publius  Cornelius,  the  consul,  marches 
against  Hannibal,  45.  Arrives  at  the  Rhone, 
and  embarks  for  Etruria,  ib.,  46.  Meets  Hanni- 
bal on  theTicinus,  where  his  cavalry  is  defeated, 
ib.    Is  joined  by  his  colleague,  Sempronius,  and 


INDEX. 


cv«  arrcv  ib    The  Romans  defeated,  47.  See 

Sr>*»o.  Africanus.  Publius  Cornelius,  son  of  the 
lormer,  makes  his  appearance,  52.  Is  appointed 
to  the  chief  command  of  the  army  in  Spain,  53. 
Takes  New  Carthage,  ib.  Applies  himself  to 
the  study  of  Grecian  literature,  55-  Sails  for 
Africa,  and  lands  at  Hippo,  ib,  Sets  fire  to  the 
Carthaginian  camp,  and  defeats  the  army,  56. 
Invests  Tunis  and  Utica,  ib.  Raises  the  block- 
ade, and  advances  to  the  plain  of  Zama,  57. 
Holds  a  personal  conference  with  Hannibal,  ib. 
Gains  a  complete  victory  at  Zama,  58;  and  dic- 
tates terms  of  peace  to  the  Carthaginians,  59. 
Receives  the  title  of  Africanus,  65.  Passes  into 
Asia  against  Antiochus,  68.  Defeats  the  forces 
of  Asia,  ib.  Dies  in  a  species  of  voluntary  exile, 
71. 

"■  Asiaticus,  Lucius  Cornelius,  brother  of 

Africanus,  is  elected  consul,  68.  Totally  de- 
feats Antiochus  in  Asia,  ib. 

 Publius  iEmilianus,  son  of  ^Emilius  Paulus, 

and  adopted  grandson  of  Africanus,  is  appointed 
to  the  chief  command  against  Carthage,  82.  Re- 
duces Carthage,  83-  Is  sent  against  the  Nuraan- 
tians  ir^Spain,  87.  Subdues  them.  88.  Opposes 
the  Lieinian  law,  97.    His  death,  99. 

 Nasica.    See  Nasica. 

—  Cornelius  Metellus,  son  of  Nasica,  becomes 

the  colleague  of  Pompey  in  the  consulate,  214. 
Commands  the  main  body  of  the  army  at  Phar- 
salia,  288.  Flies  to  Africa,  291.  Commands  the 
army  of  the  republic  there,  293.  Is  defeated  by 
C^sar  at  Thapsus,  305,  307.  He  kills  himself, 
310. 

Segra,  or  Sicoris,  campaign  of  Caesar  on  the, 
2  >6— 273. 

Sejanus,  iElius,  his  mission  to  the  mutinous  legions 
on  the  Danube,  453.  Becomes  the  confidential 
favourite  of  Tiberius,  463,  464.  Applies  to  the 
Emneror  for  permission  to  marry  the  widow  of 
Dr  isus,  435.  Is  amuse:!  with  an  ambiguous  an- 
swer, ib.  Receives  the  highest  marks  of  favour 
from  Tiberius,  459.  The  Emperor,  however,  re- 
solves on  his  ruin,  ib.  Denounces  him  to  the 
Senate  as  guilty  of  treason.  470;  who  condemn 
him  'o  death,  471.  Cruel  fate  of  his  infant  chil- 
dren, ib. 

Semoroii  /.s,  Tiberius  Lon^us,  the  consul,  joins  his 
arm/  to  thif  of  Scipio,  in  order  to  repel  Hanni- 
bal, 43.    Is  defeated  by  the  Carthaginians,  47. 

— —  .  the  Roman  pracons  il,  defeated  in 

Spain  by  the  na'ives,  64.    His  dea'h,  ib. 

Seuu'e,  account  of  the,  under  the  monarchy,  11. 
Un  ler  ike  aristocracy,  14.  Restored  after  the 
usinauon  of  the  decemvirs,  21.  Review  of  the 
constitntiou  of  the  Sena'e,  28.  Extent  of  their 
powers,  29.  Infl  uence  as  ad  minis  rators  of  the 
treasury,  39.  (.We.)  Secrecy  and  despatch  of 
the  Senate,  79.  Character  of,  91.  The  Senate 
reduced  to  a  mere  form,  121.  Regains  the  as- 
cen.lanl,  123.  Senate-house  burned  bv  the  peo- 
ple, 232.  The  Sena'e  leaves  Rome,  259.  Is  re- 
presented at  Thessalonica.  277.  Account  of  the 
Senate  which  met  at  Utica,  298.  The  Senate 
comes  to  be  entirely  modelled  by  Augustus,  429. 
Undergoes  a  continual  decav,  433.  Fines  for 
non  attendance  increased,  436.  Complete  de- 
gradation of  the  Senate,  472. 

Ser'orius,  harbo  irs  the  Marian  party  in  S]»am, 
148.  Defeats  Pompey,  149.  Is  betrayed  and  as- 
sassinated, ib. 

Sewers,  common,  immensity  of  those  at  Rome, 
and  conjectures  respecting  their  antiquity,  13. 
(Note.) 

Sejctms,  Publius,  the  first  plebeian  raised  to  the 

dignity  of  consul,  28.  } 
Stnorui    See  Segrn.  \ 


Sigonius,  correction  of  a  passage  in  his  treatise,  30 

(Note.) 

Sicily,  revolt  of  the  slaves  in,  88.    Another  revolt 
118.    Becomes  the  refuge  of  Pompeius  Sextus, 
373.    Campaign  of  Octayius  in,  384,  385. 
Silver,  first  coined  by  the  Romans,  (U.  C  485)  33. 
Sipylus,  Mountains  of,  G8. 

Sophonisba,  daughter  of  Hasdrubal,  stipulates  with 
the  king  of  Numidfa,  to  aid  the  Carthaginians,  55. 
Spain,  ancient  natives  of,  their  character,  42.  Ha- 
milcar  forms  a  settlement  in  Spain,  ib.  (See 
Hannibal.)    Sempronius  the  proconsul  defeated 
in  Spain,  64.    Progress  of  the  Romans  in  the 
conquest  of  Spain,  69,  70.    Further  progress,  86. 
Divided  into  Western  and  Eastern  provinces,  ib. 
Reduction  of  Lusitania,  the  western  province,  ib.; 
and  of  Numantia,  a  principal  stronghold  in  the 
eastern  province,  88.    Pompey  sent  against  Ser 
torius  in  Spain,  149.    (See  Seriorius.)    State  of 
Spain  under  the  government  of  Pompey,  266. 
Several  warlike  cantons  retain  their  indepen- 
dence, 423.    Are  reduced,  ib.    Spain  is  sepa- 
rated into  three  governments,  424. 
Spar.'acus,  leader  of  the  revolted  gladiators,  defeats 
the  Roman  consuls,  155.    Is  routed,  and  himseli 
killed  by  Crassus,  ib. 
Stimuli,  in  Roman  outworks,  what,  242. 
Stoics,  account  of  their  principles,  179. 
strabo,  Cneius  Pompeius,  holds  a  triumph,  129. 
Sulpicius,  consul,  is  sent  to  the  relief  of  Athens,  62 

 Publius.  tribune,  his  turbulent  character, 

130.  His  death,  131. 
Sumptuary  laws  of  the  Romans,  remarks  on  the, 
76.  These  laws  revived,  90.  Further  account 
of  them,  118.  Sumptuary  regulations  of  Julius 
Caesar,  317. 
Superstition  of  the  ancient  Romans,  61,  77. 
Syl/a,  the  quaestor,  prosecutes  the  war  against  Ju- 
guriha,  113.  Goes  to  the  court  of  Bocchus,  114. 
Is  elected  praetor,  125.  Is  sent  into  Asia,  ib.  Is 
elected  consul,  129-  Prepares  for  war  with  Mi- 
thridates,  ib.  Is  recalled,  130.  Marches  in  a 
hostile  manner  to  Rome,  131.  Takes  the  city, 
ib.  Sets  out  for  As!a,  132.  Takes  Athens.  133. 
Defeats  the  army  of  Mithridates,  near  Cheronea, 
ib. ;  and  asain,  at  Orchomenos,  134.  Receives 
the  submission  of  Mithrida'es,  137.  Sets  sail  for 
Italy,  ib.  Defeats  Norbanus  the  consul,  139 
Defeats  the  young  Marius,  ib.  Enters  the  city, 
140.  Routs  the  Marian  party,  ib.  Orders  a 
massacre,  ib.  Procures  his  nomination  as  dicta- 
tor, 141.  His  policy,  142.  Reforms  in  the  com- 
monwealth introduced  by  him,  ib.,  143.  Holds 
triumphs,  ib.  Resigns  ihe  dictatorship,  144.  His 
character,  &c.  ib.  Death,  145;  and  obsequies, 
ib.  His  character  contrasted  with  that  of  Julius 
Caesar,  318. 

Syphax,  king  of  Numidia,  joins  with  the  Carthagi- 
nians, 56.  Loses  his  throne,  ib. 
Sypylus,  Mountains  of.  See  Sipylus. 
Syria  becomes  a  Roman  province,  167.  The  de- 
pendencies of  Judea  and  Celesyria  annexed  to 
it,  168.  Is  invaded  by  the  Parthians,  379-  They 
are  defeated,  ib.  See  Antiochus,  Crassus.  De- 
metrius. Gabinus. 

T 

T>7  hs,  twelve,  of  the  Roman  law,  prepared  by  the 
decemvirs,  20.    Remarks  on  the  clause  by  which 
a  father  may  sell  his  child,  ib.  (Note.) 
Tapsus,  battle  of    See  Thapsus. 
Tarentum,  city  of,  applies  to  Pyrrhus  for  protection 
against  the  Romans,  32.  Falls  into  their  hands,  iU 
Tecinus,  action  on  the,  46. 
Teclosages.    See  Cimbri. 

Temple  ox  Jerusalem,  besieged  and  reduced  by 
Pompey,  167,  16a 


INDEX. 


431 


Tetttanes.  See  Cimbru 
Thapsus,  battle  of,  306. 

Theatre  at  Rome,  condemned,  as  likely  to  become 
a  source  of  corruption,  89.  Theatre  of  Pompey 
opened,  214. 

Thei inopijUr,  battle  of,  in  which  Antiochus  is  de- 
feated "by  the  Romans,  67. 

Thessalu,  campaign  of  Pompey  and  Caesar  in, 
278—289. 

Thrasimenus,  lake,  47 

Tiber  ins,  Claudius  Nero,  sues  for  the  consulate, 
424.  Holds  the  office  of  quaestor,  ib.  Is  sent 
with  a  commission  to  Armenia.  428.  Elected 
praetor,  429.  Is  advanced  in  the  confidence  of 
the  Emperor,  434;  and  marries  his  daughter 
Julia,  ib.  Retires  to  the  island  of  Rhodes,  439. 
Is  recalled  ;  and  is  adopted  by  l he  Emperor,  44! . 
Reduces  the  barbarians  in  Dalmatia,  445.  The 
tribunitian  power  prolonged  in  his  person  for 
five  years,  417.  Is  associated  with  Augustus  in 
the  empire,  448.  Assumes  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment, 452.  Puts  Agrippa  to  death,  ib.  Sends 
his  son  Drusus  to  Panonia,  453,  454.  Character 
and  manners  of  Tiberius,  457;  also,  461 — 464. 
Becomes  jealous  and  distrustful,  ib.,  465.  Fixes 
his  residence  in  the  island  of  Capreae.  466.  Ac- 
cuses Agrippina  and  her  eldest  son  Nero  before 
the  Senate,  468.  The  Senate  banish  them,  ib. 
Tiberius  confers  the  highest  marks  of  favour  on 
Sejanus,  469  :  but  effeeis  his  ruin,  470.  His  cru- 
Ity.  472,  473  His  odious  life  in  private,  ib. 
His  death,  475. 

Tiberius  Gracchus.   See  Gracchus. 

'xisrams,  king  of  Armenia,  refuses  to  deliver  up 
Miihridates  to  the  Romans,  157.  Is  defeated  by 
Lucullus,  158.  Fs  attain  defca'ed,  ib.  Applies 
for  aid  to  the  kin-r  of  Parthia,  ib.  Casts  himself 
on  the  mercy  of  Pompey,  165. 

Treasury,  public,  directly  under  the  administration 
of  the  Senate,  29, 

Trehia,  battle  of  the,  47. 

Trials,  Criminal,  regulations  respecting,  233,  234. 
Important  innovation  by  Augustus,  437. 

Triarii,  body  of  reserve,  in  the  original  Roman  le- 
gion, 31. 

Tribes,  account  of  this  division  of  the  Roman  citi- 
zens, 11. 

•  of  the  city,  notice  of,  92. 

Trib  ute,  the  office  of,  first  instituted,  16.  Nature 
of  it  explained,  ib.  The  persons  of  the  Tribunes 
held  inviolable,  ib.  Their  number  fixed  at  ten, 
ib.  ,  Great  abuses  take  place  in  ihe  exercise  of 
the  tribunitian  power,  130.  Restraints  imposed, 
142.    Th-se  remove.)  by  Pompey.  156. 

Tribunes,  Military,  Plebeians  admitted  to  be  elect- 
ed, 22. 

Triumph,  institution  and  nature  of  the,  12.  24. 
Triumvirate,  combination  of  Cajsar.  Pompey,  and 
Crassus,  so  called,  188.   They  renew  their  con- 


federacy, 211.   (See  Casar  Crassus  Pomr*y. 

 Second  Triumvirate,  Octavius,  Antonv.  and 

Lepidns,  atrocity  of  the  articles  of  their  aer<"*» 
menl.  354.  Character  of  each,  356.  (See  Aiuo- 
7ii/.  Lepidus.  Octavius.) 

U 


Utica,  in  Africa,  becomes  the  station  of  Cato  after 
the  battle  of  Pharsalia,  293.  Caesar  takes  posses- 
sion of  the  town,  309. 

Uxellotluuum,  a  fortress  in  Gaul,  is  besieged  and 
reduced  by  Caesar,  248. 

Uzi/a,  in  Africa,  besieged  by  Caesar,  303.  The 
siege  raised,  304. 

V 


Valerius,  Manius,  is  chosen  Dictator,  15. 

Varro,  C.  Terentius,  elected  to  the  consulship,  49. 
Is  eager  to  give  the  Carthaginians  battle  at  Can- 
nae, ib.  Is  defeated,  50 ;  yethonourably  received 
at  Rome,  51. 

 appointed  one  of  Pompey's  lieutenants  in 

Spain,  266. 

Veia,  city  of,  is  besieged  for  ten  years;  reduced, 
and  its  citizens  enslaved,  by  the  Romans,  24. 

Velifes,  or  light-armed  infantry,  their  service.  31. 

Venefcium,  name  for  the  statutory  crime  of  poisott 
ing.  77. 

Venltdius,  the  lieutenant  of  Antony,  defeats  the 
Parthians,  and  expels  them  from  Syria.  379.  Is 
honoured  with  a  triumph  at  Rome,  388. 

Vercingetorix  heads  the  Gauls  in  opposing  Caesar, 
237.  His  cavalry  is  routed  by  Ca>sar,  241.  He 
is  surrounded  and  cooped  up  by  the  Romans  at 
Alesia,  241.  242.  Asain  routed  by  Caesar,  243. 
Is  taken  and  put  todeaih,  244.  312. 

Vespasian  raised  to  the  sovereignty,  479. 

Vefiius,  his  supposed  conspiracy  against  Pompey, 
195.    His  death,  ih. 

Viriaihus  defends  Lnsitania  for  ten  years  against 
the  Romnns,  but  is  at  last  assassinated,  86. 

Virftilius,  Publius  Maro,  protected  by  Maecenas, 
370.  (iXofc.) 

Virginia  is  killed  by  her  own  father,  to  prevent  her 
dishonour  by  Appius  Claudius,  21. 

X 

Xanfippus,  the  Spartan,  totally  routs  the  Roman 
army  in  Africa,  38. 

Xanthus,  storm  of.  by  Brutus.  362.  The  inhabit- 
ants perish  by  their  own  hande  ib. 

Y 

Zama,  great  battle  of,  58. 


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